Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica) [LWN.net]

Ars technica reports that the upcoming Intel "Clover Trail" processor will be for Windows only. "To achieve that, Intel worked closely with Microsoft to instrument the chip to allow Windows 8 to control Clover Trail's advanced power management features, which support what [Intel VP David] Perlmutter called 'always-on' functionality. It's that special sauce in Clover Trail that won't be supported for other operating systems, including Linux, likely in part because of Intel’s desire to keep those features close to the vest—and because of contractual obligations to Microsoft."

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Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 18:54 UTC (Fri) by lee_duncan (subscriber, #84128) [Link] (20 responses)

Time to take another look at AMD?

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 19:11 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (19 responses)

AMD has been rocking. The turn around they did on ATI has been fantastic, despite people bitching constantly it. (punishing people for trying to be your friends is not a useful path forward)

I wouldn't worry about Intel too much. They are a huge company and they are all just made up of groups of mostly autonomous organizations. So what one part of Intel does may have little or no bearing on what other parts of Intel. Ultimately I would rather have a Linux-free hardware a repeat of what happened with Intel GMA500's Linux support. Sometimes it's better to have no support then something like that.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 19:34 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (4 responses)

Not so sure about that. If they have an agreement with Microsoft to keep some details of power management on new Atom processors secret, that might persist into newer versions, and ultimately hurt Linux on more and more of the low-end x86 processor space. Since they are taking on Android and iOS, I'm sure that this is Microsoft's desire; I'm not sure it's really in Intel's interest though.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 23:36 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (3 responses)

> Not so sure about that.

I am pretty sure about that. From what I can tell this chip will sport a PowerVR-based IGP that is a descendant of the IPGs used in those old netbooks.

So it's extremely likely that; The 'secret' powermanagement has more then likely involve the video stuff, it's not Intel's 'IP' and they are not at liberty to make it public knowledge, and even if Intel wanted to run Linux on it it wouldn't work out any better then with the GMA500.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 0:39 UTC (Sat) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (2 responses)

A widely missed comment in the press about the time the poulsbro (GMA500) scandal was winding down was Intel announcing that a whole line of Future atoms would use SGX technology (the producer of the poulsbro GPU).

My personal expectation is that Intel will be going back to the bad old days with the Atom line. I don't really expect the atoms to do well without Linux support so they will be shooting themselves in the foot.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 7:51 UTC (Sat) by rossburton (subscriber, #7254) [Link]

Cedar Trail (latest-gen netbook) uses a SGX GPU core.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 11:32 UTC (Sat) by juliank (guest, #45896) [Link]

Right, but the next generation will stop using SGX graphics. Then everything will be fine.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 23:57 UTC (Fri) by THe_ZiPMaN (guest, #27460) [Link] (2 responses)

> AMD has been rocking. The turn around they did on ATI has been fantastic,
> despite people bitching constantly it. (punishing people for trying to be
> your friends is not a useful path forward)

Here you are served...
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MT...

Microsoft's money rocks more than AMD.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 0:29 UTC (Sat) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

building a chip exclusively for a hardware manufacturer is plausable (even if it's a bad idea, but if someone writes a big enough check, ok)

However, a chip that is going to be sold to many manufacturers that is locked to one OS seems 'odd'

but then again, nothing (except possibly stupid contracts with Microsoft) forces anyone to build any products around these chips. Yes they will be the latest and greatest, but are they really going to be enough better that they will be willing to lock themselves in like that?

Who wants a MS-only Atom?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 7:21 UTC (Sat) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link]

I would expect Nokia to use this chip. The funny thing is that Intel hired quite a few people who got laid out by Texas Instruments after they got rid of the modem business, and that had been working almost exclusively with Nokia for a long time. History repeating itself?

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 7:20 UTC (Sat) by tuna (guest, #44480) [Link] (9 responses)

My 1.5 year old AMD GPU still does not have any power management, meaning I have to statically set it to the lowest frequency if I do not want to burn up my computer. I do not think AMD's support is that good.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 14:42 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (3 responses)

Fix your computer. It is not cooling correctly.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 16, 2012 17:24 UTC (Sun) by tuna (guest, #44480) [Link] (2 responses)

If you would like to stop being ignorant you can read this bug report: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=702953

Still applicable even though very old.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 18, 2012 15:06 UTC (Tue) by petrakis (guest, #39672) [Link]

If you take thermal "gun" to a laptop you'll find that the largest offenders for heat are the CPU and GPU, not necessarily in that order. CPU heat can be mitigated by a functional ACPI bytecode, GPU by the proprietary drivers. The issue with GPUs is a good portion of the features that make them fast, also makes them energy efficient, so they can't disclose one without compromising the other, classic catch 22.

