Intel Shuts Down "Clear Linux" Distribution Development

[mechtech]

we have Arch, Debian, Mint, Ubuntu

Are they true windows replacements as in for someone with 0 linux use or experience?

Mint and ubuntu are close from what I hear, but unfortunately nothing that could be a true windows competitor...............

I have been looking at zorin if w11 keeps going the way it is.....................

 

[remixedcat]

Am I the only one who thinks this is the fat Intel actually should trim? And up until this point, I've thought they've been going about it all wrong since firing Gelsinger.

Nope, this is something they shouldn't. We need bigger companies to back linux development and them having their own distro helps them fine tune linux more and gives them a reference design for downstream development.

 

[RejZoR]

Are they true windows replacements as in for someone with 0 linux use or experience?

Mint and ubuntu are close from what I hear, but unfortunately nothing that could be a true windows competitor...............

I have been looking at zorin if w11 keeps going the way it is.....................

Fedora KDE is the cleanest and closest to Windows, main issue with it is that codec support out of the box is stupid af and finding working guide to make it work is a nightmare. If device has the brute force to decode in software, then it might not even be an issue, but I had issues running Youtube on Pentium N6000 which is a lower end quad core, but it can decode 4K in hardware just fine. The issue was when hardware decode wasn't there and it struggled with 1080p which is just stupid.

Ubuntu is for my use the best and also just works the best as whole, my main issue is if you go with Kubuntu to have KDE instead of GNOME, they changed a lot of other things too and it just doesn't work as good as Ubuntu which is annoying given they are essentially the same branch underneath, just with different GUI on top, but it's not exactly like that.

Personally, I always suggest new users the most mainstream distro you can find which is basically Fedora or Ubuntu. And they are both top level distros and not a branch of a branch of a branch. This way you can be assured software, hardware and technical support will ALWAYS be available to you in large numbers anywhere.

 

[_roman_]

And they are both top level distros

Ubuntu seems to be still based on debian

Ubuntu - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Mint is Better as Ubuntu and based on Ubuntu. Bboth are based on Debian

Fedora was also some sort of based on Redhat. Seems to be more complicated

Fedora Linux - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

-- 0 Experience: I suggest linux mint cinnamon. You install it boot it up. Last time i did it you had the user manual direct on the desktop. Assuming someone is willing to read all those help guide in e.g. eng or de in 500 pages pdf format.

Fedora- last time i bothered 15 years ago had it policy to keep codecs away. Well known like some other distros. Using the package manager is a basic task.

Personally as a long term user since kernel 2.0.0.
You may choose a distribution first based on the installation guide and the package manager. Also do consider signing up for the forum and asking there.

When the documentation is crap or you fail to install just simple media codecs pack you have chosen the wrong distribution in the first place. A bad documentation is also when you do not crasp the scope of the topic. Wrong audience vs documentation style and information provided.

Are they true windows replacements as in for someone with 0 linux use or experience?

No

People are unable to use a webbrowser. Download a file. bootup a file. Make changes to the uefi. Read the installer. Read the documentation. When you can not install your own microsoft windows and create the boot media from an iso file you will fail. I admit i also wasted 20-30 minutes on my new msi mainboard. MSI and ASUS mainbards for X670, x570, B550 are not gnu linux friendly when they are unboxed. Reboot - waiting for DRAM initialisation - issue - checking msi uefi again. repeat. ....
MSI does not name the options the same as ASUS does. And hiding the options in the 4th / 5th submenu does not help.

 

[Bomby569]

They should do what AMD does in cases like this. Give it to the community.

Why would anyone want to take over this?

 

[dyonoctis]

Ubuntu seems to be still based on debian

Ubuntu - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Mint is Better as Ubuntu and based on Ubuntu. Bboth are based on Debian

Fedora was also some sort of based on Redhat. Seems to be more complicated

Fedora Linux - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

-- 0 Experience: I suggest linux mint cinnamon. You install it boot it up. Last time i did it you had the user manual direct on the desktop. Assuming someone is willing to read all those help guide in e.g. eng or de in 500 pages pdf format.

Fedora- last time i bothered 15 years ago had it policy to keep codecs away. Well known like some other distros. Using the package manager is a basic task.

Personally as a long term user since kernel 2.0.0.
You may choose a distribution first based on the installation guide and the package manager. Also do consider signing up for the forum and asking there.

When the documentation is crap or you fail to install just simple media codecs pack you have chosen the wrong distribution in the first place. A bad documentation is also when you do not crasp the scope of the topic. Wrong audience vs documentation style and information provided.



