ARM-Powered Linux Laptops Unveiled At Computex 272
Charbax writes "At Computex in Taipei on June 2-6th, several companies unveiled ARM-powered laptops that are cheaper ($99 to $199), last much longer on a regular 3-cell battery (8-15 hours) and can still add cool new features such as a built-in HDMI 720p or 1080p output, 3D acceleration, connected standby and more. The ARM Linux laptops shown as working prototypes at Computex will run Ubuntu 9.10 (optimized for ARM), Google Android, Xandros OS for ARM, or some Red Flag Linux type of OS. In this video, the Director of Mobile Computing at ARM, is giving us all the latest details on the status for the support of full Flash (with all actionscripts), the optimizations of the web browser (accelerating rendering/scrolling using the GPU/DSP), the stuff that Google is working on to adapt Android 2.0 Donut release for laptop screens and interfaces and more. At Computex I also filmed an interview with the Nvidia team working on Tegra laptops, the Qualcomm people working on Snapdragon devices and the Freescale people doing their awesomely thin ARM laptops in cooperation with manufacturers such as Pegatron as well."
Will they run Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Will they run Linux? (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, I work in software development, and I'm the only one I know that has a netbook. I've heard that in Europe, purchase rates are 8-10 times higher than here in North America. Why is that?
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Bad data. They are super popular with the HS/College crowd.
Re:Will they run Linux? (Score:5, Funny)
Full-sized laptops don't fit in Smartcars. Especially with the loaf of French bread poking out of the trunk.
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I know you were joking, but a Smart is surprisingly spacious.
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*runs away before the flame war*
Re:Will they run Linux? (Score:5, Funny)
The average US citizen weights 450kg, this is why they drive around in Hammers. Besides they have absolutely no concept of beauty and design. *runs away before the flame war*
I personally prefer to drive in the entire toolbox as a hammer is just too small.
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I think I speak for everyone when I say there's no more fitting place.
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To be honest I am very fat myself (170cm/135 kg) but since I did sports some years ago I am still pretty mobile for that weight.
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Not that the GP was especially funny, but is there some new super secret /. code embedded in the AC checkbox that telepathically removes any sense of humor from the submitter?
Maybe /. switched to that new version of CIA Linux without telling Netcraft.
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No, parent's wife is making up for parent's, uh, size. He wasn't willing to "man" up so she had to :)
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7" size missing (Score:3, Interesting)
As another Nokia Internet Tablet user, I look forward to a slightly larger size, but retaining 2+ days of battery use. 10" screens are too large.
Don't get me wrong, my N800 is good for highly portable needs (geocaching, mobile email, skype, lite blogging), all without a mandatory cell data plan, but there are times when a larger screen would be useful without adding weight. A Eee is too heavy and too large. A 7" screen with a built-in keyboard that I can touch type on and GPS included would be really nice
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Screw 1024x600; I want a 10" netbook with a 1920x1080 screen. I *WANT* high DPI. All that exists right now seem to be 1024x600 and even smaller (1024x576??!). I'll adjust my font size, just gimme my damn high res!
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They will be able to run Windows CE (which is a good thing for Linux though :) ).
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Re:Will they run Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you take a look at the progress the Moblin distribution has made for the atom processor then you can see what is possible with a full blown OS. Near instantanious bootup (faster than a lot of phones) as well as an innovative yet full featured small screen interface. I am sure that linux can adapt to slower processors faster than Windows CE can adapt to bigger screens considering linux is already feature complete for computers a lot slower than the new arm processor.
One point you make which seems really fuzzy is about the tasks you do on a netbook being the same as the tasks you would do on a phone. I would be surprised if 99.9% of what you wanted to do on a current Windows CE device would include using a webcam, watching a high definition movie, running a complete development environment, playing strategy games, troubleshooting a network, writing a novel, running project management software, file sharing with a windows network.. etc. Basically, there is a lot you can do with a slow computer as long as the screen is big enough.
Re:Will they run Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
The ARMs aren't THAT slow. If it's usable on an Atom, it'll probably be usable on a modern ARM.
