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ARM Powered OLPC XO-1.75 Laptop Is Faster Than X86
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?"
It's the intel laptops that cost an ARM and a leg.
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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?
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 the opportunity otherwise.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Anyone else notice that they are building an Arm powered ARM powered computer? Now requiring only half as many cranks.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
The Professor did better than this. They pedaled a bicycle to recharge batteries on the island.
They stirred salt water in coconut shells once to charge the batteries from their portable radio. That Professor was a smart guy!
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...
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
OLPC was founded in 2005 with the "$100 Laptop" idea which Bill Gates, Intel, everyone imediately poo-pooed. Intel's Asus Eee PC Atom platform was a direct reaction to OLPC's hype, Eee was promoted as $199 Laptop miod 2007 but introduced by the end of 2007 as a $399 netbook.
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.
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.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
The $100 has always been target that can only be reached once more than 6 million units are mass manufactured, that was always the original idea. Intel tactics though, it has been proven in official state letters, successfully blocked OLPC from reaching countries like Nigeria, China, India, etc. But even though they "only" sold 2 million laptops to children in some of the poorest places in the world, you can find plenty videos online http://olpc.tv/ , see how the kids and teachers are using those daily, it's a huge success. I mean comon, OLPC may have deeply changed the lives of 2 million families in more or less very poor third world countries. Sure enough, it'd be better they reached 2 billion kids by now, by they I mean OLPC or anyone else in the industry. It's all about lowering cost and lowering power consumption of laptops and also bringing internet everywhere.
He'd already run afoul of the FCC for doing that in the past. He was worried they'd triangulate his position before a passing ship could rescue them. He'd rather take the odds of not getting rescued over pissing off the FCC. :)
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.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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.
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.
I drank what? -- Socrates
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.
This program was made possible by a grant from the Ultra-Humanite, and viewers like you.
How much is Google spending on non-profit projects per year? Billions of dollars? Wouldn't it be good if the craze that goes on around Android and Chrome could be fully utilized by a global education project instead of these things happening separately? If OLPC can find a way to make it central to the whole Mobile Computing trend to also support full productivity, full educational purposes, real usefulness and not only Angry Birds. That could be very positive couldn't it?
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_!"
Gigahertz-class CPU, integrated full HD 1080p encode and decode, 6MP image captures, integrated audio processing engine, advanced 3D graphics. Renders 45Million triangles-per-second. Includes 802.11n wireless, Bluetooth 3.0, HDMI, USB 2.0, 3G Baseband, SD/MMC card, and camera. It is powerful enough to simultaneously decode 4 1080p video streams at a time. Some videos of an early reference design here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s17KwfzTFY
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
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.
That isn't the point. Charbax was responding to the ACs claim that the XO didn't kickstart the netbook market. Whether OLPC has delivered on its promises is another discussion entirely.
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.
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.
As I've watched Android dominate the tablet market, I'm bothered by the fact that these devices do not give root access without "jailbreaking". Isn't Android a major step toward the very scary world of "Trusted Computing"? That is, the hardware manufacturer, government, or whoever else has power can deny the ability for a user to run a program (or all programs!) at whim. Right out of the box, the user is denied permission to use their hardware in the way that they see fit.
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.
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".
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
What about MeeGo? Already runs on the Nokia N900's ARM processor.
It's a US project made by the good people at the US MIT, without US initiative this project might not exist yet. Sure thing, I wish India, China, Europe, Saudi Arabia, all join together and make sure every child on this planet get a fair chance at education now. It's politics that decide the priorities and where to put the money, tax who and sponsor what. The idea is sure enough we need to build a few million more/better schools, and bring Internet to all. But, even though those things have to happen, better food, better health and security, we might as well give the children a school in a box which a Laptop has the potential to be.
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.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
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.
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?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It's useful to compare things, analyse money transactions for understanding the value of things. For the price of 1 day of the US war in Afghanistan, all the kids of the whole country of Afghanistan could get a laptop. Shouldn't the head of military strategists consider that it may be worth it, that giving all the children in the whole country this type of tool could calm down some of the suicide bombers, might convert some of the extremists? Most of the girls in Afghanistan don't go to school at all, because they are scared or just not allowed to, why not give them this tool so they can at least try to learn themselves at home? You can't say this is not about politics.
I can see that. Ginger was okay but the brunette was HOT!
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.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
The relation is Governments and Money. It would absolutely be a military strategy to invest in education, every $1 spent on education could be worth 100x more towards bringing peace than every $1 spent on artillery or tanks.
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.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Total US Military Spending 2010: $685.1 billion That's about $2 Billion per day.
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!
I drank what? -- Socrates
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?
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.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Those children might have a bit of trouble using that laptop if the Taliban or similar Islamist groups again control the country. I'm not a big fan of ends-based ethics, so I don't want to make a case supporting the war. It is a bit unrealistic, however, that the lack of the US fighting the war would mean that the lives of these children would be substantially better and that even if that money could be made available for a program like this any of the children would actually see or use the computer.
Lol obvious troll is obvious.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Intel's Asus Eee PC Atom platform was a direct reaction to OLPC's hype...
