The Best Kept Secret in Open Source?
Here's a little test for you--quick, name the hardware vendor about which the following was said:
[their] commitment to providing high-quality drivers that meet the needs of the mobile Linux community is second to none.
--Matthew Garrett, Ubuntu Mobile Linux EngineerI tend to suggest that... you buy [a machine] with [company's] graphics and wireless. That takes care of the 2 biggest annoyances right there.
--Linus Torvalds
(See source at the end of this post)
If you said "AMD" then you've been reading too many press releases. While it's nice that AMD appears to be making moves in the right direction with their ATI drivers, the fact remains that the only major vendor to release and fully support open source graphics and wireless drivers on Linux is... Intel. After speaking with Dirk Hohndel, Intel's Chief Linux and Open Source Technologist, it begins to dawn on me that we enjoy the fruits of Intel's labors, often without realizing it. While other vendors release binary blobs for their drivers, Intel has taken the total Open Source approach, with real working drivers available right now.
Perhaps lots of other people are well aware of Intel's contributions and I'm the only one without a clue, but somehow I doubt it. For a quick rundown of Intel's open source contributions, see this list, which I found at Matt Asay's The Open Road blog:
- EFI
- moblin.org
- Harmony
- Linux kernel
- Xen, KVM, UML
- LinuxPowerTop.org
- acpi.sourceforge.net
- openWSMan.org
- OpenAMT.org
- LinuxUWB.org
- LinuxFirmwareKit.org
- IntelLinuxWireless.org
- IntelLinuxGraphics.org
- Mesa
- X.org
- LSB
We are also participating in many other communities like MySQL, Apache, Firefox, and gcc, to name just a few. There are many more. Our goal is to ensure that people using open-source software have a good experience when running it on Intel hardware, so we are touching many different projects.
That's quite a list. I asked Dirk about making more noise about Intel's Open Source efforts. He mentioned the fantastic relationships that they have with so many Open Source projects, and that it's not in Intel's interest to screw them up--and the last thing they want to do is make the developers feel that they're doing Intel's bidding.
While I can understand this, I can't help but think that Intel is missing out a bit. Look at the goodwill that AMD has engendered with their recent announcements. While you could look at that as marketing fluff, I tend to think that the follow-up will be real. As I mentioned to Dirk, as long as you add real value to Open Source projects, no one can accuse you of marketing fluff. Thus, making a big deal out of Intel's contributions is simply making sure that the facts are reported to a wider audience.
While I am forced to admit that there's something refreshing about Intel's understated approach, I tend to think that the correct balance could lean a bit more to the loudspeaker side--without going over the top or hyping vaporware. But what really struck me about this difference in opinion is how much our PR sensibilities are a manifestation of the size of company we work for--Dirk is at Intel, a major multi-zillion dollar corporation that spans the globe. In that context, making hay over something as piddling as moblin.org or some modules in the Linux kernel source repository would appear odd and out of place. In my case, I work at Hyperic, a systems management startup fighting for PR space in a growing market with a lot of action. In my world, you let no PR stone go unturned. So when I hear about the gobs of code churned out by Intel and the fact that Dirk's group lets me run FlightGear at a good clip on my laptop, I'm naturally impressed and cannot understand why there isn't more noise about it.
So, I'll do my little part and hopefully more people will know about Intel's Open Source graphics and wireless drivers. In the meantime, applaud AMD for moving in the right direction and hope they one day reach the point of matching Intel's contributions.
* Source for quotes: Intel Developer Forum, 9/19/2007
For more of John Mark, visit his blog, There Is No Open Source Community.
I think Intel hasn't been getting as much attention as they deserve because the "late repentant" story gets more page hits--Intel's OSS friendliness is taken for granted, but AMD's opening of some of the ATI chipsets is hot stuff.
Personally, however, I always recommend Intel processor, motherboard, wireless, and graphics chipsets to new/potential Linux users concerned about hardware compatibility, especially for laptops. The laptop I'm typing this on, for example, with the exception of the GPU (NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400), is completely Intel-based.
I picked up a Thinkpad T61 recently with Intel video, audio, and wireless specifically because so many people say Intel supports linux well. Unfortunately it has turned out to be anything but. The video sort of works, but has major problems (for example, switching from text to video back to text results in a blank screen, and the back light will not come on after restoring from sleep). The audio (Intel HD) is completely nonfunctional and I have no idea how to fix it. As for wireless, it has been a nightmare. First I tried the iwl3945 driver, and it was terrible (also VERY closed source, with not only a binary blob firmware, but also a binary blob server process), could not get it to work. Then I switched to the iwlwifi and it seems to work so long as I don't need WEP or WAP. All together, the all-Intel approach has not been nearly as good as I was led to believe.