No

People are unable to use a webbrowser. Download a file. bootup a file. Make changes to the uefi. Read the installer. Read the documentation. When you can not install your own microsoft windows and create the boot media from an iso file you will fail. I admit i also wasted 20-30 minutes on my new msi mainboard. MSI and ASUS mainbards for X670, x570, B550 are not gnu linux friendly when they are unboxed. Reboot - waiting for DRAM initialisation - issue - checking msi uefi again. repeat. ....
MSI does not name the options the same as ASUS does. And hiding the options in the 4th / 5th submenu does not help.

Fedora is essentially the bleeding-edge version of Red Hat Linux. But since Red Hat is focused on stability for businesses, they don't get the latest improvements as fast. Think of Fedora as a preview of the future of Red Hat, minus the admin and security tools. And CentOS is the free version of Red Hat (so you don't get the 24/24 7/7 support, and the other tools)

 

[unwind-protect]

Are they true windows replacements as in for someone with 0 linux use or experience?

Mint and ubuntu are close from what I hear, but unfortunately nothing that could be a true windows competitor...............

Who cares? Why would anyone want that?

 

[Wasteland]

Fedora KDE is the cleanest and closest to Windows, main issue with it is that codec support out of the box is stupid af and finding working guide to make it work is a nightmare. If device has the brute force to decode in software, then it might not even be an issue, but I had issues running Youtube on Pentium N6000 which is a lower end quad core, but it can decode 4K in hardware just fine. The issue was when hardware decode wasn't there and it struggled with 1080p which is just stupid.

The guide is here: https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/Multimedia

Last I looked, that guide was promoted even in Fedora's own documentation. There are annoyances with Fedora having to do with their aggressive policy to exclude all non-free software by default. (This is why the codecs have to be installed manually.) Fedora's inclusion of SELinux for security can likewise cause the occasional annoyance--though those are surprisingly rare these days unless you're trying to do something fairly involved, like running VMs from a non-standard storage volume--but for the most part Fedora is trouble free once you've spent a few minutes setting up the rpmfusion repositories, codecs, and Flatpaks (along with Nvidia drivers, if applicable).

I wouldn't recommend stock Fedora to a brand new user because of that extra set up process, but I think "nightmare" oversells the problem. And if you want the Fedora experience as a newbie without the extra setup, you can always grab Nobara or Bazzite.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I dont see how building optimizations for your CPUs is "glorified fluff".

It isn't. It's a very good effort. However, the Linux community would prefer Intel optimizes their driver set for all distro's instead of building a specific distro for their own hardware. I'm with the community on that point.

Nope, this is something they shouldn't. We need bigger companies to back linux development and them having their own distro helps them fine tune linux more and gives them a reference design for downstream development.

Agreed. However, there are batter ways to for Intel to be involved in the Linux/OSS world. Proprietary distro wasn't quite the right direction to go.

 

[igormp]

It isn't. It's a very good effort. However, the Linux community would prefer Intel optimizes their driver set for all distro's instead of building a specific distro for their own hardware. I'm with the community on that point.

Submitting patches to all distros out there is not viable. What Intel did with clear was tune in certain compiler flags, build options and apply some extra patches to get better performance.
Many of those patches were sent to the upstream application (be it the kernel itself, or software like ffmpeg), while others were easily available for distros to replicate if they so desired (and many did).

Agreed. However, there are batter ways to for Intel to be involved in the Linux/OSS world. Proprietary distro wasn't quite the right direction to go.

Clear Linux was never proprietary, and it was a great test bed for patches to be upstreamed latter.
The sad part is that this coincides with the fact that many of their Linux kernel developers were fired/left the company, so Intel is just trimming Linux support in general.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Submitting patches to all distros out there is not viable.

Moose muffins. It's perfectly viable. Intel just didn't make the correct efforts.

What Intel did with clear was tune in certain compiler flags, build options and apply some extra patches to get better performance.
Many of those patches were sent to the upstream application (be it the kernel itself, or software like ffmpeg), while others were easily available for distros to replicate if they so desired (and many did).

I'm not willing to debate those points.

Clear Linux was never proprietary

You may have misunderstood the context of my statement. However..

The sad part is that this coincides with the fact that many of their Linux kernel developers were fired/left the company, so Intel is just trimming Linux support in general.

..this is the sum-total of the situation.