And, here's the kicker... the ARMs have hardware DSPs that the Atoms don't, making them potentially much faster in certain situations, if software takes advantage of the DSP. (Granted, that does require modification.)
One thing that doesn't require modification to the code, it just requires the JVM to be modified, is Java acceleration - many ARM processors, including the ones under discussion, have Jazelle support, which means that they natively support a subset of Java bytecode. Seeing as "complete development environments" were mentioned... and Eclipse is written in Java...
Re:Will they run Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, they're not going to run Windows any time soon. Good opportunity here. I hope the application availability is going to be good - as a Nokia Tablet user I've been running a variant of Linux on a ARM processor for some time now and I can't wait to get my hands on a ARM netbook.
For all the fun poked at Debian for having such lengthy release cycles, I, for one, am glad that ARM is a fully-supported architecture. (Part of the reason for the long release cycles is each supported platform must be ready for the release.) I could have essentially the same setup on my x86-based laptop as I could on an ARM-based laptop. In other words, application availability really isn't an issue when it comes to the ARM platform.
Re:Will they run Linux? RTFA dude, they do! (Score:5, Informative)
Get Wine on there ASAP and you're away for a good number of Win apps too...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that Wine doesn't translate across architectures. Any windows apps you hope to run on Wine would need to be compiled for Wine from source. So all ARM/Wine apps will either:
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You could run it in an X86 emulator, but the number of tuples you would burn sort of defeats the purpose of using ARM.
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You are right, of course. It's a completely different architecture. Not thinking today...
Obligatory flame (Score:3, Informative)
I stopped reading after the printer lie.
Linus supports (other than Lexmark, I hear, but I've never even seen one of their printers here in the UK) more printers than windows these days, and without the need to download 10s of megabytes of extra driver and add-on crap from the manufacturer.
You're an idiot.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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While you're at it, why not open up the classified ads section in your local newspaper and immediately buy the cheapest used car you can find without doing any research at all. You can round it out by renting the cheapest apartment in the city and shopping for food at the cheapest grocery store, all without doing a bit of research.
Whoever said stupidity wasn't painful enough?
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I take up your challenge:
Printer: http://search.dse.com.au/nav/cat2/computersandofficeequipment_printersscannersandfax/cat1/computers-and-office-equipment/0?sessionid=4a2c65840edb2330273fc0a87e0106aa [dse.com.au]
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=953292&page=2
Solution, go to canon website download .debs in a tar. Install and done.
I am actually too lazy to try DVB cards or wireless cards, but I have found the DVB cards work out of the box on Linux usually. My wireless card has given me problems but there are
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all-in-one printer:
Wal-Mart: HP Deskjet F2210 - HP works, of course
Best Buy: Epson - Factory-Refurbished Stylus NX300 - works (print and scan)
Staples: HP Refurbished Photosmart C6280 - HP works, of course
USB WiFi:
Wal-Mart: CNet CWD-854 - works
Best Buy: Dynex Wireless-G DX-BUSB - does not work
Staples: Netgear WG111 - works
USB TV Tuner:
Wal-Mart: Hauppauge Wi
Targeting the Chinese/Indian market? (Score:5, Interesting)
Price? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Link whoring (Score:3, Insightful)
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That is a market of considerable size for a $200 laptop. And many people that don't care about "using their old programs or data" because they never owned a computer before. For them Linux is perfect (they won't have to pirate MS Office.)
Re:Price? (Score:4, Informative)
They will care about being able to use existing Chinese apps and games, which are pretty much all Windows-only. I don't know if you've actually been in China, but Windows is even more entrenched there than it is in the West.
For them Windows is much better, because all the Chinese software that everybody around them is already using will work, and they don't give a hoot about piracy. In fact, lots of them don't even have a concept of "software piracy". Software is just something you copy from someone else, or buy from the street vendor for a dollar.
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For them Windows is much better, because all the Chinese software that everybody around them is already using will work, and they don't give a hoot about piracy. In fact, lots of them don't even have a concept of "software piracy". Software is just something you copy from someone else, or buy from the street vendor for a dollar.
