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Ubuntu Ports To ARM
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Nov 13, 2008 01:08 PM
from the arm-y-of-warmth dept.
from the arm-y-of-warmth dept.
nerdyH writes "Canonical will port Ubuntu Desktop Linux to the ARMv7 architecture. The announcement sets the stage for Intel to lose the traditional 'software advantage' that has enabled x86 to shrug off attacks from other architectures for the last 30 years. How long can it be before Microsoft responds with a Windows 7 port? I mean, x86 just can't do 'idle power' like ARM ... Nokia's N810 tablets can standby for several weeks, just like a cell phone, keeping you 'present' on IM, behind IPv4 NAT the whole time. The first Atom MIDs are standing by for 6-7 hours."
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sounds to me... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:sounds to me... (Score:5, Funny)
More like (Score:3, Punny)!
Boo to both of us.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think Canonical will go through with it, but probably keep it at ARM's length.
sounds to me...Up in ARMs. (Score:5, Funny)
Well by ARMing Ubuntu, they'll be prepared to wage war on other OSs.
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Re:sounds to me...Up in ARMs. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:sounds to me... (Score:4, Funny)
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Is the OP serious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps I'm misreading the tone of the summary. I honestly can't tell if it's is tongue-in-cheek or serious. The absurdity of it makes me think it's poking a little fun, but it reads to me like the guy was serious.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's "hey, one can only hope". I know I do.
However, I think more important is that someone can now make a "netbook" without having to stick with intel, and still get a complete and modern desktop OS. An extra bonus would be the difficulties to switch to Windows XP.
Pandora (Score:4, Insightful)
I second these thoughts fully - I _WANT_ to see Ubuntu on ARM as a hobbyist.
Downside: It might make the next batch of Pandora [openpandora.org] preorders sell out that much faster.
Parent
Re:Is the OP serious? (Score:5, Interesting)
If anything, this is pretty cool for the Pandora [openpandora.org] project.
Parent
Re:Is the OP serious? (Score:5, Interesting)
If for instance I produced a POS till system based on Linux it would be advantageous if I could run this on an ARM processor.
As Linux can run on many different platforms it also frees device manufactures to think differently about what computers can be in the future, and how they will be used in society (later versions of the OLPC set for 2010 are ebooks for example).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
AMD had the Geode out first, which prompted Intel to counter with Atom and VIA to follow suit.
Re:Is the OP serious? (Score:5, Informative)
No, what NatSemi had bought was the craptacular MediaGX line from Cyrix, which was subsequently bought by AMD. "Geode" with AMD means the GX1 (Which is the NatSemi version...), the GX2 (now branded "LX"...), and the NX (which is a rebadged Athlon XP+ at extreme low power...).
The NX is AMD's answer to Intel's Pre-Atom embedded stuff (and was a good one...)- but AMD doesn't seem to have an Atom answer...yet.
Parent
Re:Is the OP serious? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Is the OP serious? (Score:4, Informative)
But the Athlon uses twice the power as an Atom 230 and is far from twice as fast. It is true that an AMD "system" can compete with the current Atom but this is only because of the horrible chipset used with the Atom. Package an Atom in a better "system" (like the Asus EEE Box) and you can drop the max system power usage to 20w.
Comparing the performance of the Athlon to an Atom 330 is a better comparison as both CPUs use 8w. In this situation, the Atom overpowers the Athlon in almost every benchmark.
Currently, the saving grace of the Athlon is that there are plenty of different options available to diy builders. The Atom is only available with a motherboard - and it's soldered on. Want firewire?, more then 2Gigs RAM?, better video?, - you're out of luck. The Atom is an amazing CPU but the Atom offerings are severely limited.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is the OP serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Its proof the OP has about 0 idea what he is talking about. ARM CPUs are not meant to compete with the Desktop/Laptop CPUs, they often lack a lot of the features that those CPUs have. You won't see a whole ton of ARM based desktops anytime soon"
Where were desktops mentioned?
MIDS and netbooks are the target. But with netbooks being so popular, and high battery life being an issue, ARM could make inroads to intel's current netbook dominance. And even stop it entering the MID market.
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Re:Is the OP serious? (Score:5, Interesting)
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ARM was for Desktops, could be again (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, most current ARM cpus aren't much good for general computers (your run of the mill desktop or laptop). But don't forget that ARM was originally designed for use in Desktops, and derivatives of that design were for sale until a few months ago.
