[HN Gopher] Intel acquires Linutronix ___________________________________________________________________ Intel acquires Linutronix Author : HieronymusBosch Score : 156 points Date : 2022-02-23 14:45 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (community.intel.com) (TXT) w3m dump (community.intel.com) | caleb-allen wrote: | Intel seems to be making all the right moves. I'm excited to see | what Pat Gelsinger can do over the next 5 years (I'm long INTC). | bastardoperator wrote: | After working directly with Intel and AMD engineers, my money | is on AMD. The amount of planning they're doing is nothing | short of incredible. | colinmhayes wrote: | Intel is currently worth less than AMD even though Intel's | profit is quite a bit higher than AMDs entire revenue. I | recognize that Intel has huge problems to solve but they | absolutely seem undervalued currently. | noahmasur wrote: | A quick search shows INTC market cap is 184B and AMD is 135B. | AMD is worth 73% of Intel. | tyrfing wrote: | They are both a bit over 180B, that AMD number is prior to | the XLNX acquisition which was done by issuing stock. | colinmhayes wrote: | My quick google search shows AMDs cap at 183B. So maybe not | more valuable, but equally. Apparently AMD was worth more | yesterday though https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amd-is-now- | worth-more-than-ri... | ZetaZero wrote: | As of a few minutes ago... AMD: 181.86B INTC: 183.97B | cinntaile wrote: | AMD is way more nimble than Intel though, since they're | fabless. | missedthecue wrote: | This seems like a strategic drawback. | cinntaile wrote: | Why? Plenty of chip companies are fabless. Apple is | fabless, Nvidia is fabless. | caleb-allen wrote: | Neither Apple nor Nvidia compete with TSMC, while Intel | does | cinntaile wrote: | The argument was that being fabless is a strategically | bad move. I don't see how Intel competing with TSMC | refutes that? What am I missing here? | justin66 wrote: | Intel competing with TSMC will not be a problem for Intel | or TSMC until the chip shortage is well and truly behind | us. | pkulak wrote: | And I'm more nimble than both because I'm fabless and | designless. | madspindel wrote: | This seems like a strategic drawback. | dotancohen wrote: | That puts them more at the mercy of their suppliers. | Replace "nimble" with "not in control". | mhh__ wrote: | Intel have been making balls-out plays (i.e. they could've | just sold the fab business and MBA-ed themselves to death) | and making good money but their stock is 30% or so down from | last year so I am inclined to agree. | | They'll never have a run like they did from Nehalem through | to Zen's launch, but I think they're about to prove that they | still have it and that they know how to sell chips. | ho_schi wrote: | MBA-ed to deadth _hehe_ | | German "Tod durch BWLer". | | If a company suffered from this it is IBM. They sold | they're hardware business with long term earnings and the | entry path to many customers was lost. Now there is Red Hat | with the IBM-Letter attached to it. At least we see | improving support for ThinkPads through Red Hat. Apple, | Microsoft, Amazon instead invested in hardware with | software. Siemens is another exampled for dead by MBA, | thanks for ruining Siemens Nixdorf. How you can even think | about focusing a company on one single market with a | "Profit Center", you loss the broad base and flexibility. | No other part can sustain you till you adapt to a change. | dmead wrote: | But they have mba'd themselves to death. | xadhominemx wrote: | Not really. Intel's two core issues are engineering | failures -- process technology and processor architecture | dmead wrote: | I have a basis peak in my desk that says otherwise. | xadhominemx wrote: | Has nothing to do with Intel's problems | Symmetry wrote: | Are they having architecture issues? I guess I could | criticize them for too-aggressively pursuing small | microachitectural advantages leading to failures like | Meltdown and making them spend more engineering-years | than AMD for products that aren't that much better but, | baring Meltdown, the end architectural results have been | pretty good. My gripes would all be with the process, | management decisions about how to respond to the process | problem, or fusing off features for product segmentation | reasons. | xadhominemx wrote: | By architecture, I'm referring to trade offs then made | for single thread performance vs core count and memory | channels | cinntaile wrote: | AMD spun off their fab business, they didn't MBA themselves | to death so I'm not sure why that's the only possible end | result you see? | happycube wrote: | The bad CEO (Hector Ruiz) who probably _would_ have done | it left, and AMD eventually got a much much better CEO | (Lisa Su). | simpsond wrote: | I agree they are undervalued. That said, AMD is growing | quickly in terms of earnings, and intel is not. I think it's | a matter of time and impeccable execution before