Submitted by Clover Trail will get Linux and Android support after all. “Intel has plans for another version of this platform directed at Linux/Android; however we are not commenting on the platform specifics or market segments at this time. Stay tuned,” Intel told ZDBet.
The GPU is PowerVR, no doubt the Linux driver will be as half-assed as the CedarView driver. So no thanks, I’ll skip Clover Trail entirely.
I’m waiting for ValleyView: An out-of-order execution Atom CPU and an Ivy Bridge based GPU (gen7) which is all Intel’s and as such will have a fully open-source driver. Now that’s the stuff
Edited 2012-09-19 22:20 UTC
This is no different than most Android tablets and handsets.
In most of them the GPU and WiFi drivers are not open source.
It says Linux / Android. That’s not the case for Linux.
Linux is just a kernel, which also happens to be used in Android.
Oh come on, it’s clear that by “Linux” he meant traditional Linux distros. And as such, he was differentiating between those and Android. Yeah, they use the same kernel, but the userspace is very different. Especially one critical component – the graphics layer. Android doesn’t use X, so it’s graphics blobs are useless for traditional Linux distros.
Which means if Intel wants to support both Linux and Android, they’ll need to provide an X driver. And considering the past (emgd and cwd drivers), it’ll be a half-assed driver that only works with a specific kernel and X version, if you’re lucky.
Doesn’t change what I said.
Your description is blurry. Even though this isn’t what you explicitly said, I think that a lot of people believe that “Android is Linux”, and your comment is insufficiently worded to account or correct for such misapprehension.
It’s true that Android is “Linux-based”, but that’s a little misleading and useless because technically every distribution of GNU/Linux is “Linux-based”. Fortunately, most people get that Android isn’t a distribution of Linux, but of the many reasons why this is true, the most important is the fact that Android’s kernel is not the the Linux kernel. Android’s kernel is a modified fork of Linux. Beyond that, Android as an operating diverges substantially from actual distributions of Linux with its goofy application framework, middleware, and other such hackish nonsense (the worst thing that can happen to Android will be Wayland 1.0).
I’d encourage people to check out Jeff Hoogland’s well-considered article “Six Signs that Android really isn’t Linux”, especially people who mislead themselves by thinking that: in using Android they are using Linux, that the popularity of Android is somehow beneficial to Linux, that Android is a sufficient alternative to a proper distribution of Linux, or that Android is even a valid open source project that is legitimate for the FOSS crowd to support as either users or developers.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/19/linux-kernel-3-3-merged-android-…
The difference is that the GPU/WiFi BLOB used with other platforms on Android actually work. The PowerVR ones don’t for most people.
There is nothing inherently technically wrong with BLOB based drivers. I have no problems using NVidia drivers, they work great, and they’re well maintained with current kernel versions.
It’s just Intel’s PowerVR based GPUs are appallingly supported by Intel.
This just proves the point that most corporations, Intel included, keep having a schizophrenic approach to open source.
The problem is that BLOB drivers increase the maintainance cost and in order to minimize it, they leave platforms out. Moreover BLOB drivers pose restrictions. But I have no problem providing full documentation on their product and BLOB drivers for the MacOSX and Windows. then the problem would be moral only. but now, their approach is detrimental to the user. The same holds if they shipped only Linux BLOB drivers. They restrict the user to use the HW in their way and so they void the typical purchase. You do not own the HW but you rent it to be used under their conditions. And if it is not clear in 2012 after so much scientific advancement and availability of knowledge then we are doomed or more politely fscked and we are in grave danger to return to the caves or to the cotton plantations.
Edited 2012-09-20 19:02 UTC
BLOBs aren’t going anywhere, as they shouldn’t (for any company not exactly wanting to hand their car keys over to their competitors).
Ok, so first, wrong. You do not “rent” your HW, you own it. HW having limitations or restrictions doesn’t change that fact. If you don’t like how HW is designed and/or supported, buy different HW.
Second, we aren’t in grave danger of anything. Closed systems are not devolving society. To say otherwise is just acting like a drama queen.
Agree.
