subject:"Re\: ARM as a primary architecture"

On Mar 22, 2012 8:32 PM, Michael Cronenworth m...@cchtml.com wrote:

 Adam Williamson wrote:

 I would still like you to consider the question of whether this holds
 for the Fedora case, though. Is Fedora as a project in fact suitable -
 either in current implementation, or in terms of our self-definition and
 long term goals - for this whole 'market' you are identifying as a
 single entity? Are we in fact truly interested in producing code for
 these content consumption devices? Is that what we're doing?


 The only way to measure this accurately, like anything else in Fedora, is
by the number of contributors. I will be looking to contribute to the ARM
project in some way in hope that I can one day replace my aging N900 phone
with newer, faster hardware and a real GNU/Linux image.

 Red Hat needs to get into the phone/tablet business: Red Hat Enterprise
Mobile!

I see that very unlikely IMO, you just have to look at the struggle for 3rd
place in the market, it's basically already killed MeeGo / maemo, webos ans
likely blackberry.

Peter

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Mar 23, 2012 3:22 AM, Kevin Kofler kevin.kof...@chello.at wrote:

 Peter Robinson wrote:

  On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 2:28 PM, drago01 drag...@gmail.com wrote:
  The only ones where this is possible right now are actually x86 based
  tablets. Even Windows 8 wont help here as MS mandates that the
  devices are locked with secure boot without having an option to disable
  it.
 
  No that is definitely not the case that it is x86 only,

 Quite the opposite: M$ rules for secure boot are:
 * on x86 (or non-ARM in their wording) devices, it MUST be possible for
 users to disable secure boot,
 * on ARM devices, it MUST NOT be possible for users to disable secure
 boot,
 i.e. all ARM devices shipping Window$ will have restricted boot forced on
 with no option to disable it.

And at the moment there are exactly 0 devices shipping windows 8 on arm.
There are no such rules for other oses such as Android, those are the
devices I was referring to,  I did say above that BIOS locked are a non
starter already!

Kevin Kofler

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-23 Thread Jaroslav Reznik

- Original Message -

 Define do it  as MeeGo is dead and they had to cosy up to Microsoft
 to survive, not sure I'd even wish that on canonical!

In reality, Nokia never started working on MeeGo ;-)

Once we're sooo off-topic (and tablets and cell phones) became the topic,
I think ARM as primary arch is not everything. We are talking about 
usually very constrained (memory, cpu, flash - I know, it's changing)
devices now. You don't need full blown distribution and Fedora is one. We
usually took x86 world as a reason, why we want very well integrated
distro over core platform based approach. And it's a place where meta-
distributions like MeeGo (no community based Mer Project) excels. As 
Qt 5 is approaching, I took a look on theirs SPEC files - even for 
already modular Qt 5 they are aiming even more granularity and it's
true for every other part of Mer system. Yeh, they are not distribution,
they are just core for other projects to build own one. But still - it's
going to be very hard for us to compete on ARM field with them (when
targeting tablets/mobile world).

Jaroslav
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-23 Thread Nicolas Mailhot


Le Jeu 22 mars 2012 21:13, Przemek Klosowski a écrit :

 Fair enough, but the trends are well established,

Like the netbook trends were well established?

In the last years there has been a clear struggle between users that want
cheaper computing and hardware manufacturers that want either to up-sell them
(Apple, ultrabooks), or if they can't, sell cheaper secondary devices
carefully neutered ('tailored') so they don't compete with full-power
computing devices.

I've lost the count of the new 'revolutionary' form factors that were promised
hegemony by journalists and that flopped after promising starts when either
the consumers realised they were being short-selled devices with limited
capabilities, or were quietly killed by the industry when they threatened to
replace more expensive offerings.

And yes smartphones are booming, but they're not booming because they are a
good desktop substitute, they're booming because they are a good dumbphone
substitute (and before that digital cameras replaced chemical cameras, and mp3
readers replaced walkmans, and I'm sure if someone had counted the chips in
them it would have made an impressive established trend dwarfing the number of
computers of that era)

And tablets (as general-computing devices, not as e-ink book readers) are an
unknown. The only people not realising this are affluent professionals who can
afford to participate in the latest fad and whose budget is barely dented by
experimenting with the latest gadget. (the same people swore laptops would
extinguish desktops – last I've seen desktops were still there ; and a laptop
with a docking station, a separate screen/keyboard/mouse/printer, that barely
moves from the docking station table, is just a desktop with a new central
unit design)

The general population worries more about cost-effectiveness. The tablet costs
are there but what of its effectiveness? An average user may spend most of its
time consuming, but with e-trade, e-administration, e-taxes he needs a
computing device too nowadays. Anything that can not handle those tasks is not
a desktop substitute it's a separate entertainment device, that will need
budgeting in addition to the computer.

And I'm not saying they won't find some place in the computing landscape, just
that a lot of this is hype fuelled by new entrants that desperately need some
VC funding. They have a vested interest in papering over the costs of
rewriting from scratch existing software catalogues, and obscuring the fact
that to be successful, a new platform must find a way to run most of this
software legacy (and doing so morph into something very close to the thing
it's supposed to deprecate).

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-23 Thread Przemek Klosowski


On 03/22/2012 10:42 PM, Kevin Kofler wrote:

Przemek Klosowski wrote:

Fair enough, but the trends are well established, and the data are
 for shipments so the actual deployed numbers are compounded (flat
 shipments translate to steady growth, linear or faster shipment
growth means quadratic or maybe even exponential growth).


Quite the opposite, shipments are related to the first (discrete)
derivative of active deployments, which will necessarily amplify the
 effects: if the number of shipments decreases, that just means that
 growth in deployments is slowing down, not that the number of
deployments decreases.


I think we're saying the same thing here; the point is that compounding
amplifies even small trends.


A computer is often a per-household device. A cellphone is per
person, or even multiple devices per person (e.g. multiple phones
with different contracts, or a phone and a tablet, etc.). So the
total number is necessarily going to be larger without there being
more users.


Of course, but numbers are numbers; we just have to pay attention to 
lighter, mobile formfactors. It is the same reasoning as in the desktop 
vs. server dilemma 15 years ago: you could say that 'servers are 
per-company devices', so Linux has been concentrating on the desktops, 
where the numbers were---while still paying attention to servers. As we 
know it's a good idea to optimize for both desktop and server; they 
aren't contradictory.


As I wrote responding to Nicolas, the GUI interaction concepts from
mobiles are relevant to all platforms, and it is appropriate to think 
ahead and seek a model that serves both. Microsoft also seems to follow 
this direction, and implements it, however awkwardly, in Windows 8.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-23 Thread Przemek Klosowski


On 03/23/2012 05:59 AM, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:


And yes smartphones are booming, but they're not booming because they
are a good desktop substitute, they're booming because they are a
good dumbphone substitute (and before that digital cameras replaced
chemical cameras, and mp3 readers replaced walkmans, and I'm sure if
someone had counted the chips in them it would have made an
impressive established trend dwarfing the number of computers of that
era)


Let's not forget why we're talking about this. The point was made to put 
more effort in developing ARM Fedora because of the increasing 
importance of that platform. I believe that is a correct assessment in a 
broad sense, even if the details are arguable. In my mind, it's as much 
about the architecture as about the supported set of hardware features 
and modes of user interaction.


I am not claiming that tablets are the ultimate platform that will 
replace everything else. Rather, I think that the direct manipulation 
GUIs that originated on the mobile devices are a good idea on all 
platforms, and I prefer that a mature desktop system like Fedora evolves 
to include it, rather than trying to add functionality to mobile 
platform. I don't want Android on whatever I use at my desk in few years.


Don't get me wrong---I love my droid but it is sometimes a frustrating 
relationship. A lot of tools that I am used to on the desktop are 
missing---some for good reason (limitations of small screen, awkward 
keyboard) but  sometimes it's just not there because the dev environment 
is too different and there's no port.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture


 always with the caveat that you can't just use make -j 288 on them.

Why not?  Multi-CPU machines is very old technology.
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 04:46:23 +0100
Kevin Kofler kevin.kof...@chello.at wrote:

 My desktop is actually older and slower than my notebook. Yet I use the 
 desktop whenever I'm at home. The form factor is just more convenient.

That's just what you personally prefer. I quit using desktops back
in 2001, because laptop form factor is just more convenient for me.
Let's not mistake personal perceptions for the whole picture.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:01:27 -0400
DJ Delorie d...@redhat.com wrote:

 Buy a trimslice and run it with iSCSI.

This is not good enough for me to become involved with Fedora on ARM.
Glad it works for you, but I need a real system, like a Netwinder.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture


 Glad it works for you, but I need a real system, like a Netwinder.

So buy a trimslice and use the internal SSD or sata disk.  The
trimslice has everything the netwinder has (and more), and uses half
the power.

http://trimslice.com/web/
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-23 Thread Martin Langhoff

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Pete Zaitcev zait...@redhat.com wrote:
 Buy a trimslice and run it with iSCSI.

 This is not good enough for me to become involved with Fedora on ARM.
 Glad it works for you, but I need a real system, like a Netwinder.

Whatever floats your boat! ARM SoCs are available in every popular form factor.

This whole thread about desktops vs tablets vs laptops has been highly
entertaining... now I know what every developer personally favours and
hates, as well as many of their immediate families. This a matter
which has kept many of us awake for long nights.

It unfortunately shed no light on the ARM topic, because, well,
there's ARM SoCs in all those form factors.

cheers,



martin just kidding langhoff
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-23 Thread Richard W.M. Jones

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 04:50:38PM -0400, Martin Langhoff wrote:
 On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Pete Zaitcev zait...@redhat.com wrote:
  Buy a trimslice and run it with iSCSI.
 
  This is not good enough for me to become involved with Fedora on ARM.
  Glad it works for you, but I need a real system, like a Netwinder.
 
 Whatever floats your boat! ARM SoCs are available in every popular form 
 factor.
 
 This whole thread about desktops vs tablets vs laptops has been highly
 entertaining... now I know what every developer personally favours and
 hates, as well as many of their immediate families. This a matter
 which has kept many of us awake for long nights.
 
 It unfortunately shed no light on the ARM topic, because, well,
 there's ARM SoCs in all those form factors.

Except the x86-64 high performance single threaded class :-)

Rich.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 7:50 PM, Pete Zaitcev zait...@redhat.com wrote:
 On Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:01:27 -0400
 DJ Delorie d...@redhat.com wrote:

 Buy a trimslice and run it with iSCSI.

 This is not good enough for me to become involved with Fedora on ARM.
 Glad it works for you, but I need a real system, like a Netwinder.