Intel is | winning again. | MisterPea wrote: | Same and also long INTC - Pat has been known for a while to be | a very competent leader. I think the vertical integration that | intel has will be extremely valuable in the next decade. | bestouff wrote: | Their current CPU-features-as-a-service marketing push doesn't | look like a right move to me. | cma wrote: | For nvidia, in the datacenter, they made all the features of | most cards a service you can't buy, and it paid off big for | them. | mrtweetyhack wrote: | caslon wrote: | It's probably the right move financially. People love to pay | more for less. Prebuilt desktop, server and cloud companies | have built businesses around that concept. | | The average person is undereducated and easily parted from | their money. It's a lot easier to make a bad product that | appeals to them and get half the market for free than it is | to make a good product and try to appeal to the best. | kodah wrote: | Calling the cloud "less" in terms of return is certainly a | take. Writing software in a DC was pretty miserable, | managing the systems in a DC while having zero control over | provisioning, having to file tickets, sending endless | emails, and dealing with single lane DCs with little to no | redundancy was particularly miserable. | | The cloud has a lot of flaws, and I do think we'll end up | back in DCs again, but it'll be different this time. | Companies will have to have redundant internet providers, | they'll have to provide APIs as opposed to helpdesks, | they'll have to implement a redundant internal structure | that scales well, storage will demand options. All of these | things existed before the cloud, but became expectations | when the cloud hit the market. That's why a lot of | companies moved and I doubt they see it as "less". | caslon wrote: | Companies are generally stupid, because any group large | enough regresses to the median of its members, or worse, | the _average_ of its C-Levels. I 'm sure they don't | consciously see the cloud as less, but that's still the | selling point; it's why they value it. | bee_rider wrote: | Is it rented or is it just pay-to-permanently-unlock. | | Paying to permanently unlock a feature might not be so bad. | And forcing extensions to justify their price might not be | the worst thing. And this might let them get the "nobody is | paying for avx-512" signal a little faster than spinning up a | billion slightly different SKUs. | barkingcat wrote: | Wouldn't that be exactly the right thing to do if you want to | minimize physical sku's and maximize sales? | | as far as the user is concerned, if they put deactivated | silicon on a chip, and can hit the power envelope targets, | then it's like it wasn't there at all... | eptcyka wrote: | They can produce more chips from the same wafer if they | just produce smaller chips. I think doing this is stupid in | the long run. | jvanderbot wrote: | OK, I get the worry around software-enabled CPU features. I | really do. But what evidence do we have that Intel is pushing | it specifically for renting those features out vs price | differentiation at purchase time (which has been their model | forever) | dannyw wrote: | Like it or not, that's probably where the industry will be in | 5 years. You might not like it, but X-as-a-service make way | more money for the company, and shareholders. | | It'll probably look like this: buy a 'cheap' Intel CPU for | $99 (say, 4P, 12E cores clocked at 2 GHz), with "Turbo" to | 4.5 GHz being a $79/year subscription and "Extreme Turbo Max" | to 5.1 GHz being an additional $35/year. First year free, of | course, to get you hooked on the 'turbo' speeds. | | Intel would be able to capture ~97% of those proceeds; | instead of having to pay XX% to the distributor and retailer. | | Would consumers revolt? Some might, but the masses will click | 'Buy Now' with a $99 sticker price versus competitor | offerings at $400; give it one financial year and AMD's board | will force them to follow suit. | bnjms wrote: | I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that this type of | future will lead to literal class warfare. I believe | whatever the next punk movement is will be reactionary | against this type of lock-in; cultural and economic. | | Maybe we should talk about making certain business plans | illegal. | pdimitar wrote: | You are forgetting two things: | | - Apple. They charge premium for their hardware but don't | make you pay to use extra features of the CPU/GPU. And a | lot of common folk already love the 8GB M1 Air and buy it | in droves. It's going to last them 7 years easily, if not | 10. | | - Most people hold on to their computers with a death grip | until it can't boot anymore. I have a friend who just two | months ago finally replaced a laptop with 1.5GB RAM and | 180GB HDD. He used it for 13-15 years. | | Both of these mean that Intel and AMD can find themselves | with 30% of their previous sales or less, if they try to | force the