It's also going to get worse before it gets better thanks to the rate of disposable platforms (SoCs), it's more efficient to get to market with a proprietary GPU driver, working closely with the GPU vendor, than it is fumbling through the opensource "equivalent" without any assistance from the vendor.

The only real way out of this is to establish an open GPU platform with a LGPL'ish license that's so good with power and performance that the status quo can't ignore the price differential.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 19, 2012 12:53 UTC (Wed) by roblucid (guest, #48964) [Link]

In current release, I doubt that it is still applicable. Last openSUSE I installed X defaulted to 'mid' rather than performance, which very likely reduces power dissipation sufficiently. No reason to doubt Fedora 17 hasn't picked up the same upstream setting change.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 21:38 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (3 responses)

Huh?

For most of these systems, the best power management is to run them full-out when they have work to do, and to keep the CPU halted when it's idle.

The Linux kernel does that without either APM or ACPI.

Just what kind of hardware do you have?

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 23:58 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (2 responses)

Neither APM nor ACPI provide any kind of standardised power management interface for GPUs.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 16, 2012 19:49 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (1 responses)

It's the GPU driver's responsibility, right. A little surprising if AMD hasn't documented what to do.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 16, 2012 21:08 UTC (Sun) by tuna (guest, #44480) [Link]

Why is that surprising. There are loads of stuff that AMD does not document regarding their drivers.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 19, 2012 12:42 UTC (Wed) by roblucid (guest, #48964) [Link]

Surely you mean, you're setting it to low via variable in a small startup script. I used this with HD 4650 to reduce noise with FOSS driver, as it defaulted to performance rather than medium. In Console mode low was fine.
If you need working dynamic power management, there's the AMD Catalyst driver there's an article on Phoronix explaining the jam on dynamic powermanagement, which summarises hacker-AMD thread on such.
This sort of whingeing, is just punishing a company that's trying to do the right thing, a rival forces Reverse Engineering.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 17, 2012 20:07 UTC (Mon) by christian.convey (guest, #39159) [Link]

Actually, I haven't been too enamored with ATI/AMD lately:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/117588166609037419677/posts/f...

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 19:51 UTC (Fri) by sdumitriu (subscriber, #56869) [Link] (12 responses)

And unfortunately, no kernel developer is any good at reverse engineering hardware...

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 20:00 UTC (Fri) by cry_regarder (subscriber, #50545) [Link] (6 responses)

Doesn't help if the secret sauce is in the microcode that only microsoft is licensed to load.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 20:32 UTC (Fri) by alan (subscriber, #4018) [Link] (1 responses)

If people want to use products that use this processor badly enough, I'm sure that the loading of microcode that they are not technically licensed to load will not stop them.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 22:44 UTC (Fri) by mikov (guest, #33179) [Link]

A commercially successful product certainly cannot be based on unlicensed microcode.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 23:43 UTC (Fri) by leromarinvit (subscriber, #56850) [Link] (3 responses)

Would that even be possible? Surely if Windows loads the microcode and the user has a Windows license, the user must be allowed to load the microcode in whatever way he wants. Since pretty most laptops come with Windows anyway, I don't think there's much of a license problem to worry about.

Of course, there's still the technical side. If the interface is completely undocumented, just loading the firmware doesn't help much.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 17, 2012 23:55 UTC (Mon) by cry_regarder (subscriber, #50545) [Link] (2 responses)

Why must the user be so allowed? Just having a license to use a program doesn't necessarily give you a license to use any parts distributed with that program in whatever ways you wish.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 18, 2012 0:31 UTC (Tue) by leromarinvit (subscriber, #56850) [Link]

I suppose so. It should be allowed, though.

But how do things like ndiswrapper work then, legally? Or is that a gray area and nobody cares because it's just the individual users doing it?

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 18, 2012 0:44 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

This is where things get sticky.

the copyright maximalists want to control everything that you ever do with the program.

The principal of first sale says that after you have paid for it, you can use it any way you want.