But the box to run it on is 3 months pay... The "Free" WinXP gets very expensive that way. This is one place MS can't just get market share with Piracy. But they will try with WinCE. They can not just abandon the market... And WinCE can't run WINE and Windows apps either...
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The $99 price is officially announced by Nvidia at http://techvideoblog.com/computex/nvidia-tegra-overview-by-michael-rayfield-general-manager-of-the-mobile-business-unit/
Check out that video, I should have linked to that instead of the geeky video with the Engineer dude at Nvidia.
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In the article, no, but in the video the ARM head guy mentions "sub-$200" prices.
Who's gonna sell these? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't understand who are going to sell these when Microsoft call them up and say "Oh, I see you're selling computers with [non-windows OS], that's interesting... Yeaaahh so... you know those rebates you get on Windows? Yeah, you can forget about those. Have a nice day"
Do they think they're safe because they're on ARM?
Re:Who's gonna sell these? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because Microsoft shareholders are just desperate for yet another massive antitrust case.
Windows Mobile for subnotebooks (Score:2)
Do they think they're safe because they're on ARM?
They are at least until Microsoft tries to revive Windows Mobile for subnotebooks [wikipedia.org].
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A windows mobile phone with a slider is just a sub-subnotebook running wince. And I must ashamedly admit that I'm using one and find it "not too bad". It crashes less than my RAZR V3i did, that's for damnsure.
Who's gonna sell these? Everyone. (Score:4, Insightful)
> I don't understand who are going to sell these when Microsoft call them up and say...
Notice who is doing this. Mobile phone carriers, mobile chipset makers, etc. are the driving force behind this effort. They came together and did Symbian because they understood letting Windows in would end up with them in the PC situation where Microsoft is the one making the bulk of the profit. So if Microsoft had the ability to hurt them I'd think they would have crushed them like bugs already.
Remember also that Chinese contract manufacturers live in a totally different world where Microsoft has no influence. Get consumer electronics instead of PC makers to do the end marketing and again, Microsoft can't hurt them. That just leaves the retailers. Yes Microsoft owns a while isle in Best Buy so they might keep these guys out of there for an Xmas or two. And frankly Best Buy will fear them on their own for their ability to turn a $500 laptop purchase into a $200 netbook sale. Until the wireless carriers put them in the part of Best Buy THEY own bubdles with a 3G contract. And what of Walmart, Walgreens, etc. These puppies are cheap and heading down. Sooner or later they show up as impulse purchase items at Big Lots in blister packs. How much leverage does Microsoft have with any of those markets?
Why phone vendors don't want to play with Redmond (Score:3, Informative)
It's an interesting story. [theregister.co.uk]
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My guess is that quite a few manufacturers will start producing these kinds of devices exclusively in the future... So basically they can give the finger to MS and its pressure politics...
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ARM floodgates blown? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:ARM floodgates blown? (Score:4, Informative)
HTC has been making phones with Qualcomm chips for a while, I just got myself a refurb HTC Fuze when I sold my soul to AT&T (I live in GSM land, and they own it all here now, literally.) It's also the Sprint-sold HTC Touch Pro. 528 Mhz Qualcomm chip, VGA display, respectable 3d acceleration, halfway decent touch. "A $500 value" free with a two year torture session. In real-world reviewed testing they manage five days of standby time and you get maybe six to eight hours of use... on a 1350mAh battery! (You can get power from any old USB connection with the included dongle, which also gives you headphone and headset connections.) That's a prior-generation version of this same idea, using am ARMv6 core (which runs ARMv4 binaries quite nicely, thankyouverymuch.)
I'm no Windows Mobile fanboy, the phone gets chunky here and there. There ARE some hacks you can make (I used "Advanced Config", which should work across all Raphael devices) to dramatically increase the responsiveness (caching mostly) and you can find a list on xda-developers raphael forums. Touch Flo 3D is no iPhone interface, and you get dropped to the Windows interface on a regular basis, but that's far less odious than it used to be and besides, it's possible to run Android on Touch Pro already. I would never have got this thing if I thought I'd be stuck with WinCE forever. Best acronym ever.
