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Intel Says Clover Trail Atom CPU Won't Work With Linux
girlmad tips this news from the Inquirer:
"Intel's Clover Trail Atom processor can be seen in various non-descript laptops around IDF and the firm provided a lot of architectural details on the chip, confirming details such as dual-core and a number of power states. However Intel said Clover Trail 'is a Windows 8 chip' and that 'the chip cannot run Linux.' While Intel's claim that Clover Trail won't run Linux is not quite true — after all, it is an x86 instruction set, so there is no major reason why the Linux kernel and userland will not run — given that the firm will not support it, device makers are unlikely to produce Linux Clover Trail devices for their own support reasons."
Chips aren't exactly designed to "run Linux" or any other OS. It's Linux that supports CPUs.. NOT the other way around.
All this means, is that Intel doesn't want to help. It does not mean it won't run Linux. Linux always finds a way to work.
I can't see what possible benefit it is to Intel to deliberately limit the market for their processors. Unless they are doing this for Microsoft's benefit, in which case, surely, there are anti-trust implications?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Doubt it. They can choose to support or not support whatever they want. They just can't actively use their current monopoly position to harm competition in another market (operating systems). If they put in some special instructions that actively sabotage the Linux kernel from running, that would be one thing. From what it sounds like though, they are merely not providing drivers/source code for Linux for some of the CPU features for this platform. Of course since a lot of geeks will try to get Linux running on a toaster for the lulz, I expect this to only be a short-term hindrance.
If there is one thing life has taught me it is that anything can run Linux. All intel has done now is simply issued a challenge which my guess is won't take long for some skilled hardware hacker.
So, as an aside, isn't the entire point of a tech aggregator to provide a technical summary? Not just copy and paste the article's summary... anyway...
FTFA:
Intel went to great lengths to highlight the new P-states and C-states in which it can completely shut down the clock of a core. The firm said the operating system needs to provide "hints" to the processor in order to make use of power states and it seems likely that such hints are presently not provided by the Linux kernel in order to properly make use of Clover Trail.
In other words, Intel has added new capabilities to Clover Trail that allow enhanced power management, and Linux doesn't currently support it. Anyone who thinks that this will continue to be the case for much longer is a moron, especially if Intel continues to release its architecture datasheets, which we have no reason to think that they won't.
The article really says: It can't run Linux because there's no support for it in Linux, and there's no support for it because it's literally brand-new.
IANAL, but I recall that Microsoft got in a bit of trouble because early versions of Windows were designed NOT to run on top of Digital Research DOS. Not going out of your way to support something is one thing, being exclusionary and abusing a monopoly position is another
90% of everything is crap. Also, crap is relative.
Sigh. Why is this one of the first reactions when a manufacturer doesn't do something you want them to do? Seriously, Intel not only does not have a monopoly of tablet processors, I would say they don't even have a majority. ARM processors power the vast majority of tablets. Intel is only hurting themselves by not supporting Linux.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
"Not supported" is very different from "Can't run Linux". I would call this monopoly abuse.
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It is the first time ever that Intel announced direct hostility toward some piece of software -- I hope, it's just someone's fuckup and not a policy change.
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...into the Appelsk walled garden that Windows 8 appears to be heralding in (Windows Store only apps, "for your own security, comfort and ease of use", coming to you in Windows 8.5/9). Last thing our walled gardeners want is an alternative OS weed like Linux, working perfectly on the same hardware...
Is there any source for this statement besides The Inquirer? They're basically a tech tabloid and have gotten a lot of things wrong (or overly sensationalized) in the past. I checked Anandtech and Tom's Hardware, both of which covered Intel's presentations this week. No mention of this. I did a Google search for "clover trail" "Windows 8 chip" and found ONLY the Inquirer article and other articles and blog posts directly quoting and linking to it. No reliable third-party tech sites saying the same thing.
This doesn't make sense in terms of Intel's overall philosophy. They have always been good about Linux support for nearly everything else – they don't want to get themselves tied in too closely with Microsoft, for fear that this would reduce their leverage.
I think this story is bullshit. A generous interpretation would be that the reporter heard that the chip ran Windows 8 and that Linux *currently* did not have the necessary support for the "new P-states and C-states" in Clover Trail, and misinterpreted that as saying that only Windows 8 will ever be officially supported. A less generous interpretation is that the Inquirer knowingly made up this crap to get more page hits. In any case, I expect Intel to make their actual position clear soon enough, now that this story seems to have gone viral.
Let's say the reason is either one.
Let's say that Intel wants to limit the audience for the chip, and cut their own sales. Let's say that AMD, VIA, and the ARMs makers will be delighted to fill in any vacuum.
Do.We.Care?
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Actually it means Intel won't support running Linux on it.