This is why so many companies are trying to redefine your software purchase as entering a contract for a license instead.

right now they seem to be winning, but there are cracks in the facade they are putting up and hopefully things will start to crumble again.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 21:37 UTC (Fri) by Company (guest, #57006) [Link] (4 responses)

As can be seen by nouveau and the ARM GPU drivers clearly surpassing their closed counterparts. In particular Linux on the iPhone runs rings around iOS.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 1:35 UTC (Sat) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link] (2 responses)

Is that really the case? I've not tried Nouveau recently, but after a quick Google search I found some recent benchmarks on Phoronix (not the greatest source...) comparing the "latest git" version against nVidia's 302.11, and occasionally Nouveau would get reasonable close (I don't think it ever was beating it), but mostly only for the older, many year old cards. For any from the last few years, the norm was for nVidia's drivers to still be several times faster.

I tried to find some info about Linux on the iPhone, but couldn't really find much useful information at all (much of it is 3+ years old). I was able to find a couple videos, but one was just of the command line, and the other looked like Unity, but didn't seem like there was any 3d acceleration being shown off. I'd imagine if someone had a working PowerVR SGX driver (for any model), that it would have made news like the Mali driver has.

Do you have any links? I'd certainly like to find news that the graphics world is doing a lot better than I think it is in Linux, but it still seems like, after many years, that things are still struggling to mature.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 3:41 UTC (Sat) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (1 responses)

You missed the sarcasm.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 13:12 UTC (Sat) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link]

That makes FAR more sense! Unfortunately...

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 14:49 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

[quote]As can be seen by nouveau and the ARM GPU drivers clearly surpassing their closed counterparts. In particular Linux on the iPhone runs rings around iOS.[/quote]

A great portion of the iPhone hardware, including the SoC, is manufactured by Samsung. The same Samsung which has Android systems that are running circles around iOS in terms of sales and performance in the phone market.

Linux-based smartphones are now enjoying a 70% market share in the world market. A stunt that was unthinkable back when Symbian phones held that position just a few years ago.

But Valley View Looks Good.

Posted Sep 14, 2012 20:09 UTC (Fri) by Ed_L. (guest, #24287) [Link]

Michael Larabel at Phoronix has a slightly different take:

If there's any good takeaway out of this for Linux users is that this is hopefully just a one-off affair with Microsoft this time around. Intel is preparing great Linux support for Valley View, which is a next-generation Atom SoC to be delivered in months ahead.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 20:23 UTC (Fri) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

It will be interesting to see if they find the pot of gold they're pursuing down this clover trail. I personally doubt it.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 14, 2012 21:03 UTC (Fri) by boog (subscriber, #30882) [Link] (30 responses)

Is there a pattern?

- secure boot complicates installing linux under many circumstances
- arm-based windows machines exclude linux completely
- some intel processors won't run linux

Result: confusion. Linux runs on some hardware and not on other. Who benefits? The restriction to windows 8 must have cost microsoft money, so they think it is worthwhile.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 14, 2012 21:48 UTC (Fri) by sdumitriu (subscriber, #56869) [Link]

But on the other hand, there are vastly more components that are only supported by Linux, even though not always following proper open source rules.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 14, 2012 23:37 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (26 responses)

If you want to run Linux then stop buying Windows hardware. Buy from somebody who actually supports Linux and is able to work professionally on getting Linux great hardware support.

That is really what every Linux serious user should of been doing from the beginning.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 1:01 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (3 responses)

Power struggle? The one who pays the piper calls the tune.

Sadly it'll not work as long as Linux has minuscule market share. It works well on server where Linux has decent market share, but it does not work as well on desktop or netbook where if you increase sales of your Windows-based system by 5% you'll get more money than if you'll increase sales of your Linux-based system two (or maybe even three) times.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 14:55 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

It's only a power struggle if the market is a zero-sum game, but it's not. Linux desktop is a nitch market, but even then there can be potential for a lot of money to be made.

The problem is really one of marketing and education at this point and it's a extremely tough problem. The majority of the Linux userbase seems to have unfortunately trained themselves that buying hardware and struggling to make it work properly for a few weeks is normal and acceptable.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 17, 2012 0:10 UTC (Mon) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (1 responses)