I would not mention EFI and ACPI as "Intel's open-source contributions". The whole idea of these specifications is to bring binary bytecode without corresponding source onto your system and run it there with wide range of possible side-effects.
As to Intel's power-saving initiatives, read a first talkback to this announce, which I sorta agree with : http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2007-09-21-019-26-NW-HW&tbovrmode=3
On the computer at work I installed UBUNTU, and initially I did quite some effort to get the integrated Intel graphics card going, without result. However due to some problems with the Windows partition that somehow managed to damage the filesystem (maybe there was some error committed from my part as well) and I had to reinstall UBUNTU.
With the new version (7.04) the graphics card was supported without problems. Now I am impressing everyone with with beryl/compiz :D.
Thumbs up for Intel!! (and AMD if they keep up the good work)
I'm more inclined to buy from any company that is a good community player with open source. When both are being good players I simply pick the brand who has the technology is currently the best. I've been a long time fan of AMD but I'm currently running Intel Xeon quad-core processors in my servers because in my opinion they are currently the best. If AMD wants to step up and take the top spot again then if they are the best when I build my next server I'll go with them.
If Intel had a really sweet video card I'd be more likely to think about them when video card shopping. I've been a long time Nvidia fan but with AMD/ATI opening up specs my next pimp video card may very well be an ATI card.
To the guy who had issues with the Intel wireless and sound, it is one of those problems where once you solve it the first time, any other time becomes second nature. Until recently, if a distro did not support a machine out of the box more or less, the machine got left by the wayside. However, a recent gift from my nerd wife (I say that with love in the voice) forced me to deal with the exact problems you had, the Intel Wireless 4965ABGN and the newest Intel HDA sound chip. For a step-by-step fix for this go here (and no, this is NOT a troll for hits; my little bubba server wants nor needs hits): http://www.jbcobb.net/sonycr190_debian_howto.html
Yes I too look forward to the day where some steps are unnecessary and that day is coming, make no mistake. Before going the "roll your own" route, I tried a number of distributions before going with Debian; some had working sound but no graphics, some had the opposite, some had both but now wireless. Id you pick our the bits of this howto that addresses your needs, you should be good to go. Email me if you have problems and I will try to help.
Now if only the Intel video card X3100 was good enough for gaming (Doom3) and Second Life, things would be good!
Cheers
Jeff
Jeff C at JBCobb.net
The problem with Intel is that it is in a monopoly position on the desktop and that any moves towards open source drivers is seen as just another way of maintaining its desktop CPU monopoly in an emerging market.
There are other CPU in the marketplace that are better performers and more innovative than the aging x86, but economies of scale make them too expensive to compete except in niche markets like servers, games consoles, or embedded controllers.
The main supporter of Intel's monopoly position is Windows which is tied to the underlying instruction set of the x86. Windows will have to lose at least 40% of its market share before any of these other CPU will have a chance of competing with Intel.
I think Intel has a vested interest in support open-source for one simple reason... Microsoft. Though Intel does produce may ICs that never make it into "main-stream" computers, I'm sure the CPU market is their most lucrative (or at least nearly so) aspect of their business. However, if Windows and Windows applications drive the sales of the new PCs that the CPU's (etc.) go into, you basically have a business that is extremely reliant on a single external company to ensure your sales. Now if only other chip-set manufactures would realize this...
Ensuring that open-source software developers can produce software for Intel hardware helps ensure that multiple forces drive CPU sales. I think it's good that AMD is realizing this fact and making the recently acquired ATI hardware specifications available.
You are right
Intel is and will be the name to say
when talking about hardware companies
supporting open software.
But, you know, the lost boy
hast come back and knock at the door,
everybody is happy.
Even Intel is happy
!!! :)
no one is playing
jealous brother role
I agree that Microsoft must lose a great deal of its market share before suppliers of other more innovative non-x86 CPUs will have a fair chance to compete on the mass-market.
That day however is coming very near now that processors at speeds of 1 GHz are fast enough to run the latest Linux distributions very well, whereas Windows Vista has problems even with dualcore 2 GHz processors and 1 GB of RAM.
From where I am sitting there is not much difference between an Intel x86, AMD, SPARC, MIPS or ARM processor, except for those few x86 only binaries.
Also we shouldn't forget that if it wasn't for Linux Itanium would have been a dead processor, since Microsoft couldn't come up with a decent port and HP-UX looks increasingly old and crufty compared to Linux and Solaris.
Thanks for the link Jeffcobb [it isn't immediately useful to me, but it's a nice howto].
Brian, please take note of how many people are having problems with Intel "High Definition Audio" support under GNU/Linux and note further that Creative Labs no longer make the EMU10K based sound cards that are well supported including hardware mixing and hardware MIDI synthesiser on board. I want to be able to run skip-free sound on modest hardware under GNU/Linux yet am finding it difficult to find new hardware that supports what I want.