New major versions of the open-source AMDGPU (xf86-video-amdgpu) and Radeon (xf86-video-ati) drivers that promise a much-improved graphics desktop experience for Linux users landed the other day.

As noted in our initial report, the xf86-video-amdgpu 1.2.0 and xf86-video-ati 7.8.0 drivers bring the long anticipated "TearFree" option for preventing tearing, which should work with all display configurations, DRI3 by default, and support for DRI3/Present asynchronous page flips, boosting the performance of full-screen apps.

Most importantly, it appears that older AMD Radeon GPUs from the SI (Southern Islands) family are now supported by the open source AMDGPU driver. These include graphics cards from the AMD Radeon HD7750 to HD7970, R9 270, R9-280, R7 240, and R7 250 series with engineering names of CAPE VERDE, HAINAN, OLAND, PITCAIRN, and TAHITI.

However, these new releases are distributed only as source archives that need to be configured, tweaked and compiled for a particular GNU/Linux distribution, which means that it usually takes a while before they land in the stable repositories so anyone can update their installations.

This is where the Solus developers excel, as they've already managed to push the new AMDGPU and Radeon driver versions to the stable repositories of the Solus 1.2.1 "Shannon" operating system because of the super easy packaging system they implemented. On top of that, they also switched to the CFQ scheduler for better HDD performance.

"Up until recently Solus has defaulted to using the deadline I/O scheduler, which has enabled better performance for Solus users with SSDs. With this recent update we changed the default I/O scheduler for HDDs (spinny disks) to use CFQ, to see performance improvements there too," reveals Ikey Doherty, Solus Project Leader, for Softpedia.

These updates lay the groundwork for a better AMD Radeon experience in Solus. As soon as Linux kernel 4.9 is out, which should hit the streets on December 4, 2016, the Solus development team will enable support for Southern Islands family of AMD GPUs thanks to the new "Enable amdgpu support for SI parts" option in Linux kernel 4.9.

Solus is now powered by Linux kernel 4.8.8

Today's major update for Solus also brought the latest Linux 4.8.8 kernel, along with various other updated components, among which we can mention the new Mesa 13.0.1 3D Graphics Library, Wireshark 2.2.2, GNU Tar 1.29, libdrm 2.4.73, and Vim 8.0.0085. And, for the first time, users can now install the powerful Vivaldi web browser.

Therefore, if you're not using Solus, you should, as this Linux-based platform always offers users the newest and greatest GNU/Linux technologies and Open Source software. Existing users should update their installations right now to receive all the goodies mentioned in this article. Don't forget to report any issues!