Linux Centrino Driver Update

Edy52285 writes "An article on News.com talks about how Intel has been, and still is, dragging on releasing their Linux drivers for Centrino. Intel is reluctant to release its drivers as open source since doing so would reveal secrets about their wireless hardware. Linux in currently unable to take advantage of Centrino's wireless networking devices, without, that is, prying $20 from your thin wallet to buy Linuxant's DriverLoader (discussed in an earlier story). Will Swope (Intel's General Manager of Software and Solutions Group) said in an interview said "What I believe will happen is we will end up having a Linux compatibility driver that is not open source at first, then designing future drivers in such a way that they are open source but will not expose intellectual property," Intel seem to be taking its time on releasing the drivers, and even in the article, there is a lack of any commitment on a date or under what conditions the drivers will be released." Also, someone pointed out that it's worth checking out ndiswrapper for the driver.

Re:Secrets?

[echion]

Hardware details -- it's like a chef not wanting to talk about his latest recipie, because that's the big secret. Sure, you and I probably don't have the cookware (hardware fab plant), but other restaurants (AMD and Qualcomm) would probably be very interested.

Which brings up a good point...

[ObviousGuy]

Why should anyone be surprised that a company that makes its money off of proprietary designs should be at odds with a movement to wrest control away from proprietary vendors?

Isn't this why Stallman insists on running only Free software?

And precompiled?

[alvieboy]

Why don't they do like nVidia, release a pre-compiled binary driver core and an open-source, compilable interface, which hopefully will manage to unify all diferences between different kernel versions and distros ?

Alvie

Simple answer, Don't buy nutrino laptops!

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

Only buy opensource supported products. The demand
will drive the market. This is also what we would need to do as soon as the PC gets locked up with
the new Award Bios. Demand has to be so low that it
will just about drive the home PC vendors out of business. then and only then DRM will be dropped.

I'm stocking up on some hardware now, that way if my
desktop or firewall does die, I can build a new one.

The one language they understand

[Lucky_Norseman]

Think like a capitalist and vote with your wallet.

Until they have a proper Linux driver, buy an AMD based system instead.

Who are they hiding this from?

[Renegade Lisp]

What trade secrets is Intel trying to protect? From whom?

Other chipmakers, I presume. So that nobody could produce an alternative wireless card to go with a Pentium M processor or some such.

But wouldn't anyone who's capable of designing and producing his own chipset be able to dissect the Centrino architecture and reengineer it, either by careful blackbox testing or by actually taking a microscope and looking at the chips? Am I way off mark here?

But if it's not other chipmakers they are protecting this from, if it actually is a software issue, then they are simply dancing to the tune of Microsoft due to whatever behind-the-scenes agreement they have with them.

Re:Yeah, that sucks

[tomcrick]

(typing this on a Centrino-based WinXP laptop)

Indeed.

However, when I decided to purchase a decent wireless card [buffalotech.com] , I would've liked to have been able to use it under Linux without paying extra. When you spend nearly UKP50 on the card, a discount on the Linuxant driver [linuxant.com] (at the very least!) would have been a nice gesture.

Re:ndiswrapper

[lavalyn]

So we get all the bugginess of a windows driver giftwrapped in the bugginess of a linux alpha wrapper...

1. Don't give specifications away
2. Tech-savvy high-end linux users don't buy your product
3. ???
4. Profit???

Re:Secrets?

[TWX]

"Intel is hesitant to provide the information that will allow people to write a driver for Linux, because that information would necessarily provide 100% of the software engineering necessary for someone else to create a Centrino-like hardware solution."

Well, that sucks for them. Perhaps they should have built a real wireless device rather than taking away CPU time for something that is best handled by a seperate device.

This revealed, do most linux users even want a Centrino-based laptop?

Much ado about...

[SJ]

In all honesty, I can't see what is so special about Centrino that Intel wants to keep it so secret.