Trimslice has options of SSD or HDD as well so it would be no less of
a real machine like a netwinder.

http://trimslice.com/web/models

Peter
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:02:37 +
Richard W.M. Jones rjo...@redhat.com wrote:

  It unfortunately shed no light on the ARM topic, because, well,
  there's ARM SoCs in all those form factors.
 
 Except the x86-64 high performance single threaded class :-)

Rich, check this out -
 http://summit.openstack.org/sessions/view/40

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:05:39 +
Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.com wrote:

 Trimslice has options of SSD or HDD as well so it would be no less of
 a real machine like a netwinder.
 
 http://trimslice.com/web/models

So I see, thanks. DJ's original suggestion was too forceful in insisting
on iSCSI. I also received a word from colleague in town that he's going
to tinker with Trimslice Pro.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 11:12 PM, Pete Zaitcev zait...@redhat.com wrote:
 On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:05:39 +
 Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.com wrote:

 Trimslice has options of SSD or HDD as well so it would be no less of
 a real machine like a netwinder.

 http://trimslice.com/web/models

 So I see, thanks. DJ's original suggestion was too forceful in insisting
 on iSCSI. I also received a word from colleague in town that he's going
 to tinker with Trimslice Pro.

Yep, it's not just x86 users that are stuck in their weird and
wonderful ways :-D

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture


 So I see, thanks. DJ's original suggestion was too forceful in insisting
 on iSCSI.

Sorry, I'm a big fan of iSCSI on trimslices.  The SATA interface is on
USB but the gigE isn't, so network (iscsi) is about 3x faster than a
local disk, if you have a big raid server on the other end.

I have two trimslices; one has an internal 250 GB sata disk (it's a
public web/git server running F15) and the other is diskless iSCSI for
faster builds.
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-23 Thread Eric Smith


DJ Deloried...@redhat.com  wrote:



Buy a trimslice and run it with iSCSI.


Pete Zaitcev wrote:

This is not good enough for me to become involved with Fedora on ARM.
Glad it works for you, but I need a real system, like a Netwinder.


You did see that there's a Trimslice H model that can accomodate a 
2.5 HD or SSD, right?


Or is there something else missing the Netwinder had that the Trimslice 
is missing?



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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-23 Thread Kevin Kofler

Przemek Klosowski wrote:
 Of course, but numbers are numbers; we just have to pay attention to
 lighter, mobile formfactors. It is the same reasoning as in the desktop
 vs. server dilemma 15 years ago: you could say that 'servers are
 per-company devices', so Linux has been concentrating on the desktops,
 where the numbers were---while still paying attention to servers. As we
 know it's a good idea to optimize for both desktop and server; they
 aren't contradictory.

Actually, GNU/Linux has been focusing on servers for years, and still does. 
Look at what the main target for RHEL is. Or why Debian's release cycle is 
built around the stable release. Fedora has a strong desktop focus because 
it's pace of innovation is scaring server owners away (and yet, even in 
Fedora, there's a Server SIG), but GNU/Linux in general is primarily a 
server operating system!

Kevin Kofler

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-23 Thread Kevin Kofler

DJ Delorie wrote:
 So buy a trimslice and use the internal SSD or sata disk.  The
 trimslice has everything the netwinder has (and more), and uses half
 the power.
 
 http://trimslice.com/web/

Trim-Slice is the first desktop computer powered by NVIDIA Tegra 2.
i.e., by buying a Trimslice, you give money to The Enemy!

Kevin Kofler

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture


 i.e., by buying a Trimslice, you give money to The Enemy!

What a horrible thing to say about a company that's put a lot of
effort into supporting their products on Free Software platforms!
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-23 Thread Stephen John Smoogen

On 23 March 2012 18:24, Kevin Kofler kevin.kof...@chello.at wrote:
 DJ Delorie wrote:
 So buy a trimslice and use the internal SSD or sata disk.  The
 trimslice has everything the netwinder has (and more), and uses half
 the power.

 http://trimslice.com/web/

 Trim-Slice is the first desktop computer powered by NVIDIA Tegra 2.
 i.e., by buying a Trimslice, you give money to The Enemy!

        Kevin Kofler

Kevin,

this is my only reply to your emails. Your emails have become highly
disruptive, annoying and are turning off more people than helping them
see your point of view. Please slow down as it is only making you more
people ignore you all the time than listen.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 12:24 AM, Kevin Kofler kevin.kof...@chello.at wrote:
 DJ Delorie wrote:
 So buy a trimslice and use the internal SSD or sata disk.  The
 trimslice has everything the netwinder has (and more), and uses half
 the power.

 http://trimslice.com/web/

 Trim-Slice is the first desktop computer powered by NVIDIA Tegra 2.
 i.e., by buying a Trimslice, you give money to The Enemy!

Oh Kevin please  if that is the best you can do to argue your
point against ARM would please just not say anything. It's completely
unnecessary, completely off topic and doesn't do anything to help your
cause. After all they've just joined the linux foundation [1] so
apparently they're not the Enemy any more.

[1] http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-linux-gpu-fluendo-lineo,14936.html
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-23 Thread Kevin Kofler

DJ Delorie wrote:
 What a horrible thing to say about a company that's put a lot of
 effort into supporting their products on Free Software platforms!

I think the Nouveau developers have a different story to tell you there.

Kevin Kofler

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

Tom Lane wrote:
 That opinion is flat out ridiculous.  Or maybe it makes sense if you
 think consumer desktops are the be-all and end-all; but they are not.

Consumer desktops and notebooks. The things we normally call computers. 
Those have always been and should remain our primary target.

 (If you do think that Apple's decisions are an important factor here,
 why are you so much not on board with pushing ARM?  Apple's certainly
 doing their darndest to make ARM a mainstream arch.)

Apple's PPC machines were computers. Apple's ARM machines are not. One big 
reason being that Apple is doing everything they can to prevent you from 
installing a non-Apple operating system (such as Fedora) on them.

 And that opinion is simply wrong.  You have provided no justification

I did. The justification is that there is, at this time, only one 
architecture seriously relevant for computers (defined as desktops or 
laptops/notebooks).

 for allowing Fedora to get boxed in on a single architecture, which is
 the inevitable end result of the thinking you espouse.

It is not. Supporting more architectures (and having working ports to fall 
back on when the need should arise) is what secondary architectures are for.

 Pointing at individual deficiencies of individual arches is not a
 justification; especially not in view of all the problems x86 itself has
 got.  The Linux community has slowly worked around x86's limitations, the
 same could happen for any other arch.

Wow, you seem to really hate x86. But please accept the fact that, no matter 
how much you hate x86, it is THE relevant architecture right now.

 The only reason this doesn't happen is people trying to justify not
 putting in the work by rationalizing that that architecture is obsolete

In most cases, it is.

 or Intel is the top of the heap today, so I don't need to bother thinking
 about anything else.

I'd rephrase that as That architecture is not mature yet., i.e. the 
opposite problem compared to That architecture is obsolete.

It will be time to consider ARM for primary architecture status when it will 
be a serious contender in the computer (as defined previously) market.

 Or in other words: you sir are not part of the solution, you are part of
 the problem.

I still see no problem.

 I'm not saying that I think ARM is the ideal other primary arch, but
 it seems to have more momentum than most of the other choices.  We
 should be looking for ways to make it a PA, or make something else
 a PA.  We should not be looking for excuses for monoculturalism.

They're not excuses, they're valid reasons to not waste valuable developer 
time on niche architectures. Let the people who care about those 
architectures work on them (which is how the secondary architecture system 
works)!

 If we settle for that, we'll have only ourselves to blame when we
 become irrelevant, not too many years down the road.

Nonsense. As long as we have healthy secondary architectures, we can promote 
them to primary when it really makes sense, i.e. when/if the x86 apocalypse 
happens. (By the way, don't count on it happening at all. The end of x86 has 
been proclaimed so many times, yet each of the prophecies has been proven 
wrong so far. Not even the move to 64-bit and Intel putting its weight 
behind a non-x86 64-bit architecture were able to kill x86. What was killed 
instead was the Itanium, dubbed Itanic by many. Don't be too quick to 
write off x86!) There is no need whatsoever to make the move to primary now. 
Who knows what architecture (if any) will replace x86 in the end, it might 
not be ARM at all!

Kevin Kofler

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 8:16 AM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.com wrote:
 our computers are about to become typewriters. It will not be a decade 
 longer.

 http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/03/canalys-more-smartphones-than-pcs-shipped-in-2011/?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=feedutm_campaign=Feed%3A+weblogsinc%2Fengadget+%28Engadget%29

While I agree that we will see more smartphones and tablets in the
future the people that actually replace there traditional computers
with tablets or even smartphones are near zero.
Sells do not really tell the whole story as many people simply don't
have a need to buy new laptops/desktops because what they have is
good enough so they spend there money on other gadgets.
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Mar 22, 2012, at 1:23 AM, drago01 wrote:

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 8:16 AM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.com wrote:
our computers are about to become typewriters. It will not be a decade
longer.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/03/canalys-more-smartphones-than-pcs-shipped-in-2011/?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=feedutm_campaign=Feed%3A+weblogsinc%2Fengadget+%28Engadget%29

While I agree that we will see more smartphones and tablets in the
future the people that actually replace there traditional computers
with tablets or even smartphones are near zero.

You're assuming they had a computer to begin with. The data is noisy but
there's a significant minority who do not have computers, now buying a smart
phone. This will grow. They may never end up with a desktop. Even Apple has
disconnected a requirement for having a desktop. My parents are candidates for
replacing their laptop with just an iPad. Maybe 1/4 of the friends I have use a
desktop/laptop once a week or less. And increasingly less often. Their phone?
Can't live without it. It's already a primary device.

Sells do not really tell the whole story as many people simply don't
have a need to buy new laptops/desktops because what they have is
good enough so they spend there money on other gadgets.

Mobile devices are replaced more frequently than desktops, which could also
skew the data toward mobile. But Apple didn't become the biggest company in the
world by market capitalization, eclipsing Microsoft and even Exxon-Mobile, by
selling desktops and laptops. It's iOS. (And the iMonostore.)

Desktop computers are used overwhelmingly for email and web browsing. It's
total overkill. The desktop computer is a super computer that no consumer
really needs. It's a dying market. It's now servers and mobile. The
transitional element will be laptops/ultrabooks (netbooks obviously are dead)
which will keep desktop operating systems and x86 around as a significant
minority, but not for long.

