The "Bloody Mess" That Is Intel's Poulsbo Driver 231
AdamWill writes "Phoronix writes about the mess that is the Linux support situation for Intel's new graphics chipset, the GMA 500 — aka Poulsbo. Near the end they refer to my own post on the topic ('Okay, so after a whole day spent bashing around at this crap, I can very confidently and conclusively say, it's utterly broken'). Intel has a reputation as one of the most clued-up open source-friendly hardware companies, but if they can't sort out the mess surrounding the driver for this chipset — which is already used on the Dell Mini 12 and Sony Vaio P, and will be used on many future Intel-based systems — that reputation will take a serious hit."
Re:Reputation? (Score:5, Informative)
You are correct when it comes to 3D performance (Score:4, Informative)
Intel graphics chips are not for games. However, if you don't play games and you want a solid graphics card with enough 3D performance to run compiz or Quake with fully open source drivers, then Intel is what you want.
Or, it used to be. I don't know what the deal is with this new chipset.
Re:You are correct when it comes to 3D performance (Score:5, Informative)
The 3D is licensed from PowerVR, aka Imagination Technologies which used to be called Videologic for those with long memories.
It has nothing to do with Intel (other than that they licensed it), and historically Videologic, when they where in the PC graphics card business where tight lipped about their stuff, rather like nVidia are.
Which all sorts of sucks because the chipset does pretty good 3D for virtually no power. Which should finally mean some netbooks with decent battery lives.
Re:!gonvidia (Score:4, Informative)
i don't know how it is in this case, but most of the times, the problem is that there is no information about the hardware. so even though the open source community would love to code uber awesome megadrivers, they haven't got any documents on how these chipsets work, so they can't write drivers for them
Re:Bit of a tangent (Score:4, Informative)
Re:If it's open source, fix it. (Score:4, Informative)
Based on reading the various linked things, it appears that one primary complaint is that it isn't, in fact, sensibly released. There are bits and pieces of it scattered about but AdamWill can't actually find a whole release that actually works.
Re:If it's open source, fix it. (Score:4, Informative)
It is undocumented and it has binary blob. Though scenario, even for very smart Xorg driver fellas.
Re:BUILD YOUR OWN (Score:3, Informative)
I sure am! [opensourcefood.com]
Re:Reputation? (Score:5, Informative)
That's the reputation of the power of the hardware. Yes, as far as playing your 3D games goes, you're not going to get very far with Intel.
However, up till now Intel has had a very good reputation for open source friendliness with regards to supporting the hardware, disregarding the actual power of the hardware. Intel are actively involved in maintaining the (100% open source) driver for all other Intel graphics chipsets, and they also contribute to general X.org development and the development of new technologies within X. Intel graphics hardware is generally the least powerful of the big three, but until this mess, it's been by far the best (and most openly) supported hardware in Linux.
Re:If it's open source, fix it. (Score:5, Informative)
Intel *didn't* make an open source driver. If you read my post, you'll note that there's three different closed-source components to the driver, without which significant features break.
Aside from that, what's needed for meaningful open source development is not "here's some code, have fun". There needs to be a proper development process hosted in an accessible fashion, and proper documentation. The 'intel' driver for previous Intel chipsets satisfies all of these goals. It's 100% open-source, it's developed within X.org and so easily accessible to external contributions in a widely-understood fashion, and the hardware is properly documented.
This 'psb' driver satisfies none of the goals. It was previously hosted within Moblin (which doesn't really have much of an external development community), and even that version of the code is now not being used. It now only shows up in obscure Ubuntu Netbook Remix repositories, with no independent source that anyone can find. So there's no sane development process to which external people can sensibly contribute. It contains large closed-source chunks. And there's no public hardware documentation, which makes it very hard for anyone else to work on it in the first place.
This is what I (and anyone else stuck with one of these chips) am complaining about.
Re:!gonvidia (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bit of a tangent (Score:5, Informative)
You got modded up, so I get to correct you.
GEM (Graphics Execution Manager) is only working for Intel because they have more people working on it. There's only around four or five people working on Radeon stuff, and of those, only two of us are dedicated to ATI work, and we're both students.
If you grab development snapshots, you can see Radeons working with DRI2, GEM, KMS, and all that fancy stuff.
Re:Bit of a tangent (Score:3, Informative)
The firmward microcode is released under a closed-source license
That'd be because it contains the code to physically setup the device and any variation to it would cause it to break its FCC certification.
There's a fuzzy line between device level firmware which nobody ever wants to change (because it could cause your machine to literally blow up) and the driver code which, of course, we want to be free. Apparently it's because hardware manufacturers have shifted away from having firmware on a ROM and instead started distributing the microcode with the driver instead. It cuts manufacturing costs and makes microcode updates less dangerous.
I can't be arsed finding a link but even RMS accepts that it's OK for such microcode to stay as a blob.
Re:!gonvidia (Score:3, Informative)
Here's the problem, boss.
The PP lives in a video-game-playing world. You and I live in a desktop-effects and xrender-acceleration world. Our world gets the short end of the stick 'cause it's not very sexy.
Compositing = Easy (Score:3, Informative)
Compositing doesn't take a lot of power, despite how Linux has struggled with it. I mean, come on, at worst it's two triangles per window, with textures and alpha-blending. Maybe an extra four tris with colour and an alpha map for shadow. My 2001 ibook could do it in OS X, and that was running a Rage Mobility M3. I think it's 16MB.
Re:Wonder if this is one of the reasons? (Score:3, Informative)
The reason why you "lose" when Godwin's Law is invoked is because it indicates that the thread has gone on long enough that anything worth saying has already been said. In other words, when people drag out the Hitler analogies, the discussion's over, even if they haven't realized it yet.
Re:!gonvidia (Score:4, Informative)
every time my kernel upgrades I hold my breath and hope X starts up due to nVidia drivers being proprietary.
Re:Reputation? (Score:4, Informative)
Not necessarily. i810 is woefully broken. You get artifacts left and right, wrong resolution that can't be changed, no openGL working whatsoever (I was doing transparencies with Xfwm but that was it). From what I understand I need one of the latest kernels with GEM to make it stop.
Yeah, thanks intel.
Re:Bloody Mess (Score:3, Informative)