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Is ARM Ever Coming To the Desktop?

Posted by timothy on from the my-arms-are-there-now dept.

First time accepted submitter bingbangboom writes "Where are the ARM powered desktops? I finally see some desktop models however they are relegated to "developer" models with USD200+ price tags (trimslice, etc). Raspberry Pi seems to be the only thing that will be priced correctly, have the right amount of features, and may actually be released. Is the software side holding ARM desktops back? Everyone seems to be foaming at the mouth about anything with a touch interface, even on the Linux side. Or are manufacturers not wanting to bring the 'netbook effect' to their desktop sales? Are ARM powered desktops destined to join the mythical smartbook?"

58 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. Look on eBay by jimicus · · Score: 5, Informative

    Look on eBay for an Archimedes.

    They're rapidly becoming a collector's item, but they were on the desktop in 1987.

    1. Re:Look on eBay by damburger · · Score: 2

      They had a surprisingly modern looking desktop, that booted in seconds. It would be interesting to see where the platform would be today had it taken off in a big way.

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    2. Re:Look on eBay by jimicus · · Score: 3, Informative

      The OS itself is still around today, after a fashion. But time has not been kind.

      IMV, a fast boot cannot compensate for a spectacular lack of features you'd expect to find in a modern OS. It's a single user OS with co-operative multi-tasking rather than pre-emptive, there's no protected memory or swap support, it's single-user.

    3. Re:Look on eBay by damburger · · Score: 2

      I think its safe to assume that, had it been developed as a mainstream OS in the intervening time, it would've gone to pre-emptive multitasking as soon as the hardware permitted it.

      Most of my fond memories are of the interface; the consistent and effective use of three mouse buttons, the innovative save dialog and the way in which applications were packaged (which, honestly, I know people thought was invented with Mac OS X)

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    4. Re:Look on eBay by mountaineer76 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Totally agree, just compare RISC OS 2 or 3.1 to the equivalent Windows version in 1988 or so, Acorn was streets ahead. Still have a 200 mhz RISC PC sitting next to my desk, it's a nippy little beast boots in a few secs or so....

    5. Re:Look on eBay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I find it funny, yet sad, that people have forgotten that the A in ARM used to stand for Acorn. I was there, in Cambridge, during the time of the first ARM CPU's development. Friends of friends of the people who worked to create it. At the time it was by far the most powerful desktop and it's various OSs (RISC OS 2+.. Arthur was always a stop-gap OS :) ) were far advanced over everything else available at the time.

      I still use a RISC PC today. Also, one of the best case designs ever - it's practically infinitely expandable!

    6. Re:Look on eBay by newcastlejon · · Score: 2

      I came here just to post this. It's not that ARM is ever coming to the desktop; it's already been and gone. By the way, am I mistaken in thinking some of the later RISC PCs used Intel ARM processors?

      It's also nice to see that someone still thinks back fondly to Archimedes machines as I do.

      --
      If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
    7. Re:Look on eBay by jimicus · · Score: 2

      IIRC there was an upgrade based on a DEC StrongARM processor available for the RiscPC. Not sure if there was ever an Xscale upgrade but Castle Technology had a few systems built based on such a chip.

      Damn fast, they were. I used them a couple of times at university - I wish I'd known they were binning them, I'd have grabbed one. Came in one day and found the lab had been re-equipped.

  2. Why? by dukeblue219 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seriously, what is the reason for having a desktop ARM computer? Power consumption? I don't think there's a very large market for people who will settle for tablet-like performance in order to save a few dollars a month at most on electricity compared to existing low power processors. People with power grid problems will want something that runs on a battery anyway, and a tablet/netbook makes more sense there.

    Is it just for something fun to play with? Something small and portable? You can always get a small ARM tablet and hook up the HDMI to a monitor if it's the full size display and keyboard you're missing.

    Not sure what touch interface has to do with anything. That could be just as easily implemented with any architecture, and it's maybe the ONE thing I agree with Steve Jobs about -- touch does NOT work as a viable input method for a desktop.

    --
    -Ted http://www.freemathhelp.com/
    1. Re:Why? by rve · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I have an ARM based laptop. It's fanless, in fact, it has no moving parts at all other than the hinge of the screen, and goes for a day or two of regular use between recharges. I'm not convinced "the desktop" has much of a long term future at this point... i think it will go the way of the workstation.

    2. Re:Why? by SendBot · · Score: 3, Informative

      ... it's maybe the ONE thing I agree with Steve Jobs about -- touch does NOT work as a viable input method for a desktop.

      He may have said that at some point, but you should know by now that Apple changes the kool-aid they serve every so often. He's even spoken at length about merging iOS concepts into the desktop OSX.

      I've copied some text straight from the apple web site for the "Magic Trackpad" that make touch sound like you're no longer cool without it:

      "The new Magic Trackpad is the first Multi-Touch trackpad designed to work with your Mac desktop computer."
      "And it supports a full set of gestures, giving you a whole new way to control and interact with what’s on your screen."
      "Magic Trackpad gives you a whole new way to control what’s on your Mac desktop computer. When you perform gestures, you actually interact with what’s on your screen. You feel closer to your content, and moving around feels completely natural."

