There was a time when AMD was hyped to heaven for their efforts. Wrongfully so in my opinion. Nvidia cards just always worked on linux, you had to install the blob but then it was a breeze. Fglrx on the other hand...

I tried to setup a dual-gpu notebook for a friend last week. It was impossible. fglrx doesn't support the chips anymore and ubuntu doesn't support the legacy blobs. Complete fail. I had to tell her ubuntu won't work on her computer. (The gpus will overheat without a proper driver)

So thank you AMD for basically not providing any drivers at all, and if you do, them crashing randomly taking the kernel with them. Thank you Nvidia for just working.

Imho in that regard Linus didn't know what the f*ck he was talking about.