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ARM Attacks Intel's Netbook Stranglehold
Barence writes "British chip designer ARM is launching an outright attack on Intel with the launch of a 2GHz processor aimed at everything from netbooks to servers. ARM claims the 40nm Cortex A9 MPCore processor represents a shift in strategy for the company, which has until now concentrated on low-power processors for mobile devices. In the consumer market, ARM is pitching the Cortex A9 directly against Intel's Atom, claiming the processor offers five times the power while drawing comparable amounts of energy. 'It's head and shoulders above anything Intel can deliver today,' ARM VP of marketing Eric Schom claims. However, it has one major hurdle to overcome: it doesn't support Windows. 'We've had conversations with Microsoft and you can imagine what they entail,' says Schom."
I suppose Ubuntu Linux is just chopped liver.
C'mon people. Wake up! There are tons of operating systems out there. Some are even better than Windows! *gasp*
I know, there's nothing like a lack of attention to hinder the pace of driver development. Therefore we should never adopt the alternative platform, as the drivers will obviously not improve.
On the other hand, I would like to see someone give Intel a run for their money since it seems AMD is being kneecapped. If ARM does it from the low/embedded end and moves up (leveraging their huge number of licensees) then all the more power to them.
It's dead, Jim (Schon). When the lights, go down in the city, does anyone really care? There are ZERO APPS for ARM Windows (if there ever were such a thing, and Windows CE is not Windows) so ARM is better off trying to get people to compiler Linux ARM apps (good luck with that !!).
Linux already made MS drop their price, allwing cheap windows netbooks because of linux. It's not out of the question that a really compelling ARM netbook would scare them into ARM support. I would be surprised if they didn't have something similar to the x86 apple builds in the powerPC era. Of course windows is mainly valuable for its 3rd party software so people who buy these putative ARM/windows machines may be better off with linux anyway.
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This won't end well. I have an ARM device (nokia n810) and it's great. But Wintel monopoly will kill this just like it did Sparc and IBM Power. I'm sure if it's as good as they claim it'll carve out a niche, but it won't directly compete in numbers or presence with intel CPUs.
netbooks are a great place to quietly slip in non-windows OS's that meet customer needs. the mobile phone/smart phone market has shown that customers aren't slavishly devoted to Windows. they will buy what works.
This may be the first time I've ever heard it said that a processor doesn't support an OS... Usually it's the other way around.
Actually it's pretty much the other way around the fact that M$ doesn't yet support the processor is down to M$ not Arm. I suspect there are a couple of factors here firstly M$ PPC software supports older ARM processors & secondly it's just a case of re-tooling some of M$'s compilers to support the new processor and recompiling. However how it's going to support non .net/java windows software is another matter.
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
That's like saying "Linux or even Ubuntu". :)
Microsoft used to have a laptop/netbook-friendly Windows CE version back in the late '90s, but dumped it in favor of the "Tablet PC" build of Windows NT around 2000-2001. It would be interesting to see them bring that back.
They still do, the problem is it's shit and it won't run any off-the-shelf applications. It's used in a number of industrial PDAs, particularly ruggedized, intrinsically-safe ones.
The way I see it, using CE on a laptop is far worse than Ubuntu because it looks like windows (95), behaves (mostly) like Windows, but won't run any Windows apps. In some ways it's the perfect combination - you get all the 'It-won't-run-Outlook/Oblivion/Photoshop' problems of Linux, all the 'It-won't-work-with-my-USB-doodad' problems of OpenBSD and all of the bugginess of Windows.
And unless it's CE6 (WM and most devices are still CE5), it will have that abysmal 32MB-per-application limit, so good luck porting any substantial win32 apps to it.
Much as I'd like a linux ARM netbook, I am a little worried that they don't seem to have 64-bit addressing in that architecture yet. It won't be so many years before it becomes a needed feature for a netbook too.
I'm guessing that means it doesn't (can't) do most of what an ATOM can do. No x86 support is kind of a dealbreaker.
You are not all that bright. Some might even call you an idiot.
The ARM instruction set is not x86 compatible. End of story.
That'll be news to the folk that have been using computers with ARM processors since the very early 1990s.
Well, you wouldn't necessarily expect x86 support on a non x86 architecture, would you.
It need not, and should not, be a deal breaker though. Windows has run on other architectures in the past - Windows NT and its successors have variously run on PowerPC, Alpha and MIPS and Itanium.
The iPhone is a ARM processor.....
However, it has one major hurdle to overcome: it doesn't support Windows.
Fuck Windows. Seriously.
I've been unwillingly paying the Microsoft tax for TEN YEARS. All I ever do is wipe Windows and install Linux. If my new computer can't run Windows then... great!! Maybe I won't have to pay the tax.
I'd love a low-power, high-performance ARM notebook. I'd be happy with MIPS or Loongson (Chinese MIPS clone) as well. Debian already has a full-blown ARM port and I'll bet they could get it working on an ARM netbook in a day. Ubuntu would undoubtedly be soon-to-follow.
