On 4/5/2010 2:51, Nick Thomas wrote:
Obviously, extra architectures aren't free - and you're probably right
when it comes to the x86 side of things. For phones, 'lowest common
denominator' is unlikely to help much, I fear.
I must admit, I'll be really disappointed if amd64/x86_64 isn't
supported - even Slackware has one of those now ;), and my 'connected
tv' is currently amd64. Of course, not supporting amd64 means several
whole classes of bugs will never be exposed - so it does lower the
maintenance burden.
My current thinking is to try a x86-64 kernel, with 32 bit userspace, for the
release after the upcoming one.
We know there is a clear advantage in that (for the graphics driver to be
specific), and it has very limited
impact on everything else in the system.
As for doing most of the OS as 64 bit.... that's a lot of compatibility pain
(MeeGo after all is trying hard
to provide a unified base for software vendors to write to, which thus must
include 32 bit compat for such
an offering.... and that is where things get messy)
Additional: kind of related to this, and kind of to your other email to
Jean - one space I've not seen MeeGo make any overtures to yet (and
possibly rightly, I don't know) is the router space. At least in the UK,
there's a (slow but steady) drive to oust ADSL and give everyone a fibre
termination to their home. Kind-of coupled to that is a tendency for
home routers to gain more and more in the way of functionality - Home
Hub, Be Box, what have you. VoIP and online-TV is starting to get
built-in and bundled with the BB. Generally MIPS boxes, they act as
gateway devices and tend to be stuffed-up linux builds with no future.
Does MeeGo have a (distant, perhaps dimly-realised) future integrating
that kind of device, or is it something there's no interest in?
Obviously, neither nokia or intel care a jot about MIPS - so I'm not
necessarily suggesting that there should be a mips port - but I do hate
the necessity of having several different boxes to do similar functions.
Right now, my 'router' is actually a
router-fileserver-soon-to-be-the-connected-tv-and-phone-too ('just' need
to add TV tuner support and wire the phone into it). Of course, it's
Debian at the moment...
I'm not sure. It comes down to focus and objective; the focus and objective of
MeeGo
currently are to provide a minimum-but-rich-enough set of functionality
everywhere
that application writers can write to. This is in direct conflict with the "super
mini embedded"
desire that I suspect some of the people making such boxes would want...
_______________________________________________
MeeGo-dev mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.meego.com/listinfo/meego-dev