$99 huh (Score:2)
now i'd love one of these products, i think ARM is sexy. but mass market appeal? very unlikely. if it can't run that cd i just bought from walmart, your sunk.
Re:$99 huh (Score:5, Informative)
The Eee PC and similar netbooks don't have a CD/DVD drive, either, and yet they sold millions. I don't think people are quite as interested in "that cd you just bought from walmart".
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But that's only why the bought the $39 portable USB drive ;)
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I have an Asus Eee 100 0HE. It ships sans optical drive, and that was one reason why I wanted it. Considerable power savings, and really, most folks who have a netbook have another more powerful machine. Just rip and encode from CD/DVD to a file and enjoy. This netbook has a 160GB drive which is quite capable of holding a good bit of my FLAC files or H.264 videos.
Then again, I'm biased against optical media. Once you've managed to archive all of your music and movies to files on a disk (or more likely an ar
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I have an Asus Eee 100 0HE. It ships sans optical drive, and that was one reason why I wanted it. Considerable power savings, and really, most folks who have a netbook have another more powerful machine. Just rip and encode from CD/DVD to a file and enjoy.
Yeah, that was a selling point for my Eee PC 4G, as well: no optical drive. It just takes up useful space, and I knew I wasn't going to use it. CD/DVD drives on laptops just don't work very smoothly for continuous usage (watching movies or when you have to put the original CD in while playing one of those DRMed games), and for those one-time installation sessions I can use one of my external DVD drives.
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I removed floppy drives from my computers years ago. CD/DVD drives are next. I can do emergency rescue boots, and installation boots, from an SDHC card (now available as large as 32GB or more). Oh, and there are also those minnepinne [google.com] things. As for music, are they still trying to sell it on those over sized low capacity plastic circles that are larger than players?
Come on, guys (Score:5, Insightful)
I looked at the pictures in the article and was crestfallen. I don't want some half assed useless handheld toy.. I want an ARM powered real, usable laptop with an 8.9-11.1" display, readable outdoors in daylight , with a real keyboard, that will be everything that all netbooks to date have emphatically not been. Something with true 20+ hour battery life while doing useful work. It should have WiFi and mobile broadband. An ARM would be more than powerful enough for taking notes, surfing, reading and replying to email, etc. Ubuntu 9.04 would be just perfect. I would pay real money for this. I thought the HP2133 would be it, but mine is going unused. You can barely read the display in a dark room, let alone daylight or even a bright office. The Lenovo X301 is about the closest I have come, but it is a long way from where it needs to be, and brutally expensive.
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So you want something with a 20 hour battery life, a dual mode e-ink display, running full ubuntu and dirt cheap? Would you like a pony thrown in as well?
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Well, the OLPC XO comes pretty close for my purposes. While Ubuntu may be pushing it - I think some people have installed it - XFCE suits me for the kinds of things I do with it. The tremendous advantage of the OLPC is the e-ink mode of the screen, its 5-6 hour battery life, and its small size. I've taken it to the beach many times and have gotten a lo
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Try to pay attention. I never said dirt cheap. In fact I plainly said I would pay real money for it.
Re:Come on, guys (Score:5, Insightful)
You want a good laptop, and that's the problem. The industry has always moved toward pretty, flashy or buzzy devices, at the expense of usability and performance.
That's why today's laptops still get only 1.5 to 2 hours on a charge. That's why 15" and 17" models are cheaper than travel-friendly sizes. That's why they can barely survive traveling in a padded bag. People would much rather pay for a shiny useless gadget, than an ugly functional one. The netbook is only the most recent cristallization of this attitude, users think of them as "cute toys". Some brands do offer a workable laptop, and they're all too happy to charge $3000+ for the "luxury" of a machine that cost maybe 10% more in parts and labor.
Jumping the gun . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
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Of course this is why we are left with crappy laptops. Sure a well designed with laptop, that has good usability and performance, can survive traaport might cost only 10% in parts and labor, but parts and labor are hardly the issue in such matters. The issue is getting the parts, and getting the parts that work. First, off the shelf parts will not work. When I was making wafer, I recall spe
Here, we obey the laws of physics (Score:3, Informative)
implies either a monochrome e-ink display or something with enough backlighting to overcome skylight - which is where your battery life is disappearing to. Even LED lit displays are not going to give you what you want. OLED may one day get there, but is two technical breakthroughs short.
