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Linus: '2016 Will Be the Year of the ARM Laptop' (softpedia.com)
jones_supa writes: Linus Torvalds took the stage at LinuxCon Europe in Dublin, Ireland, and talked about a number of things, including security and the future for Linux on ARM hardware. There is nothing that will blow your mind, but there are a couple of interesting statements nonetheless. Chromebooks are slowly taking over the world, and a large number of those Chromebooks are powered by ARM processors. "I'm happy to see that ARM is making progress. One of these days, I will actually have a machine with ARM. They said it would be this year, but maybe it'll be next year. 2016 will be the year of the ARM laptop," said Linus excitedly. He also explained that one of the problems now is actually finding people to maintain Linux. It's not a glorious job, and it usually entails answering emails seven days a week. Finding someone with the proper set of skills and the time to do this job is difficult.
Of course the stream of abuse probably doesn't help...
Hmm... could the fact that Linux maintainers keep quitting because they get tired of dealing with assholes have something to do with the problem that it's hard to find people to maintain Linux?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I would be fucking amazed if Apple hasn't had an ARM desktop/laptop for a while now internally.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Perhaps eliminating profanity and insults on mailing lists and in submission reviews would be a good place to start?
Answer emails seven days a week filled with personal insults and profanity vs. a coding gig that with great pay, professional environment and a sane work week.
It's entirely possible to have code review with no profanity and insults, and have good code come out of it. Keep the review about the code and how it can be improved, and help each other out, since tomorrow it's going to be their code on review and they will know they will mess things up, too.
I think the hold up is that ARM needs to be comparable in terms of computing power to Intel.
I don't think "comparable" is sufficient. I think that to switch an OS where people primerally use propeitary native code to a new incompatible CPU architecture the new processors have to be substantially more powerful to offset the performance cost of the emulation.
I find it unlikely that ARM will ever make a processor that is substantially more powerful than a regular desktop/laptop intel chip.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
With our Chromebook, we've found that there are certain tasks that you want to do on a little 10 inch notebook, and certain tasks you don't. On a small laptop, a processor good enough for YouTube and Netflix is good enough. You don't want to run Visual Studio on a 10 inch device, so there's no need for a Core i7.
Obviously, it doesn't matter to you that a supercomputer is faster than your desktop, if your desktop is fast enough. Similarly , if an ARM is fast enough for the things you do on a small laptop, it doesn't matter whether Intel offers a more capable processor or not - if the ARM suits your needs, that's enough.
It's the netbook argument all over again -- most people's use case for laptops is web and email, and it doesn't really matter what processor or OS the laptop is running as long as it works with most websites and email sends and receives ok. There are assumptions there -- that video and other resources used by websites work correctly -- and there's room for some specialized apps like Netflix, but that's pretty much it.
So Linux on ARM as a laptop? Sure. And it'll almost certainly be more reliable, run faster on equivalent hardware, and meet most people's needs who own laptops. There's no technical reason this couldn't happen.
The reason it won't happen is that there's this ninety billion dollar company and this other one hundred eighty billion dollar company that both have a vested interest in this not happening. And they're really good (at least so far) at making sure it doesn't happen.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
1.- Its a laptop as far as users are concerned, in fact I never sold a single one at the shop where anybody called them anything but laptops. If you think users will "cut you a break" because its ARM? News Flash they don't know a CPU from a HDD, they WILL expect it to do every.single.thing. your average laptop in Walmart does? When it don't? Hello return desk.
2.- Go look on your local CL under Chromebooks, News Flash they are already being dumped en masse because to steal a line from a former POTUS "Its the programs stupid!". People see a Chromebook, and again I cannot stress this enough users have no fucking clue what an OS is and all they know is "I use Google at home, it says it is from Google, so I can do everything I can do at home" and after a couple of weeks of finding out that is NOT the case? Hello Craigslist. I just looked on mine, they have a pile of 'em in the $70 range and most have been there awhile, know what that tells me? The users are treating them just as they treated those cheap tablets, they use it a few weeks, find it wanting, and get rid of it.
3.-...Sigh, how hard is it to understand? YOU know what an OS is, know who don't? THE VAST MAJORITY OF CONSUMERS that is who! They aren't gonna know WTF an "Android" is because, and I bet my last fucking dollar damned near everyone of them will say "that is for cellphones" and is that a cellphone? Nope its a laptop and therefor should do what laptops should do which according to Joe and Jane is RUN WINDOWS PROGRAMS, when it don't? Hi return desk, I'd like to return this?
4.-GPUs...Will these GPUs run all those Winhdows programs that Joe and Jane WILL expect it to run, because that IS what runs on the laptops at Walmart? No? Then nobody will have a single fuck to give, next!
5.-Windows 10? Yeah that is why you are extra fucked as again Joe and Jane have not a single fuck to give about rumors of spying, data collection, all that shit means nothing, for fucks sake they blab their sex lives on FB! What they DO care about very much is Windows 10 LOOKS like Windows 7, and all their programs run on it just fine. Ya know what I do to Windows 8 PCs brought into the shop with users demanding I "fix it"? I slap in classic shell, voila! That'll be $50 and they hand it over with a big happy smile on their face because all they care about is the GUI and form factor and if its a laptop that LOOKS like Windows 7? Well they are just happy campers and Win 10? Looks like Windows 7.
All of these points you are bringing up? Yeah its pretty damned obvious that you have NEVER worked retail or you would know that Joe user? He don't even know WTF those words even mean! An Operating System? CPU? GPU? What are those? If its a cellphone it should act like a cellphone, a laptop should act like a laptop, which means it should look and act like Windows. Mark my words, feel free to bookmark this post, when these flop I'll sure as hell be dropping links to this as a big giant TOLD YA SO because I have been working retail since the Shat sold Vic 20s with TJ Hooker hair and I KNOW how consumers think, and this? Ain't gonna work.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.