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> While Intel has been bringing up Alder Lake graphics for a while as covered in many Phoronix articles over the past year, up through the recently released Lin

by chx 5y ago

> While Intel has been bringing up Alder Lake graphics for a while as covered in many Phoronix articles over the past year, up through the recently released Linux 5.15 kernel the Alder Lake graphics are not enabled by default. The writing is on the wall: the day will come when Intel will not write accelerated Linux graphics drivers for their laptop GPUs and that's the day when Linux on notebooks just dies. They will do so because Windows 11 + WSL (now with wslg) provides all the Linux most need.

mattst88 5y ago
This is FUD. Intel's 3D graphics drivers are in Mesa (Vulkan and OpenGL) and have been for more than a decade. The team at Intel (which I was a member of until I left a year ago) continues to develop and improve the drivers.
- chx 5y ago
  That's the past. wsl/wslg is a watershed moment though. Developers can use practically all the Linux tools there are while the IT department only needs to support Windows. This is a massive win for everyone involved and so I suspect this will be a default for most companies -- and business laptops are the bread and butter of Lenovo/HP/Dell. When there's no business case for upkeeping the built in GPU driver , Intel will not waste any more resources on it. There wasn't an answer on where developers should go if not native Linux (unless Mac but that's not relevant to this discussion, we are discussing PCs) now there is. Especially now when Intel is entering the dGPU arena, there will be enormous pressure to reallocate people like you from Linux to the Windows driver team I bet.
  - baq 5y ago
    there's a whole linux-only HPC market out there which requires dedicated GPU drivers. same reason why nvidia won't stop making Linux drivers for their hardware. API support may be limited, but then with Vulkan you can reimplement your own GL or DX or whatever you wish.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pedrocr 5y ago
I would have worried about that much more 5 years ago. Now the best CPU+GPU option for Linux is arguably already AMD. The performance is better and AMD open-source drivers have improved quite a bit. Even the closed-source Nvidia drivers are finally getting the needed bits for proper Wayland support and there are people writing Linux drivers for Apple's GPU in the M1. Intel graphics were definitely great for Linux for a long time but options are actually improving for a change.
lainga 5y ago
>and that's the day when Linux on notebooks just dies. That's a rather strong statement about the future of AMD as a going concern, don't you think!
kawsper 5y ago
It's such a shame, I really like building Linux systems utilizing the Intel iGPUs.
soniman 5y ago
Are laptop GPUs different from data center GPUs? I would assume that Linux is so prevalent in DC that support for Linux would be a given.
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  You first need to ask "are data center GPUs?" Many run completely headless and have no GPU at all, either on PCIe or in the processor.
  - soniman 5y ago
    I thought GPUs were involved in all sorts of calcuations like matrix calculations that had nothing to do with graphics.
    - makeworld 5y ago
      My understanding is that's not correct. It's possible to do general purpose computing on a GPU with things like CUDA, but your code has to be specifically designed that way and is tied to the drivers/hardware you implement it for. It's not going to automatically happen if you write some matrix code.
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      I would guess most people aren't doing anything like that. If you are just running a basic site and database you don't need a GPU.
- gtirloni 5y ago
  Server processors usually don't come with iGPUs. There are some Xeon variants that have them but it's not common. You're right though, servers usually have some sort of very basic GPU for basic graphics. Sometimes from Matrox and others. The parent comment makes no sense at all for a different reason. Intel wants to enter the top dGPU market and yes, Linux dominates the server landscape and yes, Intel probably wants to sell dGPUs to all the cloud providers and would have to continue to support Linux in that case. Parent comment is simply FUD. It's sad it's been upvoted.
drvdevd 5y ago
Except they will need to support Chrome OS, so we will probably end up with Desktop Linux graphics drivers anyway.
swarnie 5y ago
Correct me if i'm wrong but aren't you describing an extremely niche market?
sandworm101 5y ago
The only real threat to linux notebooks is microsoft. The day microsoft starts respecting its users, respecting thier time, thier privacy, then will I worry for linux on notebooks. But for the next few decades i think we are safe. Microsoft will never change.
nicolaslem 5y ago
I do not understand your comment. Could you expand on why Intel would stop developing Linux drivers for their iGPU? My understanding is that Intel has very strong Linux drivers for all their hardware. For their entry in the discrete GPU market they will likely provide good Linux drivers to distance themselves from Nvidia.
astrea 5y ago
I promise you the value add of WSL is nowhere near the value of a pure linux/unix system, especially for developers. This is just yet another iteration of Microsoft's embrace/extend/extinguish pipeline.
- tomnipotent 5y ago
  > This is just yet another iteration of Microsoft's embrace/extend/extinguish pipeline. Not this tired trope again. Azure makes a lot of money off Linux, and Microsoft has been a pretty good open source participant the last several years. But it's still a business.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    WSL seems to be a way to prevent developers from abandoning Windows altogether and to make it more comparable to what a Mac offers (a Unix with a polished GUI). Quite frankly, I prefer Gnome to Windows, but I can be happy with a Mac too.
    - tomnipotent 5y ago
      > from abandoning Windows Microsoft trying to make Linux more accessible to it's HUGE professional community of programmers that are content with their OS driver but want/need accessible Linux access. The company has a decades-long track record of positive contributions to the programming community.