Even at 100% conversion rates - which are not likely to be attainable - I doubt you would get 20+ hours from a 3 cell battery on a 10 inch screen. A very rough calculation shows that you wou
Re:Here, we obey the laws of physics (Score:5, Informative)
implies either a monochrome e-ink display or something with enough backlighting to overcome skylight - which is where your battery life is disappearing to.
Or a transflective TFT. They're fairly common in small devices, relying on a backlight in low-light conditions but being reflective (front-lit) in bright sunlight. Because they don't use the backlight in direct sunlight, the battery lasts longer when they are front-lit.
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One more wank-session for my HTC Fuze; I have a GBA SP (reflective/frontlit) and a RAZR V3i (transflective) and honestly both of them look like dogshit in any conditions except inside, or with one's back to full sun. The Fuze's panel is viewable all the damned time. If only I could have a clamshell with about eight times the screen area and the same resolution per inch, and perhaps about sixteen times as much battery. Such a beast would still fit into one of my pockets... But they think this thing is worth
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The key here is a reflective color display (not reflective in the sense of a mirror, but like a book, which uses the sunlight itself to illuminate the page). My Garmin GPS has what they call a "transflective" screen that is color, but visible in daylight in just the same was as a monochrome LCD, and for dark conditions it
Re:Here, we obey the laws of physics (Score:4, Interesting)
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you know thats not a bad idea, make it a touch screen too with a few user buttons plug into vga port and usb and let me attach it to the outside of my netbook and i'm sold, might even pick up a small usb keyboard to go with it.
Actually that little unit could be useful on a server / desktop
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I seem to remember my monochrome Apple Newton and early color iPaq screens being readable in daylight.
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Transflective.
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Interestingly though white paper manages to be readable in full sunlight without any backlight ;)
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I think when the rubber hits the road, they will be 'standard' looking net books and not those weirdo 'concepts'.
But if as another post stated is true and the 99 dollar price tag is misleading, why spend 250+ on one of those when you can get an atom and be a bit more compatible?
Too bad if true, for $150 id get one in a heartbeat. Any more then that then a regular low end laptop makes more sense to me.
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You're so right. But you've already found the ideal solution - have two boxen. /. in the toilet etc.plus one each for the kids. You can load 'em with XP or any of a variety of great *nix distros that fans have rolled. All work pretty much 'out of the box' (including XP).
I've a bunch off Asus Eee PCs for travel utility and backup, reading
But....but...for 'serious' work I still use a full-sized PC. Where's the problem?
I'm typing this on a cheap (500Euro) Packard Bell which has a decent, bright wide screen
RiscOS (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:RiscOS (Score:5, Interesting)
Last year I put together a basic kernel reimplementation in portable C (as much as possible); interested parties may want to check it out [cowlark.com]. It was a pretty unpleasant job. While RISC OS looks elegant on the surface, inside it's a nasty maze of inconsistent APIs, duplicated APIs, APIs that require certain (unfriendly) implementations, APIs that should have been deprecated and haven't been, APIs that don't exist and should to avoid having to read the kernel private workspace, and most terrible of all, APIs that expose kernel implementation details. And, just to add insult to injury, most of RISC OS is written in hard-to-maintain machine code. (And the APIs are very unfriendly to C.)
Not to mention the fact that RISC OS is missing certain bits of functionality that everyone nowadays takes for granted: threads, preemptive multitasking, memory protection between processes, a GUI that can be driven from the keyboard...
Given how much of an overhaul it would need to be meet modern standards of functionality, it'd probably be easier just to start again from scratch with a proper OS design. I find myself rather intrigued by Prex [sourceforge.net], for example, which is a minimalist embedded operating system with hypervisor-like functionality and a Unixish system call interface. And, unlike RISC OS, it's BSD licensed.
