7 ms·

Intel says Clover Trail will not work with Linux

106 points by mariuz 14y ago

INTPenis 14y ago
>However Intel said Clover Trail "is a Windows 8 chip" and that "the chip cannot run Linux". This will merely be seen as a challenge by the Linux community. Edit: Also it's not that it won't run, it simply won't be supported. Which shouldn't be new to any Linux user by now.
- drhowarddrfine 14y ago
  Thanks for that. I hadn't read the article yet but it didn't make sense why Linux wouldn't work. Windows and Linux are both just computer code after all.
justincormack 14y ago
I presume this is some sort of deal to keep Android off it, as manufacturers will want supported chips.
lunixbochs 14y ago
In other words, the same "Windows 8 Mobile will come with a locked EFI Secure Boot" we've known about. The OS is signed and verified by the bootloader. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#Secure_boot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Int...
- regularfry 14y ago
  Where do you get that from?
m0skit0 14y ago
Well... I'm not going to buy anything with that stupid chip then. Period.
- egeozcan 14y ago
  I was actually thinking about switching to AMD. Not that it'd make any difference...
  - mintplant 14y ago
    For what it's worth, I'm incredibly satisfied with my AMD FX-6200.
- guard-of-terra 14y ago
  Why buy the bully chips at all? Intel was always like that, therefore most of my PCs were on AMD where possible.
  - viraptor 14y ago
    "like that"? What does that mean? I see them usually releasing good quality drivers for graphics (http://intellinuxgraphics.org/ http://intellinuxgraphics.org/) and wireless (http://intellinuxwireless.org/ http://intellinuxwireless.org/ until they got into main kernel). This is the least problematic hardware I had to deal with.
nicholassmith 14y ago
Couple of ways to take this: 1) Microsoft has exerted leverage over Intel and got them to go down the preferred supplier route. Possible, and not overly surprising. 2) Intel is trying to carve a niche out and thinks its best bet is with the old hound. 3) The boring technical reason that there's loads of implementation and they can't be bothered making the changes to the Linux packages. It sounds like it'll run but with none of the fancy features to shut down cores under low use, but Linux developers have been adding missing functionality for years so it's not exactly unusual.
- eckyptang 14y ago
  Option 3. It's probably not that they can't but more that they won't because they aren't going to make any cash out of it with Linux. It's also because they are scared of ARM getting a head start on Win8 tablets. If they do this with a Core 2 and an IGP, then I'll start worrying.
  - anonymous 14y ago
    I'd bet on 3, too. Sounds like they slapped the only good-enough gfx core they are sure will work on an Atom, so they'd have something that at least works well with Windows 8 at launch. The next-gen Atom cores will use the same gfx core as their Ivy Bridge processors, but that won't be ready for some time.
    - mtgx 14y ago
      It probably means Windows 8 is the only OS it supports. Even Windows 7 might not work on it.
      - pmjordan 14y ago
        Much like the Medfield SoC it derives from, I suspect Clover Trail doesn't use a BIOS or various basic I/O lines and conventions that have been standard in the PC world for decades. So yeah, I wouldn't expect a stock Win7 to run at all.
  - 14y ago
pyalot2 14y ago
It's not that the chip won't run linux. It's that the device it comes shipped in will be UEFI locked down such as to make it impossible to install anything... Until it's jailbroken and you install whatever on it you like.
- xtdx 14y ago
  Why do people keep saying this? The x86 devices are required to allow loading other OS.
  - Spooky23 14y ago
    You are correct for laptops (for now, anyway). For tablet form-factor devices, UEFI will prevent other OSs from being installed.
tjoff 14y ago
Intel's decision to support only Windows 8 on Clover Trail might work for laptops but seems very risky for tablets, where x86 tablets running Windows 8 look to be priced close to Apple's Ipad and significantly higher than Google's Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire HD. Uhm, they surely meant the other way around? Practically no one have ever switched OS on a tablet/phone whereas on a laptop you'd certainly expect to be able to run linux. And what's the point of talking about the price? An x86 windows tablet is the only tablet that is able to run real applications. For those that want that the price is more than justified. Those that don't want that should probably buy an arm + windows RT tablet (which is probably more competitive to the reduced feature set of smartphone-based devices such as android and iOS).
- derpmeister 14y ago
  which is probably more competitive to the reduced feature set of smartphone-based devices such as android and iOS Walled-garden says no. That and the fact that you can bootstrap and run Debian on Android on ARM, for starters.
- brudgers 14y ago
  "on a laptop you'd certainly expect to be able to run linux." The fraction of end users to whom it would occur to consider Linux on their laptop is tiny. The fraction of consumers who would consider it is even smaller. The fraction of consumers who would expect their new laptop to support Linux is negligible. The expectations of the HN community are atypicle.