 

[remixedcat]

Lip bu tan is giving hock tan energy and it's not good

 

[RejZoR]

The guide is here: https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/Multimedia

Last I looked, that guide was promoted even in Fedora's own documentation. There are annoyances with Fedora having to do with their aggressive policy to exclude all non-free software by default. (This is why the codecs have to be installed manually.) Fedora's inclusion of SELinux for security can likewise cause the occasional annoyance--though those are surprisingly rare these days unless you're trying to do something fairly involved, like running VMs from a non-standard storage volume--but for the most part Fedora is trouble free once you've spent a few minutes setting up the rpmfusion repositories, codecs, and Flatpaks (along with Nvidia drivers, if applicable).

I wouldn't recommend stock Fedora to a brand new user because of that extra set up process, but I think "nightmare" oversells the problem. And if you want the Fedora experience as a newbie without the extra setup, you can always grab Nobara or Bazzite.

I think it was this link exactly and it didn't work because the guide doesn't mention repositories for these codecs and all I got was bunch of errors that commands are unknown. Which is stupid for "official" guide.

I later found another this one that actually includes repository addresses that were missing in the official one:

Enable Hardware Acceleration for Video Playback in Fedora 39 - FOSTips

This simple tutorial shows how to enable VAAPI hardware acceleration for playing videos in Fedora Linux 39. Hardware Video Acceleration takes use graphics card for video encoding/decoding, thus offloading the CPU and saving power. Due to licensing issue, Fedora does not support for...

fostips.com

This one mentions repositories first which you need to add for those commands to even work. Question here is, is all this bullshit really necessary or can it be streamlined to a built in tool that installs proprietary codecs automatically and sends user through a simple prompt that explains the situation? Like, why the F does anyone need to immediately be forced to use stupid Terminal and bunch of cryptic commands just to play Youtube smoothly on that old laptop? It's asinine. I'm a computer power user as whole but dealing with this fuckery on Linux was just so stupid I couldn't even comprehend it. And the amount of time I wasted figuring out why same videos lag like crazy on Fedora but not Ubuntu just to realize the above. And then through the hell of finding out which guide out of 20 obsolete and badly written ones actualyl works.

And sending novice or beginner users to a 3rd branch of forks is even dumber. My rule that I'll defend to death is to stick as high up as possible in Linux hierarchy, preferably sticking with Debian since it's the most widely used consumer distro and then Fedora, because it's the first tier, technically speaking (RHL). People push Linux Mint a lot, but I don't like the fact it's a fork of a fork. They want to go straight from Debian, but they still aren't there yet...

 

[Wasteland]

I think it was this link exactly and it didn't work because the guide doesn't mention repositories for these codecs and all I got was bunch of errors that commands are unknown. Which is stupid for "official" guide.

That's the first step mentioned on the page:

The highlighted link leads you to the page describing how to install the repositories. I'll grant you that it isn't the simplest guide on earth; a new user might not connect the dots between "configuring RPM fusion" and "installing the appropriate repositories," but that website has everything you need to configure a fresh install of Fedora with the aforementioned repositories/codecs/drivers. Just follow the instructions carefully.

As for the rest, different strokes. Mint is about as solid a rec as you can get for a newbie Linux user, IMO. It may be a "fork of a fork," but Mint is extremely well established; it isn't going anywhere, and it cuts out some of Canonical's nonsense (e.g. the Snap store). Nobara is maintained by a single guy, so I could see skipping it on that basis--but that single guy is GloriousEggroll, the creator of ProtonGE and a Redhat employee; he isn't exactly a flake. Bazzite is an interesting case because it isn't actually a distro; it's just a customized image of Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite, which is an immutable distro and thus the entire Bazzite team could disappear tomorrow and your existing install would continue to update just fine. But sure, I could see skipping Bazzite too, on the basis that immutable distros might not suit everyone.

As always I'm left with the conclusion that if anything, we have too many options on the distro side of things. Personally I tend towards your view that, in the long term, one should stick to the big boys as much as possible, which is why I main Fedora. But for brand new users I believe the most important thing is to break the ice, install something relatively easy, ASAP, and get hands on. Moving past the paralysis-by-analysis stage is half the battle.

 

[leonavis]

They should do what AMD does in cases like this. Give it to the community.

well... it's a Linux-distro, so anyone can simply continue working on it if they so wish.

 

[RejZoR]

That's the first step mentioned on the page:

View attachment 408611
The highlighted link leads you to the page describing how to install the repositories. I'll grant you that it isn't the simplest guide on earth; a new user might not connect the dots between "configuring RPM fusion" and "installing the appropriate repositories," but that website has everything you need to configure a fresh install of Fedora with the aforementioned repositories/codecs/drivers. Just follow the instructions carefully.

