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Intel is becoming more evil everyday. They did not learn from Poulsbo fiasco or they really do not care about Linux users. By the way, isn't atom all about Lin

by fsniper 14y ago

Intel is becoming more evil everyday. They did not learn from Poulsbo fiasco or they really do not care about Linux users. By the way, isn't atom all about Linux

Aissen 14y ago
It's not that simple. In the article I say that things will change in the not-so-distant future for ValleyView Atoms. And for "high-end" CPUs/SoCs like IvyBridge or SandyBridge, you're good to go.
- fsniper 14y ago
  The thing is not about using some other producer's chipset. It's all about making wrong choices about driver and software side.
ajross 14y ago
To date, all Atom SoCs but Pine Trail (which has an Intel GPU) have used the PVR SGX. Cedar Trail is just another member of this family. It's a proprietary IP core with a GPL kernel driver but no free userspace. Intel provides the userspace libraries gratis for a handful of platforms (MeeGo, in this case) but sadly not all of them (my peeve is the lack of any x86_64 support). So no: Cedar Trail is a poor platform to use for linux if you want accelerated graphics (but there are some cheap boards I'm looking at that seem really attractive for hobby projects). But it's not Intel becoming "more evil", they're just shipping the same stuff. There will be a Valley View chip out later this year which goes back to Intel Graphics. Is that evidence of Intel becoming "less evil"?
- fsniper 14y ago
  In my opinion reviving meego just to be able to ship unusable and half-baked drivers is evil. I've written this at least 3 times on HN now, I'm not against using PVR chips, I'm against Intel not shipping related consumer ready drivers.
  - ajross 14y ago
    Why are the drivers unusable and half-baked? Have you tried them? You're saying that if they don't build on Ubuntu or Mint or whatever you use that they're ... evil? That's a ridiculous stretch, sorry. Intel's community support on the SGX is no better or worse than Apple's or Google's or Samsung's. They support the OSes they want, which in this case means Windows and Linux i686 ("MeeGo" libraries are compatible with basically any modern distro -- try them). They're not free drivers, because no drivers for this part are free.
wmf 14y ago
It's not evil, it's just lazy. Atom is a low-cost chip and they can't spend zillions developing it. They needed a small GPU and it was much cheaper to license PowerVR than to design a new GPU. (I guess Intel's GPU is not that area-efficient or something.)
- archangel_one 14y ago
  I agree that it's most likely incompetence rather than malice, although it casts Intel in kind of a poor light. They're a chip designer who have been trying to make inroads on graphics recently, and who have produced mediocre but usable graphics chips in the past, and they can't figure out how to stuff something in there themselves?
- fsniper 14y ago
  I'm not against them to license a simple, low power consumption chip. But The evil is creating proprietary and unusable software drivers. If it was only laziness the could just license enough driver code to be open sourced. The Linux ecosystem is capable enough to hand over development from there.
  - wmf 14y ago
    No, the Linux ecosystem is not capable. Look at the open source Radeon and Noveau drivers; they're way behind their proprietary counterparts. Also, Imagination refuses to publish PowerVR documentation and it's not clear that they'd even allow open source developers to access the docs under NDA.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

by fsniper 14y ago

Intel is becoming more evil everyday. They did not learn from Poulsbo fiasco or they really do not care about Linux users. By the way, isn't atom all about Linux

Aissen 14y ago

It's not that simple. In the article I say that things will change in the not-so-distant future for ValleyView Atoms. And for "high-end" CPUs/SoCs like IvyBridge or SandyBridge, you're good to go.

fsniper 14y ago
The thing is not about using some other producer's chipset. It's all about making wrong choices about driver and software side.

ajross 14y ago

To date, all Atom SoCs but Pine Trail (which has an Intel GPU) have used the PVR SGX. Cedar Trail is just another member of this family. It's a proprietary IP core with a GPL kernel driver but no free userspace. Intel provides the userspace libraries gratis for a handful of platforms (MeeGo, in this case) but sadly not all of them (my peeve is the lack of any x86_64 support). So no: Cedar Trail is a poor platform to use for linux if you want accelerated graphics (but there are some cheap boards I'm looking at that seem really attractive for hobby projects). But it's not Intel becoming "more evil", they're just shipping the same stuff. There will be a Valley View chip out later this year which goes back to Intel Graphics. Is that evidence of Intel becoming "less evil"?

fsniper 14y ago
In my opinion reviving meego just to be able to ship unusable and half-baked drivers is evil. I've written this at least 3 times on HN now, I'm not against using PVR chips, I'm against Intel not shipping related consumer ready drivers.
- ajross 14y ago
  Why are the drivers unusable and half-baked? Have you tried them? You're saying that if they don't build on Ubuntu or Mint or whatever you use that they're ... evil? That's a ridiculous stretch, sorry. Intel's community support on the SGX is no better or worse than Apple's or Google's or Samsung's. They support the OSes they want, which in this case means Windows and Linux i686 ("MeeGo" libraries are compatible with basically any modern distro -- try them). They're not free drivers, because no drivers for this part are free.

wmf 14y ago

It's not evil, it's just lazy. Atom is a low-cost chip and they can't spend zillions developing it. They needed a small GPU and it was much cheaper to license PowerVR than to design a new GPU. (I guess Intel's GPU is not that area-efficient or something.)

archangel_one 14y ago
I agree that it's most likely incompetence rather than malice, although it casts Intel in kind of a poor light. They're a chip designer who have been trying to make inroads on graphics recently, and who have produced mediocre but usable graphics chips in the past, and they can't figure out how to stuff something in there themselves?
fsniper 14y ago
I'm not against them to license a simple, low power consumption chip. But The evil is creating proprietary and unusable software drivers. If it was only laziness the could just license enough driver code to be open sourced. The Linux ecosystem is capable enough to hand over development from there.
- wmf 14y ago
  No, the Linux ecosystem is not capable. Look at the open source Radeon and Noveau drivers; they're way behind their proprietary counterparts. Also, Imagination refuses to publish PowerVR documentation and it's not clear that they'd even allow open source developers to access the docs under NDA.

deleted 14y ago

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