Intel Kills Clear Linux OS As Support Ends Without Warning (nerds.xyz) 48
BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Intel has quietly pulled the plug on Clear Linux OS, officially ending support for the once-promising Linux distribution that it had backed for nearly a decade. Effective immediately, the company says it will no longer provide any updates, security patches, or maintenance for the operating system. In a final blow, the Clear Linux OS GitHub repository is now archived in read-only mode.
The move was announced with little fanfare, and for users still relying on Clear Linux OS, there's no sugarcoating it... you need to move on. Intel is urging everyone to migrate to an actively maintained Linux distribution as soon as possible to avoid running unpatched software. "Rest assured that Intel remains deeply invested in the Linux ecosystem, actively supporting and contributing to various open-source projects and Linux distributions to enable and optimize for Intel hardware," the company said in a statement. "A heartfelt thank you to every developer, user, and contributor who helped shape Clear Linux OS over the last 10 years. Your feedback and contributions have been invaluable."
The move was announced with little fanfare, and for users still relying on Clear Linux OS, there's no sugarcoating it... you need to move on. Intel is urging everyone to migrate to an actively maintained Linux distribution as soon as possible to avoid running unpatched software. "Rest assured that Intel remains deeply invested in the Linux ecosystem, actively supporting and contributing to various open-source projects and Linux distributions to enable and optimize for Intel hardware," the company said in a statement. "A heartfelt thank you to every developer, user, and contributor who helped shape Clear Linux OS over the last 10 years. Your feedback and contributions have been invaluable."
I just installed it! (Score:2)
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I'm sad now. That is all.
Does/did it have any special features? Why did you choose it?
Re:I just installed it! (Score:5, Informative)
Sure. Got a new PC last month to play with (simulations/computations). Thought I would try a Linux optimized for modern hardware, instead of trusty old Debian (which I normally use).
Clear Linux was attractive because it's stateless and container friendly, and the system libraries are (were!) tuned with high performance compiler flags.
I'm a user of math, so I care about BLAS, MKL, AVX instructions etc, not so much games and desktop bling.
I had literally just learned to use it and set it up with my favourite software configuration... Oh well:)
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You probably know this already, so please don't take this as an insult if you do, but just in case: Rest assured you can probably port most or all of what you liked about the Clear Linux optimizations to any other distro fairly easily. Intel no doubt realized this too, and it was probably a key part of the decision to end their own distro. If the summary is to be believed, you may not even have to bother, because the relevant optimizations may be making their own way to your next favorite distro too..
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Not an insult at all.
The issue of optimizations is difficult to solve globally, due to the large variation in hardware out there. A distro like Debian (hence all derivatives) or SUSE (etc) has the task of running unchanged on a lowest common denominator architecture. That prevents the binary packages from being compiled with full optimizations. Otherwise, there will be users who can't run the binaries.
The best solution is probably what Gentoo does, compiling everything on the box, but this is unacceptab
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Gentoo is always an option. funroll forever!
Also in practice, most things aren't CPU bound. If you're doing any heavily computational stuff it's probably a relatively small number of packages which could be rebuilt.
You keep using that word. I don't think it means w (Score:2)
"Your feedback and contributions have been invaluable."
Were they invaluable? Now they are zero.
Re: You keep using that word. I don't think it mea (Score:2)
Re: You keep using that word. I don't think it mea (Score:5, Informative)
"Penultimate" isn't a synonym for "ultimate"—it means the thing before the ultimate. Likewise we have penumbra for the blurry edge of a shadow (umbra). This results in some truly special words like "antepenult," meaning "the thing before the thing before the final thing," commonly used when discussing where the stress/accent falls in a Greek or Latin word.
"Invaluable" does indeed mean "not able to be valued" when analyzed morphologically, but the standard usage of it is indicating something is beyond value, i.e. infinitely or inestimably valuable. A value of zero is still a value, after all.
"Inflammable" however actually means "able to be inflamed," as in "put in flame" or "set on fire." The confusion comes from assimilation of the Latin preposition "in" (which we have as "in" or "on") instead of the more typical prefix "in-" (which demarcates negation.) You don't have to look very far for other words where "in" doesn't mean "not": indicate, inherit, imply, investigate, indict, involve...
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English doesn't need confusing synonyms, we relish them!
It's a very mongrel language, based on a Germanic grammar, a large number of Norman French imported words, then we just started grabbing vocabulary from every available source. Also we spent about 600 years with educated people obsessing about the purity of Latin and trying to impose Latin rules on a Germanic language. There have repeatedly been attempts at imposing regularity, none have worked.
Funny things about genders though is they are in the middl
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No, the confusion comes from the fact that "inflammable" has a perfectly good synonym - flammable, which is
Re: You keep using that word. I don't think it mea (Score:2)
Intel value is also falling, they cut costs and side projects to survive.
Share prices doesn't always reflect actual value.
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"Your feedback and contributions have been invaluable."
Were they invaluable? Now they are zero.
Guessing pretty much everyone fired not-for-cause has heard that line and felt that.
I'd never heard of this distro, in truth (Score:2)
But still - I imagine they had a non-trivial number users who bought in just because of the Intel name. Poor saps.
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You could run gentoo. heh heh. Or LFS, hahahaha.
You could build linux and libc with processor-specific flags.
You know this is not the first time Intel made an Intel-specific Linux and then abandoned it, right?