CPU-features-as-a-service thing. | | They can only stretch the "you're not the target audience | of these new machines" trope only to a certain extent. | | Common consumers getting indifferent and holding on to | their existing tech is a real market force. | | Having to "hold on until the market adapts" might become | too big a pill to swallow for Intel / AMD shareholders. | tyrfing wrote: | Much less likely than just selling enterprise features, | which is particularly common for networking companies | selling stuff like ports "on demand". The trend is towards | a lot more accelerators and specialty features (AXV512, | AMX, HBM-related), which aren't going to have universal | demand, charging for them separately might allow for fewer | SKUs (lower unit costs) without charging everyone for | features they don't want. | | Considering the consumer market at a CPU level makes very | little sense, almost everyone just buys a device | manufactured by an intermediate company. | robotnikman wrote: | Damn, the future of personal computing gets more depressing | every day. | echelon wrote: | The market economy has discovered this path and is | allowing it. | | - iPhone you can't freely distribute software to (and | Android makes it sufficiently difficult that only 0.01% | of users can do it, so we may as well count them in too) | | - infrastructure giants that turn open source services | into paid platforms and then accrete all developer | mindshare | | - thin clients replacing thick clients. Workloads will | move from desktop computers to the cloud. No need for a | beefy computer to run software locally. More moat for the | platforms since tools won't develop for a small market of | hobbyists. | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | _> Android makes it sufficiently difficult that only | 0.01% of users can do it,_ | | That's BS. My mom installed f-droid by herself and can | install apps from APKs without any help. | | It's not like you gotta root your phone, use ADB, or | break out the CLI for that. All you have to do is tap | Install when prompted, that's it. OMG, so complex, only | 0.01% of users can tap Install in F-droid. /s | echelon wrote: | Purely anecdotal. It sounds like your mom is pretty tech | savvy, thorough. | | F-droid is less popular than Unix on the desktop. They | don't publish any stats, but as a proxy, their Twitter | account only has 10k followers and their forums receive | fewer than ten posts a day. | | Google trends shows "Ubuntu vs f-droid" dwarfing the | latter term to the point there's no signal at all. | Perhaps that's an unfair comparison, but I was expecting | it to be closer. | moonchrome wrote: | That makes no sense - you would just buy the ultra cheap | unlocked model each year. Also how do you justify paying | for a boost when the next gen is faster and an incremental | price increase. | missedthecue wrote: | That's just leasing, which unlike SaaS, is not a new | business model. It's been around for thousands of years, | and there are a lot of problems with it. How do you repo | from a non-paying account for instance? With a SaaS, their | account is automatically turned off. This isn't the case | when leasing out an actual physical product. | dannyw wrote: | Intel Management Engine. | missedthecue wrote: | Sure you can remotely disable it, but unless you get the | chip back, you've lost it, and you'd have been better off | selling it anyway. | jacobr1 wrote: | Depends upon the default rate. It might still make sense | even accounting for the losses. Especially if the upfront | fees cover the marginal manufacturing costs. | MangoCoffee wrote: | that's a very dark future for personal computer. its | already suck with Windows to pay for different level of OS | features. | | if Intel go this route then i'm glad that Apple paved the | way to use ARM for personal computer. | | i bought a mac mini w/M1 and it was amazing. i can code | .Net with jetbrains's rider without a problem, run multiple | apps and play Hearthstone, all on 8gb of RAM. | | i hope to see RISC-V for personal computer in the near | future. | feanaro wrote: | > Like it or not, that's probably where the industry will | be in 5 years. You might not like it, but X-as-a-service | make way more money for the company, and shareholders. | | Do _you_ like it? | | I kind of hate this modern trend of taking the most | dystopian possible kind of future as something completely | inevitable and normal. | tediousdemise wrote: | This will suck until enthusiasts figure out how to | jailbreak the processors to unlock maximum speeds. | exikyut wrote: | I would _not_ like to order my dystopian cyberpunk future | from IBM 's or Oracle's or Microsoft's mail order | catalogues, please. | | IIUC, you needed to license each individual core of IBM's | POWER servers. And then license the exact set of software | features you needed enabled. | | I don't think I need to talk about Oracle licensing. | | I only recently learned (aww, can't re-find