As a side benefit, having multiple widely-used architectures for desktop systems (x86 and ARM) would be a support nightmare for hardware companies that still keep their drivers proprietary and undocumented. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Broadcom and NVidia. This would just be another nail in the coffin for their obstructionist attitudes towards free/open-source operating systems.
My bicyles
Porting Windows itself is almost irrelevant. The tens of thousands of apps in the Windows ecosystem still wouldn't work.
Get a Touchbook: http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/03/02/touch-book-tablet-netbook-with-arm-cpu-10-hour-battery-detachable-screen/ It is already available and quite cheap.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Most of the time, the only advantage x64 has over i386 is the larger register set. ARM had a larger register set to begin with. If you need 64-bit integers or > 4GB address space, ARM isn't an option, but many servers would be happy with 32-bit cpu (especially a low power, low heat one)
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
it's only 5hrs better because it spends more time down then up :D
WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
I like you you casually throw "hdtv" into the list as though it were as simple as a keyboard or mouse, instead of the massive driver clusterfuck that it historically is.
However, it has one major hurdle to overcome: it doesn't support Windows.
Fuck Windows. Seriously.
I've been unwillingly paying the Microsoft tax for TEN YEARS. All I ever do is wipe Windows and install Linux. If my new computer can't run Windows then... great!! Maybe I won't have to pay the tax.
On a serious note, why not get your computer built for you (or DIY if you can). I had mine built by a small local company (Intel core2 quad, 4Gig RAM and 250Gig hard drive so a decent spec) and it cost well under £300. It came 'empty' - no OS - so I could install Ubuntu with NO Windoze contamination. It works geat. It's never given me any trouble at all and it does everything I want, quickly and very well.
Smivs on the intertubes!
it doesn't support Windows.
That's not a bug, its a feature.
LEG should make DSPs or GPUs, so SoC manufacturers can include an ARM and a LEG on the same chip.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
in the Windows world, you'll hear that the processor runs on Windows all over the place. They've been trained that Windows is the end all, be all, and center of the universe so the concept of "it runs on Windows" is their world. Talk about a CPU and _it_ runs on Windows is the norm. They really don't know how to think about it without Windows at the center or in a hierarchy of the hardware->OS->applications. They can't imagine a world without Windows. Combine that with software people and marketing people with no clue of hardware and you get "processor X doesn't run on Windows"
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
While that may be true for...say a geek with IT experience, you really have to think like Joe and Sally average. You know what my customers call Netbooks? They call them "baby laptops" which is VERY important. You see they expect their "baby laptops" to be able to do most of the things a big laptop would, only slower...well because they are babies and babies are little. Intel was VERY smart in that respect, by pairing the Atom with WinXP it runs the apps folks are used to, and because of the "baby laptop" aspect they even expect it to be kinda sucky, because babies are little and aren't strong like the "big" laptops.
So while I have no doubt these things will find a niche, if for no other reason battery life, the real question to me is how big of a niche, and whether that niche will be big enough to sustain it. Because never underestimate how much folks love their little Windows apps. In my 15 years I have seen everything from cheesy photo software that came with a camera to some 10 year old graphic arts program (Xres) labeled a "must have-no matter what" and there is nothing Joe and Sally hate more than change. Hell even now I am building two brand new XP boxes because the customers were willing to shell out the dough just to NOT have Vista/Win7.
Trying to switch folks over to X86 Linux is one thing, where you can at least give them Crossover Office which will help cover the "must haves" but with ARM you are expecting the user to not only throw away everything they know, but every program that they like. And whether Joe and Sally will go for that is a BIG if my friend.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Cortex A9 MPCore processor + Iphone OS = Good ITablet?
With serious improvements within ffmpeg stack, w32codecs as mandatory package is already gone for some time. Most of newest netbook oriented distros (Moblin, Maemo, Ubuntu Netbook Remix) uses Gstreamer as multimedia engine, which has serious developers working for speeding up things for ARM platform. Also I bet ffmpeg guys already have been working on this.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
On what grounds do you base this claim?
Works fine for me.
I have two real computers. I also have a netbook. I use the netbook as my primary computer because it's the most convenient.
It's great having a machine so light it can be safely picked up with two fingers, so small it fits in any bag, and with such long battery life I don't need to spend half my time hunting for power sockets. The keyboard is fine for typing, the screen is large enough for working, and the processor is fast enough for anything short of games or HD video. What's the problem supposed to be?
Damn, I never realised I required Windows! Thank you for telling me. I should have realised something was wrong when I managed to install a driver for my wireless card and connect to my router immediately without even needing to reboot.
1. Everything Ubuntu can offer is available for ARM: http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/arm
4. W32Codecs is obsolete since FFMPEG does WMV & Quicktime. Real player is in Helix. All these are distributed by source and should work on ARM.
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