ARM Powered OLPC XO-1.75 Laptop Is Faster Than X86 229
Charbax writes "Not only is power consumption halved to less than two Watts and price of the motherboard reduced, the performance of the next generation OLPC Laptop is actually better for running full Fedora Linux compared to x86. Here's a video interviewing OLPC's CTO, Edward J. McNierney, where he explains how and why OLPC's world class engineers are making this change of CPU architecture. If OLPC XO-1 threatened Intel enough to start the netbook market and has reached two million poor kids in third-world countries thus far, XO-1.75 may help start the ARM-powered Linux laptop market. Do you think Fedora/Sugar will do, or should OLPC attract Chrome OS and Android solutions for education to get faster help from the big boys of Silicon Valley in bringing Linux software successfully to the next billion PC/laptop users?"
Funny (Score:2, Funny)
It's the intel laptops that cost an ARM and a leg.
Re:Funny (Score:5, Funny)
You had it and missed Anonymous!
They cost an ARM AMD a leg!
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You had it and MIPSed Anonymous!
FTFY
Android for the masses (Score:2)
If they plan to sell the machine widely so as to produce as many units as possible then ideally it would run Android. If they're only selling it for educational use then it doesn't much matter what is on it so long as it isn't (only?) Windows.
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Re:Android for the masses (Score:5, Insightful)
... a full blown Linux distribution that does not require children to learn a new UI...
You know, I think any computer UI is likely to be a new one for many of the children they're targetting. They've got a rare chance to design an interface for people who don't already have expectations of how to use a computer. I know I'd take that opportunity to see if I could work out a better model.
equally, a chance to f up (Score:2)
They've got a rare chance to design an interface for people who don't already have expectations of how to use a computer.
There is the risk that the new UI can't ever beat the standard one, the risk that it won't because actually implementing it well is astronomically difficult (how many people and years have gone into each of the normal UI implementations?), the certainty that apps will be badly ported or wrappered, and the cruelty of wasting people's time on a UI that not even its own developers will tolerate.
When the developers and some unrelated non-developers start using a new UI exclusively, then we can rightly begin to
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http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/10.1.3 [laptop.org] Will be posting this multiple times here (please don't mod as redundant) as Slashdotters really need to be made aware of this fact.
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Well it would be if they ever intend to produce a tablet version. Come to that, it might be better for a desktop too since it would allow apps to be written in Java and developed on Windows, Linux or Mac. This could help enormously to popularize the project and might even allow some crossover with apps being a downloadable for other Android devices.
Re:Android for the masses (Score:4, Interesting)
I would prefer to see OLPC provide a path from the XO to a full blown Linux distribution that does not require children to learn a new UI.
Since when being in a position to learn new things is bad for a kid?
Note that it is not the knowledge that's important, but rather to "flex that muscle" involved in learning and make learning (and, if possible, critical thinking) a constant through the life. Something that the westernalized "civilizations", so blinded by efficiency/cost-reduction, have lost the focus long ago - I'd venture to say for as long as 1950-ies [wikipedia.org]. No wonder the "taming" process now called "education" is seen by the kids like a burden and also as a "cost" by the society in general.
No wonder a constructivist like Negroponte, in addition to a very low price, took another radical step: to make the OLPC not feel like a pure laptop but as a tool for leaning. A disputable choice, as there are many other choices leading to the same result, but at least the mission is very well defined [laptop.org]:
To this end, we have designed hardware, content and software for collaborative, joyful, and self-empowered learning. With access to this type of tool, children are engaged in their own education, and learn, share, and create together. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.
Also, some other quotes from Negroponte's personal vision:
It's an education project, not a laptop project.
Laptops are both a window and a tool a window into the world and a tool with which to think They are a wonderful way for all children through "learn learning"
.
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The goal is to use the laptops to further education and creativity, not to learn linux or the gnome desktop. I've seen a lot of open source advocates simply not get it and think the whole thing is about pushing linux. It's not.
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Well lets see now.. There is the:
One laptop per child project
http://hfoss.org/ [hfoss.org]
Arduino was started by a bunch of teachers and lecturers.
but I guess these people don't qualify in your opinion because it would go against your whole argument. woops.
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No. It's YOU that can't be serious. First you start with an obviously false premise and then expect us to take for granted something that no one really knows for sure.
Tablets just aren't that widespread. Most of what people know about them is taken on "faith".
Besides. If one "unix" with a tweaked shell can be successful then so can another.
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If it ends up being anything like this
http://www.reghardware.com/2010/11/03/review_netbook_toshiba_ac100/ [reghardware.com]
then no.
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That is a good point. I have been playing with the AC-100.