Re:RiscOS (Score:4, Interesting)
There is certainly some truth to what you say, though I may disagree with some of your interpretations. Though I have been away from RiscOS for a number of years, so cannot comment on the current state, I always found the APIs a pleasure to use. The ability to add or patch 'modules' was great. I interned at Acorn for my Masters and worked directly on the kernel (the http module amongst other things) and found the source well written and commented. There was certainly some ARM assembler (not quite the same as machine code) but I don't remember it being 'most' of RiscOS. I bow to your more recent knowledge though, you seem to have investigated quite thoroughly.
I've written RiscOS apps in ARM, C and BASIC, and it is the most pleasurable computer experience I have ever had. Even BASIC apps ran full speed, and GUI apps were a doddle to write. From a user perspective it was the most productive windowing system for its time. It did have limitations, however, and was very targeted at Acorn's own hardware.
I disagree that it misses preemptive multi-tasking and threads. It was a design decision to go with co-operative multi-taking, much like Linus decided to go with a monolithic kernel instead of a micro-kernel. And in much the same way as one was supposed to be theoretically better than the other but one "just worked", RiscOS was the fastest most responsive OS on the market. One software manufacturer forced their clients to buy Acorn computers just to run their software as no other OS was responsive enough to run it (Sibelius). It requires a different way of thinking, much like writing a Twisted module instead of an Apache one, but for all the theory of a rogue app slowing or taking down the OS in practice it never happened.
Though from a performance perspective RiscOS would be perfect for a netbook, and would be more responsive than most other OS, it doesn't make sense from a commercial perspective over Linux due to the vast wealth of available software easily ported. It is an easy choice for users between a slight performance increase, and Ubuntu with thousands of free apps installable in a single mouse click for free.
Phillip.
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The new owners of (one of the branches of) RISC OS has actually released it as shared source, available here [riscosopen.org] if you're interested.
I'll agree that the overall design is very elegant, and the module system is nice, if rather primitive (relocatable code with no fixups! Aaaah!). But we know more about operating systems now, and a lot of Acorn's design decisions are no longer valid: for example, you actually get better performance from a preempting kernel than a cooperative one (because you can do work while o
At least someone different sees Linux's problems (Score:5, Interesting)
From one of the linked articles...
"He acknowledged two concerns for smartbooks are the lack of native support for Adobe Flash on ARM and the fragmentation of Linux application environments. However, he said solutions to both issues are in the works." Emphasis in bold mine.
And further,
"One of the downsides of Linux is the fragmented nature of it," he said. "That's why so many designers are excited about Google's Android, because it's managed by a single entity," he added."
Now, these are folks doing very serious work with Linux. Many Slashdoters have said the same things only to be branded as trolls. I can see a future for Android if Google continues to do a good job.
Re:At least someone different sees Linux's problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:At least someone different sees Linux's problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Fragmentation may be an issue, but trying to fix fragmentation by making a one-shot wonder isn't going to make it less fragmented, it's only going to make it more so.
Especially because it -is- Linux... I'm sure there's still people out there that are using e9 and xfce (for their own reasons).
I myself am not disappointed with the fragmented nature of things. It gives me choice. I got tired of toying with GNOME, so I moved to KDE.
Both of them have good applications, and yes, there are some applications that I'd still use over the 'native' counterparts, because they're just that much better. That's not a problem (to me) either.
Android is lighter and all; which is a significant plus. Providing an alternative to the heavyweights (like X) is a good thing! However, as another alternative, it's only going to fragment the landscape that much more. (i.e. can I run Android apps on my linux netbook? yes, but only if you run a container app).
And then, I have to ask: would you still want to use that KDE or GNOME app on your android netbook? Would you want it to be -capable- of running GNOME or KDE apps? (at worst, this means running a minimalized X server on top of Android).
The only solution to being able to run those apps at all would mean getting a high-end smartbook. This would include things like more ram, some sort of hard drive (I'd go with SSD here), and things like that.
And in the meantime, the general public would have to deal with a limited application environment. Which... isn't a big problem, provided it can at least do the basics.
Re:What Linux problems? (Score:2, Interesting)
From your posting and the quotes you refer to, I'm guessing the issue you seem to be having is the availability of proprietary software on Linux.