by chx 5y ago

mattst88 5y ago

This is FUD. Intel's 3D graphics drivers are in Mesa (Vulkan and OpenGL) and have been for more than a decade. The team at Intel (which I was a member of until I left a year ago) continues to develop and improve the drivers.

chx 5y ago
That's the past. wsl/wslg is a watershed moment though. Developers can use practically all the Linux tools there are while the IT department only needs to support Windows. This is a massive win for everyone involved and so I suspect this will be a default for most companies -- and business laptops are the bread and butter of Lenovo/HP/Dell. When there's no business case for upkeeping the built in GPU driver , Intel will not waste any more resources on it. There wasn't an answer on where developers should go if not native Linux (unless Mac but that's not relevant to this discussion, we are discussing PCs) now there is. Especially now when Intel is entering the dGPU arena, there will be enormous pressure to reallocate people like you from Linux to the Windows driver team I bet.
- baq 5y ago
  there's a whole linux-only HPC market out there which requires dedicated GPU drivers. same reason why nvidia won't stop making Linux drivers for their hardware. API support may be limited, but then with Vulkan you can reimplement your own GL or DX or whatever you wish.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

pedrocr 5y ago

I would have worried about that much more 5 years ago. Now the best CPU+GPU option for Linux is arguably already AMD. The performance is better and AMD open-source drivers have improved quite a bit. Even the closed-source Nvidia drivers are finally getting the needed bits for proper Wayland support and there are people writing Linux drivers for Apple's GPU in the M1. Intel graphics were definitely great for Linux for a long time but options are actually improving for a change.

lainga 5y ago

>and that's the day when Linux on notebooks just dies. That's a rather strong statement about the future of AMD as a going concern, don't you think!

kawsper 5y ago

It's such a shame, I really like building Linux systems utilizing the Intel iGPUs.

soniman 5y ago

Are laptop GPUs different from data center GPUs? I would assume that Linux is so prevalent in DC that support for Linux would be a given.

LeifCarrotson 5y ago
You first need to ask "are data center GPUs?" Many run completely headless and have no GPU at all, either on PCIe or in the processor.
- soniman 5y ago
  I thought GPUs were involved in all sorts of calcuations like matrix calculations that had nothing to do with graphics.
  - makeworld 5y ago
    My understanding is that's not correct. It's possible to do general purpose computing on a GPU with things like CUDA, but your code has to be specifically designed that way and is tied to the drivers/hardware you implement it for. It's not going to automatically happen if you write some matrix code.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    I would guess most people aren't doing anything like that. If you are just running a basic site and database you don't need a GPU.
gtirloni 5y ago
Server processors usually don't come with iGPUs. There are some Xeon variants that have them but it's not common. You're right though, servers usually have some sort of very basic GPU for basic graphics. Sometimes from Matrox and others. The parent comment makes no sense at all for a different reason. Intel wants to enter the top dGPU market and yes, Linux dominates the server landscape and yes, Intel probably wants to sell dGPUs to all the cloud providers and would have to continue to support Linux in that case. Parent comment is simply FUD. It's sad it's been upvoted.

drvdevd 5y ago

Except they will need to support Chrome OS, so we will probably end up with Desktop Linux graphics drivers anyway.

swarnie 5y ago

Correct me if i'm wrong but aren't you describing an extremely niche market?

sandworm101 5y ago

The only real threat to linux notebooks is microsoft. The day microsoft starts respecting its users, respecting thier time, thier privacy, then will I worry for linux on notebooks. But for the next few decades i think we are safe. Microsoft will never change.

nicolaslem 5y ago

I do not understand your comment. Could you expand on why Intel would stop developing Linux drivers for their iGPU? My understanding is that Intel has very strong Linux drivers for all their hardware. For their entry in the discrete GPU market they will likely provide good Linux drivers to distance themselves from Nvidia.

astrea 5y ago

I promise you the value add of WSL is nowhere near the value of a pure linux/unix system, especially for developers. This is just yet another iteration of Microsoft's embrace/extend/extinguish pipeline.

tomnipotent 5y ago
> This is just yet another iteration of Microsoft's embrace/extend/extinguish pipeline. Not this tired trope again. Azure makes a lot of money off Linux, and Microsoft has been a pretty good open source participant the last several years. But it's still a business.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  WSL seems to be a way to prevent developers from abandoning Windows altogether and to make it more comparable to what a Mac offers (a Unix with a polished GUI). Quite frankly, I prefer Gnome to Windows, but I can be happy with a Mac too.
  - tomnipotent 5y ago
    > from abandoning Windows Microsoft trying to make Linux more accessible to it's HUGE professional community of programmers that are content with their OS driver but want/need accessible Linux access. The company has a decades-long track record of positive contributions to the programming community.