Poulsbo mess casts a shadow on Intel's Moblin project (ars technica) [LWN.net]

Poulsbo mess casts a shadow on Intel's Moblin project (ars technica)

Posted Dec 13, 2009 19:28 UTC (Sun) by fergal (subscriber, #602)
Parent article: Poulsbo mess casts a shadow on Intel's Moblin project (ars technica)

I almost bought a Fit-Pc-2i, featuring Poulsbo, this week until I noticed that the video drivers were some unsupported binary blob recommended for Ubuntu 8.04. Sorry Intel, none of my money for you. VIA have just announced their new low power chipset to go with the Nano. They say it will be Linux-ready, can handle modern video codecs at 1080p and supports up to 4 SATA ports. Hopefully it won't be long before the motherboards appear and then I can make the low-power media PC/NAS I've been longing for.

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Poulsbo mess casts a shadow on Intel's Moblin project (ars technica)

Posted Dec 13, 2009 19:46 UTC (Sun) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Via likes to lie. They have been stoking the 'linux ready' and 'open source
graphics' pipe for a long time now and it has never really turned out to
have any sort of basis in reality.

Intel is still the best bet and ATI is quickly gaining ground if your
interesting in open source graphics. Just buy Intel's home grown graphics
stuff and not the stuff they license from 'Imagination Technologies'.

ATI should be interesting, though. Their IGP is much faster then Intel's
and, of course, their discrete graphics chips are massively faster. I just
don't know what to recommend to buy at this time.

Poulsbo mess casts a shadow on Intel's Moblin project (ars technica)

Posted Dec 13, 2009 20:46 UTC (Sun) by fergal (subscriber, #602) [Link]

Fair enough but Intel don't have a low-power chipset with Linux support and the features I listed, unless I've missed something in my searching.

Poulsbo mess casts a shadow on Intel's Moblin project (ars technica)

Posted Dec 14, 2009 2:14 UTC (Mon) by hmh (subscriber, #3838) [Link]

Depends on what you call low-power. The 945GME is low power, if you compare it with traditional mobile chipsets. It doesn't come close to Poulsbo's efficiency, but it does have a (when compared to Poulsbo) kick-ass IGP.

And, unlike Poulsbo, it is not a smelly diasper for non-Windows usage.

Poulsbo mess casts a shadow on Intel's Moblin project (ars technica)

Posted Dec 14, 2009 2:56 UTC (Mon) by fergal (subscriber, #602) [Link]

Only 2-port SATA and no mention of 1080p or accelerated codecs, MP4 etc. So its power consumption appears somewhat moot.