Centrino-based Linux Laptops

sebFlyte writes "Intel has lifted its ban on Linux-based laptops carrying its Centrino brand... It obviously makes very little difference technically what name is on the outside of the box, but does this represent a major philosophical shift for the chipmaker, or are they just leaping upon the nearest bandwagon in pursuit of a few extra bucks?"

Comments

No excuse

[slashnutt]

Now that Intel ceased banning Linux on Laptops then I should be able to call Dell or HP and say I want a laptop that runs Linux out of the box right? Then why hasn't AMD captured the Linux laptop market? Oh yeah the vendors don't see a market. I imagine that it is time for a small time vendor to start making 100% Linux compatible laptops and if they survive and make money then great - this is similar on how Dell started in the desktop market. If the market is big enough than the small vendor took a big risk but it would pay off; if the market doesn't support the small vendor then the big name vendors will avoid Linux like the plague and say to share holders 'see I told you so - Linux is ready for primetime'. Either way works out best as I just want a Linux latop.

Re:No excuse

[dreamchaser]

As much as I'd love to see mainstream laptops built for Linux with full vendor support, the sad fact is that there *is* no real market for it. It's a very tiny niche of computer users who would buy one. It's not just that the vendor's 'don't see a market' as you put it. There just isn't much of a market TO see. Hopefully this will change as Linux continues to evolve into a more user friendly system.

Re:No excuse

[DenDave]

Actually Intel reports a pretty interesting reason for the "ban" and also as to why they now allow it..

Karen Regis, manager of mobile programs and promotions at the chipmaker said the reason for the change was that with the release of the 2.6.8 Linux kernel, the open source operating system's power management abilities now meet Intel's requirements for Centrino notebook battery life.

Re:No excuse

[pyros]

HP has been selling the nx5000 with Suse Pro 9.1 preinstalled for months. Granted, they say the Intel Pro wireless isn't supported, but Intel has drivers for these cards at ipw2100.sf.net and ipw2200.sf.net. I believe the drivers are open source. So the only thing left is the multibay DVD+RW. But power management should work out of the box, I believe.

Reasoning?

[ackthpt]

It obviously makes very little difference technically what name is on the outside of the box,

To them it does, as they've been interested in projecting a particular value of the Centrino brand, being low power consumption.

but does this represent a major philosophical shift for the chipmaker,

Obviously not, did you actually RTFA?

or are they just leaping upon the nearest bandwagon in pursuit of a few extra bucks?

Most likely they have been promoting Linux, but not at the expense of their own brand of stuff. After all their marketing (possibly preceded by some actual innovation, but that's usually optional for any company) they want to ensure their brand lives up to their beliefs. If you were selling a line of Linux Laptops which didn't conserve power and ran the batteries down and some guy in an airport, surrounded by dozens of pairs of ears (some not connected to iPods) and started carrying on about what a piece of shit your Centrino laptop was because it drained the battery before you even got on your flight, well, that's the kind of damage lots of $ of advertising and spin can't undo.

I do have reservations about a company like Intel telling people what they can and can't do with their product, but if it's meet some specification to earn the right to logo the boxen, I think that's within the realm of acceptable business practice.

Intel sells chips...

[fitten]

I know a few folks who work at Intel (some are CPU designers). If you ask any of them, they will repeat the mantra: Intel sells chips. They don't care to who or for what purpose (this was before 9/11). If it is to someone who is going to run Linux or to someone who will run Windows, it doesn't matter because they sold that person some chips.

Not just Centrino brand...

[teaeg]

Support for the wireless networking, the new a/b/g thing, is coming whithin 30 days. This is according to the news.com report here http://news.com.com/Intel+lets+Linux+into+Centrino +camp/2100-7344_3-5542514.html

Wrong question!

[Kid Zero]

You should ask "Will we also see Sonoma based, Linux laptops?"

My guess would be "No, we won't." Centrino is now the old technology, isn't it?

Jebus, pull your heads out and look around..

[stratjakt]

Before you get all up in arms about Intel "banning linux" and being all evil and monopoly, blah blah, realize that Intel is a member of OSDL - Intel pays Linus to write linux.

This was all about not having their brand and logo associated with something that didn't work. This is a pat on the back for the kernel hackers who managed to get good solid support for the various Centrino components into the kernel.

So just take it for what it is. You can now say that linux officially works on Centrino laptops.

Re:Where's The Drivers?

[pyros]

I don't really care why, I just want open source drivers for those chipsets so I can automagically get wireless working on centrino laptops.

You mean for the 2100 and 2200 chipsets?

intel has become "oss friendly"

[diegocgteleline.es]

~/kernel/stable # grep -i "@intel.com" MAINTAINERS | wc -l
11

Intel has a couple of programmers taking care of ACPI, they've merged their own GPL drivers for their network cards, they've published specs of SATA hardware or documentation of mainboard chipsets, drivers for their graphics chipsets, there're intel guys at the kernel mailing list...I buy Intel just for how good linux support is having lately. No cookie for you, amd:
grep -i "@amd.com" MAINTAINERS | wc -l
0

Re:intel has become "oss friendly"

[stratjakt]

Intel and AMD are both members of OSDL.

Any "this one is more OSS-friendly than that one" insinuations you hear would pretty much be nothing but fanboy bullshit.

AMD doesn't have anything to maintain so far, since they have up until now just been doing CPUs, not whole-board solutions.

WLAN drivers

[wertarbyte]

For some time now, linux drivers for the ipw2200 and older ipw2200 wlan chipsets have been usable. ipw2200 is now moving towards 1.0, beginning with a feature freeze.