the comment) | that Microsoft volume licensing in enterprise charges a | seat license for Macs not running Windows. | | This feels like an even more depressed reinvention of that. | Me not want. | formerly_proven wrote: | Enterprise licensing is a tarpit of unimaginable | fuckedness. | | The most ridiculous kind of licensing I've ever seen is | an application (for data compression) where "how many | bytes did it save" has to be accounted because it's one | of the main ways the license fees are calculated. | | And of course the usual insanity with twenty different | portals (one for every other president, and about as old) | per vendor, disjoint logins, human-in-the-loop | verification and so on. | jfoutz wrote: | OOOHHH! kinda curious, if I create a byte stream that's | larger when compressed, do they pay me? | imglorp wrote: | That trick might work for home desktop due to the short | sight bug in human consumers (mostly gamers?), but does it | make sense for server? It seems like a bunch of potential | liabilities for a cloud host or data center operator. This | is basically DRM for CPU and as such, its primary function | is to stop working when all the business rules don't line | up right. | dr_zoidberg wrote: | They tried it for home desktop ~10 years ago and had to | back down: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Upgrade_Service | exikyut wrote: | _[ Sad mumbling about the ten year gap between United | States vs. Microsoft Corp (2001) and the Chromebook | (2011) ]_ | | (In all seriousness, I just googled both of them for the | first time as I typed the above to check the dates | expecting it to be like 15 years or something. I honestly | wasn't expecting... a small whiplash moment. Ow.) | svnt wrote: | It will be interesting to see how it transfers from the | consumer to the B2B arena but it gives them more latitude | with price, which can only help them if they use it | properly. | | It wouldn't surprise me if it flips the other way in B2B | and they sell contracts for X years of Y teraflops | instead of individual chips with fragile DRM on extra | pieces. | zxspectrum1982 wrote: | It sure makes sense on the server-side. That's been IBM's | business model for mainframes for half a century. | ianmcgowan wrote: | That's true, I had to pay IBM in the 90's for a CPU | upgrade where they just dial in, change a config, and | poof-more CPU. It was completely infuriating and one | reason we migrated to HPUX. The hardware support from IBM | was amazing though - the techs are very well trained and | show up with basically another mainframe in the van and | start swapping parts until things work. | technofiend wrote: | Dude, Sun in their heyday offered a similar service that | allowed you to online more CPUs as needed. As I recall HP | tried to as well. I mean sling all the hash you want at | IBM, but at some point midrange people tried to do the | same thing and for the same reasons - making it easy to | capture every last bit of revenue and less enticing for | you to switch platforms. | bombcar wrote: | It's strange how paying for an upgrade where they swap a | part feels much better than a _faster_ upgrade they can | do remotely. | | Yet with software we don't much blink (though I suppose | people DO like to see at least some download after they | click Pay). | landemva wrote: | IBM support was great. OTA CPU upgrade is convenient. | | A while back suffered with HPUX hardware software not | dialed in. Was painful slow working through issues with | HP. | detaro wrote: | Not just mainframes, on POWER servers they offer the | same. | cptskippy wrote: | > but does it make sense for server? | | Typically in Server/Enterprise the licensing is self- | report and audit or activation model. I think the | activation model would probably apply here quite easily. | phkahler wrote: | >> Their current CPU-features-as-a-service marketing push | doesn't look like a right move to me. | | That was bothering me a bit too, but then I realized it may | have a use that most of us don't care about. Sure they could | charge more for AVX512 or whatever, and they might try to | charge rent for such options which I'm not a fan of. But what | if they are being asked by 3-letter agencies for chips with | custom circuitry that would be relatively low volume, | somewhat annoying to produce? If it's not too much area they | could just add those features to every CPU and only enable | them for those agencies via SDSi interface. Just speculation | in a direction that is IMHO less awful than excess | monetization. | svnt wrote: | This is already a standard practice and wouldn't require | changing their business model. | lisper wrote: | It also wouldn't require a public announcement. | danuker wrote: | How does it bother you less, assuming that 3-letter | agencies can access parts of CPUs that you can't? | | If anything, it bothers me more! Why would they get special | treatment, and why would I have to subsidize its features | paying for