Thunderbolt on an ARM tablet to connect a larger display, bluetooth keyboard,
and internet access and the overwhelming majority can do what they need to do.
The economies of scale of desktops, even in business, is dropping rapidly. For
home users, it has already happened a while ago. They don't need a desktop.
They probably don't need a laptop either.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 8:57 AM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.com wrote:
On Mar 22, 2012, at 1:23 AM, drago01 wrote:

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 8:16 AM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.com
wrote:
our computers are about to become typewriters. It will not be a decade
longer.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/03/canalys-more-smartphones-than-pcs-shipped-in-2011/?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=feedutm_campaign=Feed%3A+weblogsinc%2Fengadget+%28Engadget%29

While I agree that we will see more smartphones and tablets in the
future the people that actually replace there traditional computers
with tablets or even smartphones are near zero.

You're assuming they had a computer to begin with.

I was talking about this people. People that had no access to
computers to begin with are of course a different story.

The data is noisy but there's a significant minority who do not have
computers, now buying a smart phone. This will grow. They may never end up
with a desktop. Even Apple has disconnected a requirement for having a
desktop. My parents are candidates for replacing their laptop with just an
iPad. Maybe 1/4 of the friends I have use a desktop/laptop once a week or
less.

Interesting. People I know just using them (tablets) as toys to play
some causal games, surf the net read mails. They go back to there
laptops / desktops to do anything beyond that.

And increasingly less often. Their phone? Can't live without it. It's already
a primary device.

Well people couldn't live without dumbphones either so this is
natural progress.

Sells do not really tell the whole story as many people simply don't
have a need to buy new laptops/desktops because what they have is
good enough so they spend there money on other gadgets.

Mobile devices are replaced more frequently than desktops, which could also
skew the data toward mobile. But Apple didn't become the biggest company in
the world by market capitalization, eclipsing Microsoft and even
Exxon-Mobile, by selling desktops and laptops. It's iOS. (And the iMonostore.)

I agree that we will see more smartphones and tablets in the future
... yes no doubt that market still has a potential to grow. I just do
not believe that a significant amount of people will throw there
desktops/laptops away and use tablets / smartphones instead.

Tablets are 99% consumption only devices. Your are missing the
production market ... people do use computers to do work, write the
apps that the tablet/smartphone people enjoy etc.
So no there is still a marked beyond the consumption only devices
(tablets) and the data centers (servers). The world is not black and
white.

Thunderbolt on an ARM tablet to connect a larger display, bluetooth keyboard,
and internet access and the overwhelming majority can do what they need to do.

Which is a lot more work then simply open the laptop and start working.

The economies of scale of desktops, even in business, is dropping rapidly.

Not seeing this happening. Switching to tabelts is just unproductive
(it does make sense for some uses though).

For home users, it has already happened a while ago. They don't need a
desktop. They probably don't need a laptop either.

When home user == only consumes content then yes but that is not
necessarily the only use of computers / laptops at home either.
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture



On Mar 22, 2012, at 2:10 AM, drago01 wrote:
 
 Interesting. People I know just using them (tablets) as toys to play
 some causal games, surf the net  read mails. They go back to there
 laptops / desktops to do anything beyond that.

Most people don't. It's important to understand most of us on this list aren't 
most people.

Toys?

FAA Approves IPad for Flight Navigation
http://www.tabletedia.com/news/2820.html

Here's a quote from a doctor: Even if you’re not at home, you can quickly pick 
up your phone, view the EKG, and take care of patients remotely.
http://www.imedicalapps.com/2011/12/apple-top-iphone-ipad-medical-apps-2011/

This is doing 2 minute google searches...

People read books on mobile devices. Computers? Ick. I'm not reading a book on 
a computer. It's unpleasant. I can't read on a mobile device because I need a 
browser with an average of 34 tabs. Most people lack my lunacy.


 
 And increasingly less often. Their phone? Can't live without it. It's 
 already a primary device.
 
 Well people couldn't live without dumbphones either so this is
 natural progress.

They could. They had desktops or laptops. Most people would replace their phone 
in a day if it broke or were lost. A home computer? Weekend. Maybe next weekend.


 I agree that we will see more smartphones and tablets in the future
 ... yes no doubt that market still has a potential to grow. I just do
 not believe that a significant amount of people will throw there
 desktops/laptops away and use tablets / smartphones instead.

Most people will. There will be no advantage to a desktop or laptop. So far, 
speed is all that's really come up. That's going to be a non-issue in a hurry. 
There's BILLIONS of dollars pouring into mobile and tablet right now. It's what 
people want.

 
 Tablets are 99% consumption only devices. Your are missing the
 production market ... people do use computers to do work, write the
 apps that the tablet/smartphone people enjoy etc.

Developer market? Image editing and video editing stations? Small markets. 
Enough to maintain x86? Yeah sure, for a while. But as a majority?

Mobile market isn't just syphoning users from the consumer desktop market, it's 
growing the market.


 So no there is still a marked beyond the consumption only devices
 (tablets) and the data centers (servers). The world is not black and
 white.

It is a shrinking market.

 
 Thunderbolt on an ARM tablet to connect a larger display, bluetooth 
 keyboard, and internet access and the overwhelming majority can do what they 
 need to do.
 
 Which is a lot more work then simply open the laptop and start working.

Consumers are complicated.

 For home users, it has already happened a while ago. They don't need a 
 desktop. They probably don't need a laptop either.
 
 When home user == only consumes content then yes but that is not
 necessarily the only use of computers / laptops at home either.

It's the majority case. Email, web browser, books, Netflix, and it's a baby 
sitter. It's like candy multiplied by TV for kids. Way more interesting for 
them than desktop computers or laptops.


Chris Murphy
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Andrew Haley

On 03/22/2012 01:38 AM, Kevin Kofler wrote:

 (but the multi-core ARM setups actually present themselves as a
 multi-computer cluster, which is not supported by make -j, not as
 a multi-CPU computer)

FWIW, I'm pretty sure this is not the case for the ARM computers
on the way now: they are multi-core multi-threaded.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Andrew Haley

On 03/22/2012 02:00 AM, Kevin Kofler wrote:
 Peter Robinson wrote:
  Exactly! Ultimately what we need is FESCo to document what are the
  requirements of being promoted to a primary architecture and then it's
  the ARM SIGs job of ensuring they adhere to the requirements, provide
  viable workable alternatives that are acceptable to FESCo, or provide
  proof that the requirement will be met within an agreed time frame.

 ARM should most definitely NOT be approved as a primary architecture before 
 all the requirements are actually met!

Hold on, these requirements are something you just made up to suit
your argument.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 9:57 AM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.com wrote:


 On Mar 22, 2012, at 2:10 AM, drago01 wrote:

 Interesting. People I know just using them (tablets) as toys to play
 some causal games, surf the net  read mails. They go back to there
 laptops / desktops to do anything beyond that.

 Most people don't. It's important to understand most of us on this list 
 aren't most people.

I didn't claim thatI just countered your my parents example ...
basically this kind of evidence is moot  ... we need more data to
judge that.

 Toys?

I said the people I was talking about used them as toys. (Please read
what I wrote and don't try to refute stuff that isn't even written
there).

 FAA Approves IPad for Flight Navigation
 http://www.tabletedia.com/news/2820.html

 Here's a quote from a doctor: Even if you’re not at home, you can quickly 
 pick up your phone, view the EKG, and take care of patients remotely.
 http://www.imedicalapps.com/2011/12/apple-top-iphone-ipad-medical-apps-2011/

 This is doing 2 minute google searches...

Again see the enterprise part (it does make sense for some uses
though). ... those are those uses. I am not saying tablets are
useless. I am just saying those are *different* devices.
You don't replace a plane with a car either.

 People read books on mobile devices. Computers? Ick. I'm not reading a book 
 on a computer. It's unpleasant. I can't read on a mobile device because I 
 need a browser with an average of 34 tabs. Most people lack my lunacy.

Well I'd prefer a real boot or an ereader over a computer or tablet.



 And increasingly less often. Their phone? Can't live without it. It's 
 already a primary device.

 Well people couldn't live without dumbphones either so this is
 natural progress.

 They could. They had desktops or laptops. Most people would replace their 
 phone in a day if it broke or were lost. A home computer? Weekend. Maybe next 
 weekend.


Most people that buy smartphones today *do* have laptops / desktoüs.

 I agree that we will see more smartphones and tablets in the future
 ... yes no doubt that market still has a potential to grow. I just do
 not believe that a significant amount of people will throw there
 desktops/laptops away and use tablets / smartphones instead.

 Most people will. There will be no advantage to a desktop or laptop. So far, 
 speed is all that's really come up. That's going to be a non-issue in a 
 hurry. There's BILLIONS of dollars pouring into mobile and tablet right now. 
 It's what people want.

Actually speed isn't an advantage see the (now dead) netbook hype. For
most people current speed is good enough (hence no need to go buy a
new computer every year).


 Tablets are 99% consumption only devices. Your are missing the
 production market ... people do use computers to do work, write the
 apps that the tablet/smartphone people enjoy etc.

 Developer market? Image editing and video editing stations? Small markets. 
 Enough to maintain x86? Yeah sure, for a while. But as a majority?

Office, DTP and probably others or in short content creation.

 Mobile market isn't just syphoning users from the consumer desktop market, 
 it's growing the market.


 So no there is still a marked beyond the consumption only devices
 (tablets) and the data centers (servers). The world is not black and
 white.

 It is a shrinking market.

it is a saturated marked.


 Thunderbolt on an ARM tablet to connect a larger display, bluetooth 
 keyboard, and internet access and the overwhelming majority can do what 
 they need to do.

 Which is a lot more work then simply open the laptop and start working.

 Consumers are complicated.

...

 For home users, it has already happened a while ago. They don't need a 
 desktop. They probably don't need a laptop either.

 When home user == only consumes content then yes but that is not
 necessarily the only use of computers / laptops at home either.

 It's the majority case. Email, web browser, books, Netflix, and it's a baby 
 sitter. It's like candy multiplied by TV for kids. Way more interesting for 
 them than desktop computers or laptops.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread elison.ni...@gmail.com

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 2:46 PM, drago01 drag...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 9:57 AM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.com wrote:


 On Mar 22, 2012, at 2:10 AM, drago01 wrote:

 Interesting. People I know just using them (tablets) as toys to play
 some causal games, surf the net  read mails. They go back to there
 laptops / desktops to do anything beyond that.

 Most people don't. It's important to understand most of us on this list 
 aren't most people.

 I didn't claim thatI just countered your my parents example ...
 basically this kind of evidence is moot  ... we need more data to
 judge that.

 Toys?

 I said the people I was talking about used them as toys. (Please read
 what I wrote and don't try to refute stuff that isn't even written
 there).