    3. Re:Why? by lkcl · · Score: 2

      well, fortunately there's soon going to be things like the NuSmart 2816, which will have the best of both worlds: Dual-Core 1.6 to 2ghz, 4gb of ECC DDR3 1033mhz RAM... and only about 4 watts for a system (at the 1.6ghz speed).

      i'm working towards getting these - and other such beefy low-power CPUs - plugged in to the EOMA initiative:
      http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=502
      http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/PCMCIA

    4. Re:Why? by SerpentMage · · Score: 2

      Yes and everybody will run under powered desktops in the quest to not have to hear the fan...

      I run a desktop because I need the power. If it has an ARM in it, so be it. BUT I need the power. When I develop I am going to use multiple screens. When I run my trading software I need a desktop with multiple screens.

      What people need to understand is that there is no solution fits all. Some people don't need a desktop, others do. Some people don't need a tablet, others do. Let's all get this straight we will have more choice, not less choice.

      --

      "You can't make a race horse of a pig"
      "No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
    5. Re:Why? by Bert64 · · Score: 4, Informative

      A few dollars a month for a desktop...
      A few thousand dollars a month for an office full of desktops?

      The average office worker doesn't do a lot with their computer, and has been doing much the same thing for years... The only thing stopping them from using 10 year old hardware is modern bloated software which is intentionally incompatible with older versions.

      There's no reason that the average user's needs couldn't be fulfilled by a low power machine with equivalent processing power to a system from 10+ years ago, with power hungry x86 systems being relegated to the small niche of power users and certain classes of server.

      (in short, watch what x86 did to Sparc/MIPS/Alpha/Power, attacked from below)

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    6. Re:Why? by Gordonjcp · · Score: 2

      Dual-Core 1.6 to 2ghz, 4gb of ECC DDR3 1033mhz RAM... and only about 4 watts for a system (at the 1.6ghz speed).

      That's going to be slower than an equivalent x86-based machine, though.

      The thing is, it will be slower *but draw one tenth the power consumption*. I want ten of these on a board, with about eight times the processing power for the same power draw as an x86 solution.

    7. Re:Why? by Bert64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly, no solution fits all... Your needs are specialised, so you will occupy a niche of people who will continue to buy highend workstations...

      For the vast majority of people computers became powerful enough for their requirements many years ago (aside from increasingly bloated software trying to mask that fact), and they are concerned about price, running cost (ie power usage), noise and that the machine is not an eyesore, and even more so are the companies who buy hundreds of desktops for their employees and don't want to buy a noisy, expensive, large and power hungry workstation for someone who's sole business use for it is to write letters.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    8. Re:Why? by lkcl · · Score: 2

      Zacate is 18 watts! that means you have to have a heatsink or heatpipe, fan and other moving parts, as well as much larger power components. by contrast, with something like the NuSmart 2816 if you run it at 1.6ghz then you can get away with 4 watts and that's *including* the ECC 1066mhz DDR3 RAM. a voltage regulator for a stable 4 watt power supply is approximately a $0.50 cents part. it's a whole different ballgame. so the EOMA Initiative, we've set a 5 watt absolute maximum limit, and are sticking to it. http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/PCMCIA sadly, not even intel's latest 1.2ghz 45nm CPU, the one that's designed for Meego, is suitable, because the CPU's 2.5 watts, the Northbridge IC is 2 watts, whoops there's not enough room to run the RAM ICs.

      even the Z510 shows that this northbridge-southbridge strategy is unacceptable. you *have* to go "totally integrated", in order to reach the required power target. once Intel and AMD start doing that, then and only then will they produce a winner.

    9. Re:Why? by realityimpaired · · Score: 3, Informative

      There's no reason a Cortex A7 dual core @ 800MHz wouldn't be able to handle both of the tasks you listed with ease. It could even handle basic gaming if you have a discreet video card to handle the load. Most people don't do the kind of number crunching that a modern high end desktop CPU would allow.

      The gamer crowd, absolutely. I can fully understand why they would want a high end processor. Even games that aren't that graphics intensive, like Civilization, are very heavy on number crunching. The office crowd, however, could easily be serviced by a low end low power ARM CPU. I could easily replace my desktop with an ARM-powered nettop without adjusting my computing habits at all, and I'm already running a multi-head setup.

    10. Re:Why? by durrr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The Zacate is availible for desktop setups. Motherboard with zacate integrated goes for $100-$120, with RAM, PSU, HD and a shoebox for chassi you get a decent windows computer for $200.

      That however is quite a bit in excess of the $35 the Raspberry Pi is supposed to sell for. At that pricepoint you can almost start putting them everywhere before knowing why you're putting them everywhere.

