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ARM-Powered Linux Laptops Unveiled At Computex
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."
What if we in the Linux world could confidently say that an app can be written and be able to run as expected on everything Linux?
If such were to be the case, news such as this would be sweet. Sadly, it's going to be a "mess" to Microsoft's delight.
Sometimes I wonder whether Microsoft is responsible for some of the chaos in the Linux OS community.
Distros that feature...
(a) Different libraries to do the same thing
(b) Different versions of the same software to do similar stuff
(c) Different naming conventions for libraries
(d) Different "homes" for applications and systems files
(e) An over zealous following, some of who make key decisions
(f) Creators that do not appreciate the fact that human beings do not neccessarily want change...even when the change is for their own good ...will always be "behind."
Now kudos to the developers for I know writing code that actually does something useful is no easy task.
I know who's going to jail if it's her fault.
Which ninety-nine percent squared it will be.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The naming warfare already indicates a measure of status symbol, the arm Linux smartbook versus the windows intel netbook ie stupidbook (especially in the education market). The performance advantage of Linux the operating system can specifically be tweaked at the coding level for the processor and system to squeeze as much performance as possible and that can be extended out into the office suit in the case of openoffice.org and of course browser fireofox and email client thunderbird (now with lightning https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/2313).
So really fine tuned custom installation which allow for effective manufacturer branding within the applications and even the operating system, they just have to be careful about how the balance out their specific distribution and what additional software libraries to mirror for free download and even what proprietary software the sell via their home sites.
The second computer market is going to be a very competitive and active market with lots of changes occuring for some time to come.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Surely the Linux community can see how nice it would be if a consumer got home and no matter what item they bought there was a "Linux 32/64" driver on the CD that worked no matter if they were in Xandros, Red Hat, Ubuntu, PCLOS, etc, right?
By design, openly, and without apology, Linux uses a different model. It is distributed as SOURCE CODE. You can write drivers that will work on any Linux, but you have to write and distribute them as source code. And yes, that does mean you cannot use obfuscated binary code to hide details about how your hardware works. But it also means you no longer have to write multiple drivers for every possible combination of operating system and host platform. It also means that any programmer can find and fix problems with the driver, or port it to new platforms or environments that may not have even existed at the time the hardware was designed. We don't have perfect compatibility with broken hardware that doesn't come with specs. But we do have great compatibility with hardware that does, and that compatibility is more or less permanent, whereas Windows drivers, where they work at all, tend to work with only one family of Windows operating systems, and not on any other. You can have your "just works, maybe, sorta, at least for now" driver model if you prefer, but I very much prefer mine ("not everything works, but most of it does, and it almost certainly will continue to for the life of the hardware").
Nonaggression works!