my CPU to have it, but disabled? | exikyut wrote: | FWIW, IIUC the binning process that designates chips as | Core, Xeon, Pentium etc series ultimately sources parts | from a common set of conveyor belts, identifying final | designations using QC processes that further subclassify | against what parts of a chip do not work correctly. So if | say the AVX512 unit in a single core doesn't pass muster | an entire die might go in the "doesn't have AVX512" bin | and then get marketed appropriately; or perhaps (uncited | speculation) a chip that fails the test suite for a Xeon | E3 might get rebranded as a Core i3 instead. | | I do wonder what percentage of this classification | process is driven by process yield and how much is driven | by volume quota requirements. I wouldn't be surprised to | learn that this is an area of careful optimization; for | all I know the entire silicon portfolio just ships the | process yield org chart. | | But all this means the user-facing FLAGS in the chip | under the keyboard I'm typing this comment on is the | result of a fuse configuration (aka policy), rather than | a 1:1 representation of the potential of the photomask, | and there are very likely a few micrometers worth of | functionality I'll never get to use. | | Of course I'm very curious if this is because the | disabled areas were faulty (optimal use of manufacturing | potential) or because *shrug* The Manufacturing Computer | needed to meet its quota of Core i5s that day (arguably | optimal fulfillment of volume potential). (Then there's | the argument of disabling feature X across all cores for | consistency, hmph.) But this is all firmly out in the | weeds of implementation minutiae, and way beyond | reasonable optimization; I have no idea what's | theoretically broken in my CPU - and whether re-enabling | that functionality explicitly to torture-test stuff I | might like to make resilient would present me a relevant | surface area of functionality I even knew what to do with | (haven't yet played with C intrinsics for example). | | At the end of the day, disabling functionality on-chip | seems to be one of the few viable ways to claw | fabrication yield back to something commercially viable | and not utterly eye-watering, and IIUC it's been a staple | for a long time. | | Rereading your comment I realize it's quite possible you | were writing with some or all of the above context | implied and I may have misread. Not sure, disregard if | so. | danuker wrote: | I am impressed that this reuse is possible cheaply. I | have had no exposure to the business end of this process. | Indeed, my comment may be less relevant than I thought. | | If it might not be clear even to the manufacturer which | chip pays for which other chip, then I might give them a | pass. | | I suppose the only way to tell for sure would be de- | lidding and comparing. But that's an expensive hobby. | pdimitar wrote: | > * That was bothering me a bit too, but then I realized it | may have a use that most of us don't care about.* | | That's how it starts. First it happens to people whose | needs you can't relate to, and then one day they'll want | extra money so the accelerated video support starts working | again. | | It should bother you. | pinewurst wrote: | Really? Name a single successful Intel acquisition, especially | open source. | NicoJuicy wrote: | Mobileye ? | BeetleB wrote: | Bought for 15B. Net profit in 2021 was $1B. It'll take a | while to get their investment back. Not sure I'd call it a | successful acquisition. | colinmhayes wrote: | They're trying to IPO mobileye for $50B. If they can pull | that off the acquisition will have been a major success. | pinewurst wrote: | But not an intentional one. They bought it as a "hey | we're relevant too!" move at peak autonomous car hype, | and as it's hardly additive in real life, are trying to | IPO it for the dumb money before they have to write it | off (e.g. Habana). | NicoJuicy wrote: | Peak autonomous hype would be when it's there. | | And there is too much money in it to never be there, to | although I think it will take longer than most | predictions. | | And net profit while amount of employees have grown 5 | fold. Growth of 24% yoy is pretty good. | Tobu wrote: | Wind River seems like it did okay. Bought for $884 million | and sold for $4.3 billion. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_River_Systems | belval wrote: | I read your statement and I thought "should be easy to find | at least one"! | | Turns out it isn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel#Acqui | sitions_and_investm... | | Not only does none of these ring a bell, all the software | ones seem to be legitimate garbage. Why did intel buy a cloud | gaming startup? | kgc wrote: | Maybe acquihires | svnt wrote: | The non-chip business at intel is a sideshow of uncommitted | grasping. | FunkyDuckk wrote: | Altera? | Symmetry wrote: | Intel has a lot of irons in the fire and some very talented | engineers, but they've always competed with a process advantage | behind them and been able to use it to recover from the | occasional architecture misstep like Itanium or the Pentium IV. | Pat Gelsinger is probably the best CEO they could have picked | but they're in a tough position and I'm not optimistic. | enos_feedler wrote: | A lack of process advantage is exactly the problem. I | remember being at nVIDIA in 2008 and being afraid about | Intel's Larrabee x86-based GPU architecture. I was genuinely | afraid because they could do full custom design on the latest | process and so the physical design would be much superior to | nVIDIA even if the higher level architecture was not as | great. I didn't care much about the x86 aspect because I knew | software needed to be re-developed for GPU anyway so having a | compiler generating a custom/private ISA wasn't a big deal | vs. x86. | | When Larrabee failed I breathed a sigh of relief. To me that | failure was huge, and the fact they are trying to replay that | strategy (building a competitive GPU) but without an unfair | manufacturing advantage speaks to the hole that Intel has dug | themselves into. It's not a grave, but the stock price has | not baked this reality in yet. We've got a long ways down to | go. This won't look like a simple turnaround story. The | company will appear dead before it can come roaring back. If. | oumua_don17 wrote: | And the rumour on the street was that Larrabee was one of | the reasons why Pat Gelsinger had to leave Intel. | | And Intel Arc GPU is not being delivered on time either, | last I heard was early Q1 2022 which is now Q2 2022. And in | recent investor day conference, they again announced delays | in their 2023 server chip. | | These delays have occurred after Pat at the the helm, | combined with Intel burning through a lot of cash; I don't | understand why most are so gung-ho about Pat. Thankfully | the early comparisons with Steve Jobs when he returned to | Intel have stopped, they were both laughable and an insult | to SJ. | | [1] http://vrworld.com/2009/09/18/pat-gelsinger-left-intel- | becau... | enos_feedler wrote: | Yes, forgot about the connection with Pat Gelsinger. It | would be really disappointing if they blew Arc. In fact, | given how much I think the current position of Intel is a | product of their GPU project failure over a decade ago | (look at where NVDA is today), I would put the most focus | on absolutely nailing Arc and being competitive with NVDA | and AMD in high performance GPU space. This would be a | big morale lift and would probably be the first big step | on the staircase to salvation. | zmk5 wrote: | Hopefully this results in even better drivers for Linux. I wonder | if the graphics cards they have planned will have good Linux | drivers too. I've always had a good experience with their Linux | integrated graphics drivers so far. | wakeupcall wrote: | Sure, they work somewhat. Always first to get support for the | new rendering backend on linux, even before the hardware is | released. However, they're plagued with issues. As a linux user | of integrated intel graphics for the last 10+ years, the cycle | has been: driver works with new hardware, but with major bugs | that impact usability. Major bugs get ironed out in the first | 6/10 months, leaving with half a dozen papercuts for a good 1-2 | years. By the time the driver is stable, a new shiny rendering | model/backend/engine is enabled somewhere in the stack, rolling | back progress. I generally switched laptops faster than intel's | ability to fix bugs on existing hardware. I have a couple good | stories on certain individual series, but that's it. Not to | mention, most of the driver issues are worked around in the | software you're using most of the time, so the fact that you | don't see issues doesn't mean the driver is working fine. | | I was also disappointed recently by the AX500 driver on linux. | For a good part of the last year, I couldn't get stable | connections. BT was next to useless. Every driver release would | fix one issue in wifi, just to break BT, and vice-versa. | | For a company the size of intel and such massive marketshare in | premium laptops I do not consider this acceptable. | | The amdgpu driver has actually less bugs on vega currently, has | opencl working right out of the box to booth. I had less issues | with realtek drivers on wireless too. | hansendc wrote: | I hope so too! But, I was trying to think of if I've ever seen | the Linutronix folks working on the Intel graphics code. I | don't think I have: | | https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin... | | For very selfish reasons, I'm hoping that this acquisition will | give the Linutronix folks even more of an opportunity to | contribute to the core kernel and especially arch/x86. | | Disclaimer: I work on Linux at Intel. | zmk5 wrote: | Thanks for your hard work! | silisili wrote: | Echoing this. Intel has by far the best working out of the | box graphics