It’s not entirely altruistic. They need good Linux support as for now Linux of Unix are the OS for datacentres. If they want a piece of the AI cake they need to have their GPUs work good and stable under Linux with a good support structure. Gaming is just a good test bench, as it’s highly processing demanding and there are a lot of paying test subjects

Good news I guess, but at the risk of looking a gift horse in the mouth, didn’t Intel previously lay off a bunch of their linux and driver devs just last year in July/August?

Sources:

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-SLM-Driver-Orphaned

https://www.techradar.com/pro/linux-at-risk-recent-intel-layoffs-are-putting-key-projects-at-risk-experts-warn?pubDate=20250814

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/major-intel-linux-driver-projects-are-dying-due-to-intel-layoffs-and-corporate-restructuring-compatibility-and-reliability-issues-could-increase-over-time

This should make transitions to Linux a lot easier, people were held in captivity by Microslop for so long just by being a little bit more convenient and because Linux didn’t have billions of dollars to cram itself like a virus into every device it can and people are finally starting to realise that, let’s just hope the distro maintainers won’t get greedy and start monetising the transition…

A chicken running with its head cut off = intel. Wtf are they doing? It has been very obvious that Linux gaming is taking off, and the GPU/gaming market has a huge gap that they can fill, but they just walked the other way. What?