The Android is not impressive on the AC-100.
But you can install Ubuntu on it; which is slow.
But it you use LXDE and trim Ubuntu a bit, it is actually good, much faster than Android.
I do like how the Android browsers make excellent use of the screen.
The Ubuntu/Debian package system is so much better than the silly app markets. More usefull applications and much easier to install.
(i didn't even manage to install Emacs on Android).
I want ARM power! (Score:3)
I want to buy a powerful ARM laptop, with the fastest CPU, most cores and the biggest screen (15" is preferable).
Is there anything like this on the market?
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I want ARM power!
Curls, reverse curls and seated presses are what you need to do.
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What about cheese curls? I do those all the time!
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I want to buy a powerful ARM laptop, with the fastest CPU, most cores and the biggest screen (15" is preferable).
Is there anything like this on the market?
No, not really. Dual-core 2Ghz ARM chips are supposed to come out this year.
I just bought a Tegra 2 tablet to play around with (got the Viewsonic G-Tablet for cheaper than it would have cost to upgrade my midrange Android phone). It's all right. But the performance system you're looking for is still a ways off.
Re:I want ARM power! (Score:4, Interesting)
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I don't think there are any today.
As for the article, I remember back in the mid and late 1990's when Acorn Computers had ARM powered desktops that were faster than x86 at the time, faster than what both IBM and Intel had to offer.
Intel 386DX vs. ARM 6 66MHz or Pentium II 300MHz vs. StrongARM 600MHz. It's a shame Acorn Computers are no longer.
Build them and an app store. (Score:2)
Build the hardware and sell it at cost or maybe less then create an app store to make more money.
WIth that money develop new version and or subsidize the sale of the hardware.
If you want to put a GPL app in the store it is free if you want to put in a none GPL it costs x and if the app isn't free as in beer you take y% of the price.
Not only are you getting the device into the hands of people that really could use them but you are opening up development and ways of making a live to people that may not have t
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Build the hardware and sell it at cost or maybe less then create an app store to make more money.
Huh? So, only the "rich" poor people can afford the "cool" apps?
Besides, it already has a free "app store" (AKA activity repository [opensuse.org]).
openSUSE has packaged about 50 activities in total for Sugar, with more activities available for installation from the sugarlabs.org activities repository. Activities that haven't been packaged can be downloaded directly from http://activities.sugarlabs.org/ [sugarlabs.org] and installed by the user through the browse interface (the repository is similar to firefox addons.)
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Build the hardware and sell it at cost or maybe less then create an app store to make more money.
Yeah, brilliant plan. Surely no one will figure a way around that. All they have to do is install DRM on Linux for that to work, which will surely be bulletproof. Ask Sony or Apple or anyone else trying to have a monopoly for software on hardware they built but no longer own.
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I never said they couldn't sell GPL apps. The question is should those be hosted for free and just a percentage taken
Arm powered ARM powered computer? (Score:5, Funny)
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The OLPC hasn't had the integral crank since the design phase.
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Dumb move. I kind of wanted one, but if they've nixed the crank, then what's the point. I know that they get really good battery life, but I thought a part of the point of it was not needing to plug them in.
I reckon a foot pedal would be more suitable, you have your hands free that way.
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My family and friends insist that I'm seriously cranky, so I volunteer. Half - 1.
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Relative to the average income in a third-world country, it does cost an ARM and a leg.
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Yeah, you need to keep away from all those minefields.
Um, faster than...an 8 year old x86 (Score:5, Informative)
The original XO-1 uses an AMD Geode LX 800, which was released in 2002/2003 or thereabouts. This latest XO-1.75 uses a Marvell Armada 610, and the marketing material I'm looking at from Marvell has a copyright of 2010 on it. The CPU in there is a Marvell Sheeva which the earliest reference I can find is from 2008, but that's not even a fair date because that's when they announced it, not shipped it.
So yes, this processor is faster than an 8-year-old AMD Geode. I would like to see power/performance tradeoffs vs. today's Atom and AMD Fusion stuff before everyone goes nuts about how ARM is faster than x86 for half the power.
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It does not need to be, it only needs to be faster/watt.
Re:Um, faster than...an 8 year old x86 (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you know what the word "per" means?
It's perfectly valid to measure efficiency in the form "stuff you get out per stuff you put in". Miles per gallon, for example.
You aren't the target market (Score:3)
OLPC is targeted at...shockingly enough...children in the third world. Where you don't have power outlets scattered around the house every 12'. As such, low-power is a critical requirement.
If they were rich enough for a power grid, they wouldn't need the aid.