The problem is that in many cases the hardware with good Linux support is more expensive than hardware with poor Linux support. People who try to save money by getting cheap hardware wind up paying in their time trying to get it to work properly. If the alternative is something very expensive or if Linux is a hobby and working through problems is part of the enjoyment, that may be a worthwhile approach. But a lot of us wind up going down that path either because the up-front cost of the cheaper hardware is obvious but the time spent getting it to work is not, or because we tend to overrate the value of money relative to the value of our time. To slightly modify a well known saying, you could say we're dollar wise and hour foolish.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 17, 2012 15:17 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Quite so. A good few friends of mine have bought new machines on a frequent basis but economized on each one to such a degree that the things are barely capable of running Windows and lock up frequently even then (Linux is almost unthinkable, lockups at boot are not rare on such hardware). That sort of cheap and nasty hardware is going to cause more problems than it solves no matter *what* OS you're running -- yet reliable machines aren't all that much more expensive. I'm not sure who these machines are targetted at -- surely not gamers, they want their games to work at least sometimes. Probably people who want to do a bit of light web browsing and little else.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 1:03 UTC (Sat) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link] (21 responses)

Now, why the hell would I do that? I don't know what "Windows hardware" is, but what I do know is that putting a box together is considerably cheaper than buying something equivalent already assembled. And yes, with minimal preliminary research I manage to get Linux working on the result. What's the point of buying from somebody who "actually supports Linux"? Sparing myself half an hour of waiting while debian-installer finishes downloading the packages I want? Some kind of 'loyalty'? IDGI...

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 1:42 UTC (Sat) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link] (20 responses)

"Windows hardware", as in hardware where the vendor only officially supports Windows (whether an individual part, or for a whole machine).

If you don't mind hardware vendors going out of their way to make it harder to use the hardware with Linux, then don't worry. If you'd prefer to encourage vendors to support Linux, though, then choose ones that do a good job supporting Linux.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 2:02 UTC (Sat) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link] (19 responses)

Just how would vendors (say it, ASUS and AMD) deduce anything, let alone derive encouragement for something, from the fact that somebody bought a motherboard/CPU combo from a reseller?

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 2:31 UTC (Sat) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link] (18 responses)

For OEMs (most people don't build their own notebooks, and notebooks dominate the consumer OEM market), by buying models that ship with Linux. A case like that would be fairly obvious for them if they keep track of /any/ sales data (if they don't, they likely won't be in business for too much longer anyways).

Obviously for parts it wouldn't be so explicit to the manufacturer, but you can still use your dollar to encourage ones that support Linux. By purchasing the products that are officially supported on Linux, as opposed to the ones that have no Linux support, you're rewarding the companies that have taken the effort. They may not know exactly why you picked that line over another, but you're at least encouraging the mindset that lead to that. At the same time, you're not rewarding one that doesn't do anything to help Linux.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 8:40 UTC (Sat) by deepfire (guest, #26138) [Link] (17 responses)

Voting with your wallet almost never works.

For it to work, you need strength in numbers, AND an ideologically motivated one at that.

Somehow, I doubt that the idea to punish MSFT-friendliness is going to spread like a virus. And the ideologically-motivated 0.00001% is humiliatingly far from getting onto any radars.

This is unrealistic.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 11:29 UTC (Sat) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link] (15 responses)

Works for Apple well enough that they can reliably find suppliers who give them hardware that *can* actually work, and the resources to dedicate to making it work 100%, even when they had been declared "dead".

Of course, they don't let you run osx on commodity hardware. Perhaps Linux should take a page from that book. Instead of having to convince people to do something in their long-term best intetest over a small amount of temporary convenience.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 14:13 UTC (Sat) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link] (9 responses)

I like your point, but I think Android is largely what you describe. It's not quite branded Linux, but the hardware is expected to work for its intended purpose.

I'd love some kind of high-quality, branded Linux notebook/netbook.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 15:54 UTC (Sat) by nelljerram (guest, #12005) [Link] (5 responses)

I'd love some kind of high-quality, branded Linux notebook/netbook.

What is stopping you? I'm typing this on a Lenovo B550 that I bought from http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/ two years ago. They're (apparently) still selling, and I doubt they're the only such vendor. My laptop has an Ubuntu sticker on it (as that's what it came with), and AFAIK has never run Windows.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 17:30 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (4 responses)

There are numerous places to buy Linux hardware.

There are lots of companies selling re-branded hardware from OEMs like you mentioned. However there are also lots of companies selling their own OEM brands that are more 'linux specific'.

System76 will probably provide my next laptop. Another popular one is ZaReason. There are others besides that. The 'dirty little secret' about laptops is that OEMs like Apple, Lenovo, Dell, and so on and so forth don't actually build their own systems.