From my perspective, I couldn't care less about proprietary software. I've got linux. I've got Debian Linux. I've got 24,000+ software packages ready to go on ARM. What do I need proprietary software for? What's the smartbook for? Reading e-mail, web browsing, watching a video, maybe doing a presentation. Where's the need for proprietary software? I already have go
Europe (Score:2)
Eight hours on a battery at a 200$ price point? Windows is dead.
Would be a good "office laptop" replacement (Score:2)
Let's see, what do we need... Email? Check. Browser? Check. Office suite? Check, with OO.
Now, how to convince your boss that this is the laptop he's looking for. The 8 hours battery life should be a good selling point (heck, it sure would be one with mine), but what about the design? he'll need it for bragging purposes as much as for actual work, so it has to look really cool and important.
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You mean Evolution? Why yes, it does.
I thought linux was free software (Score:3, Funny)
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--Paraphrase of a quote usually attributed to Einstein.
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For taking derivatives?
Curious and confusing trends (Score:2)
The PDA offered all sorts of personal data and other functions for people who needed or wanted their information handy. It also played some simple and at times addictive games along with supporting ebook reading. The PDA never attained critical mass and the majority of people never really accepted them. They were seen as nerdy and geeky and at the same time they lacked the power to appeal to the actual nerds and geeks so each side had reasons for not getting them. Merging phones and PDAs were a good ste
I don't understand their thought process... (Score:5, Interesting)
the status for the support of full Flash (with all actionscripts)
Gnash [gnu.org] is getting extremely close to being a drop-in Free Software replacement for the Adobe Flash Player. In the linked videos, the ARM director of mobile computing was talking about how the ARM folks were working with Adobe to get Adobe Flash running on the ARM processors, but Gnash has already had ARM support for years. If they're demoing Ubuntu -- a Free Software OS -- on these machines, then why not use a Free Software program to play Flash programs on them? Why not invest their time and energy in the Free Software project?
Rob Savoye (lead dev for Gnash) wrote a bit on this topic [mail-archive.com] on the gnash-dev mailing list:
Jason Guiditta wrote:
> Just saw this...article...bsquared porting flash lite to run on an upcoming dell
> netbook.
Yes, I'm familiar with Bsquared. They're porting the Adobe v10 to
embedded platforms, basically getting rid of Flash Lite, which has
always been somewhat limited. I've talked to several company's also
talking to Bsquared.
> ...This seems like a perfect opportunity to get some
> funding for gnash, since it is already designed to run on so many
> platforms. If a big company like Dell is willing to pay to get flash
> well-supported on their netbook, why could that player not be gnash?
We'd need a contact at a sufficiently high level. Of the companies I
know using BSquared's promised flashplayer for ARM, MIPS, etc... have
decided they'd rather spend hundreds of thousands of $$$ for the
Bsquared solution, than give much smaller amounts to Gnash, which
already runs on the ARM and Android. Big companies that prefer
proprietary software seems to prefer to give business to each other,
regardless pf the much higher price tag. Of the few machines I've played
with the Bsquared plugin on, it usually hung the browser in seconds, and
many other stability problems. But I guess they'll get it right
eventually...
I also talked to Google about Gnash for Android several times, but
they don't appear to be interested in the slightest. Unfortunately, the
only people willing to support Gnash with any funding are people that
believe strongly in free software solutions already. To those people, I
can't thank you enough!
- rob -
Free Software can be a great benefit to the hardware folks like ARM, and can be great for a mobile platform like Android, but it's sad that these groups don't seem to take any interest in what the Free Software community is offering. That's why it's so important for people to donate time, code, and/or money to projects like Gnash. Software Freedom isn't going to just happen without people like you and me stepping up and getting stuff done.