  - tjoff 14y ago
    And regardless, you can, rightly, expect a laptop to be able to run linux (albeit you can't expect it to be quirk-free). You can run linux and other operating systems on many phones and tablets as well. But the fraction of those that consider that is waay smaller than for a laptop (and I doubt anyone would expect it from a typical phone/tablet). As well as the result being barely usable and more of a proof of concept in the very most of the cases.
    - 14y ago
joshka 14y ago
This takes the cake as the best example of trolling linux devs per http://bash.org/?152037 http://bash.org/?152037
- anonymous 14y ago
  I'm a bit scared that I knew which quote that was before I clicked it.
goggles99 14y ago
Where would Intel be without Microsoft today??? They need windows to continue to succeed. ARM chips are the enemy of Intel, thus IOS and Android/linux are the enemy of Intel.
- fpgeek 14y ago
  For the left hand, maybe. Meanwhile, the right hand is busy porting Jelly Bean to their x86/Android phones: http://www.zdnet.com/intel-ports-android-jelly-bean-to-x86-phones-but-no-rollout-date-set-7000004200/ http://www.zdnet.com/intel-ports-android-jelly-bean-to-x86-p...
  - goggles99 14y ago
    This will never fly... That article you linked says that the Intel based phones will only run 90% of android apps. Who would choose one of these phones over an arm based one? It would take a lot of incentive for someone choosing between them. The cost would have to be significantly cheaper or the phone significantly better. I see a non-starter here.
- drhowarddrfine 14y ago
  Intel was highly successful long before Microsoft came around.
csmattryder 14y ago
>that Clover Trail won't run Linux is not quite true - after all it is an x86 instruction set Just need implementing, they've not locked Linux out, it's just unlikely device manufacturers are going to invest the time to implement it.
orangethirty 14y ago
This will be interesting to watch. There is a whole generation of users that do not use Windows as their primary OS. The brand power that it once had is disappearing. Users can now pick between Linux and iOS for most of their computing needs. The failure of Windows Phone to compete on that market shows that there is a significant amount of mindshare being lost. My guess is that MS is trying to lock people into using the OS again, but this time it won't happen. There are too many options right now. Users are so much more educated than before. Every kid out there can root their Android and upload a custom ROM. When they see their smartphone (or pocket PC) being locked down, they will just get something that doesnt lock them. All of that and Apples marketing power. MS lacks it.
- spiralpolitik 14y ago
  A better way of putting it is that there is a generation of users that do not differentiate between hardware and software. They just know devices. And if you are only supplying one half of the device, you are in most respects going have trouble sustaining your business in 5-10 years time because the market for just the OS or just the hardware will be tiny or have tiny margins.
brudgers 14y ago
"Unix BSD based IOS" When I read this, I realized that the author was supporting a preconceived conclusion. Apple uses ARM, in no small part because they bought a fan not long ago; and, of course, iOS is not out in the wild to be installed on hardware from OEM's such as Acer or HP.
- amaranth 14y ago
  "The company was founded as Advanced RISC Machines, ARM, a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and VLSI Technology." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Holdings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Holdings Apple have been involved with ARM since the start, back in 1990.
adestefan 14y ago
Hasn't this been known for about 6 months now? Clover Trail isn't an Intel part, it's a PowerVR core licensed from Imagination. Intel doesn't have the rights to release the specs on PowerVR and Imagination has never wanted an open source implementation, even if Intel writes it.
- krakensden 14y ago
  Ah yes- Poulsbo! I believe there is some rudimentary support for that in the kernel now, so Linux may work on it [just with no 3d acceleration] anyway.
- mbell 14y ago
  > Clover Trail isn't an Intel part I think what you mean to say is that the GPU is licensed IP. The design of the CPU and production of the SoC is being done by Intel.
drhowarddrfine 14y ago
And here is where US citizens can go to file an anti-trust complaint: http://www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.html http://www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.html
manaskarekar 14y ago
Sounds like a perfect opportunity for AMD.
jebblue 14y ago
Minecraft has shown that good games don't need the latest and greatest video to be fun and popular.
indiecore 14y ago
Whelp, that certainly makes knowing which chip to buy a lot easier.
radarsat1 14y ago
Challenge accepted. ;)
api 14y ago
An act of God will not help MS in the mobile or tablet market.
goggles99 14y ago
In other news: AMD's Hondo will only support Windows 8 at launch. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2205758/amds-hondo-will-only-support-windows-8-at-launch?utm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=Cpc&utm_campaign=Inquirer%252BReferral&WT.mc_is=977=obinsource http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2205758/amds-hondo-...

