Can’t say I’m excited about any hp product either, but the fact these big companies are openly preferring Linux to windows is a sign of the huge progress Linux has made and that’s super exciting imo
At the very least, the big laptop manufacturers making Linux handhelds means just from a cost cutting and resource perspective, there’s a good chance laptop and desktop hardware support improves even further just because they reuse parts across devices.
Hell, NVIDIA is probably watching this and wishing they’d supported Linux better in the past because now they have some catching up to do.
there’s a good chance laptop and desktop hardware support improves even further just because they reuse parts across devices.
100% agree.
This is how Linux has caught-up-ish with respect to hardware in the first place. The BSOD from all the crappy drivers in Windows forced MSFT to create WHQL. Then MSFT charged for certification. Then OEMs started licensing IP that already had the certification instead of writing their own drivers for less well know IP. Someone writes a Linux driver for a certain IP and now a ton of systems are further supported.
These companies are definitely going to reuse IP across all their devices. Companies selling IP will want to sell their IP in as many markets as possible. They are going to write the Linux driver and say, “put this in your handheld.”
They are going to write the Linux driver and say, “put this in your handheld.”
That would be terrible. They shouldn’t be giving their customers a driver, they should be sending their driver to mainline and telling their customers “Use any version of Linux after 6.<whenever their driver was committed>”.
I should clarify. I’m speaking from the perspective of the IP owner who writes the driver and manufacturer who puts together all the components. And I’m sure the drivers would get mainlined. That’s what Intel does now. They inbox their Windows driver with MSFT and mainline their Linux driver with the Kernel.
I’m speaking from the perspective of the IP owner who writes the driver and manufacturer who puts together all the components.
As am I.
And I’m sure the drivers would get mainlined.
That’s not the norm.
Intel
Intel is huge and employs shit loads of Linux developers. Most vendors, who will be much smaller, don’t. For example, Realtek, who stick a crappily written driver in a tarball on their download page and call it a day. Or any of the hundreds of silicon vendors (such as NXP, Nvidia, Rockchip, Allwinner, Realtek again, Qualcomm, etc., etc.) with "BSP"s who give their customers a 500GB package containing, among lots of proprietary userland shit, some butchered horror show based on Linux 3.3 with no git history.
I can’t imagine why you would expect drivers to be mainlined by a vendor.
I can’t imagine why you would expect drivers to be mainlined by a vendor.
Because I was a Windows kernel developer for Intel. It was standard practice for us to give our reference drivers to the OEMs to deploy with their devices, while we worked with Microsoft to inbox the reference drivers. This was part of the value of the Intel IP.
That’s not the norm.
It is the Norm for PCs. And we are talking about, “Laptop manufacturers making handhelds, leading to cost cutting from a resource perspective.”
We aren’t talking about ARM vendors making 1 off devices.
Who cares…
Can’t say I’m excited about any hp product either, but the fact these big companies are openly preferring Linux to windows is a sign of the huge progress Linux has made and that’s super exciting imo
At the very least, the big laptop manufacturers making Linux handhelds means just from a cost cutting and resource perspective, there’s a good chance laptop and desktop hardware support improves even further just because they reuse parts across devices.
Hell, NVIDIA is probably watching this and wishing they’d supported Linux better in the past because now they have some catching up to do.
100% agree.
This is how Linux has caught-up-ish with respect to hardware in the first place. The BSOD from all the crappy drivers in Windows forced MSFT to create WHQL. Then MSFT charged for certification. Then OEMs started licensing IP that already had the certification instead of writing their own drivers for less well know IP. Someone writes a Linux driver for a certain IP and now a ton of systems are further supported.
These companies are definitely going to reuse IP across all their devices. Companies selling IP will want to sell their IP in as many markets as possible. They are going to write the Linux driver and say, “put this in your handheld.”
That would be terrible. They shouldn’t be giving their customers a driver, they should be sending their driver to mainline and telling their customers “Use any version of Linux after 6.<whenever their driver was committed>”.
I should clarify. I’m speaking from the perspective of the IP owner who writes the driver and manufacturer who puts together all the components. And I’m sure the drivers would get mainlined. That’s what Intel does now. They inbox their Windows driver with MSFT and mainline their Linux driver with the Kernel.
As am I.
That’s not the norm.
Intel is huge and employs shit loads of Linux developers. Most vendors, who will be much smaller, don’t. For example, Realtek, who stick a crappily written driver in a tarball on their download page and call it a day. Or any of the hundreds of silicon vendors (such as NXP, Nvidia, Rockchip, Allwinner, Realtek again, Qualcomm, etc., etc.) with "BSP"s who give their customers a 500GB package containing, among lots of proprietary userland shit, some butchered horror show based on Linux 3.3 with no git history.
I can’t imagine why you would expect drivers to be mainlined by a vendor.
Because I was a Windows kernel developer for Intel. It was standard practice for us to give our reference drivers to the OEMs to deploy with their devices, while we worked with Microsoft to inbox the reference drivers. This was part of the value of the Intel IP.
It is the Norm for PCs. And we are talking about, “Laptop manufacturers making handhelds, leading to cost cutting from a resource perspective.” We aren’t talking about ARM vendors making 1 off devices.
LOL your experience in Windows driver land is in no way transferrable to Linux driver land.
You mean for PCs running Windows. Which is not what we’re talking about.