Intel to Increase Linux Support, Release Centrino Drivers

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.

Intel gets it IMO

[nonmaskable]

I have used several Intel Linux development products for several years. The C++ compiler, performance primitive library (IPP), and VTUNE are all extremely excellent products, and well supported under Linux.

It would be nice if VTUNE would be brought up to equal footing with VTUNE for Windows, but it's pretty good as is.

Re:Proprietary drivers

[Bobulusman]

I've got that same motherboard. While I haven't fiddled with the other onboard lan card, the onboard 3com one can used with only a vanilla kernel, 2.4.22 or higher. (Don't think it's gotten into the 2.6 series yet) Just use the 3com driver.

Otherwise, haven't had any problems with my board. I'd hardly call it 'craptastic'. I've gotten much better and more reliable performance out of it than my previous boards, while using Windows or Linux.

Re:Proprietary drivers

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

You have a choice, restrict yourself only to hardware that provides open source drivers, use what is made available, or use another OS. Centrino users don't really have the option of demanding open source, if they chose to use the hardware that they want to use. You made the same choice with your video card.

If Intel's choices boil down to "release a binary driver or ignore Linux", which realistically, they do, I'd prefer that they support Linux in any way that they realistically can.

Intel is obligated to its shareholders to protect it's technology. Open source drivers could tip their cards to AMD or some newcomer could gain the upper hand. That is the REALITY of how the hardware business works.

I have had no problem with Nvidia drivers and stability, but I stayed away from the Nforce chipset due to the ongoing support problems it has had.

I too would prefer open source drivers, but I'm not going to threaten to hold my breath until I turn blue just because all they want to give me is binaries.

Re:proprierty drivers

[TrancePhreak]

The problems reside in keeping trade secrets and sometimes even in using licensed code in your drivers. Imagine if you licensed some sort of technology from someone for a cost for use in your drivers. I'm sure they wouldn't be happy if you distributed (for free) their code along with yours since it would be required to compile the code.

Re:proprierty drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

There are issues with regulations: Many WLAN chipsets are within regulation boundaries only due to software control. With a completely open driver, people could use channels which are off-limits for WLAN or boost the signal strength. Many drivers are therefore split into a firmware part which is kept proprietary and executed on the card and a host part which is open and runs on the system processor. Sometimes this is not possible because some chipsets rely on the system processor even for low-level control. Splitting an existing driver into proprietary parts and open parts can take some time too.

Re:Proprietary drivers

[solidox]

there are several PCB revisions of that motherboard, you must of been lucky enuff to get one of the newer ones.
the earlier ones ARE unstable and it's fairly common knowlage that their problematic, especially with linux.

personally i hate nforce chipsets (via for me) and i hate thier gfx cards too (ati for me)

Re:Proprietary drivers

[ThisIsFred]

If you take the proprietary driver, it means that at some point you may not be able to get your work done. That's great that Intel is going to attempt an on-time release for Linux drivers once. But what happens every time the kernel changes? Or some system library changes? Or the compiler changes?

And I'm not blaming Intel for this one either. Hardware installation under Linux is a nightmare of inconsistency. If the shipped kernel doesn't fully support your hardware, good luck! The typical Windows user is still not ready to compile a kernel.

I sort of like what Nvidia does with it's video cards: The 'compile a small kernel interface on-the-spot' type of script. I'm sorry to hear about the fellow with the Nforce chipset problems, but Nvidia's video card drivers are solid.

Re:Proprietary drivers

[damien_kane]

You know, you CAN use the open-source NV-drivers that ship with Xfree. Or you could use the standard VESA-drivers. So it's not like you are forced to use those drivers. I for one haven't had any problems with NV-drivers.

He could; if he was talking about video card drivers. He is not, however.
He is talking about the N-force motherboard chipset drivers.

Re: Proprietary drivers

[Chris Croome]

He was talking about "NVIDIA card". Since when do you call Motherboard "a card"? He was obviously talking about his vid-card

Well actually he was talking about both -- the references about not being able to do net installs with Nvidia motherboards is because the module for running the ethernet card has to be downloaded from Nvidia's web site and complied for the kernel you are using before you can connect to the net via ethernet -- a situation that is really lame and sucky...