 FAA Approves IPad for Flight Navigation
 http://www.tabletedia.com/news/2820.html

 Here's a quote from a doctor: Even if you’re not at home, you can quickly 
 pick up your phone, view the EKG, and take care of patients remotely.
 http://www.imedicalapps.com/2011/12/apple-top-iphone-ipad-medical-apps-2011/

 This is doing 2 minute google searches...

 Again see the enterprise part (it does make sense for some uses
 though). ... those are those uses. I am not saying tablets are
 useless. I am just saying those are *different* devices.
 You don't replace a plane with a car either.

 People read books on mobile devices. Computers? Ick. I'm not reading a book 
 on a computer. It's unpleasant. I can't read on a mobile device because I 
 need a browser with an average of 34 tabs. Most people lack my lunacy.

 Well I'd prefer a real boot or an ereader over a computer or tablet.



 And increasingly less often. Their phone? Can't live without it. It's 
 already a primary device.

 Well people couldn't live without dumbphones either so this is
 natural progress.

 They could. They had desktops or laptops. Most people would replace their 
 phone in a day if it broke or were lost. A home computer? Weekend. Maybe 
 next weekend.


 Most people that buy smartphones today *do* have laptops / desktoüs.

 I agree that we will see more smartphones and tablets in the future
 ... yes no doubt that market still has a potential to grow. I just do
 not believe that a significant amount of people will throw there
 desktops/laptops away and use tablets / smartphones instead.

 Most people will. There will be no advantage to a desktop or laptop. So far, 
 speed is all that's really come up. That's going to be a non-issue in a 
 hurry. There's BILLIONS of dollars pouring into mobile and tablet right now. 
 It's what people want.

 Actually speed isn't an advantage see the (now dead) netbook hype. For
 most people current speed is good enough (hence no need to go buy a
 new computer every year).


 Tablets are 99% consumption only devices. Your are missing the
 production market ... people do use computers to do work, write the
 apps that the tablet/smartphone people enjoy etc.

 Developer market? Image editing and video editing stations? Small markets. 
 Enough to maintain x86? Yeah sure, for a while. But as a majority?

 Office, DTP and probably others or in short content creation.

 Mobile market isn't just syphoning users from the consumer desktop market, 
 it's growing the market.


 So no there is still a marked beyond the consumption only devices
 (tablets) and the data centers (servers). The world is not black and
 white.

 It is a shrinking market.

 it is a saturated marked.


 Thunderbolt on an ARM tablet to connect a larger display, bluetooth 
 keyboard, and internet access and the overwhelming majority can do what 
 they need to do.

 Which is a lot more work then simply open the laptop and start working.

 Consumers are complicated.

 ...

 For home users, it has already happened a while ago. They don't need a 
 desktop. They probably don't need a laptop either.

 When home user == only consumes content then yes but that is not
 necessarily the only use of computers / laptops at home either.

 It's the majority case. Email, web browser, books, Netflix, and it's a baby 
 sitter. It's like candy multiplied by TV for kids. Way more interesting for 
 them than desktop computers or laptops.

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I see that this discussion has gone from ARM as a primary architecture
for Fedora to a general Tablets vs PC market discussion. IMHO, While
there is no doubt that the tablet/mobile market is growing rapidly,
The desktop and laptops are there to stay.

Considering ARM as a primary architecture for Fedora is not a bad
idea. But Sorry, why is this proposed? Do you intend to run Fedora on
your smartphones or tablets?

I think that making ARM as a primary architecture for Fedora is a lot
of work, I have no idea of the resources available in terms of
developers, machines (in case of native builds),testers etc.

And what will Fedora have achieved after putting in so

Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 2:50 AM, Kevin Kofler kevin.kof...@chello.at wrote:
 Chris Tyler wrote:
 On Thu, 2012-03-22 at 02:38 +0100, Kevin Kofler wrote:
 And finally, for our build speed issue, the practical consideration will
 be whether the parallelism will actually speed our builds up. Right now
 our builds are either serial or have portions parallelized with make
 -j, which assumes a single multi-CPU computer (but the multi-core ARM
 setups actually present themselves as a multi-computer cluster, which is
 not supported by make -j, not as a multi-CPU computer), so the
 parallelism does little to the latency of an individual build (though of
 course it does help the overall throughput).

 Actually, there's both: ARM scales to multiple cores per CPU (dual-core
 and quad-core are common, and very high core counts are on the horizon),
 and vendors are preparing many-CPU boxes (e.g., HP Redstone, with 288
 quad core (+1 management core) systems in 4U).

 But there are x86 CPUs with more than 4 cores, and multi-CPU SMP systems
 which still present themselves as one (multi-CPU/core) computer. IIRC, our
 x86 Koji builders have 16 cores per machine (might be even more by now, not
 sure).

But as you said yourself in an earlier thread a lot of compilation
isn't massively parallel so massive amount of cores for building isn't
necessarily as much a win as pure GHz. On that front the current A15
gen which is arriving now easily does the 2.5 - 3 ghz that the intel
platforms do (yes, I know they go to 3.6 but they're not regularly
used primarily due to heat) and most of the recent wins on Intel
architecture has been for media related things through various SSE
versions and other offload functions for things like crypto all of
which aren't massively used in standard compilation and all of which
have similar functionality on ARM platforms.

Peter
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 3:23 AM, Kevin Kofler kevin.kof...@chello.at wrote:
 Brendan Conoboy wrote:
 Hypothetically speaking, if presented with an ARM system that builds
 packages, on average, 3x faster than x86, will you advocate that x86 be
 dropped to secondary and ARM be PA exclusively?

 Not if most computers (which to me means desktops, notebooks, maybe
 netbooks, but most definitely not smartphones) are still x86.

 We didn't make Cray or S/390 our primary architecture either, in the days
 where the fastest supercomputers weren't x86 clusters yet. ;-)

No, but then speed of building isn't the only criteria of becoming a
primary arch. Ultimately we're asking FESCo to define the criteria so
we can assess whether we meet them and wish to progress to a primary
arch. We're (being ARM SIG, FESCo and pretty much everyone else) well
and truly aware the only thing you care about is build speed, and I
can understand that, I would care too if I had to build QT on a
regular basis.

 If we really do get to a point where x86 is dead and everything is ARM (and
 hopefully by then we'll also have ARM builders at least as fast as the x86
 ones!), that will be the point where I will indeed advocate that x86 be
 dropped to secondary and ARM be the exclusive primary arch (even though it'd
 hurt my personal usage because I'm not the type who replaces his computer
 every year). But right now we're very far from that.

But it's not just about computers, I'm very surprised that being the
KDE advocate you are that you don't want to run your hard work on the
KDE based Spark/Vivaldi tablet.

 Sure it's hypothetical, but if that one variable changes, how does your
 position change?

 Well, of course, in that case, ARM being added as an additional primary
 architecture would be at least acceptable. (It doesn't affect the question
 of whether it'd be USEFUL though. See also the previous paragraphs.)

We already know that it's going to be useful, that's ultimately why
we're requesting it. Ultimately whether it is useful to you
particularly is a moot point as you are not the Fedora project as a
whole and hence the whole Fedora project doesn't revolve around you.
ARM's possible promotion to primary arch isn't about you, or even the
ARM SIG, it's a question of whether it's useful to the Fedora project
as a whole. I personally believe it is, as do numerous other people
people, groups, and other organisations, hence the reason a number of
us have put in a considerable amount of work to make it usable. The
same could be said about the KDE project within Fedora, you find it
useful, I've never used it and hence it is useless to me but that
doesn't mean I try and have it removed from the project because I am
just one person and not the project and there are a number of people
that have put a considerable amount of time into the KDE sub project.
I don't really see the ARM request to be any different. I could the
same argument about KDE in terms of the number of desktops that you
are using about ARM and the number of architectures.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Andrew Haley

On 03/22/2012 10:17 AM, elison.ni...@gmail.com wrote:
 And what will Fedora have achieved after putting in so much work? A
 few users (read geeks) who will be willing to install Fedora on their
 android tablets or ipads? Are there any ARM boards out in the market
 that are waiting to get Fedora installed on them?
 
 Where is the hardware? Do you see signs of ARM boards coming in the
 near future (next 1 year or so) on which users can install operating
 systems of their choice?

I wonder where you've been.  See Raspberry Pi and Trimslice for a
couple of recent ones.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

 Well people couldn't live without dumbphones either so this is
 natural progress.

 They could. They had desktops or laptops. Most people would replace their 
 phone in a day if it broke or were lost. A home computer? Weekend. Maybe 
 next weekend.


 Most people that buy smartphones today *do* have laptops / desktoüs.

Actually that is not the case, it might be the case in the western
developed world, but in the developing world in places like China,
India and Africa in most cases the first an only device that a user
has is a smart phone or tablet due to the fact it's low power, runs
off batteries and has wireless connectivity, I think you'll find the
sale of these style of devices in those places out flanks everything
else, they are selling 100s of millions of them.

Peter
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 9:02 AM, Andrew Haley a...@redhat.com wrote:
 On 03/22/2012 01:38 AM, Kevin Kofler wrote:

 (but the multi-core ARM setups actually present themselves as a
 multi-computer cluster, which is not supported by make -j, not as
 a multi-CPU computer)

 FWIW, I'm pretty sure this is not the case for the ARM computers
 on the way now: they are multi-core multi-threaded.

That is correct, I presume he's referring to the big.LITTLE
architecture which runs 8 cores, 4 low power low speed, 4 high power
high speed. At the moment for the initial implementation they are
suspending / resuming to switch between the pair but in the future
they plan to be able to run all 8 at once.

Peter
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread elison.ni...@gmail.com

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 4:56 PM, Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.com wrote:
I see that this discussion has gone from ARM as a primary architecture
for Fedora to a general Tablets vs PC market discussion. IMHO, While
there is no doubt that the tablet/mobile market is growing rapidly,
The desktop and laptops are there to stay.

Considering ARM as a primary architecture for Fedora is not a bad
idea. But Sorry, why is this proposed? Do you intend to run Fedora on
your smartphones or tablets?

It's got nothing to do with smart phones and tablets. We don't intend
on supporting Fedora on smart phones (not to say a third party group
can't though), we're reviewing tablets and it will certainly be
possible to run it on tablets, the level of support out of the box is
undecided. The thing it does have to do with it ARM
netbooks/laptops/smarttops as well as dev boards and servers. There's
100s of ARM devices out there that aren't tablets or smartphones.

I think that making ARM as a primary architecture for Fedora is a lot
of work, I have no idea of the resources available in terms of
developers, machines (in case of native builds),testers etc.

