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Freescale, Intel count on netbook to lift sales (The Arizona Republic)
The Arizona Republic
reports that increasing netbooks
sales are helping to improve semiconductor manufacturers' revenues.
"Banking on netbooks as the next big tech trend to help boost profits, Intel began selling its Atom processor - developed at its Fab 32 facility in Chandler - to the netbook market in June. The company is by far the largest supplier of chips for netbooks, a market which industry analysts say will explode within the next five years.
Freescale Semiconductor Inc. announced plans this week to get into the market with a new processor it says will lead to cheaper netbooks with longer battery life."
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ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 19:55 UTC (Thu) by agrover (subscriber, #55381) [Link]
Basing it on ARM says "big pda" rather than "mini pc", so I don't know if better battery life is going to be enough to make these viable against Atom or other maker's Atom-wannabes. X86 compatibility is still important, for me at least.
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 20:08 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
What specifically does x86 compatibility get you that you need?
-jef
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 20:20 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
the ability to run more software and reliability.
not everything is distributed as source, not everything that is distributed as source compiles cleanly on every architecture.
and all the major linux distros concentrate mostly on the x86 market (although they are now starting to pay attention to AMD64) so the arm version is not as tested
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 20:28 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
Which software specifically would you want to run on a netbook that would not be available for ARM?
It's nice to talk about things in the abstract, but its far better to provide some specific examples. Canonical did announce they were going to port Ubuntu to the new ARMv7 chips..aimed at netbooks.
http://www.ubuntu.com/news/arm-linux
If you are going to argue that lack of software availability is going to hurt Ubuntu on ARM adoption, I think it would be respectful and polite to give Canonical specific, detailed feedback as to which software that would be.
Isn't one of the strengths of Ubuntu as a netbook appropriate linux variant its deep software catelog? Are you saying that the Ubuntu's software depth is non enough to support a viable linux on ARM netbook offering?
-jef
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 20:43 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
I'm not saying that having an ARM port of a major distro is a bad thing (it's a _VERY_ good thing in my opinion)
I'm saying that an ARM based system doesn't have as deep a software library as a x86 based system.
the software library available for an ARM linux system is HUGE compared to what's available for any other OS on ARM, but it's still not as large as for x86.
I expect ubuntu on ARM to be fairly dominant in that space because it will be much closer to the desktop experiance than other ARM options
but there are a _lot_ of people out there (commercial close source and opensource) that distribute .deb and .rpm packages for x86 but not for other architectures.
another big category of software that may be needed on a netbook, windows binaries (running under wine). you aren't going to run photoshop, but outlook or visio can be the make-or-break apps for many people and will run quite happily on a netbook.
with OLPC there is a lot of attention being given to the new 'wine activity' because it lets people run windows educational software under linux.
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 21:09 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
Wine? Wine is the specific technology you think is a deal breaker for ARM?
If you are right, then Ubuntu for ARM will end up in the unsupported ports area next to sparc and ppc quite quickly when Canonical can't sustain its development via OEM development services.
I'll turn your comment on its head. If Windows applications are what the vast majority of the people want to use on netbooks, then why would retailers bother continuing to put any linux pre-installs on the market?
If Wine is the killer app for linux netbooks, then linux availability as a commecial pre-install retail offering is going to continue to diminish and netbook OEM money to support its development will dry up for corporate entities Canonical who want to craft a business model servicing OEM partners.
You've described exactly the marketing difficulty that any OEM is going to have retailing a linux pre-install netbook side by side with Windows XP/Windows 7 based devices. If the vast majority of consumers expect full desktop compatibility, instead of limited functionality, they are going to choose windows variants unless the linux variant offers something different that can be marketed as an advantage. That is not going to happen with OEMs who offer both linux and XP. That sort of marketing innovation Its only going to come from an OEM who needs linux to sell product. The ARM OEMs need linux... they'll be working hard on that marketing issue in a way that Dell or Toshiba has no real incentive to do.