Re:Proprietary drivers

[Lussarn]

Right on. Nvidias driver is not "spectacular". I bought the hardware, I expect good drivers which never or very, very seldom crash. None of the opensource drivers for my hardware are unstable. The Nvidia drivers are. Lately they have been better to actully be quite good but they are not worth the $300 I payed for my GFXcard.

2.6 + latest Nvidia haven't given me a crash yet though with lots of OpenGL going.

The driver is of such quality the remaining bugs would be squashed out in a matter of weeks if they where open source. Like it is now they never get "just right".

Re: Proprietary drivers

[10Ghz]

Well, When I installed my Gentoo-box, there were nForce-drivers (forcedeth) right in the Kernel (2.6.3-mm1), so I'm not sure what more do you people want? He then complained how his vid-card was unstable, and I merely suggested that he could use some other drivers. I also mentioned that I haven't had any problems with the NV-drivers.

No-one is being forced to buy NV-hardware. Hell, to be honest, NV is under no obligation to provide Linux-drivers for their hardware AT ALL! Yet they choose to release kick-ass set of drivers, yet people complain.

Would I like it if the drivers were OS? Sure. But I'm not losing any sleep because of it. If you don't like the current situation, feel free to spend your money on hardware that does have OS-drivers available.

Re:I just don't get the idea of the Centrino anywa

[mahdi13]

Centrino is a set of 3 chipsets.
Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor
Intel(R) 855 Chipset Family
Intel(R) PRO/Wireless Network Connection.

These 3 parts make up the Centrino, it's not just the wireless part.
There is already full support for the processor in the 2.6 kernel
The 855 Chipset is also supported
The PRO/Wireless is what this is all about. Intel has been saying that they will be supporting the wireless for the last year and we have not seen a thing. The best chance we have currently is running a wrapper for the Windows drivers, this is not bad but not good either. If Intel can deliver a driver that gives Linux users FULL functionality with the Wireless, I know I will at least be happy.

Re:Proprietary drivers

[bluGill]

Restart X? whatever for? I often run two different X sessions on my system, with different configurations.
startx -- :1
I've also done it with kdm, in fact when I was playing with the kdm source code I had two different versions of kdm running on my machine at once!

Having open-source drivers helps the hardware...

[r6144]

When I bought this new computer in Nov 2003, my options were basically (1) all intel + integrated graphics or nvidia (2) all AMD + nvidia graphics card --- since older ATI cards with full open-source drivers are hard to obtain here, I will not consider them. I chose intel+i845G because it is well supported under linux without all those closed-source driver hassles, although it is quite a bit more expensive than an AMD solution, and the 3D performance advantage of a low-end Geforce4 versus i845G (whose performance is about the state of the art five years ago according to my experience) would be somewhat useful to me. Now, seeing all those people having trouble with nvidia drivers (even though they are probably the best closed-source drivers around), especially those tinkering with new kernels (I am one), I think I have made the right decision.

Therefore, I think the availability of open-source drivers should help the hardware sales quite a bit, in that people like me are willing to accept somewhat worse price-to-performance ratio for a open-source (therefore well-supported) driver. Considering that more and more people are trying to install linux on their desktop, and most distributions are unlikely to include proprietary drivers anytime soon, closed-source drivers will be a significant minus for people planning to install linux on the system.

Don't underestimate the value of having the drivers open-sourced, Intel...

Re:I don't mind the proprietary*(sp) drivers.

[dinivin]

Open source is the way to go for software, but it may not be the best way for hardware.

On the contrary, the opposite is true. Stable and secure hardware drivers are key to a stable and secure system. When I'm running a binary driver, I have no way of knowing what's really going on under the hood. If the driver crashes, so can my whole OS. If a closed source app dies, only that app dies.

Dinivin

Re:Proprietary drivers

[Metasquares]

Not to mention that ATI still doesn't have drivers for their Radeon Mobility cards for Windows, let alone Linux.

Re:Reverse engineer the drivers!

[makapuf]

That's a security problem with Intel hardware don't you think ?

