Rugged box-PC runs Linux on Atom

I've been sporadically checking any new articles about the latest, wonderful, small-but-rugged, explicitly "Linux Friendly" boxes -- and they all seem to use GMA 5xx/6xx (a.k.a. PowerVR) graphics chips.

As far as I know, those aren't great, and require proprietary drivers.

Am I missing something?

No, you're not missing anything as far as I can tell. That is, they don't "all" use PowerVR graphics, but a large percentage of them do. I've lamented this before somewhere (I think it may have even been in a comment at LinuxGizmos). I find it hard to describe anything sporting PowerVR based graphics as "Linux friendly."

It's odd the way that Intel has handled integrated graphics in Atom SoC's over the years. It's an odd mix of very Linux friendly GPU's that they have designed themselves and very Linux unfriendly PowerVR GPU's. Here are some examples (ignoring chips that don't include graphics):

Nettop and Netbook market:

PineView series (45 nm) Dec 2009 - Intel

CedarView series (32 nm) Nov 2011 - PowerVR

UMPC/Smartphone market:

Lincroft series (45 nm) May 2010 - PowerVR

Penwell series (32 nm) Apr 2011 - PowerVR

Cloverview series (32 nm) Sept 2012 - PowerVR

Bay Trail-T series (22 nm) Sept 2013- Intel

Embedded market (where the item in the article falls):

Tunnel Creek and Stellarton (just the addition of an FPGA) series (45 nm) Sept 2010 - PowerVR

Bay Trail-i series (22 nm) Oct 2013 - Intel

Consumer Electronics market (I think that means licensed to other manufacturers(?)):

Sodaville (45 nm), Groveland (32 nm), and Berryville (32 nm) series all PowerVR, though no new 22nm processors released (that could be because hardly anyone other than Intel can fabricate that small).

Edit: This wouldn't format as I wanted, so this is the best I could manage.

Useful information. Tabled with exact chip numbers, it's a valuable feature for this site.