-jef
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 21:22 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
wine is just one of the reasons, not the only reason. you ignored all the other issues that were raised to ridicule this one.
remember, you asked 'why would anyone care if it's x86 vs ARM' you have been given answers. there probably isn't anyone who they are all applicable to, but there are many people that some of them are applicable to.
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 21:32 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]
I understand the reliability concern, but eg. Nokia's Internet Tablets have provenly been using most of the normal desktop stack fluently. And really if anything can be judged by ARM NAS devices etc., there is nothing to worry about reliability-wise. Linux on ARM is used very widely.
I think the Wine point was not relevant. People don't use netbooks to run random software, they mainly just run Firefox. In addition to that you can also use the usual programs for audio/video playback, office programs, play games, browse photos. The ARM vs x86 does not matter at all.
As for open source programs, I don't see anything even mildly interesting for netbook users missing in Debian's armel port. As a whole there isn't many packages not compiling either, and if necessary it's usually just a matter of adding portability fixes if a vendor really wants some software.
And now that I remember, not only Skype but also Adobe Flash already have Linux ARM ports, if open source clients are not enough for the vendor.
ARM? Posted Jan 9, 2009 17:12 UTC (Fri) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
People do use netbooks to run random software. And Firefox (with its JAvascript and plugins) is getting closer to there.
What I would find missing is the ability to just grab binaries from somewhere on the Internet. Normally I wouldn't need that, but what if I need to test Firefox 3.4-RC5? Or that new cute utility?
Furthermore, if I have a problem others will find it more difficult to reproduce it.
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 21:37 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
I wanted specific software. You waved your hands quite a bit about lots of software being out there that people are going to want to run by can't.
If windows native-only software that do not have a linux equivalent are the deal breaker moving forward... linux pre-installs in the retail netbook space will lose its first mover advantage and won't be a sustainable engineering business for any corporate entity looking to make money off of it. The netbook pre-install market will look just like the desktop market, no room for alternative cpus..dominated by Windows OS. And we all know you can't make any money selling linux consumer desktops, so it will be for linux netbooks.. unless the dynamic of the market changes so that netbooks are not thought of as laptop replacements...but pda replacements. If using MS-Office and MS-Outlook become defacto reasons driving netbook retail sales, wine isn't going to save linux's marketshare.
-jef
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 22:54 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
YA... the only proprietary software I'd want, or I can see other people running, on ARM-based netbook would be Adobe Flash.
Other then that I don't know. That's something that is fixable.
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 23:07 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
don't confuse what's useful to you with what's useful to others.
just because you don't see other people doing it doesn't mean that others don't see a use for it.
ARM? Posted Jan 9, 2009 1:53 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Ok.
All we are asking for is examples.
So far your Zero for Five. Nobody knows what sort of missing functionality or software your talking about, specifically. So far it's all hand waving and we are just guessing.
ARM? Posted Jan 9, 2009 2:00 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
The proof is in the pudding.
Now that HP is releasing its Mini 1000 Mi edition, which has a locked down customized linux distribution which only allows the install or updating of a select set of applications instead of the depth of a mainstream linux distribution, we'll see if if that more 'pda' approach is a popular way to market a linux netbook device. Hopefully HP will be forthcoming with some sort of sales estimate as to the popularity of the Mi edition compared to its XP edition.
If that locked down application garden approach is sustainable for HP on atom, it will be sustainable for ARM OEMs as well.
-jef
ARM? Posted Jan 9, 2009 2:02 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
I'm not 0 for 5 in giving examples, you are just deciding to ignore them
ARM? Posted Jan 9, 2009 2:45 UTC (Fri) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]
So far, I see only a mention of wine in this thread, and agree with the response that if wine is the critical feature, then linux on netbooks is a pointless venture.
I often see wine raised as an important thing, but I rarely meet anyone who actually uses it. I have used it to play a few windows games over the years. I have it installed, and even purchased a copy from codeweavers, because I felt it was code worth writing. I never used it though.
ARM? Posted Jan 9, 2009 3:28 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
many posts up in http://lwn.net/Articles/314113/ I initially didn't even list wine, but I apparently wasn't being specific enough, so wine was listed a couple posts down as one of the examples, but I also listed other things that are being dismissed or ignored.
wine is seldom really needed for individuals, however in some corporate environments it's critial as the choice is either to run some piece of windows software under wine, or run it under windows. I've also seen parents of small children go to extrodinary lengths to get some windows software they have running. In many cases people need the reassurance that _if_they_need_to_ they can run their windows stuff that they are familiar with, and then they find that there are open replacements for that work just as well or better. In this last case wine has still done a good job (even though it is never used)
the other reasons
1. at least for now, people test the x86 builds a lot more than other builds
2. not all software comes through the distro (that may have 20,000 packages, but not the one you want). the software that doesn't come through the distro will be available in x86 packages, it may not be available for other chips
3. even if the software is open, there can be difficulties in running it on other platforms. yes, good software should just recompile, but there's a lot of software that's not _that_ good (not to mention the hassle of having to recompile
ARM? Posted Jan 9, 2009 5:00 UTC (Fri) by Ze (guest, #54182) [Link] 1. at least for now, people test the x86 builds a lot more than other builds 2. not all software comes through the distro (that may have 20,000 packages, but not the one you want). the software that doesn't come through the distro will be available in x86 packages, it may not be available for other chips 3. even if the software is open, there can be difficulties in running it on other platforms. yes, good software should just recompile, but there's a lot of software that's not _that_ good (not to mention the hassle of having to recompile Speaking as someone who has looked at using ARM for an embedded device , I can honestly say that 1,2 and 3 are big issues. I'd further expand on 2. and say that the distro might not have the version you want (as distros releases are by their nature behind the developers releases). I consider 1. and 3. to be huge issues though , and that issue 3. is really part of 1. Just because a package is in a repository because it compiles doesn't mean that it's fully functional (for that matter distro's often release x86 software that hasn't been fully tested, so it's no surprise that a distro/sub-distro with a smaller user base isn't as widely tested).
ARM? Posted Jan 9, 2009 9:10 UTC (Fri) by ibukanov (subscriber, #3942) [Link]
> wine is seldom really needed for individuals
I use it regularly (also on a netbook!) to run electronic Windows-only vocabularies. But since some companies have a clue and nowdays provide on-line versions of at least some vocabularies, for me an ability to run x86 binaries are not critical. On the other hand my friends use Wine to run various developing games for babies on a laptop and without Wine they will be forced to use Windows.
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 21:34 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Wine is free (in both senses) and runs on top of a stable OS with modest hardware requirement. Somebody who needs both Linux and Windows programs will probably run Linux as long as Windows programs are supported by Wine.Lack of Wine is going to be a problem for non-x86 system. Not a major one, but probably a deal breaker for some potential users. Emulating x86 on ARM is likely to be slow, I don't think it would work well even for simple software like TurboTax.
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 21:02 UTC (Thu) by yokem_55 (subscriber, #10498) [Link]
The usual suspects under linux that I would think of would be Adobe Flash, although it seems that Adobe is moving in the right direction on this, and OpenOffice, which I believe hasn't had a working ARM port since the 1.1x days. I also wouldn't be surprised if the new JIT javascript engine in firefox has problems running on ARM.
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 21:22 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]
http://buildd.debian.org/pkg.cgi?pkg=openoffice.org
Builds, works, have used it. (note: armel = arm, armv4 or newer)
The whole thread is I think quite utter crap. There is about zero software that is missing from ARM compared to x86 on Linux, and there is already a very major distro offering over 20 000 packages for ARM in a stable release, Debian.
Even if counting the only things that could somehow matter to mass markets, Skype and Adobe Flash, vendors of both are probably able to supply some port of the software when a big vendor asks. Skype has already a Linux ARM port, Flash is probably quite crappy code but either Adobe does it or some vendor will push Gnash a bit more.