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I was told the ARM instruction set [simplemachines.it] combined multiply and addition instructions into one, much like DSP chips do. As multiplication and division instructions are traditionally the most energy-hungry operations due to all the transistors required to implement them in hardware, it's more energy efficient to emulate them.
Even more optimisation include logical shift instructions are implement using a barrel shifter, and multiplication is implemented using Booth's algorithm on 8-bit blocks. Thus, instead of one b
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Yeah, it's a misleading title, to say the least. Should have said "... faster than X86 version" or so.
Re:Um, faster than...an 8 year old x86 (Score:5, Informative)
Atom is a power hungry son of a bitch compared to Arm gear. The lowest power PineView based one is at 6.5 Watts and that is the CPU alone, the Arm stuff is all SoC. The whole SoC power budget is going to be less than that.
Once you start to value power consumption above all else Arm really starts to make sense. When you can plug in your laptop every couple hours well less so.
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The title refers to the x86 version of the OLPC, clearly. I believe that. I also believe that these ARM SoCs are faster than any x86 system constrained to the same power budget.
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The title refers to the x86 version of the OLPC, clearly.
That was not at all clear to me.
I also believe that these ARM SoCs are faster than any x86 system constrained to the same power budget.
I completely disagree. If you allow both CPUs 20W, there is not an ARM microarchitecture available today that will outperform a Core i3 in the 18W TDP, and I doubt that the Cortex-A9 (coming soon) would either. An A-15 is in the ballpark but that's a couple years away right now.
If you allow both systems 500mW, there isn't an x86 available to do a comparison. Designing a CPU for 500mW power budget with the expected (relatively) low performance is an entirely different game
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No Core i3 system will make it on 18 watts. Only the CPU will, which is great if you don't want to actually use it. Even at 20 watts, no x86 system can compete.
By the same power budget I meant the one the OLPC operates on. I should I have more clear.
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Atom is a power hungry son of a bitch compared to Arm gear.
It also performs a whole lot better. In x86 terms, the raw CPU power of an ARM is like a Pentium 300Mhz.
Intel might even be able to throw together some recycled 90s technology with comparable performance and end up with something ARMs equal in power.
That was the model for mobile computing for a time (adapt outdated desktop tech).
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You need to look at more recent numbers. Intel could make a CPU maybe with similar power, but we are talking about SoCs here. So you need everything in that low a power budget.
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Or, alternatively, put a chip with four of those instead of one. Being faster with one means you'd suddenly be more than four times faster than x86 at the same power.
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Cool now add in the FSB and the South bridge, and the video card, etc. All that stuff is on the ARM SoCs.
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I suppose that by "x86 OLPC" they mean the current XO 1.5 which is powered by a 1GHz VIA chip.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Hardware_specification_1.5 [laptop.org]
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You're calling this a false comparison because the title/summary are vague, and you have an expectation of comparing modern to modern. But that's far from the only way of comparison. Often you'll see products compare model-to-model. "We've managed to squeeze 13% more mpg out of this year's vehicle" or "we've added feature X to the new version" or "we've fixed 100 more bugs this release than we did last release."
Sounds to me like the article (which, of course, I've not read, and don't plan on) is comparin
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Don't bother with Android (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't solve a problem that XO has. Linux fits very well.
Windows on ARM doesn't solve any problem XO has either, and potentially causes some, like licensing and lock-in. between you and me, if we're gonna start kids off with computers in the Third World, Linux makes WAY more sense than Windows. Even more than Android. Crome is not ready, and the cloud may not be Third-World-Friendly for a long time. try not to rely on resources that are either not available, cost more than food, or can be taken away by other nations, or even their own.
If ever there was a project that leverages the maximum potential for freedom via the Internet, this is it. Really, give the kids someething they can work with and watch out. Somethings wonderful will happen.
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The world faced this with oil and mineral rights after decolonisation.
Past generations sold out to Washington or Moscow, expect the same with MS and Google.
Linux is the perfect fit, but will it be seen as a hardware base for a night of the long install by a MS or Google as a national 'gift'.
Same chipset as the Marvell Moby reference design (Score:2)
So poor kids are using it... (Score:2)
Poor children and those in third world countries generally are not customers who would be spending money. This is a key point to this whole issue, where the idea that just because there may be thousands or even hundreds of thousands of users does not mean that there is a lot of money that can be gained from that market. Two billion of these machines will still not end up as profitable for software developers as two million regular PCs running MacOS or Windows for that reason.
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Sweet candy computers!!
Why android over standard Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)
I feel much more comfortable with a full Linux distro that empowers its users, rather than makes them comfortable with someone else holding the keys to their machine. Besided, android hardly seems compatible with the "open" goals of OLPC. A full distro would take advantage of a real JVM and a much richer software eco-structure instead.
