FOSS / FOSH friendliness — Intel or AMD?
by Jayaguru-Shishya from LinuxQuestions.org on (#5JTMD)
In a nutshell: When it comes to the FOSS / FOSH friendliness, should one prefer Intel over AMD, or vice versa? Which is the way to go considering the degrees of freedom in hardware?
Sorry for the inconvenience, I am still a novice on Linux and at the moment, buying my first pre-installed Linux laptop. I was told that the good people here at LinuxQuestions.org might help me with my quest.
In the beginning, I'd like to emphasize that I am not looking for "absolute freedom down to firmware level" nor "fully free hardware" (e.g. Purism, Raspberry Pi, Olimex, BeagleV, or any other single-board computer out there on the market). I mean, it's not that those things wouldn't be important. I just want to say that in my opinion, certain binary blobs can be acceptable. Anyway, in this thread I'd like to focus on the comparison between the two commercially predominant processor manufactures, AMD and Intel, and the small steps they have taken to approach the developer community and its aspirations of free hardware / firmware.
Now, I know that neither Intel nor AMD is a great option in terms of freedom per se. That's why I am emphasizing the course of progress and all the little steps that have taken place.
I've tried to make my research on the topic, and - to make a long story short - AMD seems to have been rather generous with releasing source code in the past, and it even used to be the choice of preference by Libreboot / Coreboot project.[1][2] In the same breath, Intel has been lashed out for allegedly releasing "distracting, irrelevant pieces" of source code, that have been merely to lead developers astray. There was also a pretty outspoken statement on LinuxInsider (24.09.2012), calling AMD "being a LOT more FOSS friendly" than Intel, and therefore to buy AMD chips "if you want to support FOSS, be it server, desktop, or laptop":[3]
Quote:
That quote is quite old, though, and things might have changed ever since. For example, Intel has been said to be a major contributor to the open source technologies nowadays. In turn, it is said that Google is working towards to excise (to get rid of) the "binary blobs from the x86 part of Zen CPUs" in AMD.[4] Well, these are not - of course - a guarantee of anything, but at least small gestures in the direction of playing together with the FOSS / FOSH developer community.
I am also aware of the different brands that offer pre-installed Linux laptops (System76, Tuxedo, KDE Slimbook ... just to name a few). I am sure both AMD and Intel run just fine on those. Should there be some problems, though, I am ready to live with that. That's just not really my main interest at the point. What I am interested in, however, is the somewhat philosopical perspective on things, and what steps have those chip manufactures taken / what have they taken not to collaborate with the FOSS / FOSH community.
Thanks a lot in advance for your time, expertice and goodwill! Cheers!
Yours Sincerely,
Jayaguru-Shishya
Ps. If you think that there's not much different between the two chip makers, that's a perfectly fine answer as well! Sorry if I left an impression that I am forcing one to choose between the two! :hattip:
Sorry for the inconvenience, I am still a novice on Linux and at the moment, buying my first pre-installed Linux laptop. I was told that the good people here at LinuxQuestions.org might help me with my quest.
In the beginning, I'd like to emphasize that I am not looking for "absolute freedom down to firmware level" nor "fully free hardware" (e.g. Purism, Raspberry Pi, Olimex, BeagleV, or any other single-board computer out there on the market). I mean, it's not that those things wouldn't be important. I just want to say that in my opinion, certain binary blobs can be acceptable. Anyway, in this thread I'd like to focus on the comparison between the two commercially predominant processor manufactures, AMD and Intel, and the small steps they have taken to approach the developer community and its aspirations of free hardware / firmware.
Now, I know that neither Intel nor AMD is a great option in terms of freedom per se. That's why I am emphasizing the course of progress and all the little steps that have taken place.
I've tried to make my research on the topic, and - to make a long story short - AMD seems to have been rather generous with releasing source code in the past, and it even used to be the choice of preference by Libreboot / Coreboot project.[1][2] In the same breath, Intel has been lashed out for allegedly releasing "distracting, irrelevant pieces" of source code, that have been merely to lead developers astray. There was also a pretty outspoken statement on LinuxInsider (24.09.2012), calling AMD "being a LOT more FOSS friendly" than Intel, and therefore to buy AMD chips "if you want to support FOSS, be it server, desktop, or laptop":[3]
Quote:
| Intel has cooked up UEFI which lets them lock down the system? AMD has gone Coreboot on their new chipsets. Intel using PowerVR on their low end mobile chips? AMD has opened the specs as it was asked to with the exception of the UVD engine which they legally can't because it contains the HDCP code and that's not their to give. You can still get full hardware acceleration, just use Catalyst drivers. So the choice seems pretty simple to me, one company is being a LOT more FOSS friendly than the other so the choice should be a no brainer. This will be a good test of the community as well, as if AMD sales don't go up after doing everything the community asked, why should other hardware companies support you? You asked for the docs? They gave them. You asked for the specs to make your own drivers? They not only gave all of them they legally could but actually hired devs to help out with the FOSS drivers to make them better. So I'd say the answer is clear, if you want to support FOSS, be it server, desktop, or laptop, you should buy AMD chips and show hardware companies that opening specs and docs is good for business. |
I am also aware of the different brands that offer pre-installed Linux laptops (System76, Tuxedo, KDE Slimbook ... just to name a few). I am sure both AMD and Intel run just fine on those. Should there be some problems, though, I am ready to live with that. That's just not really my main interest at the point. What I am interested in, however, is the somewhat philosopical perspective on things, and what steps have those chip manufactures taken / what have they taken not to collaborate with the FOSS / FOSH community.
Thanks a lot in advance for your time, expertice and goodwill! Cheers!
Yours Sincerely,
Jayaguru-Shishya
Ps. If you think that there's not much different between the two chip makers, that's a perfectly fine answer as well! Sorry if I left an impression that I am forcing one to choose between the two! :hattip: