Vibe Coding Is Keeping Old AMD Graphics Cards Alive on Linux

AMD fans running Linux have been using AI tools to keep their favorite old GPUs working.

Thanks to Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot tool, these enthusiasts got the AMD R600 Gallium3D driver working with the latest versions of Linux, keeping the Radeon HD 2000 and HD 6000 series graphics cards alive, Phoronix reports.

One of the few fans still working on these old drivers is Gert Wollny, who made close to 60 commits to the Mesa drivers on GitHub over the past week, with a little help from an increasingly expensive coding partner, Copilot.

“This series does a lot of refactoring to make the sfn shader compiler code a bit cleaner. The refactoring was done with the help of Copilot (auto mode),” Wollny explained in the merge request for the changes. The individual patches also give a nod to the tool helping him clean up the drivers for the modern operating system environment.

It’s important to attribute. (Credit: Gety Wollny via GitLab)

AMD launched the Radeon HD 2000 series in 2007, when it was still called ATI. Standout cards, like the flagship 2900 XT, couldn’t quite compete with their Nvidia counterparts, but they were cost-effective, pretty similar to the AMD of today, really. However, support for these cards stopped at the end of 2013.

So, it’s been a labor of love keeping these cards working with newer versions of Linux, and Wollny is making it happen. The R600 Linux Driver he’s made available will work on all HD 2000 through HD 6000 cards, covering several generations of GPUs that were never intended for modern operating systems.

Recommended by Our Editors

Despite Wollny’s success here, developers are considering branching these legacy drivers so Mesa can continue to be developed without risking breaking older cards that don’t support newer features.

Comments from project followers are grateful that it’s been updated, but the precision required for these older drivers will mean developers need to carefully…

Source