Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a “no Linux” zone | Hacker News Reader

Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a “no Linux” zone

arstechnica.com

25 pointswglb11 comments

The current-generation Cedar Trail Atom also has issues with Linux. It will run but there are no video drivers so you are stuck with VESA graphics.

It's not just Linux either, it doesn't have video drivers for 64-bit Windows. Even though Cedar Trail is a 64-bit chip it is stuck running 32-bit Windows.

Ars is usually so good that I thought I would find insights into Imagination Tech's PowerVR GPU or at least _something_ to rationalize the disconnect between Intel's usually great linux support and Clover Trail.

The mention power management but not GPU power management or GPU anything. Huh?

Blogspam of http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2205462/idf-intel-s...

which was posted on HN 9 hours ago.

HackerNews thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4520473

I read this as "low-level employee with no authority to speak for the company says dumb thing at conference."

I think most of the issue will disappear when intel issues a clarification. I suspect they meant that linux support wasn't currently available in the kernel for chip level features.

I wish that people would double check with someone higher up when they hear a quote that's too good to be true.

Why would they put "no linux" in quotes? I didn't see anybody in the source or source's parent that mentions "no linux".

I hereby declare my workspace a No-Intel zone!

(Of course, I must admit my workspace was a no-Intel zone even before the release of the Clover Trail processor.)

... thus prompting hackers worldwide to quickly create a version of Linux that will run on the Clover Trail Atom processor. Just to piss them off.

The conspiracy theorist in me wants to believe that this statement was actually a calculated move by Intel, designed to goad Linux hackers into getting the OS to support these features sooner.

Linux can already run on the processor, it's just x86.

The processor was built with new windows kernel features that allow the OS to issue "hints" to allow the processor to make use of special power states.

Basically if you use it with Windows (for which it was designed), you'll get good battery life.

If you use it with Linux, you'll get poor battery life because none of the advanced features exist in the Linux kernel.

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