An ARM CPU could be great for a netbook or low power desktop -- the machines that currently use Intel's Atom. Multi-core ARM CPUs running >1GHz are on the way (or maybe they're already here, I haven't been keeping track), and they might easily have enough power (and power efficiency) for that task. Perhaps they'll be better suited than Atom.
The thing stopping non x86 platforms has always been software. FOSS avoids that problem -- if you have the source code then the program is only a compile away. Of course, Linux has long run on ARM CPUs, but open source programs weren't good enough substitues for what people wanted, so it didn't matter. Now, we may finally be approaching the point where people are willing to ditch their Windows, at least for simple tasks like the ones you'd do on netbook. Such an influential Linux distribution supporting ARM CPUs might finially make the platform viable.
Hell, perhaps a company planning an ARM based netbook asked Canonical to do this, and they saw the opportunity. This could be interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#History [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iyonix_PC [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:Is the OP serious? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't speak for the hardware vendors, but it does bring a stable release cycle. If you're basing off of Debian, do you plan for lenny or lenny+1, and what do you do when you slip, or when they slip? Several DDs seem to pride themselves on the fact that it ships "when its done". This is stupid for several reasons, the easiest of which to point out is that with no automated software testing, Debian only has a record of reported bugs, not all bugs. "Perfect" Debian releases is one more reason the software comes out later than sooner.
Canonical also likely brings something to the table, with their build infrastructure running on ARMs hardware. You might look at it like this: Canonical knows Debian well enough to hire and work with Debian when hardware vendors can't or don't. So yes, Ubuntu/Canonical isn't much different than Debian, but they're the go-to guy when you want Debian technology.
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Re:Is the OP serious? (Score:5, Interesting)
Intel has whored the x86 line almost to death. Microsoft, for it's part, has whored the Windows line to death - eg: Vista. The market has simply been 'fleshed-out.' There are new verticals to explore. The PC market has been played to death and that horse will continue to take a beating over the conceivable future; although, people are no longer fascinated by PCs or are no longer going to be woo'd by MS and Intel simply because they released a new OS/MB combination.
No one can doubt the success of Windows XP. IMHO, it was too successful. People have found a system that meets or exceeds their expectations/needs. We nerds can wax philosophic all we want, the market's trend is going another direction. Small appliances with enough power to complete the jobs people need completed will be performed by footprints that are smaller and smaller - both in terms of power consumption (THINK GREEN!!) and physical dimensions.
Maybe MS/Intel arn't worried - they should be. The next time you see a police car take a good look at all the digital equipment running inside that squad car. There are no less than 2 cameras in the cars now - 1 dash cam and 1 rear view mirror cam. Some cameras are actually built into the flashlights they use to blind you with as they approach your vehicle to site you. What kind of computers do you think are running that equipment? Let me tell you from experience: Whatever gets the job done! If they can get a free OS to perform it's job that is much more attractive to the designer/builder than the MS tax.
There are many markets yet to explore. Some young, financially-poor, hungry engineer is now currently exploring markets unbeknown to us. He's the guy hoping the giants stay asleep. The people who build his equipment also hope the giants stay asleep. As soon as someone's idea takes off, there will be many off-shoots that will be wanting to have a piece of undiscovered market share. Ti and companies like them are counting on it.
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Re:Is the OP serious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Debian is a binary distribution, thus no end-user compilation is necessary. You're thinking of Gentoo.
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Re:Is the OP serious? (Score:4, Informative)
I've been using Debian Sid as my home operating system for years. I'm well aware that they offer source packages; I've used them myself. Naturally, if you want to install a source package you need to compile it on your own computer. However, this is true of any distribution, regardless of its style of package management. The statement I was responding to was "the CPU will never, ever go idle, it will always be compiling!", which applies (with a bit of hyperbole) to source-based distributions like Gentoo, but not to primarily binary ones like Debian, the presence of source packages notwithstanding.
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Ubuntu Alone (Score:4, Insightful)
Ubuntu alone is not going to "set the stage for Intel to lose the "software advantage"", or anyone else for that matter, by switching to ARM.
Sure, a few thousand people will be able to switch to an ARM device without blinking, but the rest of the 99.9% of the worlds computer users won't give a flying piece of monkey poo.