Don't you think that the ARM SIG that has been working on ARM on
Fedora for close to 2 years might be aware of this?

And what will Fedora have achieved after putting in so much work? A
few users (read geeks) who will be willing to install Fedora on their
android tablets or ipads? Are there any ARM boards out in the market
that are waiting to get Fedora installed on them?

Yes, there's lots of devices. HP/Calxeda servers [1], Dell has
announced intention to do ARM servers[2], the XO 1.75 [3] and XO-3 [4]
devices, the Spark Tablet [5] and around a dozen different smartbooks,
nettops, development boards to name but a few.

Where is the hardware? Do you see signs of ARM boards coming in the
near future (next 1 year or so) on which users can install operating
systems of their choice? If the answer is yes, I would recommend
considering ARM as a primary architecture for Fedora.
If the answer is no, I think it is probably too early to consider ARM
as a primary architecture for Fedora.

The answer is already yes, and is going to increase substantially in
the coming months/year.

Peter

[1]
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9221370/Calxeda_s_chip_boosts_ARM_s_server_fight_with_Intel
[2]
http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/21/dell-wants-in-on-arm-server-field-says-software-still-has-some/
[3] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO-1.75
[4] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO-3
[5] http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Spark-tablet-announced/?kc=rss

Accepted. Thank you for taking the trouble to clarify.

Best Regards,
Elison Niven
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Przemek Klosowski


On 03/22/2012 02:31 AM, Kevin Kofler wrote:

Tom Lane wrote:

That opinion is flat out ridiculous.  Or maybe it makes sense if you
think consumer desktops are the be-all and end-all; but they are not.


Consumer desktops and notebooks. The things we normally call computers.
Those have always been and should remain our primary target.


Check out the numbers from The Economist:
http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/20111008_SRM111.gif

The number of desktops has been flat for last 7 years. The growth in the 
smartphone/tablet area dwarfs 'what we normally call computers'.


The whole article is at http://www.economist.com/node/21531109


Wow, you seem to really hate x86. But please accept the fact that, no matter
how much you hate x86, it is THE relevant architecture right now.


ARM claims an installed base of 25 billion CPUS, and current deployment 
rate of 6 billion new CPUs per year. Granted, a large fraction of that 
are microcontrollers (single purpose, no virtual memory etc), but still, 
the total number of x86 machines is about 500 million.



Nonsense. As long as we have healthy secondary architectures, we can promote
them to primary when it really makes sense, i.e. when/if the x86 apocalypse
happens. (By the way, don't count on it happening at all. The end of x86 has
been proclaimed so many times, yet each of the prophecies has been proven
wrong so far. Not even the move to 64-bit and Intel putting its weight
behind a non-x86 64-bit architecture were able to kill x86. What was killed
instead was the Itanium, dubbed Itanic by many. Don't be too quick to
write off x86!) There is no need whatsoever to make the move to primary now.


I had an interesting discussion with VIA---asked them why don't they 
compete with Intel's inexpensive Atom platforms. They weren't interested 
in the low end; they claimed that there's plenty of demand for 
traditional 'few hundred bucks' price point. I think they are wrong 
about how sustainable that demand is---ARM has low-end CPUs for 1$ (ST, 
NXP, TI), and the OS-capable ones for under 10$.


Now, does it mean that we need to rush the ARM primary architecture? Of 
course not--as others have said, one gets the job because one can do the 
job, but we need to figure out the details of how to get there:


- toolchain/build environment speed

- better and/or standard installation mechanism

- QA techniques




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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Nicolas Mailhot


Le Jeu 22 mars 2012 14:11, Przemek Klosowski a écrit :
 On 03/22/2012 02:31 AM, Kevin Kofler wrote:
 Tom Lane wrote:
 That opinion is flat out ridiculous.  Or maybe it makes sense if you
 think consumer desktops are the be-all and end-all; but they are not.

 Consumer desktops and notebooks. The things we normally call computers.
 Those have always been and should remain our primary target.

 Check out the numbers from The Economist:
 http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/20111008_SRM111.gif

 The number of desktops has been flat for last 7 years. The growth in the
 smartphone/tablet area dwarfs 'what we normally call computers'.

Apples and oranges. You could print the same stats a few years ago about cars
vs scooters/bicycles

Guess what all the Chinese/Indian bicycle riders started to buy as soon as
they had the means to…

All those numbers show is that the developing countries are actually
developing (surprise!), and that they transition from nothing to cheapest
solution possible. That does not mean they'll stick to this stage forever.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Tomas Mraz

On Thu, 2012-03-22 at 15:04 +0100, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
Le Jeu 22 mars 2012 14:11, Przemek Klosowski a écrit :
On 03/22/2012 02:31 AM, Kevin Kofler wrote:
Tom Lane wrote:
That opinion is flat out ridiculous. Or maybe it makes sense if you
think consumer desktops are the be-all and end-all; but they are not.

Consumer desktops and notebooks. The things we normally call computers.
Those have always been and should remain our primary target.

Check out the numbers from The Economist:
http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/20111008_SRM111.gif

The number of desktops has been flat for last 7 years. The growth in the
smartphone/tablet area dwarfs 'what we normally call computers'.

Apples and oranges. You could print the same stats a few years ago about cars
vs scooters/bicycles

Guess what all the Chinese/Indian bicycle riders started to buy as soon as
they had the means to…

All those numbers show is that the developing countries are actually
developing (surprise!), and that they transition from nothing to cheapest
solution possible. That does not mean they'll stick to this stage forever.

And even if they sticked to this stage it still would not mean that the
market for full featured computers would somehow disappear. We are still
talking only about relative number changes. In absolute numbers the full
featured computers are still rising.
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 12:26 PM, Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.com wrote:
 I see that this discussion has gone from ARM as a primary architecture
 for Fedora to a general Tablets vs PC market discussion. IMHO, While
 there is no doubt that the tablet/mobile market is growing rapidly,
 The desktop and laptops are there to stay.

 Considering ARM as a primary architecture for Fedora is not a bad
 idea. But Sorry, why is this proposed? Do you intend to run Fedora on
 your smartphones or tablets?

 It's got nothing to do with smart phones and tablets. We don't intend
 on supporting Fedora on smart phones (not to say a third party group
 can't though), we're reviewing tablets and it will certainly be
 possible to run it on tablets, the level of support out of the box is
 undecided.

Well this is harder then you think as most tablets don't allow you to
change the OS (easily) while others don't allow you to change it at
all.
The only ones where this is possible right now are actually x86 based
tablets. Even Windows 8 wont help here as MS mandates that the
devices are locked with secure boot without having an option to disable it.
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 2:28 PM, drago01 drag...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 12:26 PM, Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.com wrote:
 I see that this discussion has gone from ARM as a primary architecture
 for Fedora to a general Tablets vs PC market discussion. IMHO, While
 there is no doubt that the tablet/mobile market is growing rapidly,
 The desktop and laptops are there to stay.

 Considering ARM as a primary architecture for Fedora is not a bad
 idea. But Sorry, why is this proposed? Do you intend to run Fedora on
 your smartphones or tablets?

 It's got nothing to do with smart phones and tablets. We don't intend
 on supporting Fedora on smart phones (not to say a third party group
 can't though), we're reviewing tablets and it will certainly be
 possible to run it on tablets, the level of support out of the box is
 undecided.

 Well this is harder then you think as most tablets don't allow you to
 change the OS (easily) while others don't allow you to change it at
 all.

It's not harder than I think, I've been working on Fedora ARM and I
know exactly the level of hardness and a number of the possible issues
involved so I would actually appreciate if you would do some of your
own research, I've been looking into and dealing with tablet options
for running Fedora for quite some time.

 The only ones where this is possible right now are actually x86 based
 tablets. Even Windows 8 wont help here as MS mandates that the
 devices are locked with secure boot without having an option to disable it.

No that is definitely not the case that it is x86 only, for tablets
that are BIOS locked, yes, it's a non starter, but there are many ARM
tablets that are BIOS unlocked and will, in time, be able to run
Fedora just fine. For starters the OLPC XO-3 tablet will run Fedora on
ARM out of the box, it's relatively easy to get Linux running on the
Asus Transformer [1] as well as a number of other Tegra based tablets
and then there's the Spark tablet that will run KDE's Plasma tablet
interface out of the box using Mer, but there's won't be too much work
to make that Fedora.

So it is possible, it would be even possible right now for the
determined hacker, but with time we'll make this easier for the
general end user to install it onto various tablets but in the
beginning we're aiming for the servers and the dev
boards/nettops/smart books as they are readily available and easily
supportable.

Peter

[1] http://gizmodo.com/5874133/olpc-xo-30-hands-on-the-100-wonder-tablet
[2] 
http://www.xda-developers.com/android/almost-perfect-native-ubuntu-on-asus-transformer/
[3] http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Spark-tablet-announced/
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread DJ Delorie


 Where is the hardware?

-- development boards --

BeagleBoard
PandaBoard (dual-core 1GHz, 1GB)
PandaBoard ES (dual-core 1.2GHz, 1GB)

You can buy the above at digikey, they've been shipping for a while.
They come with Ubuntu Desktop, just add keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

Raspberry Pi - slower, but just add keyboard, mouse, and monitor.  I
hear they got 200,000 order requests, far exceeding their first
manufacturing run.  These run Fedora desktop.

-- desktop/server --

Trimslice (dual-core 1GHz, 1GB, internal SATA) - dual display, comes
with Ubuntu desktop, just add keyboard, mouse, monitor(s).  I have one
of these as a public web/git server, and a second for a desktop build
machine (my two run Fedora, of course).  These have been available for
a while now.

I hear OLPC just shipped 60,000 ARM laptops to their first customer.
These run Fedora Desktop.  I have one of these on my desk.

AC100 laptop (toshiba) - I don't know the tech details, but some of us
have Fedora on these.

Also the sheeva/guru/pogo/dreamplug home servers

-- near future --

HP Project Moonshot - hundreds of multi-core multi-gb Calxeda
server-grade arm processors in a 4U rack.

We (the Fedora/ARM project) also have some quad-core 4GB server-grade
prototypes in-house, these will be generally available soon.
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Pete Zaitcev

On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:52:29 -0400
Peter Jones pjo...@redhat.com wrote:

 6) supported platforms must be fully integrated into building and
 installation.

Apropos that, what are the supported platforms right now?

From what I know about the Fedora on ARM, they use a rather scary
looking pile of development boards with very poor I/O.

I'd like to know if you can make a suggestion like if you want to
hack on Fedora on ARM, buy Dell XXX or Archos YYY, and then we're
all more or less on the same page for next 2 years at least.
Or it doesn't work like that in the ARM world?