It might not be your intention. But by prefixing EeePC with the possessive (Intel's), you make it sound as if Intel was the primary mover behind the introduction of the EeePC. Intel had its own take on the OLPC. This was the Classmate PC, described thus by Wikipedia as "Intel's entry into the market for low-cost personal computers for children in the developing world". The Asus EeePC was, well, Asus's attempt to cash in on what Asus saw as a trend toward smaller form factor computers (which continuing with the increasing popularity of tablet computers, CPU/GPU "fusion" chips, and mini-ITX motherboards). The EeePC originally had a Linux-based OS produced by one of the lesser known distributions, the semi-free Xandros.
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
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 hardware, FOSS software and constructivist philosophy of education finds almost no acceptance beyond a single language, region and culture.
As for resuscitating Linux-on-the-Netbook, it isn't easy to make to make the case that OLPC has been a significant force for a broader adoption of Linux anywhere on the planet.
Mobile vs Desktop - South America
Top 5 Operating Systems - South America
Anyone make a kit for touch screen for XO 1.75?
I want one of these as my home 24/7 web/mail/project server. My power bill would be grateful.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Because it can raise their level of civilization, which in turn will allow the developed world access to their resources and will allow them to buy products from the developed world.
And solve world hunger, cure cancer, and all of that, but no one cares about that bit.
Fucking troll
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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 consider shipping it to other people.
If you want us to code for free though, you have to push Linux.
Don't want to push Linux? OK, fine, we cost $50,000 to $200,000 per year generally. That's not counting employer contributions to health insurance, 401K (matching), life insurance, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, social security taxes, dental insurance, etc.
IMHO, tolerating our Linux zeal is extremely cost-effective.
Software expands to fill the hardware, and then some more.
I'm thinking they could start a full-screen XO-1 emulator at boot. Naturally the emulator would be written in a scripting language with duck typing. I'm sure this would be educational.
No way, he was a buffoon. He thought he was the Alpha, but it was the Professor who was the true Alpha. He just didn't need to be loud about it.
To me, it's pure win. I mean, imagine working for a high-tech company and in so doing having improved the lives of 2 million families. Doesn't that sound GREAT?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Chrome OS would be quite useless because large areas of 3rd world countries do not have a reliable internet connection.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
ARM has not discovered some magic loophole in the space-time continuum ala Star Trek to be able to produce chips that are much faster than anyone else, and then for some reason refuse to use that to produce high end chips for the markets that want them (like supercomptuers).
What ARM is good at is making low power chips in both senses of "power." They use little electricity to do what they do, and they do not perform all that many calculations per second. ARM's high end is around Intel's low end. That's great, there's a market for all kinds of stuff. Some devices need small, efficient chips, other need big powerful ones. I wouldn't want a Sandy Bridge in my cellphone and more than I'd want a Cortex based chip in my desktop. There's room in the world, and indeed a need, for both.
I think people on /. are a little quick to get on the ARM worship. They see the low power numbers the ARM CPUs get and think that means that a big ARM CPU could be just as powerful as Intel's stuff and extremely low power. No, probably not.
No, actually the XO laptop started the ENTIRE netbook market.
What the video says is that the ARM chip is more powerful than the old x86 chips that OLPC used. Considering it's a SOC, and much newer technology (the original processor was 130 nm node, and the Armada is 65 nm node) it really should be.
You don't appear to be an educational facility contemplating a deployment of "one laptop per child" or a child in a developing country, so I sincerely hope OLPC doesn't give a damn about what you want.
People have ported Debian and Ubuntu to the current XO hardware, see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Category:Linux_distributions
=S
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.42015
if you really want, here's an 88 bucks arm laptop(the windows ce on it might be pirated, tho), sure it's not super fast but olpc never was supposed to be. what sucks about olpc, is that they haven't been very good at lowering costs, instead spending time on subsidised plans and mesh research while the 'real' industry has been driving costs down like crazy(and really, moving a linux desktop to arm isn't such a bid deal that you should be hyping up your world class engineers).
and taking credit for the netbook market? they must be hiiiiiiigh.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Android: commercial product tied to one company. Includes marketing-based artificial dependencies already built-in like App-store, DRM etc. I know Google/Android are 'cool' at the moment, but at the end of the day they are a business and are ultimately in it for the money. Superficial business tactics aside, they are just another Microsoft or Apple.
Linux: non-commercial product, independent, altruistic, good free community support via the internet, no artificial functional limitations or dependencies baked-in by marketing types. Many more professional-quality apps available for free download than Android. Even has licenses to protect its 'freeness'.
You tell me which would be a better choice for poor kids and their family budgets.
A: Total US military spending does not go towards the wars. The cost for the wars directly is a less than $200 million a day. Even in a time of relative peace, we would still need provide funding for military readiness.
Thanks.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
OLPC is largely an inexpensive Toughbook, with communities around it to boot. What you linked to...you might be lucky if it's not DOA.
They don't take credit "for the netbook market", they rightly take credit for initiating this category.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Every character Bob Denver ever played looked quite a bit like Gilligan....
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I think this comes down to asking what the goal of OLPC is.
1) To build cheap hardware usable in 3rd world
2) To build cheap hardware usable in the 4th world (i.e. not electricity).
3) To figure out a way to do logistics for semi valuable property in the worst of the 4th world
4) To create an optimal interface for children in 3rd world countries where a computer infrastructure doesn't already exist.
These goals unfortunately conflict.
Crap. You're RIGHT!
The problem here is that I watched Gilligan's Island when I was less than 10 years old. I just didn't look at it the way ANY adult would. Duh. Of course.
I'm sorry I said anything. The professor was indeed a genius.