Re:Ubuntu Alone (Score:4, Insightful)
Ubuntu alone is not going to "set the stage for Intel to lose the "software advantage"", or anyone else for that matter, by switching to ARM.
Sure, a few thousand people will be able to switch to an ARM device without blinking, but the rest of the 99.9% of the worlds computer users won't give a flying piece of monkey poo.
Really? All it took was a a tiny company in Cupertino, CA, a rogue division in Boca Raton, FL, and a tiny company in Albuquerque, NM, to change IBM's world.
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Re:Ubuntu Alone (Score:5, Interesting)
> Ubuntu alone is not going to "set the stage for Intel to lose the "software advantage"",
> or anyone else for that matter, by switching to ARM.
You are missing the big picture. Go look at lilliputing.com's similar story. This is about netbooks. If Canonical is investing in a full port this tells us somebody bigger than the generic Chinese outfit we already know about is planning to introduce an ARM based netbook, which also is isn't news to we who have been paying attention because ARM themselves said as much weeks ago. We still don't know WHO this mystery major vendor is though.
> Sure, a few thousand people will be able to switch to an ARM device without blinking, but
> the rest of the 99.9% of the worlds computer users won't give a flying piece of monkey poo.
Have you used an EEEPC running their customized Xandros? It 'just works' and in the last month they have added a full repository where you can just click to add from a quickly growing list of additional apps. I haven't seen Ubuntu Netbook Remix yet but I'm confident that if they put their minds to it thay can produce a similarly seamless experience on a preloaded machine. And the end user won't even realize the machine isn't x86 compatible and won't care as long as it 'just works.'
The big change will be these new ARM netbooks won't have an option for XP. Some might get roughed up enough by Redmond to offer a WinCE option but who in their right mind would pick Pocket IE and Office viewers over a full Firefox and full version of OO.o?
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WTF? If AMD64 can't do it with a full x86 core... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am reading this summary as a complete joke.
We are having problems moving to AMD64, and those processors include a full speed x86 compatibility mode. Until there is an ARM7 core that has a full x86 mode I don't think it is going to go anywhere on eliminating the "software advantage" of x86.
We can't even get such smallish things as flash to be offered in 64-bit mode, so what happens to larger Windows only stuff?
Plus Wine wouldn't work, since it isn't an emulator.
Re:WTF? If AMD64 can't do it with a full x86 core. (Score:4, Interesting)
there are flash plugins for ARM, mind :)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You might have problems running x86 software on x86-64 operating systems on x86-64 CPUs. But many issues are specific to certain operating systems. Missing 64-bit browser plug-ins can be solved by running a 32-bit browser and 32-bit plugins. It's also possible t
Re:WTF? If AMD64 can't do it with a full x86 core. (Score:5, Insightful)
Gnuflash will come along. Flash is already available for some non-x86 architectures.
Who cares about windows-only stuff on a mobile internet device or a netbook?
As for the rest of Linux stuff, there are already arm ports of a hell of a lot of thing, debian runs fine on arm.
Parent
Year of Linux on the Desktop? (Score:4, Funny)
Now that Ubuntu has finally ported to the ever-popular ARM architecture, maybe 2009 will be the year of Linux on the desktop!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A mere 10 bn processors shipped - yes, only 1e10. Wusses.
http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/ArticleID/18043/18043.html
Debian did it first (Score:5, Informative)
Uhm... so Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian, and Debian has supported ARM for like... forever. Ubuntu just hasn't followed suit until now.
Not to say this isn't significant. Just give Debian some credit.
Re:Debian did it first (Score:5, Informative)
Debian also has had SPARC, SPARC64, Itanium, Alpha, MIPS, etc. for years. What's the big deal?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Might as well give credit to GCC, that compiles to all those platforms which Linux is ported to, and some more.
It's GNU/Linux for a reason.
Really. (Score:4, Funny)
I see them doing this on the 7th of never.
N810 is AWESOME (Score:4, Interesting)
My Nokia n810 is everything I wanted my Newton 2100 to be several years ago:
- smaller
- color
- built-in board
- integrated wireless lan
However, it lacks much of what made the Newton lovable. Perhaps a full Ubuntu port will let me push the limits. Multi-touch X and an alternative window manager would do a lot.
We can run Android, but it's less than optimized for the n810.
We can also run Einstein (http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2007/07/if_iphone_is_too_closed_try_ne.html) for the full Newton experience.
