AMD released Radeon Software for Linux 26.16, a maintenance-style build carrying installer build 31.60.316000 for the unified consumer amdgpu stack. It promotes Ubuntu 24.04.5 HWE to official status and adds fresh support for the brand-new Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS. The update also closes out two issues AMD had flagged as known issues in release 26.14, namely a Blender 5.2 HIPRT crash and a Mesa install failure on fresh RHEL 9 and 10 systems, leaving a clean sheet with no outstanding problems. One wrinkle remains: the 26.15 release-notes page is missing (404), and AMD's download and release pages disagree on whether the noble build is labeled 24.04.4 or 24.04.5 HWE.

AMD drops Radeon Software for Linux 26.16, wipes its known-issue list clean

AMD released Radeon Software for Linux 26.16, a maintenance-style driver update that clears two known issues flagged in the prior release and adds fresh support for Ubuntu 26.04.1. There's no new GPU hardware inside, but the release does ship with an empty known-issues list, which doesn't happen very often.

The installer carries build 31.60 (the "31.60" branch, or 31.60.316000 if you want the full number). It lands on AMD's unified consumer stack that feeds both Radeon and Radeon PRO cards. In other words, this is the open-source amdgpu driver you install by hand, not the distro-bundled copy.

What actually changed

The headline here is operating-system support. Ubuntu 24.04.5 HWE gets promoted to official status after AMD only offered it as pre-release backing a couple of releases back. Ubuntu 26.04.1 is brand new, riding the "resolute" codename AMD uses for its latest LTS.

Then come the fixes, and both bookend problems AMD publicly catalogued as known issues in release 26.14 back in August.

The first is a Blender 5.2 crash. Set the viewport to Rendered shading while running HIP/Cycles GPU rendering with HIPRT enabled, and the app would exit at the first render kernel launch. AMD's guidance back then was blunt: "Blender 5.1.2 is not affected," with the workaround being to stick with that older version until an updated ROCm release showed up. That's a real nudge toward a two-version-old app for creators who lean on GPU ray tracing, so it's good to finally see it closed out.

The second issue was quieter but arguably more annoying. Installing the Mesa user-mode driver via amdgpu-install could fail outright on a freshly provisioned RHEL 9 or RHEL 10 box. AMD's suggested fix was to "rerun the driver installation using the same amdgpu-install command." Now that workaround is gone.

That's the whole change set. Two known issues, now fixed. No new ones added.

Where the numbers get a little fuzzy

If you're tracking AMD's release cadence, one thing jumps out. The release-notes page for 26.15 returns a 404, and the Wayback Machine has nothing usable. So the last properly documented predecessor is 26.14, and you're effectively jumping from August straight to October without a paper trail for the build in between. Whether AMD skipped 26.15 entirely or simply didn't publish notes for it remains anyone's guess.

There's another wrinkle. AMD's own Linux drivers download page labels the Ubuntu noble build "24.04.4 HWE," while the release notes call the same .deb "24.04.5 HWE." Same package, two different names on AMD's site. I'd verify against the actual package before leaning too hard on either one.

What you can install

The installers live out at repo.radeon.com as .deb and .rpm files under the 31.60 branch. You can grab the Ubuntu noble build, the fresh Ubuntu resolute build, or either RHEL 10.2 or RHEL 9.8 variant. The install docs sit at amdgpu-install.readthedocs.io if you want the scripted route.

Keep in mind AMD's standing advice stays the same. It still recommends letting your distro supply the driver for APUs, well-supported discrete cards, and pre-certified machines, and it lists Fedora, Pop!_OS, Linux Mint, and Arch Linux as distros it doesn't officially support through the standalone installer. On those, AMD tells users to stick with their distro's packages.

Compatibility still spans the usual spread, from RX 400 up through RX 9000 and Vega, the RX 500 through 9000 series, plus the PRO, WX, and FirePro lines. The RX 9050 and 9050 4GB are still there, though they ride under the broader RX 9000 banner rather than getting their own callout this time.

Head here to the release notes to pull the latest build.