It's a freaken' wireless chipset and a power efficient CPU. It's not like no one else makes them.

not so bad

[the drizzle]

What I believe will happen is we will end up having a Linux compatibility driver that is not open source at first, then designing future drivers in such a way that they are open source but will not expose intellectual property

So in other words, Intel is considering open source projects in the future. Isn't this news to get a little excited about?

How often in the past have companies brushed aside Linux? Many, many times. It gives me a bit of a fuzzy feeling inside to see guys like this being honest and forthright towards the Linux community.

I know in the short term it would be great if they would give us a bit more respect, but look a little further down the road...big companies are feeling pressure to do things the open-source way.

Re:Secrets?

[hackstraw]

I know that the word is taboo around here, but isn't this precicely what (hardware) patents are for? From what I understand, they are pretty easy to get.

Re:And precompiled?

[mahdi13]

That would be more then fine with me, it's not like using the nVidia drivers makes you an outcast. nVidia is one of the most praised big names because they have been actively supporting Linux with their hardware for about 4 years.
If Intel would step up and prove that they support Linux, it would be a huge boost for Linux and extra appreciation for Intel from the Linux community. Even if they release a beta for Linux, you know that a large portion of users will actively assist in the testing and send in bug reports.

Re:Simple solution

[GigsVT]

That's not much of a solution. Most linux people aren't going to want to run a closed source driver. It makes support nearly impossible, since no one is going to even attempt to support your system if it has closed-source kernel modules installed.

Re:ndiswrapper

[TWX]

1. Don't give specifications away
2. Tech-savvy high-end linux users don't buy your product
3. ???
4. Profit???

Unfortunately, it's more like this:

1. Create new device that isn't very well implemented and give it a meaningless marketting name
2. Release Windows drivers so that your OEMs can use it in Windows.
3. Let OEMs market it to their sheep customers who just go with it without bothering to research things, not realising that it really isn't anything better than before but go "oooh! Intel!"
4. Profit.

Re:Secrets?

[originalTMAN]

They take time. What would be the point of finally shelling out centrino 5yrs down the road? And backroyalties would be pointless because the patented technology would be so outdated.

Re:Who are they hiding this from?

[Renegade Lisp]

Exactly. It's just that it takes too much time, and without corporate backing it will take a while until enthusiasts, hackers, whatever-you-call-them have gotten this time together. And in a market so fast-changing as this, a year or two until a free, reverse-engineered driver is released, puts it pretty much out of the question.

A hardware company (chip manufacturer, global player) would have much more incentive and the necessary financial means to achieve something like that.

Re:Secrets?

[Waffle Iron]

Perhaps they should have built a real wireless device rather than taking away CPU time for something that is best handled by a seperate device.

Intel's entire strategy over the last 10 years has been precisely to move as many functions as possible into the CPU. This enables them to justify selling processors with far more horsepower than anybody needs for word processing or browsing, and it lets them assert control and influence over a much larger fraction of the hardware market.

That's why they keep adding more multimedia-oriented units to their architecture; it's also why they designed the P4's memory architecture to be mainly good at streaming blocks of video data.

Their strategy has been relatively successful up to now. There's just no way that they would design a totally stand-alone wireless solution to be tightly marketed with their CPUs.

In fact, just from the Centrino marketing material, you'd get the impression that the CPU itself is handling the wireless functions. Perhaps they plan to move that logic into a future mobile CPU chip.

Ohh spare cycles, yummy!

[miffo.swe]

The problem lies in Intels inherent desire to eat spare cpu cycles. Why? Because the more cpu cycles wasted on things better handled in hardware the more incentive to upgrade your cpu.

Those spare cycles could do something better than doing the hardwares work. Microsoft wants to have it all in windows if they can. That way they can tie the whole platform to windows cementing the monopoly on desktops. MS and Intel have had their jousts and Intel have always folded under the pressure. Intels project to make hardware more platform agnostic was stopped by MS who saw a threat to their Wintel Symbios.

