AMD recently released their Radeon Software for Linux 21.20 drivers. It provides two different components, the Open variant for consumer-grade cards and the Pro variant for users of Radeon Pro products.

If you're a Linux gamer or use AMD GPUs for powering your display, you may want to update your Radeon Software to this latest version.

What’s in Radeon Software for Linux 21.20?

The 21.20 driver adds official AMD support for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and CentOS version 8.4 systems alongside SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP3. Official packages have been made available for Ubuntu 18.04.5, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, RHEL/CentOS 7.9, RHEL/CentOS 8.4, and SUSE Linux 15 SP3.

You can obtain the required driver for your system from AMD's release Page. Make sure to download the correct packages before updating against the current upstream.

Download: Radeon Software

How to Install Radeon Software for Linux 21.20

Once you've downloaded the correct driver package for your distro, extract it to the filesystem. You can extract archives in Linux using the tar command.

        # replace package name to match your distribution
tar -xf amdgpu-pro-21.20-1271047-ubuntu-20.04.tar
extract radeon software on Linux

Now, switch to the extracted folder and run the below script for installing the Open variant. This is what you're going to need if you're installing Radeon Software for gaming on Linux.

        ./amdgpu-install -y
    

The -y option executes the script non-interactively. Once the script finishes, reboot your system.

install radeon software on Linux

However, if you're using AMD Pro products, you'll need to install the Pro variant of this driver. Run the following script to install the Pro stack.

        ./amdgpu-pro-install -y
    

This script will install the base kernel, accelerated graphics, Mesa multimedia, Pro OpenGL, and pro Vulkan components. Use the following command if you want to install the optional OpenCL component.

        ./amdgpu-pro-install -y --opencl=rocr,legacy
    

This command specifies to install both the legacy and ROCr implementations of OpenCL. Reboot your system once the script finishes for the changes to take effect.

Related: Best Linux Operating Systems for Gaming

Update AMD Drivers for Gaming on Linux

The Radeon Software for Linux 21.20 contains all the components needed to play games on your AMD card or creating content. You can also install the driver in headless mode if you're using the GPU for non-gaming tasks like mining crypto or performing heterogeneous computation.

However, what if you're using an Nvidia card instead of AMD? Luckily, installing the required Nvidia drivers is as easy as they are for AMD.