As for the rest, different strokes. Mint is about as solid a rec as you can get for a newbie Linux user, IMO. It may be a "fork of a fork," but Mint is extremely well established; it isn't going anywhere, and it cuts out some of Canonical's nonsense (e.g. the Snap store). Nobara is maintained by a single guy, so I could see skipping it on that basis--but that single guy is GloriousEggroll, the creator of ProtonGE and a Redhat employee; he isn't exactly a flake. Bazzite is an interesting case because it isn't actually a distro; it's just a customized image of Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite, which is an immutable distro and thus the entire Bazzite team could disappear tomorrow and your existing install would continue to update just fine. But sure, I could see skipping Bazzite too, on the basis that immutable distros might not suit everyone.

As always I'm left with the conclusion that if anything, we have too many options on the distro side of things. Personally I tend towards your view that, in the long term, one should stick to the big boys as much as possible, which is why I main Fedora. But for brand new users I believe the most important thing is to break the ice, install something relatively easy, ASAP, and get hands on. Moving past the paralysis-by-analysis stage is half the battle.

That's not a "first step". That's a non highlighted barely visible comment at the top that you skip over after someone posts you the link on how to install codecs and you just want to install codecs. People who write these "help" documents have this perception how everyone's already an expert in everything and they just throw things at you assuming that. Why the F aren't repository and codec install thing THE SAME GUIDE PAGE?!?!?! Like so many "tutorials" to fix some shit and then they give you a command with "vim" in the command, you copy that into Terminal and it just spits out error that "vim" doesn't exist. It's just assumed we all know "vim" is a Terminal text editor. Considering the guide was specifically for Ubuntu, why the F wouldn't you use "nano" instead of "vim" that's already built into it which is what I learned later? I've already had "nano" in Ubuntu and I went searching what the F is "vim" and then installing it just to learn from some other tutorial that I already had "nano". Sigh.

It's why I'm always absolutely furious over Linux and how everything always boils down to copying and pasting of long stupid noodles of commands no one understands and you just hope for the best every time you slap it into the damn Terminal. Often times they fuck things up and then you're searching for commands to undo that stupidity assuming it didn't error out during first input. I've hated command prompt in the 90s and I still hate it today. And Linux folks are obsessed with it and every problem fixing revolves around hunting these stupid commands online that don't even work anymore half of the time instead of just directing me to a GUI settings panel. Like chasing around weird ass commands to disable Bluetooth adapter (internal) in one of my devices just to realize KDE straight up has toggle switch in GUI that just disables BT adapter of choice with a literal single click. That's what bothers me about Linux the most and I don't care if I use it so generally.

 

[bobsled]

Linux folks are obsessed with it and every problem fixing revolves around hunting these stupid commands online that don't even work anymore half of the time instead of just directing me to a GUI settings panel.

Absobloodylutely.

I think it’s a case of too many cooks in the Linux kitchen. Few people agree, hardly anyone is paid (this goes with the tightass userbase) and so you generally end up with a mess.

Command line is also easier to code than a GUI. Probably why the same lazy ass approach is creeping into Windows as a default.

No Microsoft, most users don’t want Windows Server without a GUI. What’s a Window without a pane of glass?

 

[tpa-pr]

Unfortunately this seems to be a part of a worrying trend from Intel to cut down on costs. We can only hope that they keep on the core Intel CPU/GPU driver engineers for Linux. I don't use Intel myself but the more mainline hardware support, the better.

People need an avenue out of the Microsoft ecosystem. The cost of entry for macOS is too high and the other lower market share OSes generally require more technical skill than the average user possesses. A good Linux distro is the happy medium.

 

[john_]

A good Linux distro is the happy medium.

In puzzles me that Intel didn't heavily promoted this all these years. Probably to not upset Microsoft. But a Linux distro for Intel CPUs and GPUs, actively supported and optimized by Intel, could really have an impact in the market, the same way SteamOS had with Valve behind it. If Intel had also gone to Valve and was making Clear Linux also get tested and optimized to run Valve's software on Intel hardware, they could hope to have better luck in the handheld market in the future. With AMD handhelds running SteamOS or getting an Xbox button, Intel is finished in the handheld market, at least for now.
Maybe one more lost opportunity from Intel's board and exCEO.