Why would you want Atom after Intel has kept going with PowerVR? For low power X86 frankly the Bobcat is a better chip, dual out of order X86 chips with support for virtualization, unlike Intel they don’t hamstring their chips on memory so you can go up to 8Gb on most models and 4gb on ALL models, usually cheaper than Atom and now that Intel has wiped out ION frankly its the only one that has a real GPU. Finally AMD has been opening their specs and docs as fast as they can and the next gen Bobcats are gonna have quad core out soon that fits into the same power envelope.
So I really don’t know why you’d want an Atom, Intel cripples the chip too much trying to upsell you on a Celeron or Pentium. The bobcats have all the features of their big brothers, great performance, and you can buy an E350 in a nice HTPC case with PSU for $125 off of NewEgg. Just a better way to go if you want to run Linux IMHO. OpenELEC even has an XBMC build designed for Fusion OOTB, so you can just slap it on and go, easy peasy.
Did you read what I wrote about ValleyView having a gen7 GPU that is totally Intel’s (no PowerVR there)?
Did you read what I wrote about ValleyView being the first out-of-order execution Atom?
The answer to both questions seems to be “no”.
Basically, what you wrote is a rant that is only possible because you ignored the two main points about ValleyView – the CPU is out-of-order (eliminating the weakness that is the in-order-ness of the current Atoms), and the GPU has a fully featured open-source driver (check the changelogs of the recent kernels, you’ll find plenty of ValleyView commits in there).
The AMD machines you mention are missing two quite big things in the open-source driver, because AMD has *not* released specs for them – power management and hardware video decode. ValleyView will provide both. And that is why I want one.
And trust me, I’m very aware of the limitations of the current Atoms. The machine I’m typing this comment on is Diamondville (Atom N270 CPU, GMA950 GPU).
Edited 2012-09-20 23:16 UTC
The Intel GPUs even Gen7 leave a lot to be desired (their GPUs still suck).
The AMD SoC’s you can buy now. The Intel SoC’s you cannot and won’t be able to for upwards of a year from now.
Check out OpenELEC, seems to be working just fine. i built a couple of E350s and everything played nice and smooth in both 720 and 1080, no hassle. And I’m sorry but Intel GPUs still sucketh, they just aren’t very good and are still several generations behind what Nvidia and AMD have coming out.
Finally you still ignored the elephant in the room which is Intel STILL cripples the chips, no support for decent amounts of RAM (last specs I saw was still limited to 2gb, AMD has minimum 4Gb and most support 8Gb) and things like GPU turbo again missing.
So if you wanna pay more for a weaker hamstringed chip that is your business, but I have NO doubt that the Bobcat II is gonna curbstomp it. Oh and you can buy Bobcat one NOW at just $125 with a nice case and PSU, look at the Intel offerings, they charge more for less.
I’m only interested in netbooks, while you’re talking about HTPC. Different use cases. You don’t really need to care about power management for example, while on a netbook it’s very important for battery life.
Also, for a netbook even a gen7 GPU is plenty. My current netbook has a GMA950 (gen3)! Not to mention with Intel I don’t have hassles with either an incomplete open driver or a problematic closed one, as would be the case with AMD graphics.
And I know ValleyView is still quite a long way away. But it was clear from my first post that I have no problem waiting for it. So saying that Bobcat is available now is a non-argument, it’s irrelevant for my specific case.
The other stuff you mention, like RAM, also not relevant for me. I have only 2GB even in my desktop, it’s plenty enough. And my current netbook chugs along with just 1GB.
Finally, price: When I look at netbooks, current Intel offerings are cheaper or same price compared to AMD. Yeah they have PowerVR GPUs, so out of the question for me, but still.
Edited 2012-09-22 10:52 UTC
Uhhh…I paid $350 for mine WITH the RAM on Amazon, and that was for a nice 12 inch EEE with the E350, seriously dude how cheap do you want? If you are wanting bargain basement you should just go here and snatch an off lease or return, they had a C60 last week for $145, you just have to watch and see what they get..
http://www.cowboom.com/Computers/Laptops-Notebooks/?page=1&order=pr…
And 2Gb in 2012 is just pathetic man, REALLY pathetic, especially when you consider the ONLY reason the chip only supports 2Gb is its pre-crippled. it also doesn’t have the advanced speedstep either, whereas Bobcat not only has their own version of Speedstep there is a OSS program called “Brazos Tweaker” where you can alter the P-states and get even lower power draw, really sweet if you need crazy battery life.
