This page describes close source drivers for AMD GPUs.
AMD releases their open source drivers via standard distribution channels. And they also periodically do releases of their Radeon Software for Linux suite, which includes both open and proprietary components. Open source components are not needed from there, and proprietary components are repacked from the latest Ubuntu LTS version. They are published in AUR in the amdgpu-pro-installer package base.
Comment by John Bridgman from AMD explaining why they still package close source drivers:
There are several proprietary components: OpenGL, OpenCL, Vulkan and AMF. Sometimes you may want to use these components due to specific features that open source components may lack.
AMDGPU PRO OpenGL is a proprietary, binary userland driver, which works on top of the open-source amdgpu kernel driver. From Radeon Software 18.50 vs Mesa 19 benchmarks article: When it comes to OpenGL games, the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver simply dominates the proprietary AMD OpenGL driver. Users of graphic cards other than Radeon Pro are advised to use the amdgpu graphics stack. Mostly used because of lacking compatibility layers that some software relies on. See gentoo wiki linked below.
AMDGPU PRO Vulkan - required dependency for AMF.
AMDGPU PRO OpenCL - used because Mesa OpenCL is not fully complete. Proprietary component only for Polaris GPUs. The onward GPUs use the open ROCm OpenCL.
AMDGPU AMF - used for GPU encoding/decoding.
For proprietary OpenGL implementation, use the amdgpu-pro-installer package base. It contains all the following packages:
For users of a hybrid setup with both an Intel GPU and an AMD GPU, usage of the proprietary AMDGPU Pro Workstation Driver might not work as expected due to different MESA implementations.
The symptom is the following: when you boot your machine, you get a black screen, but with your mouse cursor is moving normally.
Unfortunately, Reverse PRIME is not a solution. See the developer response.
If you are in trouble, for example, you cannot login to your system due to black screen, you can revert all back by uninstalling all packages related to AMDGPU PRO.
See AMDGPU#Enable Southern Islands (SI) and Sea Islands (CIK) support for more information.
AMD drivers and firmware (especially recent firmware) can get out of sync and create issues or not work at all. You can search in the journal for :