Geminilake Will Require Intel Audio Firmware Blobs

Written by Michael Larabel in Intel on 4 March 2017 at 08:02 AM EST. 22 Comments
INTEL
Besides recent Intel graphics hardware making use of firmware binary blobs now for the GuC/HuC functionality, Intel audio hardware continues in making use of firmware binary-only blobs for audio support.

Intel Skylake audio began needing firmware audio blobs along with Skylake as well as Broxton hardware. Thus it probably doesn't come as any surprise (unless you were hoping your protesting efforts were paying off) that the upcoming Geminilake hardware will also need firmware blobs for audio.

We've been covering Geminilake's upbringing in Linux and the latest is the addition of audio firmware for this upcoming hardware. So Geminilake will be some more hardware unfriendly to GNU Linux-libre users.

Geminilake is the SoC successor to Apollo Lake and will be used in low-end laptops, 2-in1 devices, all-in-one PCs, and more. Geminilake uses the Goldmont architecture and Skylake era graphics. Geminilake systems should be shipping later this year.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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