 

[leonavis]

In puzzles me that Intel didn't heavily promoted this all these years. Probably to not upset Microsoft. But a Linux distro for Intel CPUs and GPUs, actively supported and optimized by Intel, could really have an impact in the market, the same way SteamOS had with Valve behind it. If Intel had also gone to Valve and was making Clear Linux also get tested and optimized to run Valve's software on Intel hardware, they could hope to have better luck in the handheld market in the future. With AMD handhelds running SteamOS or getting an Xbox button, Intel is finished in the handheld market, at least for now.
Maybe one more lost opportunity from Intel's board and exCEO.

It was a container distro. It was never meant for "normal" desktop or gaming use (and wasn't suitable for the latter). It was heavily optimized (ie, a lot of the stuff what a distro usable for everyday users wasn't included) and thus more focused on professional use. A lot of the speed came from not including stuff that drags other systems down (but is helpful for normal use).

I actually helped writing the wiki entry for it.

 

[igormp]

Moose muffins. It's perfectly viable. Intel just didn't make the correct efforts.

Sure, would love to see you doing so then. Just grab up the patches from their github and spread them away!

I'm not willing to debate those points.

Classic Lex, disagree on something, do not bring any counter argument, leave the discussion

..this is the sum-total of the situation.

Yup. I actually did a bad wording in that part of my comment. It was more of a "consequence" rather than a "coincidence", which is still sad nonetheless and makes any kind of discussions on "what should have been" moot in the end.

In puzzles me that Intel didn't heavily promoted this all these years

It was promoted, among developers. As well said above, it was not really meant for end users, think of it as a test bed for developers to try out new features and to benchmarks. Those things were then later submitted as patches to the upstream projects.

 

[Pepamami]

Are they true windows replacements as in for someone with 0 linux use or experience?

Mint and ubuntu are close from what I hear, but unfortunately nothing that could be a true windows competitor...............

I have been looking at zorin if w11 keeps going the way it is.....................

My mom is using Fedora (Gnome + Wayland) for like 6 years. She has 0 problems so far.
Its has better than windows upscaling and it does not ask stupid questions and propose stupid things after each update.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Sure, would love to see you doing so then. Just grab up the patches from their github and spread them away!

Pedantic nonsense.

Classic Lex, disagree on something, do not bring any counter argument, leave the discussion

Missing context are you? I think yes.

If you had presented anything that was worthy of debate and worth my time, I'd happily do so. However, as you well know, I DO NOT suffer fools. And as your response here is little more than childish personal jabs, where do you think that puts you? Hmm?

 

[unwind-protect]

That's not a "first step". That's a non highlighted barely visible comment at the top that you skip over after someone posts you the link on how to install codecs and you just want to install codecs. People who write these "help" documents have this perception how everyone's already an expert in everything and they just throw things at you assuming that. Why the F aren't repository and codec install thing THE SAME GUIDE PAGE?!?!?! Like so many "tutorials" to fix some shit and then they give you a command with "vim" in the command, you copy that into Terminal and it just spits out error that "vim" doesn't exist. It's just assumed we all know "vim" is a Terminal text editor. Considering the guide was specifically for Ubuntu, why the F wouldn't you use "nano" instead of "vim" that's already built into it which is what I learned later? I've already had "nano" in Ubuntu and I went searching what the F is "vim" and then installing it just to learn from some other tutorial that I already had "nano". Sigh.

It's why I'm always absolutely furious over Linux and how everything always boils down to copying and pasting of long stupid noodles of commands no one understands and you just hope for the best every time you slap it into the damn Terminal. Often times they fuck things up and then you're searching for commands to undo that stupidity assuming it didn't error out during first input. I've hated command prompt in the 90s and I still hate it today. And Linux folks are obsessed with it and every problem fixing revolves around hunting these stupid commands online that don't even work anymore half of the time instead of just directing me to a GUI settings panel. Like chasing around weird ass commands to disable Bluetooth adapter (internal) in one of my devices just to realize KDE straight up has toggle switch in GUI that just disables BT adapter of choice with a literal single click. That's what bothers me about Linux the most and I don't care if I use it so generally.

vim is just one of many editors - including GUI ones. In Linux you absolutely have to be able to edit ASCII files as root or non-root - aka you have to learn one editor of your choice.

As for solutions you find on the web not working anymore - that drives me bananas too in Linux. Lots of changes for no apparent reason all the time.

But there is a solution - FreeBSD. In FreeBSD you don't hunt for stuff on the web, the documentation is included and for those things on the web there are single sources on FreeBSD.org. The also don't change admin procedures around.

 

[leonavis]

Well, the Arch Wiki is pretty good too. And the developers know what they're doing. If something's about to break and you're in the forums, they send you an email detailing how to fix it beforehand.