    11. Re:Why? by dunkelfalke · · Score: 2

      There is actually no need to. I've got a desktop computer with Core2Duo E8400 CPU and a Radeon HD5770 graphics card and the only fan of that system sits in the PSU (and it is almost silent due to its low RPM). The system is quite fast and the power consumption is moderate.
      It is absolutely possible to build a silent and powerful desktop system.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    12. Re:Why? by bcrowell · · Score: 2

      A few dollars a month for a desktop...A few thousand dollars a month for an office full of desktops? The average office worker doesn't do a lot with their computer, and has been doing much the same thing for years... The only thing stopping them from using 10 year old hardware is modern bloated software which is intentionally incompatible with older versions.

      In principle I'm in sympathy with you, but in reality there are a lot of problems with your argument.

      • You're suggesting using 10-year-old x86 hardware in a medium-sized business environment. This is different from ARM hardware, which is what this discussion was originally about.
      • In this type of environment, the total cost of ownership probably consists of something like 50% support, 25% software licensing, 20% hardware, and 5% electricity. If you use ARM-based machines, the first thing I can guarantee you is that some people are going to complain that there's some piece of software they need in order to do their job, and it's not available on ARM. That means you're probably going to need a mixed x86/ARM hardware inventory. That's going to be massively more complex to support than pure x86.
      • Suppose instead that you keep a homogeneous x86 inventory, but you keep using machines as old as 10 years. Statistically, your business is probably running Windows. With that hardware mix, you're going to be forced to support lots of different versions of Windows, Office, etc. Again, this makes support more complex and expensive. Since support is the biggest chunk of your TCO, this isn't a good business decision.
      • When you use 10 year old hardware, you get all kinds of other issues coming in. E.g., a machine that old may not have a CD drive.

      The truth is that hardware is cheap, and workers are expensive. It doesn't make sense to make your workers even 5% less productive in order to save some tiny amount of money on electricity.

      What would really make sense these days for a medium to large business would be to stop paying $2000 for every machine and start supplying 80% of their users with new x86 machines in the $500 price range, on a 4-year replacement cycle. What I've observed where I work, however, is that this is difficult to do, for a variety of reasons. Workers who haven't had a hardware upgrade in 10 years feel like when their time comes to finally get an upgrade, this is their one big chance, and they're going to be stuck with their new machine for 10 years into the future -- so they argue for higher-end hardware. IT wants standardization of hardware to make their jobs easier, and since 20% of users do need higher-end hardware, you can't standardize on the low end. Psychologically, IT wants to work with shiny new toys.

      --
      Find free books.
  3. Archimedes by rve · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It was on the desktop first. I was a kid, not terribly good with money, and it was expensive, so I just missed out on being an early adopter.

  4. When the desktop is superseded by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

    When you can get a quad core smartphone with a halfway decent GPU, who cares? The only real problem is the lack of memory. Dock your phone, use its display for status updates and compute on your TV... or monitor.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:When the desktop is superseded by Arlet · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Making the situation even worse is the fact that there is a complete lack of standardization on the ARM platform, especially for all the peripherals. But even for the core itself there are many different variants. This can be an advantage for embedded developers, because it gives you lots of choices.

      For binary software vendors, it's a nightmare, because they would have to support all these different versions.

  5. EOMA Initiative by lkcl · · Score: 5, Interesting

    it's a long story, but i've been working to get ARM-powered desktop machines and laptops into the hands of free software developers for some time.

    one of the key problems are that the chinese and taiwanese factories have absolutely no software expertise whatsoever. some guy decides he got caught out by the USA and UK Governments placing embargos and tariffs on imported clothes a couple years back: his business was affected, so he goes "i know, i'll diversify, i'll make tablets, those are popular". so off he goes, he gets supplied with a GPL-violating Android OS right from the word "go" by a limited number of Chinese ODMs who are having a really hard time keeping hold of their software engineers, and it just goes downhill from there.

    the other problem is, as can be seen from the insane amount of money spent by the openpandora group, that case-work for laptops etc. can well be in excess of $100,000. that means that anything like the "pegatron netbook" has to be bought in volumes of 250,000 and above in order for the R&D costs to be amortised over a reasonable period.

    this is where the EOMA initiative comes in: http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/PCMCIA

    by reversing everything on its head, and getting free software developers a modular architecture which _could_ be dropped into a mass-volume product, the tables are turned: those Chinese Factories can be supplied *by us* - Free Software Developers - with a completed ready-to-ship OS.

    so, yes there's a board which is available that is similar in size and function to the pandaboard, origen exynos board, beagleboard, IMX53QSB etc., but unlike those boards, by complying to the EOMA/PCMCIA Open Standard it would be possible to literally drop that hardware-software combination straight into a mass-volume product, with the development effort of the required motherboard being nothing more than a low-cost 2 to 4 layer board that even KiCAD, Eagle or gEDA could do.

    one key part of this strategy is to leverage arduino-like boards, like the leafpad Maple:
    http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/PCMCIA/MiniEngineeringBoard

    anyway i think that's enough for one slashdot post. bit of background and some additional links, here:
    http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=502

    1. Re:EOMA Initiative by fast+turtle · · Score: 2

      I'd think that it would be more sensible to use an existing standard form factor such as M-Atx/Itx for the boards due to the tooling already being available. Simply put, the only issue you'd have is what internal connectors (sata/ide/floppy/firewire/usb) are needed along with the backplane ports, video, usb, ethernet being the most obvious. Then design the board to provide the needed connectivity and be done with it. The main advantage is not reinventing the damn wheel and getting a standard board into the hands of the devs as quickly as possible. Hell you could even go with surface mounting of the cpu and make it non removable/upgradable to avoid incompatibility issues. Includea a PCI-E slot for video or just use one of the AMD/Nvidia mobile GPU's as used in laptops to solve that issue and you'd have an ARM development machine in the hands of the devs within 6 months at the most.

      --
      Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
    2. Re:EOMA Initiative by lkcl · · Score: 4, Interesting

      ok - i'm pleased to see a response here: there are several points that are good, and some are, when you look closer, turn out to be unrealistic for mass-volume so-called "embedded" products.

      1) the first is form-factor. this is great! yes, one of the options being considered is to have a standard Mini-ATX/ITX motherboard (into which an EOMA/PCMCIA CPU card can be plugged, at the back). there are several embedded companies that produce Mini ATX motherboards as standard, for their "modules", so it is not a new concept, it is in fact a proven one.

      2) the second is connectors / interfaces. if you look right across the board at the very latest ARM processors coming out *right now*, you can count the number of Cortex A8 and Cortex A9 systems (as well as Marvell's "ARM-compatible" range of processors) that have PCI-e on the fingers of one hand.

      i'll say that again.

      the total number of modern ARM processors with even a 1x PCI-e interface is *below* 5 (five).

      now there do exist some Cortex A8s (e.g. the OMAP35xx series) which have a HPI bus, onto which you could put a PCI-e "PHY" chip as it's called, but the total number of companies doing actual PCI-e "PHY" chips is, also, very very limited. typically, any company which has PCI-e PHY interface is a "Fabless Semi" company that gets bought up very very rapidly by the likes of Mentor Graphics, Synopsys and so on.

      3) the third is the sheer overwhelming disparity between the ARM CPU's power consumption and the average PCI-e-based GPU's power consumption. the absolute ABSOLUTE lowest power consumption PCI-e-based GPU i could find is one from SiS, it's an older 65nm CMOS process, and if you ramp its speed down to the absolute lowest it will go without keeling over, it uses 6 watts. SIX watts!! you wanna connect a 6 watt GPU up to a 0.5 to 1.0 watt processor be my guest!

      4) Multi-layer boards at ATX/ITX form-factor are expensive. if you have the CPU on-board the Motherboard (rather than being on a separate card), you then are forced to have the most complex part - the CPU-to-RAM interface - push up the number of layers required for the *whole* motherboard. by contrast, if you do the CPU-plus-RAM as a separate tiny, tiny board, just presenting its interfaces (SATA, ETH, USB, I2C, RGB/TTL etc.) via a simple connector (e.g. PCMCIA 68-pin) then you've just saved a fortune on the cost of the main motherboard because the main motherboard PCB can be done as an ultra-low-cost 4 or even if you're really lucky or a very good designer as a 2 layer board.

      5) The power requirements of standard PCs are 10 to 200x larger than is actually needed! 500 to 1000 watts i mean for fuck's sake that's just insane. these ARM processors, the fastest most powerful one available on the market right now (sampling) is the NuSmart 2816, and that uses _two_ watts (shock horror) at 2ghz. wow big fucking deal. why on god's green earth would you want to match a 2 watt CPU with a 1000 watt Power Supply?? the entire motherboard would probably need a big resistor just to draw enough current in order to convince the PSU that nothing's wrong! i'm not joking about that - i'm dead serious.

      6) The level of integration on these so-called ARM "embedded" CPUs is so high that it's really not worth the effort. present a USB bus, present an Ethernet port, present an SATA socket, along with an HDMI out and maybe even VGA, you're done! ship the damn product out the door, it cost you $35 to make! don't believe that price? just look at the cost of the RaspberryPi - it's doable. the irony is that for $35 of the "upgraded" RaspberryPi you can get an 800mhz Cortex A9 with an AML-8726-M (single core) for the same price. and the same size. credit-card-sized. you have to ask yourself: why would you _want_ to fit a credit-card-sized computer into a 12 x 15 x 8in "Desktop" case?? :) why not fit it into a 4in x 5in x 0.75in box, instead?

      so, whilst on the face of it, fitting into the "standard" - i'm going to go further than that i'm going to

    3. Re:EOMA Initiative by lkcl · · Score: 2

      you'll understand when peak oil hits, and you can't _get_ 110 watts of electricity.

  6. Re:Tabtop momentum building by GameboyRMH · · Score: 2

    ...then finally the device will become slim enough to have the keyboard built-in without pissing off even the trendiest of Starbucks-dwellers, and we would have come full circle back to the convertible laptop.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  7. There's a problem with ARM computing? by GameboyRMH · · Score: 2

    Nobody told me and I've been using my N900 the whole time with no problems. Why am I the last to learn these things!?

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    1. Re:There's a problem with ARM computing? by RR · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I was aware of the N900. I still use an N800. I just didn't need an upgrade yet, and I was waiting for step 5 of the 5-step mass market process for Maemo (becoming concerned about bureaucratic interference when Meego became the company's strategy and they decided to dump Debian for Linux Foundation silliness), when the Elop Effect happened. So, no, I don't think the N900 was successful.

      --
      Have a nice time.
  8. What's the problem with the TrimSlice? by earls · · Score: 5, Informative

    Developer only? What is that non-sense? The TrimSlice ships with Ubuntu ready to use. ~$200 for the feature set is a steal, IMO. Not happy without a Dell logo or something? What's the problem with the TrimSlice?

  9. Search a little more, like the Efika by jonsmirl · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.genesi-usa.com/products/efika
    Smarttop $129 thin client
    Smartbook $199 laptop

    They run Ubuntu and are based on the Freescale iMX51.
    They are far more powerful than a Raspberry PI.

    Freescale i.MX515 (ARM Cortex-A8 800MHz)
    3D Graphics Processing Unit
    WXGA display support (HDMI)
    Multi-format HD video decoder and D1 video encoder (currently not supported by the included software)
    512MB RAM
    8GB Internal SSD
    10/100Mbit/s Ethernet
    802.11 b/g/n WiFi
    SDHC card reader
    2 x USB 2.0 ports
    Audio jack for headset
    Built-in speaker

    10.1" TFT-LCD, 16:9 with LED backlight, 1024 x 600 resolution
    Freescale i.MX515 (ARM Cortex-A8 800MHz)
    3D Graphics Processing Unit
    Multi-format High-Definition hardware video decoder
    16GB Nand Flash
    External MMC / SD card slot (up to SD v2.0 and MMC v4.2)
    Internal MicroSD slot
    802.11 b/g/n WiFi (with on/off switch)
    Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
    2 x USB 2.0 ports
    Phone jack for headset
    Built-in 1.3MP video camera
    Built-in microphone
    Built-in stereo speaker

  10. There is a smartbook available (although not good) by IYagami · · Score: 2

    The Toshiba AC100

    You can find a review at http://www.reghardware.com/2010/11/03/review_netbook_toshiba_ac100/

    "The beautifully designed and executed hardware is very close to my ideal netbook, and it's hardly an exaggeration to say that I'm heart-broken by Toshiba's cocked-up Android implementation. The best one can hope for is a firmware rescue from the open source community, although I wonder if the product will stay around long enough in these tablet-obsessed times for that to happen."

  11. Re:Tabtop momentum building by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sorry but.....why? WTF would you want ARM on the desktop? Are you living in a mud hut in Zambundi and don't have any electricity to spare for a desktop?

    Lets be honest folks, the big selling point of ARM is how cheap it is on batteries. Well guess what you do NOT need when you are inside? Why that would be a battery! See that plug on the wall right in front of you?

    Cycle for cycle x86 stomps the living shit out of ARM, it just uses more power to do so than most mobiles can afford due to the fact we haven't had a real breakthrough in battery tech in ages. Well that and the fashionistas at Apple have made iSliver batteries the "in" thing in which means you have to power the thing on a battery the width of a tic tac. I don't care if you put 8 cores on the thing, a bottom o' the line AMD quad, even the low power AMD quads, will stomp the living shit out of ARM. drop in an i series and it isn't even funny how badly it gets stomped.

    Like everything else it is about using the right tool for the job. ARM royally kicks ass in mobile, embedded, and in places where you need a device that'll take milspec levels of abuse due to the fact you can run it fanless. X86 kicks ass in desktop and laptop where you want more performance and don't mind giving up some battery life for it. But ARM on the desktop makes about as much sense as stuffing an i series into your phone, that is none at all. The majority of code out there is x86, even on Linux x86 outnumbers ARM code by a pretty wide margin. So unless you just really really REALLY want the Droid version of Angry birds on your desktop it just seems more than a little stupid to be running a mobile chip in a place where you are right beside a plug in.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  12. Before you go saying that ARM is fast enough... by CajunArson · · Score: 2

    OK, the idea behind ARM is that it is "fast enough" for desktop and notebook PCs. Well, if that's the case, then a P4 is also "fast enough" and you should consider not buying anything newer.

    Why am I saying that? Let's look at one benchmark that *is* multi-core ready and that Nvidia kindly ran on the upcoming Kal-El quad-core systems: Linpack.

    Now I know Linpack is not a perfect benchmark, but it does do a decent job of showing off number-crunching power and it is multi-core capable and there are results from a wide range of architectures.

    Here's a result from a 1.7 Ghz P4 system (see: http://www.roylongbottom.org.uk/linpack%20results.htm)

    CPU Mhz Opt (MFlops) Non-Opt (MFlops)
    Pentium 4 1700 382.00 131.59

    I think (but I'm not sure) that Opt means optimized (such as using SSE) and non-Opt is a minimal x86 implementation with no optimizations.

    Now, here are Nvidia's results for its not-yet-on-the-market Kal-El Quad Core ARM at 1.0 Ghz:

    Multi-threaded Linpack: 309 Mflops

    See: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile/display/20110921142759_Nvidia_Unwraps_Performance_Benchmarks_of_Tegra_3_Kal_El.html

    I'm going to assume that Nvidia will go out of its way to make sure the code is optimized for benchmarks that it posts as part of a marketing push.

    So a QUAD CORE Arm architecture is still lagging behind a P4, and while the P4 has a clock speed advantage, it's a lot smaller than is justified by the difference in performance considering the Nvidia chip has 4 cores compared to a single-core P4.

    Now, I'm not saying that Kal-El won't be awesome for use on tablets and smaller devices, but on a desktop or even a notebook, don't go around expecting miraculous performance.

    --
    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
    1. Re:Before you go saying that ARM is fast enough... by evilviper · · Score: 2

      The Cortex-A15 will be available in up to octo-core configurations at 2.5Ghz, using a fraction of the power of a P4 (vs the 1.0Ghz benchmark you provide).

      MHz myth in full force... Don't we still kick people off of /. for stupid mistakes like this? In short, that 2.5GHz could well be slower than the 1GHz CPU. Things like pipeline length, bus and memory speeds, and MIPS per MHz are important.

      Additionally, he mentioned the SLOWEST P4 he could find... They're basically giving away much faster P4s these days. Hell, you can buy a complete 2.4GHz P4 system for under $40: http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SAMBA845V-24-4-R&cat=SYS

      Even cheap and useless gimmicky junk like the Qi don't compare (where's the video? where's the optical drive? Where's the expansion?)

      You can make up arbitrary hardware requirements for "most people" but that doesn't exactly explain why Apple is selling tens of millions of iPads to ecstatic customers with a fraction of the "power" of a P4.

      Come on, this is PAINFULLY obvious...

      The iPad doesn't run Mac OS, RHEL, or Windows. It runs code that was optimized to hell and back to be small and fast. I've got my old Psion 5MX with a 26MHz ARM CPU that is more responsive than an iPad, but that doesn't mean that ancient 26MHz ARM CPU is on-par, performance wise.

      Also notable is the affect of solid state. I tried an Archos 70 with a 256GB laptop hard drive in it... It was immediately PAINFUL to use. The fact that tablets / smart phones come with solid-state storage helps to mask a lot of the poor performance, so the lack of IO lag makes it FEEL like a lot faster.

      People have accepted crippled (fast) software on tablets. Turn it into a desktop, however, and they'll be feeling the limitations very quickly, and get very upset. And if you take away the limitations (eg. install Linux on it) you'll find yourself feeling the painful performance limitations very quickly.

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  13. Acorn Archimedes - the first desktop ARM by Nivag064 · · Score: 2

    ARM got to the desktop years ago (1987, according to wikipedia), as the first computer to use the ARM chip was a desktop computer - the Acorn Archimedes!

    I had one, it was a lovely computer easy to program, and a GUI for in advance of its time.

  14. Re:Tabtop momentum building by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The majority of code out there is x86, even on Linux x86 outnumbers ARM code by a pretty wide margin.

    This is a bizarre claim, considering the majority of code out there is in C or in higher level languages like Java, Cobol, C# and so on, so technically the processor architecture is irrelevant for most code.

    As to Linux, there are small pieces of the kernel written in assembly, but these have been rewritten so Linux can run on a number of non-x86 platforms. The vast bulk of Linux and its userland tools are written in C, so the underlying architecture is irrelevant. Want to run emacs on an ARM variant of Linux, well, just bloody well compile it for that ARM processor.

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  15. Re:Tabtop momentum building by jd142 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm sorry but.....why? WTF would you want ARM on the desktop? Are you living in a mud hut in Zambundi and don't have any electricity to spare for a desktop?

    Lets be honest folks, the big selling point of ARM is how cheap it is on batteries. Well guess what you do NOT need when you are inside? Why that would be a battery! See that plug on the wall right in front of you?

    You know, it's just possible some people might want to conserve electricity. Or even shave a couple of bucks off the old electricity bill. Just because you can use a resource, doesn't mean you should. I have running water, but I don't just leave the faucet on all day in case I might want a glass of water.

    I don't know, but if you had one of those little portable solar cells, could you just power an arm laptop anywhere?

  16. Re:Tabtop momentum building by icebraining · · Score: 2

    This is a bizarre claim, considering the majority of code out there is in C or in higher level languages like Java, Cobol, C# and so on, so technically the processor architecture is irrelevant for most code.

    That's fine for OSS (and Debian for example has decent support for ARM), but try to convince some publisher of some proprietary software you need to use to port it.

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  17. Re:The OP is talking about red apples, not greenap by Sancho · · Score: 4, Informative

    Smudging the screen isn't the problem. The problem is holding your arm up for long periods of time, or the repetitive motion of raising your arm up to touch the screen. That's not something most deskjockeys are going to be doing a lot. It's horrible for ergonomics.

    A standalone touch pad doesn't have that problem.

    Most phones are held in the hands with lowered arms, hence it's not a problem for those devices.

    Hell, laptops were being sold with touch pads as the primary pointing interface. Not much different from a desktop, really.

    I don't think any particular feature of touch pads was the perceived problem. But then, you seem prejudiced against Jobs, so my reply is likely pointless.

  18. They exist by guruevi · · Score: 2

    They just won't run MS Office which is the biggest problem for most office workers. They are currently indeed in developer and embedded stage. The problem is that occasionally you want a little more horsepower (even if it's just to play Flash games) so they buy a 'normal' computer. Also there is no real support available and very little experience by your average sysadmin.

    Once somebody starts doing it, the ball will get rolling. Even $200 is not bad but once Raspberry Pi runs a browser and e-mail, SSH, VNC, X and OpenOffice and basically plugs into a display without too much trouble (or is embedded into a display even better) I will be deploying them in our shared computer spaces because that's all they're for - connect to the cluster to run your jobs, check your e-mail and Facebook while you're waiting, occasionally copy something from or to a USB stick. All home directories are already on the network (NFS) so I don't really need much storage.

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  19. Re:Tabtop momentum building by wonkavader · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I want silence. COMPLETE silence.

    I want a computer you can barely find, it's so small and unobtrusive.

    I want a computer so cool it can be covered in papers and crap without me worrying about it overheating.

    I want devices that are dirt cheap to buy and dirt cheap to run, because I want them in every room, on all the time.

    I want ARM.

  20. cost and integration, not just power by YesIAmAScript · · Score: 4, Informative

    ARM licenses IP. Intel sells chips.

    If you license a core from ARM you can put it down on a chip, then put down your other logic (north/south bridge, interface logic like USB) on the same chip. Then you can end up with your entire system on a chip.

    With Intel you have to buy a CPU, buy a north/southbridge. If you want custom interfaces beyond that, that's more chips too.

    So the net effect is that the Intel-based system uses more chips and that means it costs more, uses more power and is larger. Using more power means you need to put in a larger power supply, that costs more. If it's battery-powered, that means it needs a larger battery, that costs more. Larger in and of itself makes something more expensive to make as it requires more materials. And then it being larger means it costs more to ship from where it is made to the customer. And then finally every increase in costs also means more increase in on-the-shelf price because you not only have to cover the higher costs, but the OEM and retail margins on the costs.

    The next effect is that ARM devices will be cheaper to buy and to run. And in the case of portable devices, more sleek too.

    This may not matter to some customers but to other customers lower costs means a lot.

    Performance is an issue. We have ARMs already in the pipe (dual-core ARM A15) which have sufficient power for most uses and ARM will certainly have even faster cores later.

    I see a strong future for ARM in laptops and in home computers. No, not in tower computers but those make up a shrinking part of the market already.

    Finally, as others have said, be careful about agreeing with Steve Jobs. He's a consummate liar. Just because he says he doesn't like touch for the desktop doesn't necessarily mean much. It means Apple doesn't deliver touch on the desktop today, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything more. Apple could flip on this at any time like on the video iPod.

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  21. Re:Nope by V!NCENT · · Score: 3, Informative

    Lol...

    You probably missed the Windows 8 presentation.

    Not only does Windows 8 and the upcomming Office run on ARM, there is already a production ready ARM laptop that's going to be sold.

    Image larger than iPad battery life and weeks of standby, a full HD resolution, accelerated x264 full HD video playback. Internet Explorer 10 full acceleration and DX11.

    No fans. No noice. No overheating on your lap. Dirt cheap. Light. Fast for desktop use.

    The ultimate family laptop, for every family member.

    --
    Here be signatures
  22. David Braben on the history of ARM by BitterKraut · · Score: 3, Interesting

    BAFTA video: http://bcove.me/tux4wa2x The part most pertaining to the current thread is at 14:32

  23. Re:Tabtop momentum building by m50d · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is a bizarre claim, considering the majority of code out there is in C or in higher level languages like Java, Cobol, C# and so on, so technically the processor architecture is irrelevant for most code.

    Speaking as someone who has ported an actually quite well written (relatively) game interpreter from x86 to arm: bwahahaha. For java/C# it's feasible (although even then, four out of five programs will require at least some superficial code changes), but porting anything written in C is going to be a headache at best, and more likely a complete nightmare - and that goes doubly for C++ actually, at least the way it's commonly written.

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  24. Re:Tabtop momentum building by catmistake · · Score: 2

    I wanted someting like this too, and I was sort of obsessing over different Atom D525 systems... by all accounts fanless, silent Atom systems are now buildable. But then I read how the AMD E-350 just spanks Atom in processing power... and I began to realize I just don't care so much about having the best possible power efficiency... what I care about is cheap powerful systems, and if it sucks less power than a lightbulb or even an unused but plugged in wallwart... then that is neato, but not of primary concern in something that is a relatively permanent fixture in the home, with plug in power available.

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  25. Archimedes by wavedeform · · Score: 2

    The Acorn Archimedes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes This was some sort of outgrowth of the BBC Micro - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro

  26. Brilliant post - the math works by Weaselmancer · · Score: 2

    I have no mod points at the moment but yeah, brilliant post. That's it exactly.

    I'm going to be buying a beagleboard here soon to start the household transformation. I have a x86 server I run in my basement that I'm going to replace. It will instead be a beagleboard. It'll drop from about 100w to maybe 6w or so.

    Here's the math on the savings:

    .1kw * .09 dollars/kwh * (24 * 365) hours = $78.84 dollars to run my x86 server for a year.

    .006kw * .09 dollars/kwh * (24 * 365) hours = $4.73 dollars to run my ARM server for a year

    So switching to ARM saves me $74.11 every year. A beagleboard XM costs about $150 at Digikey. So it pays for itself in two years, then saves me about 75 bucks a year every year.

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    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
  27. Re:Tabtop momentum building by TheSunborn · · Score: 2

    And what does this have to do with arm?

    An intel atom chip could give you all that*.

    *Within a few wats, but thoose 2 or 3 wats are not the reason such a computer don't exists. 

  28. Re:Tabtop momentum building by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

    Then what you want already exists in x86 form, its called Brazos and to use that old John Romero quote it would "Make ARM its bitch" hands down. No fans, small enough you can just bolt it to the back of the monitor, yet it has a dual core APU with Radeon 6310 so it'll stomp at multimedia and HD. Oh and it MAXES OUT at 28w, and that is if you slam the living hell out of it, most of the time its below 6w, which is less than the modem you use to get the net into your house.

    So sorry, already exists without having to deal with porting everything to a cell phone chip. I have sold several of the laptop version and its damned nice and gets around 6 hours on a 6 cell battery. i liked it so much I ordered a EEE version for myself, that baby will hold 8Gb of RAM and only cost me $340 counting the extra 4Gb stick. I thought about 8Gb but WTF? When will I need 8Gb in a netbook? Great for multimedia BTW, and has both HDMI out and USB 3. Gotta love the new AMD APUs, sweet, fast, and cheap, just my combination.

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  29. Re:Tabtop momentum building by Paracelcus · · Score: 2

    Anybody remember Acorn? They didn't do so well!
    Arm on the desktop? been there, done that, went broke.

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    I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
  30. Re:Tabtop momentum building by tengwar · · Score: 2

    Could you give a bit more detail on the difficulties? This seems a bit surprising.

  31. Re:Tabtop momentum building by m50d · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ARM is admittedly easier than many things - you're still 32-bit and usually don't have endianess issues. So the main problems are sizes/alignment of system data structures - things like (network) host information, or even something as simple as date/time vary. Of course you should be using the types opaquely, but it's very easy to accidentally stuff a time_t into an int, and even if you are being careful you can miss implicit assumptions you're making (one of the problems I saw was code not dealing with an array in the network host data structure being of length 0). In this particular case the biggest source of problems was multibyte character handling differences (it was a Japanese game). When porting old code away from x86 you can also get a whole slew of floating-point related bugs, because double on x86 is really x87 extended double (I only encountered one minor problem in this case, it didn't do much floating point, but for other software it would be a bigger issue). Also see the recent glibc memcpy vs memmove issues for something that can come up even on x86-64 vs x86-64.

    Once code's been ported to two or three architectures these problems don't tend to come up any more (because the first couple of changes reveal all your implicit assumptions that could be broken), and that's true of a lot of open source projects. But any code that's only ever run on one platform will have portability issues. You don't have to take my word for it - try it yourself, pick a random project that doesn't release non-x86 builds off sourceforge and try and build it for arm.

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  32. ARM was developed as a desktop CPU by Alioth · · Score: 4, Informative

    ARM was originally developed as a desktop CPU, and it was on the desktop - it's been and gone.

    ARM stood originally for Acorn Risc Machine, it was developed by Acorn because they couldn't find an adequate processor for what they wanted to do to follow on from the 6502. Many of the CISC chips at the time (mid 1980s) had very poor utilization of memory bandwidth and poor interrupt response (Steve Furber in one of his talks recently on the development of the ARM - he's one of the two people who developed the first ARM CPU, pointed out in particular the National Semi 32016 (IIRC) that they were thinking of using, until they found out the multiply instruction took over 100 clock cycles and could not be interrupted).

    They also wanted ARM to be low power, not to make their new line of desktop computers energy efficient particularly, but because they needed it to be cheap so the computers could be affordable. If they could get it under 1 watt, they could use plastic packaging instead of ceramic packaging which reduces the cost by an order of magnitude. They had no tools for estimating power, so they just designed *everything* on the chip for low power. When they got the first samples back from the fab, they were blown away when they found the chip consumed 0.1 watts - they had massively overachieved.

    We had the Acorn Archimedes in school. IIRC, it had an 8MHz ARM and it could emulate - in software - an IBM PC with VGA graphics faster than the original IBM PC ran. That's how much faster the ARM was at the time compared to anything else around. Without needing to be in a ceramic package.

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  33. Re:Tabtop momentum building by tengwar · · Score: 2

    Interesting - thought we'd got past this stage. Still, I found myself working on some K&R C a couple of nights ago.