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And it also will certainly be watched closely at Intel's main Silicon Valley competitor, Advanced Micro Devices, which in July announced plans to acquire ATI for $5.4 billion. AMD has worked closely with open-source programmers on several occasions, in adding Linux support for 64-bit x86 chips and for AMD's virtualization technology, for example.
"Ideally, if AMD is able to realize the potential of open-source ATI Linux drivers, we could very well see GPL...drivers within the next few years," Larabel said.
Margaret Lewis, AMD's director of commercial solutions, wouldn't be pinned down. "It is hard to speculate if open-source drivers can give a competitive advantage over Intel and Nvidia," she said. "Open-source drivers could help ease the difficulty of dealing with proprietary drivers with Linux. However, proprietary drivers often provide better optimizations or support more features. Having both types of drivers available gives customers a choice of which approach they want to take."
Open-source advocates have expressed several objections to proprietary drivers. These often stop working if a computer user updates Linux, forcing the computer user to reinstall the driver. Also, some believe the GPL doesn't permit proprietary kernel modules to be plugged into Linux.
No. 2 Linux seller Novell recently banned proprietary Linux modules, though it streamlined the process by which people can download them from their creators.
Timed for new chipset
Intel released the graphics software just before the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, which begins Aug. 15. But the main impetus for the open-source driver timing was that Intel needed to support its 965 "Broadwater" chipset. The chipset is used in conjunction with Intel's new Core 2 Duo "Conroe" processor and is being released next week, Hohndel said.
"We're releasing drivers before the hardware gets released, which is a nice change of pace," he said.
Indeed, after Intel's release of open-source Centrino wireless-network drivers lagged Windows by more than a year, Intel pledged to make its Linux support simultaneous.
Intel has four programmers working on the driver project as well as five people testing the code, Hohndel said. Among the programmers is Keith Packard, formerly of Hewlett-Packard and Suse Linux. Packard is a major figure behind the X.org software that handles basic 2D graphics for Linux.
Intel will maintain the project, but hopes for outside contributions as well, Hohndel said. The work affects three components: X.org, the Mesa3D software that handles 3D graphics, and the Linux kernel software that mediates between the two other components, Hohndel said.
One open-source expert at HP favors Intel's approach. "All things being equal, we will choose silicon for which we can get open-source drivers every time," said Bdale Garbee, chief technologist of the open source and Linux group at HP.
Proprietary drivers means more work for HP when supporting Linux, Garbee said. When software support for particular hardware isn't built into the Linux kernel, "It gets progressively more difficult for a company like HP to do the recurring engineering work associated with keeping fresh driver versions for new kernels available," Garbee said.
See more CNET content tagged:
open source, graphics chip, ATI Technologies, Intel, NVidia
Do you know what projects RedHat and Novell are working on?
xgl is so frikken nice, it can give the 3D GUI stuff from OSX a run for its money and flat out beats the bloated joke that MS "innovated".
poorly. Lots more systems come with on-board
video these days and lot of that is Intel.
However, it's still nothing like the high-end
market.
That said -- there's a pretty high demand for
Linux-based graphics these days, be it PVRs, or
more often for video work. With the bruha
related to closed-source drivers from other
vendors (which are infringing on copyright), now
is a great time.
But the real big deal is that for a long time,
the excuse for not open-sourcing accelerated 3D
video drivers was that of IP-related issues.
Namely, many have felt that the makers of GPUs
have been pilfering bits an pieces of each
other's technologies and that of 3rd parties for
years. Opening the source code might, therefore,
expose some of that infringement (they are
mostly worried about patent, more so than
copyright).
Intel's move lays down the gauntlet, sort to
speak. They're accepting the risk (perhaps they
feel they are perfectly clean), in exchange for
wider acceptance and adoption, and some free
tech development. If the move further pushes
other vendors to open up their drivers, perhaps
it will broker a truce and stave off mutually
destructive cycles of litigation.
Just sounds like they are trying to get their third rate graphics cards some publicity.
While both ATI have propritary driver, they both have Linux versions of them, so Linux users can take full advantage of them.
Sounds to me like Intel knows they have cruddy graphics chips compaired to Nvidia and ATI, so they appearently don't mind people picking the drivers. Guess they figure they have nothing worth protecting.
That, or they are hoping that open drivers will give some body a reason to buy their cards.... Not likely.
That does not imply it is an act of desperation.
Rather it is a chance for Intel to improve its
graphics sub-system by using the vast resources of
the open-source movement while also increasing its
market share. A sound engineering as well as
marketing approach.
Honestly, the real reason the Linux gaming market is so bad is not because developers don't care, but because the graphics hardware vendors are so disinterested in any operating system but Windows that it becomes a huge crapshoot to design a Linux game that uses anything but the most basic of graphics subsystems.
I'm sure many people probably have the intel chips disabled and are using a graphics card.
Intel's resources are better put to hardware manufacturing, not software engineering. Letting the source loose upon the world to the kernel developers or even to other video card driver developers can also improve other video card useage.
Intel gets my props for this move. When AMD follows suit, I'll be quite a happy camper. Nvidia isn't likely to change its spots anytime soon, I'm afraid...
Sure, I will pay a little extra for onboard video or the Intel graphics, (i.e. asus P5GDC vs. P5GDC-V (includes video)) but just to tech computers. I want make that clear, it appears this article states when a buy a mobo with onboard graphics that counts as part of the so called 40%+ market share?
Not only that, but how many people who are part of the so called 40% upgrade to real video? That is, even an eMachine buyer will upgrade the poor Intel graphics?
Intel graphics will not even work with vista - so what happens to the 40% who upgrade to a real GPU - do you still count intels onboard chip as market share?
I must have misunderstood this article - intel graphics are not much better then cpu graphics - it takes a little heat off the over heated P4's. To even compare Intels onboard video with real GPU's made by Nvidia and ATI is either a joke or a crime - I am no sure which.
- Exactly!!! What graphics!
- by dragonsprayer August 11, 2006 6:33 PM PDT
- They will not even work with vista then does the so called 40% count? How do you compare a $5 chip with real GPU card?
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