The major laptop manufacturers (according to 2011 stats from wikipedia) are:
1. Compel (makes laptops for: Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, HP)
2. Quanta (HP, Lenovo, Apple, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, Sony, Fujitsu, NEC)
3. Wistron (Acer spinoff) (Dell, Acer, Lenovo, HP)
4. Foxconn (Asus, Dell, HP, Apple)
5. Pegatron (Asus, Toshiba, Apple, Dell, Acer)
6. Inventec (Toshiba, HP, Lenovo)
7. Flextronics (HP)

So how it works, generally speaking, is that:

Chipset manufacturers produce reference and developer designs. They also produce drivers for target operating systems and such things.

The ODMs usually have very little software or developer experience, however they are experts in mass production. They copy the reference hardware designs from chipset guys, but tweak them to make them more suitable for mass production. The produce lots of 'generic laptops' that OEMs then pick from.

OEMs then are the public faces that we all know and love. Dell, Lenovo, Apple, etc etc. The provide Q/A, deal with end user's crap, marketing, and that sort of thing... just generally the stuff that nobody else wants to deal with. They pick out designs that the ODMs provide then depending on what they want to do they will get custom plastic, different keyboards, screens, and/or tweak the designs for branding purposes and to suit the target demographic. All the manufacturing that OEMs really do nowadays would be to slap in memory, hard drives, and install the OS.

Some ODMs sell direct to public, but it's not something they are interested in doing as it's not going to be profitable for them... OEMs are not only better at this sort of thing, but are their partners.

Here is Quanta:
http://www.quantatw.com/Quanta/english/product/qci_nb.aspx

So any OEM that works with Quanta will probably use one of those 3 models, rebranded and tweaked for particular demographic, and then sell it to you.

Sager was one company that I was interested in for a long time. This was back when it really was impossible to find Linux systems. This was back before Intel started working with Linux, pre-centrino days. This is because you could purchase laptops pretty much straight from the ODM they used without Windows pre-installed. This made them somewhat cheaper and I used to be much more anti-Microsoft then I am now. Things have changed since then, of course. Now you can find lots of Linux hardware.

But it's still useful to look what they do and sell as mearly a reference since they are open about their relationships. I don't recommend buying from them:
http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.php

They use Compal and Clevo. Clevo is the laptop manufacturer that makes gaming systems for Alienware and Voodoo PC among others.

The point of all of this is that if you choose to purchase from a Boutique Linux-specific OEM like System76 or Zareason (or any of the dozens of others) then you are going to get pretty much the same thing that you can get from any of the major OEMs like Dell or Lenovo. Everybody gets their stuff designed and built by the same guys. The difference is going to be a slightly higher price (smaller markets tend to do that) and, if the OEM is any good, vastly superior customer service for Linux users.

It's the Quality Assurance testing and customer support that really matters. The fact that somebody already went out and tried different systems to find the ones that work best, and then is able to test and improve drivers to the point were they work reliably is the difference. That is what really matters. This is the ONLY way you are going to get a Apple-like experience using Linux.

The downsides are less selection and somewhat higher prices, but not terribly.

Don't take any of this as recommendations on who you should purchase from as I am sure there are Linux OEMs that suck, but it is something to keep in mind. It really is MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to get good Linux hardware now then it ever was in the past.

It'll take a few years for tablets and smartphones (and similar mass comsumer 'embedded' devices) to catch up to laptops in terms of ODMs and OEMs and such, but it'll eventually happen. It will just take a couple more years, more or less. Things like EUFI and Microsoft paying money to have special relationships with hardware... embedded manufacturers like Nokia and whatnot are paranoid as hell and want to stop what happened to the PC market from happening to them, but all they can do is slow it down and it's expensive for them to fight progress.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 17:36 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

hrm. I just noticed Zareason's 'ZabTab'. Cyanogenmod by default. Very very cool.. they need to do a better job marketing it. :)

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 17, 2012 10:04 UTC (Mon) by Kaejox (guest, #85586) [Link] (1 responses)

It's called ZaTab.
http://zareason.com/shop/zatab.html
Waiting for LWN review...

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 17, 2012 16:05 UTC (Mon) by ssam (guest, #46587) [Link]

+1 on the request for an LWN review.

also it would be nice if you could order it in the UK

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 17, 2012 18:22 UTC (Mon) by daniel (guest, #3181) [Link]

Check out endpcnoise:

http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/std/category=Value_PC...

Preinstalled Ubuntu on both Intel and AMD boxes, and the price drops a little vs Windows (they offer no OS for about $30 less). I have one of these and I would buy from them again. Not to mention, it's actually quiet.