106 points by mariuz 14y ago

>However Intel said Clover Trail "is a Windows 8 chip" and that "the chip cannot run Linux". This will merely be seen as a challenge by the Linux community. Edit: Also it's not that it won't run, it simply won't be supported. Which shouldn't be new to any Linux user by now.

drhowarddrfine 14y ago
Thanks for that. I hadn't read the article yet but it didn't make sense why Linux wouldn't work. Windows and Linux are both just computer code after all.

justincormack 14y ago

I presume this is some sort of deal to keep Android off it, as manufacturers will want supported chips.

lunixbochs 14y ago

In other words, the same "Windows 8 Mobile will come with a locked EFI Secure Boot" we've known about. The OS is signed and verified by the bootloader. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#Secure_boot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Int...

regularfry 14y ago
Where do you get that from?

m0skit0 14y ago

Well... I'm not going to buy anything with that stupid chip then. Period.

egeozcan 14y ago
I was actually thinking about switching to AMD. Not that it'd make any difference...
- mintplant 14y ago
  For what it's worth, I'm incredibly satisfied with my AMD FX-6200.
guard-of-terra 14y ago
Why buy the bully chips at all? Intel was always like that, therefore most of my PCs were on AMD where possible.
- viraptor 14y ago
  "like that"? What does that mean? I see them usually releasing good quality drivers for graphics (http://intellinuxgraphics.org/ http://intellinuxgraphics.org/) and wireless (http://intellinuxwireless.org/ http://intellinuxwireless.org/ until they got into main kernel). This is the least problematic hardware I had to deal with.

nicholassmith 14y ago

Couple of ways to take this: 1) Microsoft has exerted leverage over Intel and got them to go down the preferred supplier route. Possible, and not overly surprising. 2) Intel is trying to carve a niche out and thinks its best bet is with the old hound. 3) The boring technical reason that there's loads of implementation and they can't be bothered making the changes to the Linux packages. It sounds like it'll run but with none of the fancy features to shut down cores under low use, but Linux developers have been adding missing functionality for years so it's not exactly unusual.

eckyptang 14y ago
Option 3. It's probably not that they can't but more that they won't because they aren't going to make any cash out of it with Linux. It's also because they are scared of ARM getting a head start on Win8 tablets. If they do this with a Core 2 and an IGP, then I'll start worrying.
- anonymous 14y ago
  I'd bet on 3, too. Sounds like they slapped the only good-enough gfx core they are sure will work on an Atom, so they'd have something that at least works well with Windows 8 at launch. The next-gen Atom cores will use the same gfx core as their Ivy Bridge processors, but that won't be ready for some time.
  - mtgx 14y ago
    It probably means Windows 8 is the only OS it supports. Even Windows 7 might not work on it.
    - pmjordan 14y ago
      Much like the Medfield SoC it derives from, I suspect Clover Trail doesn't use a BIOS or various basic I/O lines and conventions that have been standard in the PC world for decades. So yeah, I wouldn't expect a stock Win7 to run at all.
- 14y ago

pyalot2 14y ago

It's not that the chip won't run linux. It's that the device it comes shipped in will be UEFI locked down such as to make it impossible to install anything... Until it's jailbroken and you install whatever on it you like.

xtdx 14y ago
Why do people keep saying this? The x86 devices are required to allow loading other OS.
- Spooky23 14y ago
  You are correct for laptops (for now, anyway). For tablet form-factor devices, UEFI will prevent other OSs from being installed.

tjoff 14y ago

Intel's decision to support only Windows 8 on Clover Trail might work for laptops but seems very risky for tablets, where x86 tablets running Windows 8 look to be priced close to Apple's Ipad and significantly higher than Google's Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire HD. Uhm, they surely meant the other way around? Practically no one have ever switched OS on a tablet/phone whereas on a laptop you'd certainly expect to be able to run linux. And what's the point of talking about the price? An x86 windows tablet is the only tablet that is able to run real applications. For those that want that the price is more than justified. Those that don't want that should probably buy an arm + windows RT tablet (which is probably more competitive to the reduced feature set of smartphone-based devices such as android and iOS).