What we need is the same level of hardware attention being paid to Atom, as in more specialized vendors producing high-performance ARM hardware. Someone please build an ARM device with HIGH Performance video, better clock speeds, more RAM and storage, and more expansion options (USB, Mini-PCI, etc..).
If I have to link it with a pocket-sized projector or external LCD panel, so be it.
Mobile devices (Score:5, Interesting)
I never bought into the hype for all these years that we'd give up desktops and do most of our computing on mobile devices. The screens were too small, they all had unique software, didn't operate with another, and couldn't perform the tasks I need.
However I can take a Nokia i810 tablet, install KDE 4 and have a modern, fully function OS on it that can do anything my desktop can do, and interoperate with my desktop.
Seriously, now we're talking. Give me a slightly better tablet with 1 gig of memory and then I'm not sure I'd look at a laptop again.
OP should be shot; N800 idle time (Score:4, Informative)
I own an N810 and this is such an exaggeration as to be patently false. Not even Nokia claims you can get that kind of battery life out of these.
An N810 can only go about 48 hours between each charge. And that's if the bluetooth and wifi radios are turned off and all programs are exited. If the battery is new, you might get up to three days.
If you have the wifi radio on and are idling on IM, I'd expect that you could maybe get 12 hours of infrequent use and even that might be pushing it.
When actively using the device (browsing the web, listening to a stream, etc), the CPU kicks in and you'll get between 4 and 6 hours of use depending on what you're doing.
Clarification of what ARMv7 means (Score:5, Informative)
Lots of people are getting mixed up, and/or saying "big deal Debian already supports it". ARM has a slightly confusing numbering scheme: ARM7, ARM9, ARM11, Cortex-A8 are processor models, whereas ARMv4, ARMv5, ARMv6, ARMv7 are their respective architecture versions.
Pretty much all current ARM devices are ARM9 or ARM11 based (smartphones, Nokia's internet tablets, etc). This means they are too old to run this :)
The Pandora, and other upcoming devices, are based on the Cortex-A8, an ARMv7 architecture processor and the most recent ARM currently generally available: this is what Ubuntu are targeting here.
Debian's ARM port is for any ARMv4t or higher currently, which includes ARM11, ARM9 and even ARM7TDMI. This is rather suboptimal for chips like the Cortex-A8 which have many, many more instructions available, so Ubuntu are indeed doing something different here.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Windows? (Score:5, Informative)
Windows NT [wikipedia.org] has had versions on "IA-32, AMD64, MIPS R4000, Alpha, PowerPC, and Itanium", but mostly the earlier versions, like 3.1 and 3.51, with XP on Itanium.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
NT 4.0 on a 128MB, 533MHz DEC Alpha workstation was actually solid and effortless.
I just hated that NT 4 removed video DMA, it broke a few of my other software programs but that got fixed with the release of 2000, by which time DEC was alreday going down and thus wasn't supported in the new NT iteration.
Re:Netbooks (Score:5, Funny)
That was 2008, now it's the Year After The Year For Linux, which is incidentally The Year That Microsoft Still Doesn't Care, which is also the year before The Year Microsoft Got Knocked Out Because They Weren't Paying Attention To Open Source. This is all part of the Decade Of Users Realizing Software Can't Always Be Spoon Fed To Them If They Want To Like What They Taste.
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Re:Intel builds XScale (Score:4, Informative)
Not anymore. Intel sold the XScale division to Marvell in 2006. Since then, Intel has been without a good low-power processor. None of their x86 designs has come close to what a fully static ARM core can achieve in terms of battery life.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Correction: Intel didn't sell all of their ARM business, just the product lines relevant to PDAs, netbooks, etc. (And Intel is still doing the manufaturing on behalf of Marvell, so they will make some money.)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Who the heck wants to run Windows?
People who have clients or suppliers that use (the advanced features of) Microsoft Office. People who play indie video games or game mods (because consoles don't have mods). People who live in areas where the only banks use ActiveX for individual accounts (I've heard this is the case in parts of the Republic of Korea).
Re:Don't get so excited (Score:4, Informative)
Nokia's N810, which is an ARM device, comes with Flash 9. Not some stripped down mobile version either, but the full thing.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It would appear to me that Flash is crippling web browsing, as it stands. Its slow, very bloated, and doesn't handle well on older hardware. The lack of Flash ability hardly cripples the web, either - not unless your "web use" is centered around Flash games, email, and IM.