Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Intel to Increase Linux Support, Release Centrino Drivers

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the seeing-the-same-way dept.

jonman_d writes "ZDNet UK is reporting that Intel has promised to increase Linux support by releasing Linux drivers at the same time it releases Windows drivers for its hardware. According to the general manager of Intel's Software and Solutions Group, Intel wants Linux users to be able to use their hardware as easily, or easier, than any other hardware on the planet." Pingla writes in with more good news: "Intel promises to release Linux drivers for its Centrino chipset at the same time it releases drivers for Windows. An article featuring Lindows (aka Lin---s) on CNet has more." Sadly, the Centrino support will most likely be a proprietary driver, but it's better than nothing.

13 of 381 comments (clear)

  1. Proprietary drivers by mytec · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sadly, the Centrino support will most likely be a proprietary driver, but it's better than nothing.

    I'll take proprietary drivers if it means I can use the hardware I like with the OS I love to get work done.

    1. Re: Proprietary drivers by Chris+Croome · · Score: 5, Interesting

      People should not accept this or we'll get into another situation like you have with NVidia. Get a brand new box and you can't even do a net install on your Nforce chipset box because you need the nvnet driver which is a proprietary binary-only module

      I totally agree.

      I built a shuttle box for my little sister a while ago not realising that the Nvidia motherboard's built in ethernet card will only run with a module from Nvidia, it took a while to work this out after installing Linux on it the first time...

      Then 6 months later I have a chance to upgrade Red Hat 9 to Fedora on the box and after the upgrade I discover that the network doesn't work... and at this point I remember what I had to do 6 months before... Aarh!

      So I have to go through the whole process again, find another computer that is connected to the net, download the Nvidia drivers, burn a CD... I thought I'd try the SRPM to make upgrades easier, well these don't build as a normal user so I gave up on them, so I then need to download the tgz version, burn another CD....

      This results in a situation where the kernel can't be upgraded without manually rebuilding the Nvidia modules and this isn't something that I would want to suggest to my sister (she never uses a CLI)... So the local root exploits that all but the latest Fedora kernal have don't get patched... (not a big issue since it's behind a NATed connection and there are only a couple of user accounts, but still it's not ideal...)

      The result of this is that I'll never recommend that anyone gets a Nvidia motherboard and I'll never buy one, it's far too much hassle.

      Sadly I'm stuck with Nvidia video cards in order to play games such as Quake 3 in linux... I wish this wasn't the case...

      What would be ideal would be if the manufactures either release enough info so that GPL drivers can be produced or if they release GPL drivers themselves so they can be included in the kernel.

      Last year I wanted a IDE RAID card and after much googling I discovered that the 3ware ones have drivers in the kernel and no others do, so I brought one even though it cost me more money it has saved me loads of time because I haven't had to mess with installing modules from a hardware company every time I upgrade the kernel... I have no regrets about this bit of hardware... unlike the Nvidia motherboard...

      --
      Check out MKDoc a mod_perl CMS
    2. Re:proprietary drivers by SubtleNuance · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And Security. Dropping someones' closed drivers in your kernel means you cannot do an effective audit. You can *never* be certain you've not bee backdoored.

      Would Intel do this? maybe, maybe-not. But no one expected it from Borland's interbase

      is this paranoid? maybe, maybe-not....

  2. Setting an example by anish1411 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't think it matters if this is a proprietary driver, just yet. With big people like Intel and IBM showing an interest in Linux, its bound to encourage others to do the same. Then with time, open source drivers might just happen?

  3. Nice, but... by BassKnight · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's nice that one of the giants to adopt this position, but I wonder about the form of these drivers. Maybe it's me, but I find more convenient to have drivers that can be compiled as kernel modules, and diffently from, for example Nvidia drivers, that they're not closed source, and license-compatible with the Linux kernel, so people can contribute in order to improve them, and maybe who knows if they can be integrated in the Linux kernel tree. Maybe i'm being too idealist.

  4. Reverse engineer the drivers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you really care about freedom, then help reverse engineer the drivers. Several drivers have already been reverse engineered (such as nvnet for example), whats so hard about a simple wireless network adapter!