Dell Sputnik?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 16:00 UTC (Sat) by boog (subscriber, #30882) [Link] (1 responses)

The Dell Sputnik may be what you are looking for, but I fear the delay in releasing it means Dell is going to hobble it in some way (cost, geographical availability, FreeDos...).

Dell Sputnik?

Posted Sep 17, 2012 10:54 UTC (Mon) by willnewton (guest, #68395) [Link]

They have already made the beta US-only so you may be correct.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 20:52 UTC (Sat) by teknohog (subscriber, #70891) [Link]

> I'd love some kind of high-quality, branded Linux notebook/netbook.

Try running Windows on this:

http://www.tekmote.nl/epages/61504599.sf/nl_NL/?ObjectPat...

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 22:04 UTC (Sat) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link] (4 responses)

Huh? And what, pray tell, will stop the sane people from removing the crap that "doesn't let you run on commodity hardware" if we went insane and done as you seem to be suggesting? I would certainly do just that, and no amount of marketing BS would convince me not to...

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 16, 2012 15:23 UTC (Sun) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link] (3 responses)

Nothing would stop the short-term temporary convenience faction from shorthanging our collective future. And that's where we are now.

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 16, 2012 18:15 UTC (Sun) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link] (2 responses)

You know, I'm trying to decide whether we are being Poe'd or not. I dearly hope that we are - the other alternative is just too nauseating...

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 16, 2012 18:28 UTC (Sun) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link] (1 responses)

Perhaps you're mistaking sad wishful thinking for a realistic proposal?

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 16, 2012 18:53 UTC (Sun) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link]

The sad realuzation is that, in the PC consumer market where price is king, there are no general computers. There are Windows computers and there are Mac computers. There are a subset of each of those that can run a current version of linux perfectly. There is another, much larger subset that can run Linux mostly, at the loss of some functionality. A subset of that subset will, in a future version of Linux, get closer to the first subset, some even achieving the full 100%. There are no consumer Linux PCs simply because the existance of the first subset, coupled with the Good Enough subset of the second subset as well as the subset of the second subset whih I previously mentioned. These lead to 1) an impoverished (compared to where they would be were you required to only buy Linux hardware) Linux consumer market unable to wield sufficient power in the odm market to establish a viable Linux hardware market and 2) the "Linux sucks!" reaction when Windows or Mac users do venture out and try Linux in the subset of the second subset which is the Not Good Enough subset.

(all the Linux OEMs can do is try to ensure the hardware they sell is in the first subset, at prices as close to competitive with volume Windows OEMs as they can get (or else their customers will just buy pc with Windiws pre-installed from someone else). Thus, not buying from a Linux vendor ensures an extremely lengthened, if ever successful, bootstrap phase in th establishment of th linux consumer pc market.)

So what's the point of this?

Posted Sep 15, 2012 15:00 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

> Voting with your wallet almost never works.

It's the only voting that you get to do that actually matters.

AMS, too. It's Android, of course.

Posted Sep 15, 2012 13:27 UTC (Sat) by boog (subscriber, #30882) [Link] (1 responses)

AMD's Hondo will only support Windows 8 at launch.

The target of MS's exclusion unsurprisingly appears to be Android: "However unlike Intel, Belt said AMD's software engineers are working on Linux support, though that doesn't necessarily mean Android."

There is some hope that the MS strategy of buying market share by payments to Intel and AMD will be no more effective than with Nokia, especially as chip companies are unlikely to buy into the MS vision in the way Elop has at Nokia. However, the pollution of computing devices on which Linux can't be installed or won't work well will remain.

AMD, too. It's Android, of course.

Posted Sep 15, 2012 15:56 UTC (Sat) by boog (subscriber, #30882) [Link]

I meant AMD not AMS (title), of course.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 21:25 UTC (Fri) by cyanit (guest, #86671) [Link] (9 responses)

Maybe they actually mean that Intel is only initially employing people to write and test hardware support code for Windows?

If instead they really added anti-features to prevent non-Windows usage, it seems very wierd, since I thought Intel wanted to get in the mobile CPU market, and excluding Android seems the last thing they'd want to do.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 21:37 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (8 responses)

This is PowerVR again. I think they know they can not get decent support in Linux anyway (binary blobs are required which means it'll not be supported in many cases anyway) and thus stopped supporting Linux altogether.

They plan to ship next generation of Atom (Valley View) with their in-house FOSS-drivers supported GPU and that thing will be supported under Linux.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 21:48 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

given that they are the ones who are producing the 'binary blobs', they would be able to either release them, or license them in a way that Linux can deal with.