Security through obscurity doesn't work. It's possible to make a safe hardware, so that reverse engineering (as rightfully understood by the EU laws) is applied and legal for compatibility. And even (gasp) open-specced hw.

Even by hardware, I do not mean realy that : software doesn't mean driver OR app OR os, you have firmware too.

Re:Proprietary drivers

[pyros]

That source it's just a middleware between the kernel and the binary driver. It doesn't actually access the hardware at all.

Re: Proprietary drivers

[neurojab]

>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.

Initially I had some trouble with my NForce2 board... it was a replacement for an absolutely horrible VIA chipset board that just crapped out. I too impressed with Ali chipsets either, as that's what I had on my other box. AMD chipsets, though stable are a bit behind. I'm glad to say that although some of the features were a bit lagging in support, it is rock solid and stable. (much unlike the VIA board)

I just installed Linux 2.6.2... it recognized all my hardware and just worked! I'm not using any proprietary drivers (not even for video). Perhaps upcoming distributions will use the 2.6 series and better support NForce.

I'd say that NForce2 presents a fine alternative to VIA for those that need better stability.

Re:Proprietary drivers

[Organized Konfusion]

they live here! [omegacorner.com] Mobility uses the same drivers as the desktop video cards. Somone had the bright idea of changing the ini to let windows install the standard drivers for the mobility cards... and it worked.

Re:Proprietary drivers

[Kobayashi Maru]

Yes, full ahead, yes.

Knowing how novel algorithms work does give you the ability to improve your product. If you think the drivers are just "move this bit over there," you're insane. Both ATI and Nvidia have an enourmous amount of clever code to squeeze out that last FPS.

Giving away their shnazzy algorithm that's three times as fast as any other technique is just dumb, especially in an industry as competitive as the graphics market.

Nvidia playing by the rules here. They're trying to make a buck in the Linux community without resorting to lawsuits. Last I heard, the GPL wasn't supposed to prevent companies from making a profit.

Re:I just don't get the idea of the Centrino anywa

[Anonymous Coward]

Linksys, which is a division of Cisco, sells 802.11g equipment (including the WRT54g router for which they released the Linux based firmware source code).

THIS IS NOT INFORMATIVE.

[Organized Konfusion]

you can download Radeon Mobility drivers from here [omegacorner.com] (click ati radeon link in navigation sidebar)

Re:Proprietary drivers

[hackstraw]

Regarding the 100 -> 300 fps needs for games. I don't know of a monitor with a refresh rate above 125Hz which means that your fps is limited to 125.

But yeah, 300 is better, definitely.

Re: Proprietary drivers

[metamatic]

Funny, I'd say that VIA offers a fine alternative to nVidia for those that need hardware that actually works properly with Linux.

My VIA EPIA system hasn't crashed once, and I just eliminated the last binary-only proprietary driver (the sound driver) now that 2.6 has everything I need working properly in open source form. In fact, VIA made source code and documentation available to developers, and that work is now making its way into the kernel releases.

Re:Legality of these binary drivers?

[nmos]

Either you are making this up or you have a VERY severe reading comprehension problem.. Binary drivers are legal in Linux (acording to Linus) as long as:

A. You take responsibility for dealing with any bugs or incompatabilities that crop up.

B. You don't expect your driver to actually be INCLUDED in the kernel. You'll have to do it your self or convince the Linux distro vendors to do it for you.

It's already working...

[Soli]

Thanks to Pontus Fuchs, Giridhar Pemmasani, Joseph Dunn and others from the ndiswrapper [sourceforge.net] project, I'm actullay posting this from my Thinkpad [ibm.com] using the Centrino Intel wireless network card!

Since I'm running Debian GNU/Linux [debian.org] stable (yes, that's right, I'm on woody), I had to install a newer version of iwconfig and modify my /etc/network/interfaces file to make it work well:

iface wlan0 inet dhcp
pre-up modprobe wlan0 || true
pre-up /usr/local/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 mode managed
pre-up /usr/local/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 enc 1234-789A-EF
pre-up /usr/local/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 essid WIRELESS

Of course, since ndiswrapper use the Windows XP drivers file, it does not resolve the problems about proprietary drivers. But at least, I was not stuck to wait (an eternity) for Intel to release their Linux drivers.

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