There is nothing stopping eg. device drivers from being implemented much lower down like in the actual hardware, talking only in pre standardized APIs. Whats stopping that great innovation that would put a stop to driver problems and make it much more easy to develop new products?

Guess once!

Re:Secrets?

[ArseneLupin]

But competing restaurants (AMD, Qualcomm) have the resources to send some samples of the meal to a chemical analysis lab (disassemble the object code), and learn the secrets that way.

Re:Which brings up a good point...

[pe1rxq]

No its not....

Intel has made it very clear when they announced the Centrino chipset they would support Linux.
Well they haven't, their video chipset has a broken bios and no documentation and their wireless chipset has no documentation.
For the videochip there is some binary only stuff that only works with a very limited set of kernels and X versions.
For the wireless chip there still isn't even a driver.

The promises are getting dated and the hardware is getting dated. The only thing new comming out of intel is PR bullshit.

Jeroen

Re:And thus...

[Cereal Box]

That's fine, since Apple's laptops are looking more appealing anyway, and still run Linux.

Why would you spend obscene amounts of money on an Apple laptop just so you can run Linux on it? For a group of people that complain so much about the "Microsoft Tax" and actually think that it raises the price of your computer by the retail cost of Windows, Slashdotters sure as hell don't have a problem paying hundreds more for an Apple laptop just so they can be spared the agony of seeing Windows boot up once. Baffling.

Re:Secrets?

[Gnulix]

(AMD and Qualcomm) would probably be very interested.

Those guys are probably the least interested. Their engineers know exactly how to make similar devices. The only ones that might be interested are some third world country's bootleg industry. And they can/will reverse engineer the devices anyhow.

All these "Oh, we can't release the specs, that would reveal our secrets!", are pretty full of it. There are very, very few hardware/software solutions that aren't widely known. It gets really silly when companies such as NVidia refuse to release info to the XFree community, due to their hardware secrets. For heaven's sake! Even the insides of such (more or less) proprietary devices as the PS2, the GameCube, and so on are well known...

Fiddling with device settings

[Chris_Jefferson]

I imagine that one reason that Intel doesn't want to release these details is because the driver has too much control over the device. If as much work as it seems is done by the processor, then that probably means you could force the chip to do some strange things. The most obvious ones that come to mind are a) increase power (although I can't really see why that would be a problem), b) sniff to your heart's content, and c) try a DOS attack on any nearby networks by saturating the airwaves with crap.

Intel doesn't want to risk being associated with these kinds of things (and you know if they released an open source driver, someone would).

This still doesn't however totally explain their not releasing a closed-source driver...

have we seen this before?

[geoff lane]

Have Intel invented the WinWiFi?

Didn't anybody learn from the WinPrinter and WinModem farces?

software radio

[Gunark]

It is possible that as with some Atheros-based WLAN cards (the D-Link DWI-G650 Bx for example), the radio in Intel's Centrinos is software-controlled. This means that its frequency and power can be changed to just about anything using software alone. Open-source drivers for something like this are out of the question -- the FCC would not be impressed.

Atheros' ended up releasing a binary-only driver... kernel-tainting and all. If the Centrino radio controllers are also software-based, you can expect a binary-only driver as well.

Re:The one language they understand

[jmv]

Actually, instead of buying a Centrino laptop, I just bought a Pentium-M laptop, i.e. the CPU is fine, all you have to do is get a non-Intel card with it.

Apple must just love these guys

[Scot W. Stevenson]

So while Intel is sitting there, fretting about giving away secrets, Apple is producing one portable computer after another that will, reports say, give you a Wi-Fi Network with Yellow Dog Linux that runs just fine. In fact, if the 12" IBM ThinkPad X31 had real support for Wi-Fi under Linux, I might not have even considered the 12" iBook G4. As it stands ... sorry, IBM. Better luck in four or five years.

Maybe it is because I'm not a market droid, but what good is a product to a company when they are too afraid to sell it?