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture



On Mar 22, 2012, at 3:16 AM, drago01 wrote:
 
 I said the people I was talking about used them as toys. (Please read
 what I wrote and don't try to refute stuff that isn't even written
 there).

Don't get in a huff over things I haven't said either. Most people are also 
very entertained by these toys.

 
 Again see the enterprise part (it does make sense for some uses
 though). ... those are those uses. I am not saying tablets are
 useless. I am just saying those are *different* devices.
 You don't replace a plane with a car either.

That's improper logic. The iPad is replacing 15 pounds of Jeppessen charts. 
Paper. They are going directly from paper to tablets. No laptop in between. As 
an (inactive) pilot, I fully expect professional pilots to migrate strictly to 
tablets on the road, and maybe intermittently use a desktop/laptop as a 
transitional device. That is already underway.


 
 Well I'd prefer a real boot or an ereader over a computer or tablet.

My dad is 82. My sister bought him a Kindle for his birthday middle of last 
year. He uses it more than the laptop, more than real books. The transition 
took maybe a couple of months.

 
 Most people that buy smartphones today *do* have laptops / desktoüs.

In the whole world? You're sure about that? I'm not.


 Actually speed isn't an advantage see the (now dead) netbook hype. For
 most people current speed is good enough (hence no need to go buy a
 new computer every year).

I see this as 2-4 years for the consumer desktop upgrade market's meaningful 
existence. 4-6 years for laptops. People use them less and less already, and 
will upgrade them less frequently. And at the point where what they want to do 
on mobile no longer requires them to go to laptop? Why have one?

 
 Office, DTP and probably others or in short content creation.

My customers are desktop publishing. It's a small market. And yes, they will 
continue to buy more powerful machines longer than the rest of the market. But 
look at where Adobe is emphasizing new development. Cloud applications. For 
content creators.

One of my largest customers has done more training and modernization for 
content creators recently than in years, primarily driven by ebook. That demand 
is not ebook on laptop, it's ebook on mobile devices.


 So no there is still a marked beyond the consumption only devices
 (tablets) and the data centers (servers). The world is not black and
 white.
 
 It is a shrinking market.
 
 it is a saturated marked.

Yeah, it's a popping bubble.



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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Brendan Conoboy


On 03/22/2012 12:23 AM, drago01 wrote:

While I agree that we will see more smartphones and tablets in the
future the people that actually replace there traditional computers
with tablets or even smartphones are near zero.
Sells do not really tell the whole story as many people simply don't
have a need to buy new laptops/desktops because what they have is
good enough so they spend there money on other gadgets.


I don't believe phones and tablets are going to completely usurp desktop 
computers, but if Fedora doesn't offer a path for people whose primary 
computer is a cell phone or tablet, we lose out on the next generation 
of developers and end users.  That's a sure way to irrelevance.


Then again, all this is beside the point: We're targeting ARM servers in 
the proposal.  The groundwork we lay with ARM servers will also lead to 
Fedora's ability to support mobile devices including ARM laptops, 
tablets, and phones.  But it's a much longer journey to run Fedora on a 
phone than it's going to be to run it on a server.


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Re: ARM as a primary architecture



On Mar 22, 2012, at 8:04 AM, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
 
 
 Apples and oranges. You could print the same stats a few years ago about cars
 vs scooters/bicycles
 
 Guess what all the Chinese/Indian bicycle riders started to buy as soon as
 they had the means to…

They did not, are not. Especially in congested cities. Most New Yorkers in 
Manhattan can afford cars. They don't have them. There's other infrastructure 
that works better, and they don't need to individually own it.

You're making assumptions that people really want desktop machines, it's just a 
matter of affording it. You're applying your own preferences to a huge market, 
which doesn't have your requirements, but does have its own. Desktops have from 
day 1 been *irritating* to most users. They were not embraced in the home. They 
were never loved. They came into the home via work, hobbyists, kids for school 
work, and then entertainment (music, pictures, video) and became useful.

Mobile and tablets are immediately useful. It took almost no time for the 
market to grow up once a certain company released a product. And people love 
these things. Normal every day non-geeks cry if they get broken or lost.

 
 All those numbers show is that the developing countries are actually
 developing (surprise!), and that they transition from nothing to cheapest
 solution possible. That does not mean they'll stick to this stage forever.

It's like arguing they will build landlines, because they're more reliable and 
have better call quality. And cell phones are just a stage that they won't be 
in forever.

Wrong argument.


Chris
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Brendan Conoboy


On 03/22/2012 04:26 AM, Peter Robinson wrote:

Actually that is not the case, it might be the case in the western
developed world, but in the developing world in places like China,
India and Africa in most cases the first an only device that a user
has is a smart phone or tablet due to the fact it's low power, runs
off batteries and has wireless connectivity, I think you'll find the
sale of these style of devices in those places out flanks everything
else, they are selling 100s of millions of them.


Indeed- it's even true in the US.  I don't actually have a desktop- I 
have a laptop with a docking station- 2 monitors, quad core i7, 12GB of 
RAM.  The next generation of this device will either be faster, smaller, 
a tablet, or cost less- possibly all 4.  This won't stop until mobile 
phones and/or tables are dockable desktop computers.  The high end will 
be servers that double as power-user desktops.  There is literally no 
reason for anything in-between.


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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread DJ Delorie


 From what I know about the Fedora on ARM,

Please check your what you know against the current situtation, it's
very easy to let obsolete impressions carry forth, but they're no
longer applicable.

 they use a rather scary looking pile of development boards with very
 poor I/O.

Buy a trimslice and run it with iSCSI.  It's a very clean package, and
I can get 80 MB/sec to my file server's disks.  That is neither
scary nor poor I/O.

http://www.delorie.com/arm/trimslice/iscsi.html
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Martin Langhoff

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 7:01 AM, Andrew Haley a...@redhat.com wrote:
 Where is the hardware? Do you see signs of ARM boards coming in the
 near future (next 1 year or so) on which users can install operating
 systems of their choice?

 I wonder where you've been.  See Raspberry Pi and Trimslice for a
 couple of recent ones.

And kids in Uruguay and Nicaragua will soon start their school year
equipped with XO-1.75 units running an OS based on Fedora-14 ARM.

Battery life is wicked on these units.

cheers,



martin
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 6:57 PM, Bill Nottingham nott...@redhat.com wrote:
 drago01 (drag...@gmail.com) said:
  The data is noisy but there's a significant minority who do not have 
  computers, now buying a smart phone. This will grow. They may never end up 
  with a desktop. Even Apple has disconnected a requirement for having a 
  desktop. My parents are candidates for replacing their laptop with just an 
  iPad. Maybe 1/4 of the friends I have use a desktop/laptop once a week or 
  less.

 Interesting. People I know just using them (tablets) as toys to play
 some causal games, surf the net  read mails. They go back to there
 laptops / desktops to do anything beyond that.

 In my experience, that's way more about the interface than anything else.

 Take for example a middle schooler  - mine uses a laptop. Not because it
 runs a desktop OS, not because it runs Fedora, but mainly just because
 who on earth wants to write a 5 page essay with an on-screen keyboard.

Which is exactly what I am trying to say as soon as you want to create
content you want a real device. (keyboard!  interface)
In fact the point of a tablet is the interface which suits specific
use cases very well.

 There's really no reason a tablet device with an attachable keyboard
 wouldn't work for her, and the next device she gets might *be* that; the
 reason it's a laptop is because it's what we had lying around. (Hooray
 for hand me downs!)

Be prepared for complaints then ;)
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Martin Langhoff

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 2:20 PM, drago01 drag...@gmail.com wrote:
 Which is exactly what I am trying to say as soon as you want to create
 content you want a real device. (keyboard!  interface)

Folks! In this mailing list I'd expect people to know: an arch is an
arch is an arch.

Some ARM CPUs will control your fridge, others will be the core SoC in
your laptop, some others in your servers, others in a tablet or ebook
reader.

Form factor != arch.

XO-1.75 is a clamshell laptop, sporting an ARM cpu. 60K units shipping
just to Uy - 
http://blog.laptop.org/2012/03/16/uruguay-is-first-country-to-get-xo-1-75/
- F14-ARM.




m
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 7:27 PM, Martin Langhoff
martin.langh...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 2:20 PM, drago01 drag...@gmail.com wrote:
 Which is exactly what I am trying to say as soon as you want to create
 content you want a real device. (keyboard!  interface)

 Folks! In this mailing list I'd expect people to know: an arch is an
 arch is an arch.

 Some ARM CPUs will control your fridge, others will be the core SoC in
 your laptop, some others in your servers, others in a tablet or ebook
 reader.

 Form factor != arch.

Oh really? I am shocked ...

No idea why you are addressing this at me ... I was just replying to
the tablets are taking over the world posts.
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, 2012-03-22 at 01:57 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:

 Desktop computers are used overwhelmingly for email and web browsing.
 It's total overkill. The desktop computer is a super computer that no
 consumer really needs. It's a dying market. 

I think you may be, to some extent, over-stating your case here, Chris.
It's a compelling case but not as cut-and-dried as all that, I don't
think.

The mitigating factors are:

a) the desktop market could be considered unlikely to literally _die_.
What may happen instead is it could become much more of a niche - in
fact, very similar to what it was in the 1980s and early 1990s. There
could always be a small amount of people who actually need or want a
desktop computer, and these people could be rather close to the
self-same ones they were in the 1980s and 1990s: people whose use cases
intrinsically depend on large screens, keyboards, and significant whacks
of power.

b) Fedora has never done very well at targeting the kinds of people who
are now using tablets instead of desktop computers. We've actually
always been much stronger among the kinds of people described in a), and
we are to a large extent a project geared towards accommodating the
kinds of people described in a) (let's not kid ourselves, here).

I'm just saying that broad sweeping generalizations about The Market are
well and good, but it's probably a good idea before deploying them to
stop and think about whether they're exactly applicable to the Fedora
project, or if maybe they could use a little modification first.
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Bill Nottingham

drago01 (drag...@gmail.com) said: 
  In my experience, that's way more about the interface than anything else.
 
  Take for example a middle schooler  - mine uses a laptop. Not because it
  runs a desktop OS, not because it runs Fedora, but mainly just because
  who on earth wants to write a 5 page essay with an on-screen keyboard.
 
 Which is exactly what I am trying to say as soon as you want to create
 content you want a real device. (keyboard!  interface)
 In fact the point of a tablet is the interface which suits specific
 use cases very well.