drivers. I usually go Intel APUs for this | reason, and am excited by the move into discrete. | l1k wrote: | There's a series currently under discussion which failed CI: | | https://lore.kernel.org/intel- | gfx/20211214140301.520464-1-bi... | | Plus 13 patches over the past years (not counting merges and | SPDX commits): | | https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin. | .. | | Unfortunately, a lot of the PREEMPT_RT patches follow the | "disable stuff for now, fix up for real later" anti-pattern. | :-( | | Case in point: | | https://lore.kernel.org/intel- | gfx/YgqmfKhwU5spS069@linutroni... | hegzploit wrote: | Is Linutronix by any way related to Pengutronix? | https://www.pengutronix.de | synergy20 wrote: | sadly everything intel touched on embedded linux over the years | all failed so far,e.g. windriver,yocto,its embedded chip | efforts,even ARM,etc. | dreamcompiler wrote: | What does this mean for the future of PREEMPT_RT on ARM? | | I know PREEMPT_RT is mostly independent of ISA; it's the parts | that are not independent that worry me. | taffronaut wrote: | As Thomas Gleixner has been the x86 maintainer since 2008, what | do they gain from this? It seems a pretty close relationship | already. It's not as if they're acquiring IP. Conversely if | they'll allow Linutronix to continue "to operate as an | independent business" and e.g. work on other architectures like | RISC-V, then that dilutes their access to the talent they're | acquiring. | ojn wrote: | Yeah, Intel clearly has no interest in helping RISC-V succeed. | | https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-invests-in-open-source-r... | [deleted] | gary_0 wrote: | Intel is well aware that their x86 IP isn't the secret sauce | it used to be. If RISC-V takes over the world, they won't be | caught off-guard. | jabl wrote: | Maybe, but I think the more immediate motivations are | | - Get customers for their fab services division, now that | they're making a serious push to fab 3rd party chips. | | - Help RISC-V threaten ARM at the low end, thus taking away | attention and resources ARM could otherwise use to compete | with x86 servers. | svnt wrote: | Maybe he was going to go do something else and they purchased | some golden handcuffs and a smooth transition? | rzw2 wrote: | Maybe Intel is developing a new chip architecture and want to | support linux from day 0? Or does Intel want a team of Kernel | developers for their AI Silicon play, support the lower level | architecture, or for their GPU play? | hansendc wrote: | Yes, it's been a pretty close relationship for a long, long | time. | | What does Intel get out of this? I'm really hoping that Intel | gets help improving the kernel from a talented bunch of kernel | developers who have experience working closely with paying | customers. Intel has tons of kernel developers, but few of us | are very directly customer-facing. | | I also hope the Linutronix folks can spend less time on "castle | maintenance" and more time on kernel maintenance. | https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=PREEMPT_... | | (BTW, I work on Intel at Linux). | formerly_proven wrote: | Cute Lego digger: | https://linutronix.de/videos/Linutronix_Bagger_1080.mp4 | [deleted] | alksjdalkj wrote: | Looks like K'Nex, not Lego. Still very cool! | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%27Nex | O5vYtytb wrote: | Pretty sure it's Lego: https://www.lego.com/en- | us/product/bucket-wheel-excavator-42... | BenjiWiebe wrote: | That's Technic Lego. | teekert wrote: | That sounds like a fun company to work for :) | | Sure one can whine about an RPi and "industrial reliability" | (and all I can think of is that damned SD card...), but hey, | it's just a cool movie, and it communicates in a nice way what | they do. Also, it sounds like they should have been involved in | the Mars helicopter (Ingenuity), which runs Linux and need | these types of techniques. Cool podcast on the subject: [0] | | [0]: https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/145067/mars-goes-to- | shel... | rbanffy wrote: | > and all I can think of is that damned SD card... | | I'm having some better experiences with SD cards marketed as | "high endurance". Another trick I've been doing is to mount | /var/log as tmpfs. If they crash when they run out of space, | I let them restart themselves. | jvanderbot wrote: | While I agree with everything you said to a certain extent, I | agree less that their expertise makes them uniquely qualified | to engineer the flight software for the prototype helicopter | on Mars. It is quite a different environment, but there is | certainly plenty of crossover. I think JPL has enough | expertise in this domain, though. | | But yes, it's a wonderful thing that a fairly-accessible | linux distribution is powering space missions in this era. | It's long overdue, I think, and many of the JPL folks would | probably agree. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-23 23:00 UTC)