That's the result of the 'no linux' decision, not the cause of it.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 22:10 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

given that they are the ones who are producing the 'binary blobs', they would be able to either release them, or license them in a way that Linux can deal with.

Sorry, but no. You either never developed proprietary software or you pretend to not know how it's done. I doubt PowerVR even gives Intel the whole set of sources (even this will require tens of millions of dollars to exchange hands; most likely they receive source for the "glue code" and bunch of binary files which actually impelement the driver's logic) and the only way for the Intel to provide FOSS source for the thing is to buy Imagination Technologies Group plc.

Which would make absolutely no sense if there are in-house technology ready for the next year.

It's your right to be a Linux zealot and see the conspiracies everywhere, but please don't try to sell your paranoid theories as the facts.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 7:32 UTC (Sat) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link]

> I doubt PowerVR even gives Intel the whole set of sources

I know for sure that some customers have the whole set of sources. Now, these sources only support one type of window manager, such as SurfaceFlinger in the Android world or X in the Linux one...

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 22:09 UTC (Fri) by blitzkrieg3 (guest, #57873) [Link] (4 responses)

This seems the most likely. As someone that was personally involved with getting PowerVR to work with Linux I can attest that it was a pain in the ass. It works, but there's no OpenGL support, no PAE support, no 64 bit support, etc. The windows driver sucks too.

Long live Valley View.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 7:34 UTC (Sat) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link] (1 responses)

> As someone that was personally involved with getting PowerVR to work with Linux

What was your starting point? Reverse engineering or IMG code?

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 19:56 UTC (Sat) by blitzkrieg3 (guest, #57873) [Link]

IMG binary driver that we got from Intel. They did most of the integration work and we did the final packaging and testing.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 17:29 UTC (Sat) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (1 responses)

"no PAE support, no 64 bit support"

I'm slightly bewildered as to how these two can arise.

Did you actually have driver source? Surely so long as you control the driver you can ensure that all DMA is 32-bit, all memory mappings are remapped accordingly, and so on?

If you don't have any source, how do you get anything to work with Linux at all?

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 20:03 UTC (Sat) by blitzkrieg3 (guest, #57873) [Link]

It was a binary driver. No source code. Unless you used mem=4G on the kernel command line, the machine would boot with a blank screen. We didn't look in to it too much because Intel told us that greater than 4G was required.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 14, 2012 23:36 UTC (Fri) by tardyp (guest, #58715) [Link] (8 responses)

http://www.hardware.fr/news/12610/idf-intel-evoque-clover...

Looks like only french journalists understand english...

Clovertrail is windows8 only. But clovertrail+ is linux only. So this is a lot of buzz for nothing.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 8:55 UTC (Sat) by deepfire (guest, #26138) [Link]

I see it this way.

Microsoft is badly wanting to enter the market it's been almost fatally late to.

So it finally has something it can run on a tablet, and now it had to go to extraordinary lengths to get some differentiation, some exclusivity.

Maybe differentiation is not they only reason they want that exclusivity so bad? Maybe they don't want comparisons with Android-based products? Maybe because they know they are going to lose bad in these comparisons?

And that exclusivity is a soon-to-be yesterday's proposition from Intel.

That must be humiliating, I'd guess..

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 17:39 UTC (Sat) by theophrastus (guest, #80847) [Link] (3 responses)

a naive (yet honest) question: how would you go about designing a cpu that "is linux only"?

as an aside, is there any rationale to intel's chip naming scheme?

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 19:03 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (2 responses)

Make it look nothing like a PC. If anyone had shipped Moorestown in its non-ACPI mode then it wouldn't have booted unmodified Windows.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 20:32 UTC (Sat) by Trelane (guest, #56877) [Link] (1 responses)

Would the various BSDs be able to use it? If so, it's more a Non-Windows processor than a Linux-only processor. (Of course, with the GPL, you have the option of a cleanroom implementation. But still.)

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 20:37 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

Sure, in the same way that you could run Photoshop on Linux if you wrote it first.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 18:43 UTC (Sat) by rsidd (guest, #2582) [Link] (2 responses)

My French is not great, but which line there translates to Clover Trail+ being Linux-only? (Perhaps it will support Linux but I don't read the article as suggesting even that -- whereas it does suggest that it will support Windows8.)