The theoretical 'you' doesn't want a real device, though - they just want a
peripheral to attach to their tablet. (See also: webtop)

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture


On Mar 22, 2012, at 12:15 PM, drago01 wrote:

 Last time I checked a paper isn't a laptop / pc so replacing a paper
 with tablets (which can be the better choice depending on the use
 case) does not mean people are replacing there pcs with tablets.

Both jump from PC dependency, and skipping it altogether are occurring 
simultaneously.


 Because it makes sense there. Again I didn't say that tablets are
 entirely useless. I just said tablets are a new type of device not
 desktop/laptop replacements.

They are a new type of device. They are increasingly desktop/laptop 
replacements.

 A kindle (unless you mean the kindle fire tablet) is an ereader which
 aligns exactly with what I have said.

I think you overestimate the need/dependency people have for desktop/laptop 
computers. 


 Most people that buy smartphones today *do* have laptops / desktoüs.
 
 In the whole world? You're sure about that? I'm not.
 
 It might not be the case in some regions but overall yes.

Speculation. Since you took the rope and claim most people who buy smart phones 
do have laptops, you're invited to provide a reference.

Are you aware that the number of middle class Chinese equals the entire U.S. 
population? That it's predicted to be ~700 million by 2020? Have you tried 
using two-byte languages on computers with a keyboard? It sucks.


 I see this as 2-4 years for the consumer desktop upgrade market's meaningful 
 existence. 4-6 years for laptops. People use them less and less already, and 
 will upgrade them less frequently. And at the point where what they want to 
 do on mobile no longer requires them to go to laptop? Why have one?
 
 Again creating content. Anything that requires more then typing a few 
 sentences.

iPads have had wireless keyboard for some time. This whole email can be done 
just as quickly on an iPad as a desktop computer. I don't have a nice 24 
screen, only because iPads don't yet have Thunderbolt. They will.


 Office, DTP and probably others or in short content creation.
 
 My customers are desktop publishing. It's a small market.
 
 Yes but it is just one of the content creating markets.

All of content creation is a small marke next to consumer markets. It's always 
been this way.

 Again reading is content consumption which makes sense on ereaders
 (and maybe tablets to an extent) but actually writing the books? No.
 
 My point is if you are only consuming content you might be fine with
 just a tablet but as soon as you want to create content it is no
 longer fine.
 Each tool has its uses.

The overwhelming bulk of the market is consumption. Not creation. And the 
growth is in the former, not the latter.


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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 9:08 PM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.com wrote:

 [...]
 A kindle (unless you mean the kindle fire tablet) is an ereader which
 aligns exactly with what I have said.

 I think you overestimate the need/dependency people have for desktop/laptop 
 computers.

You underestimate it ;)
Lets look at the windows market ... everyone and his dog has MS Office
and thus who can't afford it  do pirate it.
This kind of does not fit in the consumers just use facebook and
gmail ... type of thinking.


 Most people that buy smartphones today *do* have laptops / desktoüs.

 In the whole world? You're sure about that? I'm not.

 It might not be the case in some regions but overall yes.

 Speculation. Since you took the rope and claim most people who buy smart 
 phones do have laptops, you're invited to provide a reference.

Unfortunately I am not aware of any such studies ... the opposite
can't be proven either. I have yet to met a person that 1) does not
own any kind of PC but does own a smartphone ...
Might be different in some areas of the world but I doubt those are
the majority.

 Are you aware that the number of middle class Chinese equals the entire U.S. 
 population? That it's predicted to be ~700 million by 2020? Have you tried 
 using two-byte languages on computers with a keyboard? It sucks.

It does not matter if you want to write something longer then a mail,
unless dictating text works reliably you have to use a (real)
keyboard.
Speaking of the US ... do you know that outside of the US there isn't
that huge post pc hype going on?


 I see this as 2-4 years for the consumer desktop upgrade market's 
 meaningful existence. 4-6 years for laptops. People use them less and less 
 already, and will upgrade them less frequently. And at the point where what 
 they want to do on mobile no longer requires them to go to laptop? Why have 
 one?

 Again creating content. Anything that requires more then typing a few 
 sentences.

 iPads have had wireless keyboard for some time. This whole email can be done 
 just as quickly on an iPad as a desktop computer. I don't have a nice 24 
 screen, only because iPads don't yet have Thunderbolt. They will.

Sure you can but this is uncomfortable ... the devices in question
(tablets) are simply not suited for this kind of usage.


 Office, DTP and probably others or in short content creation.

 My customers are desktop publishing. It's a small market.

 Yes but it is just one of the content creating markets.

 All of content creation is a small marke next to consumer markets. It's 
 always been this way.

You are still claiming that consumers as in home users aren't
interested in creating content ... citation?

 Again reading is content consumption which makes sense on ereaders
 (and maybe tablets to an extent) but actually writing the books? No.

 My point is if you are only consuming content you might be fine with
 just a tablet but as soon as you want to create content it is no
 longer fine.
 Each tool has its uses.

 The overwhelming bulk of the market is consumption. Not creation. And the 
 growth is in the former, not the latter.

They are tied together. More consumers == more demand for content ==
bigger creation marked.
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, 2012-03-22 at 14:08 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:

 The overwhelming bulk of the market is consumption. Not creation. And
 the growth is in the former, not the latter.

I would still like you to consider the question of whether this holds
for the Fedora case, though. Is Fedora as a project in fact suitable -
either in current implementation, or in terms of our self-definition and
long term goals - for this whole 'market' you are identifying as a
single entity? Are we in fact truly interested in producing code for
these content consumption devices? Is that what we're doing?
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, 2012-03-22 at 16:13 -0400, Przemek Klosowski wrote:

 Of course predictions are tricky, especially when they concern the 
 future :)

I am curious as to what _other_ types of prediction you think exist. =)
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Michael Cronenworth


Adam Williamson wrote:

I would still like you to consider the question of whether this holds
for the Fedora case, though. Is Fedora as a project in fact suitable -
either in current implementation, or in terms of our self-definition and
long term goals - for this whole 'market' you are identifying as a
single entity? Are we in fact truly interested in producing code for
these content consumption devices? Is that what we're doing?


The only way to measure this accurately, like anything else in Fedora, 
is by the number of contributors. I will be looking to contribute to the 
ARM project in some way in hope that I can one day replace my aging N900 
phone with newer, faster hardware and a real GNU/Linux image.


Red Hat needs to get into the phone/tablet business: Red Hat Enterprise 
Mobile!

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, 2012-03-22 at 15:32 -0500, Michael Cronenworth wrote:
 Adam Williamson wrote:
  I would still like you to consider the question of whether this holds
  for the Fedora case, though. Is Fedora as a project in fact suitable -
  either in current implementation, or in terms of our self-definition and
  long term goals - for this whole 'market' you are identifying as a
  single entity? Are we in fact truly interested in producing code for
  these content consumption devices? Is that what we're doing?
 
 The only way to measure this accurately, like anything else in Fedora, 
 is by the number of contributors. I will be looking to contribute to the 
 ARM project in some way in hope that I can one day replace my aging N900 
 phone with newer, faster hardware and a real GNU/Linux image.
 
 Red Hat needs to get into the phone/tablet business: Red Hat Enterprise 
 Mobile!

It doesn't seem like a huge over-reach to assume that any RH interest in
ARM is more on the server side than a raging desire to take on Android
and the iPad :) (Note: I don't have any sekrit inside info on this. It
seems like a reasonable guess, though.)
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Michael Cronenworth


Adam Williamson wrote:

It doesn't seem like a huge over-reach to assume that any RH interest in
ARM is more on the server side than a raging desire to take on Android
and the iPad:)  (Note: I don't have any sekrit inside info on this. It
seems like a reasonable guess, though.)


Yes, I realize the server target over mobile, but if Nokia, a company 
larger than Red Hat, could do it why can't Red Hat? :)

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Brendan Conoboy


On 03/22/2012 01:23 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:

I would still like you to consider the question of whether this holds
for the Fedora case, though. Is Fedora as a project in fact suitable -
either in current implementation, or in terms of our self-definition and
long term goals - for this whole 'market' you are identifying as a
single entity? Are we in fact truly interested in producing code for
these content consumption devices? Is that what we're doing?


#include outofscope.h

Fedora is not currently suitable for mobile devices.  The majority of 
end users want content consumption, not content creation, devices.  The 
fact that computers up to this point have been general purpose enough to 
be both is why we're all here having this conversation.  I'm not saying 
Fedora is going to save the world, but it can certainly save itself by 
making sure that future content-consumption devices can also be used for 
content creation.  It's the hardware that the majority of all future 
developers-in-potential are going to own.


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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

On Thu, 2012-03-22 at 14:55 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:
 On Mar 22, 2012, at 12:32 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:
  
  The mitigating factors are:
  
  a) the desktop market could be considered unlikely to literally _die_.
  What may happen instead is it could become much more of a niche - in
  fact, very similar to what it was in the 1980s and early 1990s. There
  could always be a small amount of people who actually need or want a
  desktop computer, and these people could be rather close to the
  self-same ones they were in the 1980s and 1990s: people whose use cases
  intrinsically depend on large screens, keyboards, and significant whacks
  of power.
 
 I use Photoshop, Lightroom, work on multi-gigabyte image files, as do
 my customers. I intrinsically depend on a large screen, a keyboard,
 and occasional whacks of power. I haven't owned a desktop computer in
 6 years.
 
 The desktop form factor will die eventually, although the desktop
 user need will remain. Whether the need will be met with more
 powerful tablets and shared resources, or more efficient form factors
 that aren't so ugly, power hungry, and space inefficient - or a
 combination. We'll have to see. It depends on how much and how fast
 that market shrinks, but it will shrink.
 
 I get along just fine without a literal desktop computer, have for 6
 years with just laptops/ I will eventually ditch the laptop also. Just
 a matter of time. I do own an old smart phone. I do not own a tablet
 or pad. 
 
 And I'm not unique.

Anecdotal data is great, but it's just anecdotal. I tried using a laptop
and no desktop for a year and switched _back_ to a desktop, I found the
faff involved in switching between the two setups too much of a pain.
I'm sure I'm not unique either. =)

I think the form factor vs. arch point is of course important here. The
question of to what extent ARM has the future market for 'devices that
fulfill content creation with powerful systems and chunky peripherals'
sewn up, though, doesn't seem quite as settled as the future market for
tablets and smartphones.

 
  
  I'm just saying that broad sweeping generalizations about The Market are
  well and good, but it's probably a good idea before deploying them to
  stop and think about whether they're exactly applicable to the Fedora
  project, or if maybe they could use a little modification first.
 
