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Intel acquires Linutronix

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Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#71

Post by bombcar »

ianmcgowan wrote: post #54
zxspectrum1982 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sure makes sense on the server-side. That's been IBM's business model for mainframes for half a century.

That's true, I had to pay IBM in the 90's for a CPU upgrade where they just dial in, change a config, and poof-more CPU. It was completely infuriating and one reason we migrated to HPUX. The hardware support from IBM was amazing though - the techs are very well trained and show up with basically another mainframe in the van and start swapping parts until things work.

It's strange how paying for an upgrade where they swap a part feels much better than a faster upgrade they can do remotely.

Yet with software we don't much blink (though I suppose people DO like to see at least some download after they click Pay).

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#72

Post by colinmhayes »

noahmasur wrote: post #70
colinmhayes wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel is currently worth less than AMD even though Intel's profit is quite a bit higher than AMDs entire revenue. I recognize that Intel has huge problems to solve but they absolutely seem undervalued currently.

A quick search shows INTC market cap is 184B and AMD is 135B. AMD is worth 73% of Intel.

My quick google search shows AMDs cap at 183B. So maybe not more valuable, but equally. Apparently AMD was worth more yesterday though https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amd-is-now-worth-more-than-ri...

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#73

Post by Symmetry »

xadhominemx wrote: post #14
dmead wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they have mba'd themselves to death.

Not really. Intel’s two core issues are engineering failures — process technology and processor architecture

Are they having architecture issues? I guess I could criticize them for too-aggressively pursuing small microachitectural advantages leading to failures like Meltdown and making them spend more engineering-years than AMD for products that aren't that much better but, baring Meltdown, the end architectural results have been pretty good. My gripes would all be with the process, management decisions about how to respond to the process problem, or fusing off features for product segmentation reasons.

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#74

Post by Symmetry »

caleb-allen wrote: post #2

Intel seems to be making all the right moves. I'm excited to see what Pat Gelsinger can do over the next 5 years (I'm long INTC).

Intel has a lot of irons in the fire and some very talented engineers, but they've always competed with a process advantage behind them and been able to use it to recover from the occasional architecture misstep like Itanium or the Pentium IV. Pat Gelsinger is probably the best CEO they could have picked but they're in a tough position and I'm not optimistic.

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#75

Post by pdimitar »

dannyw wrote: post #16
bestouff wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their current CPU-features-as-a-service marketing push doesn't look like a right move to me.

Like it or not, that's probably where the industry will be in 5 years. You might not like it, but X-as-a-service make way more money for the company, and shareholders. It'll probably look like this: buy a 'cheap' Intel CPU for $99 (say, 4P, 12E cores clocked at 2 GHz), with "Turbo" to 4.5 GHz being a $79/year subscription and "Extreme Turbo Max" to 5.1 GHz being an additional $35/year. First year free, of course, to…

You are forgetting two things:

- Apple. They charge premium for their hardware but don't make you pay to use extra features of the CPU/GPU. And a lot of common folk already love the 8GB M1 Air and buy it in droves. It's going to last them 7 years easily, if not 10.

- Most people hold on to their computers with a death grip until it can't boot anymore. I have a friend who just two months ago finally replaced a laptop with 1.5GB RAM and 180GB HDD. He used it for 13-15 years.

Both of these mean that Intel and AMD can find themselves with 30% of their previous sales or less, if they try to force the CPU-features-as-a-service thing.

They can only stretch the "you're not the target audience of these new machines" trope only to a certain extent.

Common consumers getting indifferent and holding on to their existing tech is a real market force.

Having to "hold on until the market adapts" might become too big a pill to swallow for Intel / AMD shareholders.

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#76

Post by [deleted] »

ojn wrote: post #30
taffronaut wrote: post #24

As Thomas Gleixner has been the x86 maintainer since 2008, what do they gain from this? It seems a pretty close relationship already. It's not as if they're acquiring IP. Conversely if they'll allow Linutronix to continue "to operate as an independent business" and e.g. work on other architectures like RISC-V, then that dilutes their access to the talent they're acquiring.

Yeah, Intel clearly has no interest in helping RISC-V succeed. https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-invests-in-open-source-r...

[deleted]

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#77

Post by wakeupcall »

zmk5 wrote: post #4

Hopefully this results in even better drivers for Linux. I wonder if the graphics cards they have planned will have good Linux drivers too. I've always had a good experience with their Linux integrated graphics drivers so far.

Sure, they work somewhat. Always first to get support for the new rendering backend on linux, even before the hardware is released. However, they're plagued with issues. As a linux user of integrated intel graphics for the last 10+ years, the cycle has been: driver works with new hardware, but with major bugs that impact usability. Major bugs get ironed out in the first 6/10 months, leaving with half a dozen papercuts for a good 1-2 years. By the time the driver is stable, a new shiny rendering model/backend/engine is enabled somewhere in the stack, rolling back progress. I generally switched laptops faster than intel's ability to fix bugs on existing hardware. I have a couple good stories on certain individual series, but that's it. Not to mention, most of the driver issues are worked around in the software you're using most of the time, so the fact that you don't see issues doesn't mean the driver is working fine.

I was also disappointed recently by the AX500 driver on linux. For a good part of the last year, I couldn't get stable connections. BT was next to useless. Every driver release would fix one issue in wifi, just to break BT, and vice-versa.

For a company the size of intel and such massive marketshare in premium laptops I do not consider this acceptable.

The amdgpu driver has actually less bugs on vega currently, has opencl working right out of the box to booth. I had less issues with realtek drivers on wireless too.

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#78

Post by xadhominemx »

Symmetry wrote: post #73
xadhominemx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Intel’s two core issues are engineering failures — process technology and processor architecture

Are they having architecture issues? I guess I could criticize them for too-aggressively pursuing small microachitectural advantages leading to failures like Meltdown and making them spend more engineering-years than AMD for products that aren't that much better but, baring Meltdown, the end architectural results have been pretty good. My gripes would all be with the process, management decisions about how to respond…

By architecture, I’m referring to trade offs then made for single thread performance vs core count and memory channels
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