

Linux users: watch out for last-gen Intel Atom - Aissen
https://gist.github.com/2925633

======
buster
I can only say the same. Bought a mighty expensive Sony netbook only to figure
out that this integrated PowerVR graphics chip is a total disaster. In Windows
and much more in Linux, where it is 1. a pain to even bring to work and 2. so
slow that it's barely usable.

I must say i am really disappointed by Intel, which (in my oppinion) had and
have great Linux support in their products. But not in this one.

Stay away from Atoms with non-Intel Graphics.

~~~
gcb
you mean, intel, the manufacturer of wifi drivers that only works with binary
blobs? or the manufacturer of GPUs that work wonders with linux because they
have no feature at all?

i wouldn't count them so happily as linux supporters.

~~~
mattst88
Intel was the first vendor to have open source OpenGL 3.0 drivers, and have
really driven Mesa development for the last few years. That hardly feels like
"no features at all."

Disclaimer: I'm starting at Intel on the open source graphics team next month.

~~~
fsniper
So as a professional opinion, what do you think of intel creating unusable,
proprietary software drivers for third party licensed chips?

~~~
mattst88
I don't really know anything about those drivers (they're not handled by the
open source team). No one on the open source team likes them either.

It has seemed to me that using these PVR chips has always been a stop gap
measure for Atom until the in-house graphics were ready (where ready means
sufficiently energy efficient or something). This seems to be confirmed by the
fact that ValleyView graphics are going to be coming to Atom.

------
whacker
Fedora 17 added support to provide gnome3 support even with software
rendering.

See
[http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Gnome_shell_software_...](http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Gnome_shell_software_rendering)

~~~
Symmetry
Nice that it exists, but I wouldn't want to try that with only an Atom CPU.
When you have a low-power CPU like that is exactly when you need graphics
acceleration.

~~~
sciurus
It is reported to be noticeably slow.

<http://blog.bodhizazen.net/linux/fedora-17-gma500-poulsbo/>

~~~
whacker
Don't know about speed. I think the mere fact that it works on vmware vm
framebuffer is amazing!

------
willvarfar
Which is a shame, because at a hardware level I've always liked Imagination's
tech.

Wish Imagination would solve this problem by open-sourcing some proper
drivers.

Because most of the performance woes will be bad driver integration, and world
will be wowed by a decent driver making the SGX punch, as it does, above its
weight.

------
dexen
There used to be a pretty decent Linux driver for PowerVR Kyro and Kyro 2 GPUs
back in the day†. I wonder if it could be updated to the current breed of
chips.

† I recall playing Quake 3 Arena on it on Linux, with framerate matching or
exceeding Windows'.

------
dbbolton
Before this, I had never thought of Gist as a legitimate blogging platform.

------
mappu
"It hit the market during the last few weeks." is inaccurate, these chips have
been around for a while (although my country just got more stock recently) and
Phoronix covered this as it happened.

These chips don't even have gpu drivers for Windows 7 x64. You have to run the
32-bit version, which is strange since the boards all support >4GB ram.

Another interesting thing to note is that the D2700 _is already EOL'd_ [1] - i
don't know when this happened exactly, but it can't have had more than 6
months on the market - and Intel have extended embedded production on the
previous generation 5xx chips(?).

1\. <http://ark.intel.com/products/59683/>

------
baq
you just need to ask one question: who is the most important customer of
imagination technologies? hint: it's not intel and it shows.

------
zvrba
As far as I've understood this article, the relevant source is available. So
what's the problem? Why should Intel spend time and resources to integrate it
with the mainstream, esp. if this is a short-lived processor family?

~~~
Aissen
Don't get me wrong. Intel is free to do whatever it sees fit. And Linux users
and enthousiasts are free to buy or not to buy Intel-based hardware. As long
as they are well-informed, which is the purpose of this post.

~~~
eswangren
Yeah, it's just too bad that Intel > AMD in terms of chip performance / $
right now.

~~~
wmf
Not in this market segment. AFAIK, Brazos > Atom in both CPU and GPU and AMD
is usually cheaper.

------
fsniper
Intel is becoming more evil everyday. They did not learn from Poulsbo fiasco
or they really do not care about Linux users.

By the way, isn't atom all about Linux

~~~
wmf
It's not evil, it's just lazy. Atom is a low-cost chip and they can't spend
zillions developing it. They needed a small GPU and it was much cheaper to
license PowerVR than to design a new GPU. (I guess Intel's GPU is not that
area-efficient or something.)

~~~
fsniper
I'm not against them to license a simple, low power consumption chip. But The
evil is creating proprietary and unusable software drivers. If it was only
laziness the could just license enough driver code to be open sourced. The
Linux ecosystem is capable enough to hand over development from there.

~~~
wmf
No, the Linux ecosystem is not capable. Look at the open source Radeon and
Noveau drivers; they're way behind their proprietary counterparts. Also,
Imagination refuses to publish PowerVR documentation and it's not clear that
they'd even allow open source developers to access the docs under NDA.

------
rfugger
I've learned the hard way to stay a year or two behind the curve on hardware
to avoid Linux compatibility issues.

~~~
sciurus
That wouldn't have helped in this case. The Poulsbo chipset launched in 2008,
and (unaccelerated) GMA500 support was only merged into Linux in the 3.3
kernel in May 2012.

------
pjmlp
This just goes to show how companies only support Linux with half heart and as
long as it somehow fulfills their agenda.

Intel which is supposed to be a good citizen does not think twice when it
comes to betray Linux support, and the same can be said for any other company.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Which is who's fault? If everybody has trouble with the time, effort, expense
of supporting linux, perhaps its linux that is the problem. I'm not a linux
user, ever since my introduction to it several years ago. Bought up-to-date
computers for my team. Linux fan suggested we develop on linux. Tried it -
disaster. Didn't support video chip, raid controller, even all the memory.
Open office tools crashed. First doc I imported displayed in upper-left corner
of the screen, every character in the file in one big spiderey blob.

We expunged linux, booted Windows(!), it asked for drivers ("Have disk?" Yes!)
and everything up and running in minutes.

And we were developing new Infiniband code FOR LINUX! For testing we ran a
virtual machine booting linux - that worked of course.

Moral: until Linux has a "Have disk" button, I don't see it deploying
successfully on production machines. In a hobbyists garage, sure. But not
mainstream. For all the reasons listed in other posts here.

~~~
freehunter
_until Linux has a "Have disk" button_

This would work only _if_ you could get Linux drivers on a disk. There's a
better solution that both Linux and Windows have had for years: put the
drivers in a repo. Vista and 7 will grab drivers from their repository and
install them automatically. Linux does the same. But only _if_ the
manufacturer _has_ drivers for it.

 _Bought up-to-date computers for my team. Linux fan suggested we develop on
linux. Tried it - disaster. Didn't support video chip, raid controller, even
all the memory. Open office tools crashed. First doc I imported displayed in
upper-left corner of the screen, every character in the file in one big
spiderey blob._

That's the problem, there was no driver support. That's not the fault of
Linux, that's the fault of companies not making drivers for Linux. If the
hardware maker supplies Linux drivers, they're installed automatically while
the system is installing, seamlessly.

 _I don't see it deploying successfully on production machines_

Then you're blind, because it's on millions of production machines around the
world. We're a Windows shop and even we have hundreds of Linux servers and
desktops.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Sure, servers have an extremely limited ecosystem of apps/services, you can
get a handle on installation and support, even hardware. But try to corral a
bunch of developers or home users. The interoperability matrix explodes.

Compare your 'millions' with the what, half a billion Windows machines, and
you make the point very well.

~~~
freehunter
_you make the point very well._

I think you make my point just as well, you're just directing blame at the
wrong people. The problem you and I both see is a lack of Linux drivers.
Rather than blaming the Linux developers though, I'm blaming the people
responsible for making their drivers Windows-only, as well as making them
closed-source binaries so Linux developers cannot make it work on their own.