 People's needs, expectations evolve. Even developers, content
 creators, and geeks. Surviving projects will survive because they
 adapt to people's needs. Neither the market, nor its ideas, will adapt
 to Fedora.

I don't believe anything I said above implies any such belief. In fact,
I'm having difficulty seeing how what you wrote is in any way a response
to what I wrote...
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture



On Mar 22, 2012, at 2:23 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:

 On Thu, 2012-03-22 at 14:08 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:
 
 The overwhelming bulk of the market is consumption. Not creation. And
 the growth is in the former, not the latter.
 
 I would still like you to consider the question of whether this holds
 for the Fedora case, though. Is Fedora as a project in fact suitable -
 either in current implementation, or in terms of our self-definition and
 long term goals - for this whole 'market' you are identifying as a
 single entity? Are we in fact truly interested in producing code for
 these content consumption devices? Is that what we're doing?

I'm not well versed on what Fedora is interested in, other than the broad 
relationship with Red Hat that most anyone paying attention can realize the 
mutual benefits.

But RHEL and Fedora are not strictly server, developer, research oriented. 
Business, government, educational desktops and even to some degree regular Joe 
User, are target markets. Perhaps Joe User is incidental. I don't know what any 
of these percentages are to either Red Hat or Fedora, but it's unlikely this 
sub-market (non-server, non-developer, non-research and non-geek) is going to 
behave radically differently with respect to computer form factor than the 
larger non-Linux computer market. These businesses, governments, schools, 
regular users, are looking for innovation in any case.

Is Red Hat / Fedora interested in those sub-markets? I think they are. If so, 
the growth area is where those sub-markets are headed and that's definitely not 
desktop. Laptop is still a growth area for a bit longer. But clearly the 
biggest growth non-server, non-developer, non-geek sub-market slice is also not 
desktop, nor laptop.


Chris Murphy
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Garry T. Williams


On 03/22/2012 05:04 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:

I tried using a
laptop and no desktop for a year and switched _back_ to a desktop, I
found the faff involved in switching between the two setups too much
of a pain.  I'm sure I'm not unique either. =)


Me too.

Oops.  I bet I'm not supposed to send mails like this.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

Przemek Klosowski wrote:
 Fair enough, but the trends are well established, and the data are for
 shipments so the actual deployed numbers are compounded (flat
 shipments translate to steady growth, linear or faster shipment growth
 means quadratic or maybe even exponential growth).

Quite the opposite, shipments are related to the first (discrete) derivative 
of active deployments, which will necessarily amplify the effects: if the 
number of shipments decreases, that just means that growth in deployments is 
slowing down, not that the number of deployments decreases.

But another thing you must not forget is that you cannot make direct 
deductions from the number of shipments to the number of deployments, 
because there's also the number of decommissionings (i.e. the device breaks, 
gets thrown away etc.). The derivative of the number of deployments is in 
fact the number of shipments minus the number of decommissionings.

I suspect that cell phones are simply replaced more often than computers 
right now, because smart phones have been improving much faster than 
computers lately (but that trend might be already reaching its limits now). 
For computers, Moore's law (on the number of transistors) just doesn't have 
as user-visible effects (clock speeds!) as it used to. But despite all this, 
computers are still the more powerful devices.

Kevin Kofler

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

Przemek Klosowski wrote:
 The number of desktops has been flat for last 7 years.

So first of all, as you pointed out yourself, this is not the number of 
desktop, but the number of NEW desktops shipped.

The numbers have been flat in that the growth in shipments has slowed 
down. But they're still growing! This confirms that computers are just not 
going away any time soon. Even after all these years, there's still 
increasing demand for computers, the market is not saturated yet.

As for why there are (assuming the projections they made for 2011 and 2012 
are actually accurate – we need more recent data!) more smartphones being 
sold than computers, there are several very plausible explanations for that:
* A computer is often a per-household device. A cellphone is per person, or 
even multiple devices per person (e.g. multiple phones with different 
contracts, or a phone and a tablet, etc.). So the total number is 
necessarily going to be larger without there being more users.
* The mobile devices are in their fastest technological growth phase right 
now, so they're simply replaced more often than computers, which translates 
into more shipments. There are also other incentives for frequent 
replacement, such as contract+smartphone bundle offers.
* There are many people who don't have a smartphone yet, whereas the market 
for computers is already significantly saturated. That doesn't imply that 
the people who are now obtaining a smartphone are discarding their computer.

Overall, the graphic shows a very selective set of statistics to make a 
specific point (the same you're trying to make) and it's not clear at all 
that it's making the big picture. (For example, their devices in use 
timeline gives data for computers in 1993 and 2008, but their 2020 
projection is only given for mobile devices and not for computers. Plus, if 
the projection is made only based on the current trend for shipments, 
ignoring both market saturation and decommissioned devices, it's very 
unlikely to be accurate.)


And another important factor to consider is that not all those mobile 
devices are suitable to run Fedora on, either due to inherent hardware 
limitations or due to artificial digital restrictions (DRM).

Kevin Kofler

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

Peter Robinson wrote:
 But it's not just about computers, I'm very surprised that being the
 KDE advocate you are that you don't want to run your hard work on the
 KDE based Spark/Vivaldi tablet.

I'm not saying devices like the Vivaldi shouldn't be a target. I'm saying
they shouldn't be a PRIMARY target. Those targets is what secondary
architectures are for.

 I don't really see the ARM request to be any different. I could the
 same argument about KDE in terms of the number of desktops that you
 are using about ARM and the number of architectures.

LOL! KDE Plasma Desktop is THE MOST POPULAR desktop environment for
GNU/Linux.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/2011-linuxquestions-org-members-choice-awards-95/desktop-environment-of-the-year-919888/

Fedora's current default (GNOME 3) is only number 3 (after KDE Plasma and
Xfce).

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

Peter Robinson wrote:
 That is correct, I presume he's referring to the big.LITTLE
 architecture which runs 8 cores, 4 low power low speed, 4 high power
 high speed. At the moment for the initial implementation they are
 suspending / resuming to switch between the pair but in the future
 they plan to be able to run all 8 at once.

I was actually referring to the 288-core clusters which were mentioned at 
several points in the thread, always with the caveat that you can't just use 
make -j 288 on them.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

Peter Robinson wrote:
 But as you said yourself in an earlier thread a lot of compilation
 isn't massively parallel so massive amount of cores for building isn't
 necessarily as much a win as pure GHz. On that front the current A15
 gen which is arriving now easily does the 2.5 - 3 ghz that the intel
 platforms do (yes, I know they go to 3.6 but they're not regularly
 used primarily due to heat) and most of the recent wins on Intel
 architecture has been for media related things through various SSE
 versions and other offload functions for things like crypto all of
 which aren't massively used in standard compilation and all of which
 have similar functionality on ARM platforms.

Speed is not GHz alone, but:
  clock frequency (GHz)
/ cycles per instruction (a)
/ instructions needed to do the job (b)

ARM being a RISC architecture, it does great on (a), but not so great on 
(b), and without knowing the exact factors, comparing GHz to GHz is 
comparing apples to oranges.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

Peter Robinson wrote:

 On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 2:28 PM, drago01 drag...@gmail.com wrote:
 The only ones where this is possible right now are actually x86 based
 tablets. Even Windows 8 wont help here as MS mandates that the
 devices are locked with secure boot without having an option to disable
 it.
 
 No that is definitely not the case that it is x86 only,

Quite the opposite: M$ rules for secure boot are:
* on x86 (or non-ARM in their wording) devices, it MUST be possible for 
users to disable secure boot,
* on ARM devices, it MUST NOT be possible for users to disable secure 
boot,
i.e. all ARM devices shipping Window$ will have restricted boot forced on 
with no option to disable it.

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

Adam Williamson wrote:
 Anecdotal data is great, but it's just anecdotal. I tried using a laptop
 and no desktop for a year and switched back to a desktop, I found the
 faff involved in switching between the two setups too much of a pain.
 I'm sure I'm not unique either. =)

My desktop is actually older and slower than my notebook. Yet I use the 
desktop whenever I'm at home. The form factor is just more convenient.

Similarly, I don't want to replace my 13.3 notebook with a 7-10 tablet or 
netbook, even if the performance were the same. 13.3 fits nicely in my 
backpack, which fits my needs for mobility.

Kevin Kofler

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Re: ARM as a primary architecture

2012-03-22 Thread Jon Masters

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for your message.

On 03/22/2012 11:21 PM, Kevin Kofler wrote:
 Peter Robinson wrote:
 
 On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 2:28 PM, drago01 drag...@gmail.com wrote:
 The only ones where this is possible right now are actually x86 based
 tablets. Even Windows 8 wont help here as MS mandates that the
 devices are locked with secure boot without having an option to disable
 it.

 No that is definitely not the case that it is x86 only,
 
 Quite the opposite: M$ rules for secure boot are:
 * on x86 (or non-ARM in their wording) devices, it MUST be possible for 
 users to disable secure boot,
 * on ARM devices, it MUST NOT be possible for users to disable secure 
 boot,
 i.e. all ARM devices shipping Window$ will have restricted boot forced on 
 with no option to disable it.

To an extent, Kevin is perhaps right here. There is a version of the
Microsoft Logo requirements that implies that logo-conforming devices
cannot be shipped with Custom Mode enabled. I know Matthew, and many
others, are suitably involved in advocating for different positions.
That's all I'm going to say here without legal counsel. But let's put
this in context. There will always be locked-down devices that are
designed to make it difficult to run alternative Operating Systems,
there have been before Fedora ARM, and there will be afterward :)

We haven't been seriously discussing the idea of running Fedora on
cellphones - and I'm certainly not proposing that now! - but I would
note that nobody has said how terrible it is that Fedora ARM will not
run on iPhone without hacking, cracking, jailbreaking, rooting, or
whatever terms you like. A vertically integrated tablet shipped with
Windows 8 is the same thing - it's designed end-to-end as a single
embedded product. There are many other tablets out there not shipping
with Windows 8 today, and there will be many more in the future. Some of
those Windows 8 tablets will eventually run non-Windows OSes because it
is inevitable that someone, somewhere will find a way to do that.

So while I'll defend Kevin's comment here as valid input, let me say
that I would like to issue a call for civility, Kevin. Please, engage us
in a reasonable, serious conversation, or don't. I haven't replied to
your other messages because they are filled with vitriol. I suspect many
other people similarly ignore you (and perversely, I suspect you assist
in our cause of becoming a Primary Architecture by being so extremely
vocal in your unreasonable opposition of the concept). Anyway, I am very
willing to discuss with you, but only if you will agree to please
consider having that discussion in a civil manner.

Jon.
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Re: ARM as a primary architecture