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 21:49 UTC (Thu) by agrover (subscriber, #55381) [Link]
x86 is a guarantee that if there's a version of something, there's a binary that will work on your machine. There *is* a loss of OS&distro&app flexibility (even perceived, maybe never actually needed flexibility) in switching to ARM, and I'm not saying I wouldn't make that tradeoff, but there needs to be a significant cost and power advantage before it's worth it. If it drops a $350 netbook to $325, forget it. If it drops it to $250, with better battery life? Could be interested.
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 22:57 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
What if that price drop came with an associated isp broadband data contract as part of the hardware price subsidy...like how cellphones are sold. Would that still be compelling?
-jef
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 23:16 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
Jef, are you trying to do a market survey?
anything that gives value to the user is probably a compelling reason for someone (even if it's only "it has My Little Pony (tm) pictures on the case")
what is compelling enough is going to vary greatly from individual to individual. the important thing for people to realize that while they may not see a use for x86 compatibility, other people do.
that doesn't mean that it's an overwelming reason, but that there is value in it, so loosing the compatibility should be viewed as a trade-off, not an automatic action.
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 23:50 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
Wow I never thought of the My little Pony angle, hopefully someone from Canonical is thinking about capturing that very large untapped market of demand for My Little Pony branded portable computing devices. If only that trademark wasn't taken. My little Pony is a perfect name for a linux distribution. We all want a pony, Canonical could give everyone the little pony they've always wanted.
Yes its a tradeoff....and it comes down to positioning and marketing as much as technical merit.
My point is this. Right now the intel atom OEMs don't need linux to grow the netbook market and aren't really doing anything significant to aggressively position linux to build consumer demand for the linux variants versus the XP version of the same hardware models they are selling. Linux was there to create the market, but OEMs are not committed to linux as a marketing defining operating system in a mature netbook market.
The price points aren't even that different between XP and linux netbooks. If anything OEMs have been leveraging linux to negotiate better OEM terms for XP from MS. The instant savings on Dell's XP mini 9 models bring the XP variant within a few dollars of the Ubuntu variant once you spec out devices with the same storage and memory. That's great for OEMs in the short term, but if those very same OEMs don't help build brand value for the linux alternatives that downward pressure on MS's OEM pricing is going to disappear because the software companies OEMs are relying on for linux support aren't going to be able to sustain a business model.
The ARM OEMs have a much larger incentive to find and grow a segment of the netbook market that can sustain a linux offering exactly because they do not have the XP option on the table. They have to be aggressive linux advocates in the marketplace, or else they aren't going to be in the marketplace. If linux is going to be a sustainable niche consumer product platform, an OEM is going to have to commit to linux in a big way and not offer XP side-by-side with linux. And then market the absolute hell out of those linux only products looking for that 10% of the market who wants what linux offers and then grow marketshare around that base.
-jef
ARM? Posted Jan 9, 2009 0:06 UTC (Fri) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link] TraceMonkey has JIT support on arm (it has too, b/c Firefox wants to go after phones, too).
ARM? Posted Jan 15, 2009 14:36 UTC (Thu) by BenHutchings (subscriber, #37955) [Link]
I don't use them, but Adobe Reader and Skype are popular and are part of the Eee's preinstalled software.
ARM? Posted Jan 10, 2009 14:08 UTC (Sat) by pascal.martin (guest, #2995) [Link]
I tend to agree with the major point (Adobe flash...).
When it comes to AMD64, I am sorry to report that the original post is one year behind. HP now refuses to release any Linux that is not 64 bits, and Dell seems to do the same (except netbooks?).
We wanted a 32 bit version of Linux for porting some legacy UNIX software that is not 64 bit compliant. HP flatly refused, Dell's web site only listed Red Hat 64 bit versions. We ended installing Linux ourselves on the servers and desktops.
ARM? Posted Jan 8, 2009 23:48 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
The ability to run all those lovely juicy rootkits.
(I wish Soekris sold ARMs so I could use one as my firewall.)
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