Apparently Wintel is alive and well.
Interesting perspective, but Microsoft obviously did something bad enough to compel them to pay Caldera at least 155 million (http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/news2/microsoft-settles-dr-dos-antitrust-lawsuit) . Something tells me if this was just a blip in a beta, they'd take it to court.
90% of everything is crap. Also, crap is relative.
actually, parent is correct. There are antitrust issues to be investigated here. This has nothing to do with choosing to support something or not, and is a very bad move by intel. If it were choosing they would say "this processor is not designed for linux" not "this processor will not *work* with linux". Sounds small, but it's of critical importance. The reality is that the antitrust issue is not with Intel - it is with Microsoft.
Why should anyone use the x86 instruction set if they're explicitly saying that things are not compatible? All they're trying to say to people is "please use ARM", which is not the smartest idea. That is entirely different from what intel is implying, which is that the BIOS issues regarding windows 8 preventing other operating systems from running...that issue from before.
So all this is, is basically antitrust fodder against MS.
There aren't any antitrust issues here. Intel can do whatever it wants with it's processors so long as it doesn't use it's processors (I'm not even sure you could call Intel a monopoly in processors, but that would be for a court to decide) to give another of their products an unfair advantage.
Pretty much the same for Microsoft. Unless you think somehow Microsoft strong armed Intel into it, and can prove it in court. Even then it would be difficult. You would have to prove that Microsoft abused it's monopoly position in OSes to do so in a way that harms consumers. Good luck with that.
I can tell you that I ran windows 3.0 and 3.1 on DRDos 6 with no problems whatsoever. I never owned or used Microsoft DOS. So if there was some compatibility or stability problem I never saw it.
"Intel is just not going the extra step to allow Linux compatibility"
According to TFA: However Intel said Clover Trail "is a Windows 8 chip" and that "the chip cannot run Linux".
That's not saying "We won't support it" that's LYING IN MARKET about the capabilities of its chip and causing direct harm to a competing kernel and subset of operating systems based upon that kernel.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"There aren't any antitrust issues here."
Bullshit, Intel is falsely advertising that a chip with all the standard (for today) x86 instructions will not run Linux, which is an x86 compatible kernel, and says that the chip is for Windows 8. Intel is colluding with Microsoft in this instance to create an anticompetitive market.
FALSE ADVERTISING IS STILL ILLEGAL AND AN ANTITRUST ISSUE WHEN A CONVICTED MONOPOLIST IS INVOLVED.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I think this mostly due to the PowerVR SGX graphics engine (remember the gma500 poulsbo). for the gma500 intel made a binary linux driver that did not impress anyone. I guess for clovertrail they are just not bothering with releasing a binary driver.
So it might work fine as a CPU, but have no graphics acceleration. however for a tablet chip that cannot play video or composite a desktop in software, it might be effectively useless.
Well, I never thought I'd be standing up for Microsoft, at least a little, But IMHO they had at least a LITTLE justification for putting up the warning message. Old Windows HAD to make MANY patches into the DOS resident code, and it depended on MANY undocumented data areas inside the DOS resident code. Any DOS clone, if it was to have a chance of running Windows, had to be very carefully engineered to match all those undocumented locations in DOS. The odds of Digital Research being able to guess all the exact locations that Windows depends on, and will depend on, is somewhat slight.
You know that this is a processor, right? A processor is something that you use at both phones,tablets, netbooks, notebooks, desktops, workstations and servers. Also, all of those categories are fuzzy, and processors do leak to the neigboring ones.
For the looks of it, this one is a tablet's processor. On tablets, iOS has most of the market, Linux is a minority and Windows does not even mark outside of the error margin, that last OS is the one Intel is going to support. Of course, it will leak to netbooks and notebooks, where Windows rules (but is losing space fast for OS-X).
I have no idea why Intel would even make such a decision, and I doubt AMD, VIA, or ARM management agree with it. From the public info it just doesn't make any sense, there must be something Intel is hidding.
Rethinking email
They tried writing drivers themselves and again they sucked.
Dead wrong. Intel drivers are excellent and I and many others have had great success with them. They also usually work quite closely with the kernel community as a whole to make sure things work as expected; that's why what this article is saying seems to out of character for Intel. For instance, try searching for "intel.com" in the git commit log. Lots of kernel developers are on Intel's payroll, including core people like Alan Cox.
No, that's not what TFA says:
"The firm said the operating system needs to provide "hints" to the processor in order to make use of power states and it seems likely that such hints are presently not provided by the Linux kernel in order to properly make use of Clover Trail."
I doubt this will be very difficult for Linux to put into the kernel.
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I think I could count on one hand the number of Windows 8 users worldwide and I think that 7 of them are bored with it.
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