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Re: I'd never heard of this distro, in truth (Score:2)
Couldn't you just, you know, fork off a new distribution from the sources and keep it going? I'm positive the users that are dependent on this very particular Linux distribution would happily donate their time and money to the cause...
Or just switch to Red Hat, or Ubuntu, or...
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I'm positive the users that are dependent on this very particular Linux distribution would happily donate their time and money to the cause...
All three of them? (I would have said two, but we have one here.)
Or just switch to Red Hat, or Ubuntu, or...
Sure, or a good distribution.
Re: I'd never heard of this distro, in truth (Score:2)
That's cute, you think they had a non-trivial user base... how precious.
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In truth hey? Never heard of it? You didn't comment on this story 3 times: https://linux.slashdot.org/sto... [slashdot.org]
Or do you just comment without ever reading what a story is about?
Unsurprising (Score:2)
And nothing was lost? (Score:3)
I am pretty connected in the Linux news/user space. Everything I run at home, work, for friends, user group, etc for decades is Linux. Servers, desktops, laptops, appliances, virtualized, embedded, you name it. I have never seen *ANYONE* say they have used, had interest in, or have even seen Clear Linux in use anywhere.
I am guessing it didn't really have much impact.
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I've never heard of it until now. Intel did a better job of killing it by supporting it. But then that's true of many things.
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Really? Never heard of it? So you didn't post this comment https://linux.slashdot.org/com... [slashdot.org]
Re: And nothing was lost? (Score:2)
Apparently may /. readers have strong opinions about something they never heard of before the story was published - how odd...
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I've been using Linux at home and work since 1999, supported clients with over a dozen distros back when I worked at a VAR... and I never heard of this one.
huh, so it came out in 2015.didn't last long eh. a passing fart in the wind
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Clear Linux wasn't so much about being used. It was a demonstration of optimisation for Intel's hardware specifically. What made it into that distro helped make others better. You probably have "used" it and don't even know.
Right timing (Score:2)
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Perhaps a reading comprehension mishap has occurred here, but there is no rational way to read this such that it should contribute to your decision. Failing to support Linux is not an option Intel has 2025, and dropping Clear Linux OS does not indicate that they're doing this.
Re: Right timing (Score:2)
Intel doesn't make motherboards anymore, but apparently your architecture decision was based on their corporate support for a Linux distribution you never even heard of until you read this story? That's amazing - I choose my systems based on price, performance, and if they include integrated graphics and an OEM cooler, but hey - you do you...
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So I'm interested in how this impacts your decision? Are you choosing the company who just dropped their Linux distro, or the company that never had one in the first place?
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Clear Linux enjoyed performance benefits even on AMD hardware. To the extent that it had any benefit over other Linux distros.
Second Verse, Same as the Frist (Score:2)
I put Moblin [wikipedia.org] on my Acer Aspire, it was lovely. Guess how that story ends, hint, it actually involves the death of another Linux distribution that it took down with it.
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It's why I wouldn't have run this one even if I had heard of it. I really liked Moblin, but it wouldn't run on anything non-Intel anyway, so I never put it on anything else. I think I might actually have that Acer still, but I do not use it.
I am waiting for another AMD-based PC to come in the mail right now, a mini with a 5825U — the last AMD notebook/minipc processor I could find with really low consumption, 15W... And I have a Zen3 desktop too, so I can share optimized binaries between the systems.
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I've been a Debian user for 25+ years, never had complaints (except for the systemd switcheroo, which still bugs me, and the fact that the distro incremental upgrades fail every 10 years or so, requiring a complete reinstall).
I'm with you on low power minipcs, I like to leave them headless running 24/7 and login using chromebooks. Keeps the system clean for simulations and calculations which is what I mainly care about. The Chromebooks are just ultra cheap and convenient web browsing appliances for me, I
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My hope is that it will make sense to switch to using this new minipc for my interface, and to leave it running for long-running tasks. I have a 5900X desktop with a Nvidia card that I'm tired of dealing with video driver problems with. Speaking of Debian updates, I run Devuan. The main install on the system is an update from the prior version, and my fresh "recovery" install on another disk has no video driver problems...
welp (Score:1)
I think it was the one-two gut punch... (Score:2)
I think it was the one-two gut punch of Colbert being cancelled and CPB/NPR losing federal funding - the lead developers keeps out of their moms basement to find out what happened, and their hands slipped on the handrail from too much caked-on Cheetos dust and they crashed thru the stairs, trapped until rescue workers come to rebuild/reinforce the stairs...
Or, Intel was tired of throwing money down a hole for an OS no one cared about or used to any great extent.
Definitely one of the two choices above.
Archived, so what, fork it (Score:2)
In a final blow, the Clear Linux OS GitHub repository is now archived in read-only mode.
Irrelevant, fork it.
Distrowatch description (Score:3)
Clear Linux is a minimal distribution primarily designed with performance and cloud use-cases in mind. The operating system upgrades as a whole rather than using individual packages. Extra software can be added to the system (along with associated dependencies) using pre-compiled bundles which can be accessed through the distribution's swupd software manager
Archived in read-only mode!!! (Score:2)
archived in read-only mode
Archived in read-only mode? Pfffffft! For a free software program that is the same as still online. Clone, fork, continue at will. Might have to file off some trademarks if any have been unconscionably inserted.