derpmeister 14y ago
which is probably more competitive to the reduced feature set of smartphone-based devices such as android and iOS Walled-garden says no. That and the fact that you can bootstrap and run Debian on Android on ARM, for starters.
brudgers 14y ago
"on a laptop you'd certainly expect to be able to run linux." The fraction of end users to whom it would occur to consider Linux on their laptop is tiny. The fraction of consumers who would consider it is even smaller. The fraction of consumers who would expect their new laptop to support Linux is negligible. The expectations of the HN community are atypicle.
- tjoff 14y ago
  And regardless, you can, rightly, expect a laptop to be able to run linux (albeit you can't expect it to be quirk-free). You can run linux and other operating systems on many phones and tablets as well. But the fraction of those that consider that is waay smaller than for a laptop (and I doubt anyone would expect it from a typical phone/tablet). As well as the result being barely usable and more of a proof of concept in the very most of the cases.
  - 14y ago

joshka 14y ago

This takes the cake as the best example of trolling linux devs per http://bash.org/?152037 http://bash.org/?152037

anonymous 14y ago
I'm a bit scared that I knew which quote that was before I clicked it.

goggles99 14y ago

Where would Intel be without Microsoft today??? They need windows to continue to succeed. ARM chips are the enemy of Intel, thus IOS and Android/linux are the enemy of Intel.

fpgeek 14y ago
For the left hand, maybe. Meanwhile, the right hand is busy porting Jelly Bean to their x86/Android phones: http://www.zdnet.com/intel-ports-android-jelly-bean-to-x86-phones-but-no-rollout-date-set-7000004200/ http://www.zdnet.com/intel-ports-android-jelly-bean-to-x86-p...
- goggles99 14y ago
  This will never fly... That article you linked says that the Intel based phones will only run 90% of android apps. Who would choose one of these phones over an arm based one? It would take a lot of incentive for someone choosing between them. The cost would have to be significantly cheaper or the phone significantly better. I see a non-starter here.
drhowarddrfine 14y ago
Intel was highly successful long before Microsoft came around.

csmattryder 14y ago

>that Clover Trail won't run Linux is not quite true - after all it is an x86 instruction set Just need implementing, they've not locked Linux out, it's just unlikely device manufacturers are going to invest the time to implement it.

orangethirty 14y ago

This will be interesting to watch. There is a whole generation of users that do not use Windows as their primary OS. The brand power that it once had is disappearing. Users can now pick between Linux and iOS for most of their computing needs. The failure of Windows Phone to compete on that market shows that there is a significant amount of mindshare being lost. My guess is that MS is trying to lock people into using the OS again, but this time it won't happen. There are too many options right now. Users are so much more educated than before. Every kid out there can root their Android and upload a custom ROM. When they see their smartphone (or pocket PC) being locked down, they will just get something that doesnt lock them. All of that and Apples marketing power. MS lacks it.

spiralpolitik 14y ago
A better way of putting it is that there is a generation of users that do not differentiate between hardware and software. They just know devices. And if you are only supplying one half of the device, you are in most respects going have trouble sustaining your business in 5-10 years time because the market for just the OS or just the hardware will be tiny or have tiny margins.

brudgers 14y ago

"Unix BSD based IOS" When I read this, I realized that the author was supporting a preconceived conclusion. Apple uses ARM, in no small part because they bought a fan not long ago; and, of course, iOS is not out in the wild to be installed on hardware from OEM's such as Acer or HP.

amaranth 14y ago
"The company was founded as Advanced RISC Machines, ARM, a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and VLSI Technology." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Holdings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Holdings Apple have been involved with ARM since the start, back in 1990.

adestefan 14y ago

Hasn't this been known for about 6 months now? Clover Trail isn't an Intel part, it's a PowerVR core licensed from Imagination. Intel doesn't have the rights to release the specs on PowerVR and Imagination has never wanted an open source implementation, even if Intel writes it.

krakensden 14y ago
Ah yes- Poulsbo! I believe there is some rudimentary support for that in the kernel now, so Linux may work on it [just with no 3d acceleration] anyway.
mbell 14y ago
> Clover Trail isn't an Intel part I think what you mean to say is that the GPU is licensed IP. The design of the CPU and production of the SoC is being done by Intel.

drhowarddrfine 14y ago

And here is where US citizens can go to file an anti-trust complaint: http://www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.html http://www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.html

manaskarekar 14y ago

Sounds like a perfect opportunity for AMD.

jebblue 14y ago

Minecraft has shown that good games don't need the latest and greatest video to be fun and popular.

indiecore 14y ago

Whelp, that certainly makes knowing which chip to buy a lot easier.

radarsat1 14y ago

Challenge accepted. ;)

api 14y ago

An act of God will not help MS in the mobile or tablet market.

goggles99 14y ago

In other news: AMD's Hondo will only support Windows 8 at launch. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2205758/amds-hondo-will-only-support-windows-8-at-launch?utm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=Cpc&utm_campaign=Inquirer%252BReferral&WT.mc_is=977=obinsource http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2205758/amds-hondo-...