Now I know all about Bobcat in netbooks, as I say i have the EEE 1215B which is a sweetheart. gets 6 hours on a charge playing 720p video, can go longer just websurfing if I kill BT, and even comes with an Android style Linux called Expressgate which there are several tutorials on how to tweak and add your own apps to. as it is if you only want to surf and listen to music its great and gets crazy battery life, close to 9 hours when I was playing with it.
My current netbook was 190 EUR back when I bought it, three and a half years ago. Nowadays there’s plenty Of CedarView machines that go for around 230 EUR. I can find only one AMD netbook for 230 EUR, the rest all cost more.
I have 2GB in a *non-crippled* Core i3 desktop. By *choice*. It’s a self-assembled machine, and I figured 2GB for starters, I can always add more if needed. But it was never needed. Current RAM usage is 312MB, with an additional 1.2GB in buffers/cache.
The same system I run on this desktop, and the netbook, is also on a ten year old laptop that until very recently only had 256MB of RAM in it (now it has 512MB). It works great. The only limitation with so little RAM was you couldn’t open too many tabs in a browser, but with the RAM upgrade not even that is a problem anymore.
So I’ll be blunt: If there’s anything pathetic here, it’s your argument. An efficient non-bloated system, even in 2012, will run fine in 1GB with room to spare.
My current netbook scales the freq just fine between 800Mhz and 1.67GHz. My brother’s Pineview netbook does it between 1.0 and 1.6GHz. Mine has a very small battery (expected, considering the price I paid for it) so it lasts up to 3 hours depending on usage, but my brother’s goes more than 7 hours easy. So what more do I need in terms of speedstep?
Really, none of your arguments are convincing. Now, I’m not saying there’s anything bad with AMD netbooks, but the Intel ones (those that don’t have PowerVR, that is) have one big advantage – a much better Linux GPU driver.
Edited 2012-09-23 12:07 UTC
Does that mean they still intend to lock out Linux off the main version, to prevent conversion?
To me, it sounds like they are throwing a bone at Linux/Android world, but just so Linuxers cannot cry foul.
In the meanwhile, they’ll proceed doing bu$ine$$ with Microsoft.
I wonder why, why do they care what OS runs on their CPUs? The more that do the more that Intel sells.
Microsoft is probably one of the few software vendors that can say to Intel “I can bring my customer base to your platform (if you promise to kick other OSes out of the game). Otherwise I’ll give my blessings on a different architecture”.
So for Intel can be an aut-aut between MS (and its court) and a bunch of random OEMs
Each time I see your avatar I can’t help but think you should get the OSNews best avatar award. It’s funny, friendly, recognizable and clear.
I don’t think that translating “We plan to create a custom version of this product specifically targeting the Linux market” to “We hate Linux” is reasonable.
Creating and marketing a CPU product is too expensive to be a “bone”, and the Android phone and tablet market is far too ubiquitous and growing far too fast to treat with disdain. That’s where the money is, after all.
It’s simply not a Microsoft world anymore.
I would have thought it meant that Intel has plans to release another version of the Clover Trail platform with the same CPU but with an Intel GPU rather than a PowerVR GPU. Intel could then provide open source drivers for Linux (and hence Android) for such a variant.
This is just speculation on my part, however.
Edited 2012-09-20 08:07 UTC
I doubt it.
Intel has yet to support the GMA 500 GPU, which is also PowerVR based.
They support the GMA500. Well, “support”. The driver is called EMGD. It does actually work, but getting it to run requires quite some fiddling.
They also have a driver for GMA3600/3650 (CedarView). However I haven’t yet heard success stories with that one, except on machines that came pre-installed with Ubuntu or MeeGo.
I’ll refer to this post I made: http://www.osnews.com/permalink?535180
That is, my guess is that the Windows 8 Clover Trail has some tweaks that Microsoft requested that break the platform specification. My guess is that the “main” Clover Trail variant, which has wide support, reverses and/or modifies these tweaks to make them more general.
You forgot to add Nudge,Nudge,Wink,Wink!
You mean ZDNet