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 18:58 UTC (Sat) by boog (subscriber, #30882) [Link] (1 responses)

My French should be adequate for this. The article (when I visited it) only mentions that the chips are probably aiming to exploit the release of Windows 8. It says nothing about either chip being specific for an operating system, but the slides indicate that clover trail will be for tablets and clover trail+ will be for smartphones.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 17, 2012 8:20 UTC (Mon) by micka (subscriber, #38720) [Link]

> It says nothing about either chip being specific for an operating system

Exactly, it doesn't. (BTW, I'm French)

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 8:54 UTC (Sat) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link] (1 responses)

Curious.
If you write an OS that can only run a single browser, and you do not publish APIs to let other browsers have the same performance as yours on the OS, the EU antitrust commission gets into action and quite energetically.
If you make a CPU+chipset that can only run a single OS, and you do not publish APIs that let competitors install at all, it is just fine.
And if you make a phone with a lock that make it work only with a single carrier the situation is intermediate, since it is OK, but you must guarantee that after a certain amount of time the user can unlock it.
I wonder if there is a line that lets one know in advance how cases would be dealt. For instance, if there were a TV set sold at a discount or at loss but refusing to play some channels how would the case be dealt with?

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 9:36 UTC (Sat) by bangert (subscriber, #28342) [Link]

Its not that Microsoft "wrote an OS that can only run a single browser", it's that they are dominating the market for OSes which they are/were using as leverage in a different market (browsers) which was the reason for their (IMHO correct) treatment.

All the other markets you describe are not dominated by a single vendor like that.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 11:19 UTC (Sat) by giggls (subscriber, #48434) [Link] (1 responses)

This sound odd as Intel is paying the salary of quite a couple of core Linux Kernel developers.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 15, 2012 21:00 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

Intel is paying the salary of about 100.000 people

http://www.intc.com/intelAR2011/business/employees/

This is big enough to make even Linux (and hip-hop...) rock stars feel humble.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 17, 2012 9:03 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses)

remember that the only way to keep Linux from being able to run on a chip is to refuse to sell the specs of the chip to anyone who would write the Linux code needed, AND to also prevent anyone from reverse-engineering the needed info. Given that some of the same people who would make the windows devices also make Linux devices, they may need to also put something in every contract to sell the devices that the entity purchasing the devices or specs is not allowed to do anything Linux related.

Yes, Intel is within their rights to create a chip and refuse to sell to any Linux people, it's probably a very bad idea (not just because of the bad PR like this that they are getting)

However, Since Microsoft is a Monopoly that has already been convicted of abusing it's position, it's really questionable if it's even legal for Microsoft to use their monopoly position to enter into a deal like this one.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 17, 2012 9:16 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

The easiest way not to support Linux is simply not to write drivers for it. The days of easy reverse-engineering are gone. Modern hardware is just too complex. A sustained effort like Nouveau requires years of work and why would people want to reverse a piece of Windows-only crap while there are lots of other perfectly good hardware?

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 17, 2012 15:41 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

The easiest way not to support Linux is simply not to write drivers for it.

The only way not to support Linux is to fail in marketplace. If your device totally bombed and there are just a few thousands of pieces around (or if there are more but they all are tightly controlled - like AS/400) then there is a good chance that nobody will bother to tinker with it.

A sustained effort like Nouveau requires years of work and why would people want to reverse a piece of Windows-only crap while there are lots of other perfectly good hardware?

Because they can? Think about it: you can run Ubuntu or Debian on XBox/360. Do you really believe Intel will make something more Linux-hostile then what Microsoft can do?

Now if you are talking about large distributions and mass-market, then this is another thing entirely: in this case I agree, devices may run under Linux, but it'll always be second-class citizens on them so only a few hobbyists will bother with them.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 17, 2012 15:46 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

>Because they can? Think about it: you can run Ubuntu or Debian on XBox/360. Do you really believe Intel will make something more Linux-hostile then what Microsoft can do?
XBox360 has some nifty hardware. These tablets wouldn't contain anything outstanding. Why would anyone be willing to spend significant amount of time to produce Yet Another Cheap And Buggy Linux Tablet? While there are much more interesting projects available.

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)

Posted Sep 17, 2012 14:28 UTC (Mon) by mpalamara (guest, #69530) [Link]

ARM! I think ARM is going to eat Intel's and AMD's lunch. ARM could be eating their lunch now. If this is true Intel and AMD are scared and they might be inspired to buddy up with other companies to maintain market share.

Ultimately, it's all a lost cause. Processor prices are are going to fall through the floor and these companies will be less profitable or cease to exist.