    1. Re:Reverse engineer the drivers! by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      IIRC one of the prime reasons Intel won't release open source drivers is because the hardware chipset is capable of broadcasting on frequencies that are reserved for police/fire/etc and at higher output levels than is presently legal. Open source drivers would ease the path to hacking and utilising these hardware features.

      --
      All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
  5. proprierty drivers by gunix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    what is so secret about them, really?

    To use them for your own hardware, don't you have to create the exact same hardware? So no use there, since you have your own hardware...
    To use the hardware independet part of the code? Well.. that ought to be a lot of code.

    To use their algorithms? Well, there are a lot of code already they can have a look at (without telling they looked at it, if they are evil)..

    And if they are to stupid to come up with an algorithm of their own, how expencive would it be to hire someone to do it?

    I don't get it...

    --
    Evolution of Language Through The Ages: 6000 BC : ungh, grrf, booga 2000 AD : grep, awk, sed
  6. Intel Centrino Drivers: A Series of Rumours by wehe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Intel is announcing plans to release Linux drivers for the WLAN part of their centrino technology from the time beginning. Though there are no facts yet, no release date, no statement whether the drivers will be binary only or Open Source, no information which chipset generations will be supported eventually and so on. See details of the story and How to Get Linux Running on Centrino Laptops at TuxMobil. So don't miss to sign the Linux Support On Centrino Petition! More at the link above.

  7. Will other organizations follow suit? by jtwJGuevara · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Kudos to intel. Even if the drivers are proprietary, at least they are releasing drivers tailored for their hardware to run under linux. This has been a concern of mine ever since recently switching from the Windows world to linux. Although I may sound like a typical end user when I say this, when I switched from Windows to Linux, but it was an extreme pain in the tail to even configure a sound card in Linux. I know there are things like ALSA and similar projects, but hardly any organizations were packaging any of their own drivers customed suited to their hardware to be delivered in Linux. The result is that the novice user loses from this because he/she cannot use the hardware he/she chooses to use with the software and/or OS he/she chooses to use.

    With that said, this is a step in the right direction and I hope other hardware manufactures do what Intel has pledged to do. Closed source, proprietary drivers are better than no drivers at all.

  8. Re:Why would 'Proprietary Drivers' be so 'sad'? by id09542 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually I do get sad when I get in my car with a proprietary computer under the hood. I enjoy "tinkering" and doing minor maintenance to my car, but something as simple as an oxygen sensor now requires a $50 trip to the dealer to tell me this is the reason why my check engine light is on.

  9. Graphics specs too please! Not just wireless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The situation is pretty infuriating with the video drivers for laptops with integrated graphics on 855GM chipset. Many of these come with a 1400x1050 SXGA+ lcd display but a bios that does not know how to switch to this mode. (No kidding, it can do 1024x768, 1280x1024, etc, but NOT the native lcd resolution...) Intel has not released specs to let the XF86 developers program the video modes from the driver, so X Windows is entirely dependent on the BIOS.

    Result is your spiffy new SXGA+ laptop with Intel integrated graphics can only do a fuzzy interpolation at lower effective resolution. Needless to say, the Windows driver authors had all the info they needed to program the driver.

    And you guess what trouble you will have getting the laptop to display on an attached external monitor....

    Intel needs to provide specs to the XF86 developers, so that they can provide good drivers for Linux!

  10. I blame Linus Torvalds. by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seriously. This is not a troll, so hear me out here. I love Linux and I won't use anything else, including on my desktop.

    The real problem here is Linus's stubborn refusal to freeze the driver API's. At the very least, the driver API's should be frozen during each major release cycle; i.e. a driver which loads on 2.6.0 should continue to work properly on 2.6.999. If there are big new exciting things that force an API change, it should wait until 2.8.0.

    I say that this is Linus's fault because it's well-documented that the moving-target API's are his clear decision. And it's a bad decision. If he wants large-scale adoption of Linux at the end-user level, he's going to have to realize that most end-users aren't smart enough to do their own driver integration -- but they might be able to download a driver off the 'net or from a CD, and see "Gruntle FOOset driver for Linux 2.6" and expect that it'll work on any Linux distribution that includes a 2.6 kernel.

    Until the driver API is stabilized, Linux is going to have a hard time finding users outside the hacker set.

    --
    Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!