LWN: Comments on "Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone (ars technica)"

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

roblucid — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:53:19 +0000

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)

roblucid — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:42:33 +0000

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)

petrakis — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:06:01 +0000

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)

dlang — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 00:44:01 +0000

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)

leromarinvit — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 00:31:52 +0000

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)

cry_regarder — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 23:55:23 +0000

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)

christian.convey — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 20:07:25 +0000

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

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

So what's the point of this?

daniel — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:22:43 +0000

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.

So what's the point of this?

ssam — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:05:47 +0000

+1 on the request for an LWN review.

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

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

Cyberax — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:46:18 +0000

>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)

khim — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:41:51 +0000

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.

So what's the point of this?

nix — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:17:57 +0000

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.

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

mpalamara — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 14:28:20 +0000

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.

Dell Sputnik?

willnewton — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 10:54:15 +0000

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

So what's the point of this?

Kaejox — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 10:04:47 +0000

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

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

Cyberax — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:16:23 +0000

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)

dlang — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:03:01 +0000

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)

micka — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 08:20:38 +0000

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

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

So what's the point of this?

rgmoore — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 00:10:46 +0000

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.

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

tuna — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 21:08:17 +0000

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)

BrucePerens — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 19:49:47 +0000

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

So what's the point of this?

Trelane — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 18:53:18 +0000

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?

Trelane — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 18:28:05 +0000

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

So what's the point of this?

viro — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 18:15:25 +0000

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...

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

tuna — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 17:24:13 +0000

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.

So what's the point of this?

Trelane — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 15:23:41 +0000

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

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

mjg59 — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 23:58:07 +0000

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

So what's the point of this?

viro — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 22:04:08 +0000

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...

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

BrucePerens — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 21:38:52 +0000

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)

marcH — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 21:00:29 +0000

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.

So what's the point of this?

teknohog — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 20:52:55 +0000

> 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...

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

mjg59 — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 20:37:21 +0000

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)

Trelane — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 20:32:28 +0000

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)

blitzkrieg3 — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 20:03:57 +0000

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)

blitzkrieg3 — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 19:56:08 +0000

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)

mjg59 — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 19:03:55 +0000

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)

boog — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 18:58:05 +0000

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)

rsidd — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 18:43:21 +0000

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)

theophrastus — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 17:39:54 +0000

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?

So what's the point of this?

drag — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 17:36:57 +0000

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