Re: (Score:2)
No one has to stop it. It's collapsing under its own weight.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:No one can stop the x86 train... (Score:5, Informative)
VIA ultra-low voltage chips
Oh, this made me laugh. The OMAP3 used in these laptops is considered power-hungry in ARM circles. It draws 250mW when using the ARM core (complete with FPU and vector unit), the DSP, the OpenGL 2 ES GPU, the 512 MB of flash and 256MB of RAM and the other integrated components in the package. In contrast, the best 'low power' x86 chips use 2W for just the CPU and need more power for the GPU and supporting chipset. When you factor everything in, the best x86 solutions need over an order of magnitude more power for the same level of performance. Even the Geode has an embarrassingly high power consumption (close to 7W for a complete system, excluding display), and it doesn't even come close to the performance of a 250mW ARM system.
Re:No one can stop the x86 train... (Score:4, Interesting)
It draws 250mW when using the ARM core (complete with FPU and vector unit), the DSP, the OpenGL 2 ES GPU, the 512 MB of flash and 256MB of RAM and the other integrated components in the package.
You have got to be kidding me. This is ridiculous. If this is what x86 compatibility costs in terms of power consumption, then this is a killer feature. If ARM laptops will get an order of magnitude more runtime on battery power, compared to their x86 counter-parts then Microsoft shareholders are going to be very disappointed in the coming year.
Re:No one can stop the x86 train... (Score:5, Insightful)
The kicker is that display, mass storage, and wireless power start to predominate as you drop well below 10 watts in terms of total system power. These other components have a long way to go. Until then, the CPU could take 0.01 watts and battery life would still be a big disappointment.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is completely baseless. See point #1 here: http://bec-systems.com/site/326/intel-atom-vs-ti-omap3 [bec-systems.com]
In fact ATOM uses anywhere from the same amount of power in the best case, to much less than an order of magnitude in the worse...
And even if it were an order of magnitude difference in power consumption as you claim, you're utterly wrong that ARM will outperform x86 solutions
Re:No one can stop the x86 train... (Score:5, Insightful)
What that article is forgetting is chipset power, which is 2.3 W for the Poulsbo, which is more expensive and requires a more expensive (although 2 W instead of 2.5 W) CPU. So, 4.3 W there.
But, most netbooks run the cheaper Atom N270 and 945GSE, which is... 2.5 W for the CPU, 6 W for the northbridge, and 3.3 W for the southbridge. Total platform power consumption, 11.8 W.
Do keyboards REALLY matter??? (Score:2)
Yep. The eeePc 1000 series with the Atom chip is very nice. I didn't wait for the prices to drop, and I got one shortly after the container ship from Asia disgorged. It's isn't perfect, though. The battery life, while pretty good, is nowhere near the 7.5 hours promised by ASUS. After seven months of regular use, (and I don't use any power-saving features because I find them annoying), battery life has leveled out to about three and a half hours of useful time, plus another twenty minutes of panicked wa
Re: (Score:2)
Some company should design a keyboard which can slide out sideways to offer more space. It would be really cool to have a full-sized keyboard on a netbook. Bonus if they can also make an extendable LCD screen.
A full sized keyboard and a wide screen which, when closed, measures 6 x 8 inches and maybe 1.5 inches thick? Sign me up.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux fonts and the Linux interface in general (I use Gnome) have really improved. In fact, many cross-platform apps like Firefox and OpenOffice don't show any appreciable difference between the Linux version and the Windows version.
Example:
I gave my mother-in-law a used laptop early last year, Gateway Solo 5300 700mhz with half a gig of RAM and Ubuntu 7.10
It was the first computer she ever actually owned. She had only used Windows machines up to that point.
She teaches at her hometown high school and uses her computer for email, browsing the web, editing Word documents and playing Mahjong.
I never once had her call for help, and she was able to do everything that she needed.
About 3 months ago the machine went dead, most likely a motherboard problem.
She had me find her a decent laptop on eBay, gave me a budget of $250. I roped in a 1 ghz Thinkpad for around 190 bucks and she requested that I set it up with Ubuntu. So I graduated her up to Ubuntu 8.04, handed her the machine, and haven't had a support call yet.
Unless you are an avid gamer, or your job/hobby requires esoteric software that only runs on Windows, Linux is ready for the desktop. Your 60 year old mother-in-law could even use it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
These things have been hyped on trade shows for over a year now. Call me when they actually have something a consumer can buy in a store.
Does this count.. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=261613 [maplin.co.uk]