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Android dominate the tablet market? Where are the sales figures that back that up?
MeeGo? (Score:2)
Wrong Target. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't want Windows. I don't want Sugar. I don't want Fedora. I don't want Ubuntu. I don't want Anroid with their crappy market.
I want Linux Mint. It's faster, more stable, and more feature filled than any of those OSes out of the box. Dead simple, my mom was even a convert, and it is rock solid. I put Mint on a machine, and never get a tech support call back, which is exactly what I want.
Mint and Forget. And in this case I mean forget the other operating systems. Linux year of the desktop should be 2011, and it should be Mint version 10 which is incredible.
Don't flame me or troll me until you've installed it on 3 or 4 machines. It will shock you. I literally haven't hunted for a driver since the new mint came out. Not one. On about 20 different machines.
The only post format chore I have to do in Mint is make video files default to VLC, change the shortcuts a bit in the start menu, and install audacious and delete rhythmbox. It already has Firefox, Open Office Write, Brasero, Pidgin, and almost every other program an end user needs. Oh, except for Skype. I have to install that often as well.
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XO By The Numbers (Score:2)
If OLPC XO-1 threatened Intel enough to start the netbook market and has reached two million poor kids in third-world countries thus far, XO-1.75 may help start the ARM-powered Linux laptop market.
Deployment of XO laptops [wikipedia.org]
Global: 1.8 million
Latin America: 1.5 million
Peru: 870,000
Uruguay: 460,000
Columbia 65,000
Argentina 60,000
Mexico 50,000
Africa: 135,000
Rwanda: 120,000
Asia: 24,200
Oceania: 10,000
Australia: 5,000
The geek has some explaining to do when his allegedly potent combination of durable, cheap, laptop
Forget portable computing (Score:2)
I want one of these as my home 24/7 web/mail/project server. My power bill would be grateful.
Poor summary. (Score:3)
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The Professor did better than this. They pedaled a bicycle to recharge batteries on the island.
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Too bad it never occurred to him to turn the VFO into an HF transmitter to send an SOS and get off the island, though...
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He was stranded on an island with two young, pretty women and just imbeciles as competition for their attentions. He was in no hurry to leave.
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I can see that. Ginger was okay but the brunette was HOT!
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Was pissed off to find that Dawn Wells had a restaurant near my hometown (Clearwater, Fl) but I only found out after she'd moved away.
D'oh!
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He never lost hope that he could get both Ginger and Mary Ann if the competition was old, fat and retarded.
At night he would go out and do what he could to obscure any traces of occupancy that might be visible from an airplane.
A devious and obsessed man.
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As was said by Bob Denver, playing someone who look a lot like Gilligan, in "Back To The Beach": "[The professor] could build a nuclear
reactor out of a pineapple and a couple of coconuts, but he couldn't build a _boat_!"
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No, he didn't want to build a boat. The show never showed what was going on at nighttime. The prof was the only good-looking and not-retarded unmarried man on the island, with two hot young babes. Why would he want to leave?
Re:I think you may be over stating things... (Score:4, Insightful)
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OLPC was founded in 2005 with the "$100 Laptop" idea which Bill Gates, Intel, everyone imediately poo-pooed.
And they have yet to come close to delivering a $100 anything. As well, they can talk about the specs of this latest version, but they have not yet actually built any.
Re:I think you may be over stating things... (Score:5, Interesting)
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An arm tablet/netbook can probably have a per unit production cost of under $100 if they opt for a relatively small screen and battery. It is definitely a lot cheaper than intel for similar power and endurance.
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US spends billions dollars every day on useless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This isn't about the US war in where ever. And the US ins't the only country neglecting "2 billion kids".
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It's a US project made by the good people at the US MIT...
Again, this has what if anything to do with US wars?
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It's useful to compare things, analyse money transactions for understanding the value of things.
No, there is no relationship at all between the was being carried out by the US and a social program being carried out by some former MIT folks. None.
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2 billion kids are waiting. US spends billions dollars every day on useless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why is it so unrealistic to have a vision where one actually puts money in educating the kids as soon as possible, before they grow old and miss their opportunity of getting inspiration to do big things in their future.
It has been commented over and over that the best way to make the world a safer, saner and more friendly place is to improve education, heath care (and health care access) and develop healthy economies. The OLPC project is one among many that can actually make the world a better place by providing affordable computing.
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Just get the users to assemble the computers themselves - worked for Clive Sinclair and the ZX series of home computers ($149.95 assembled, $99.95 in components). Manuals and assembly instructions are provided at no extra cost.
Re:Not an Intel initiative (Score:4, Informative)
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Lol obvious troll is obvious.