[Liverpool] Linux on ARM

[Sebastian]

On 10/08/2010 04:44 PM, oscillik wrote:
> again, the N900 would fill most of what you seem to want here. it's just
> that Maemo 5 does have it's caveats, and the alternative options
> available all have their own caveats too. Maemo 5 even has a fully
> integrated SIP client.

I agree with your point, except for the fact that there aren't any other 
manufacturers out there which do devices fully compatible with the N900 
platform at the moment - and even worse - there is no guarantee that 
Nokia's next tablet/pad/thingie will be compatible with it. I won't be 
free to just keep on buying into the same platform - and transfer all my 
data, settings and skills to another compatible device when the N900 
dies. Until one platform/standard truly ends up dominating the ARM 
market (in terms of compatibility) - you will still have never ending 
segmentation of software support and required skills.

I could even settle for sticking with one single manufacturer - as long 
their devices would be based on some widely accepted standard which 
would seem most likely to last a very long time - to guarantee 
compatible upgrades within an open standards platform. But at the moment 
none of that seems to be happening - even Nokia isn't committed to their 
own Maemo.

Android does seem to have best chances of long term survival - but their 
degree of openness - as stated by the other posters and by what has been 
happening recently - is really questionable from where I'm standing. It 
isn't even a community driven open source project - as far as I can 
tell, most control and direction is really coming from Google.

Sebastian

>
> On 8 October 2010 16:35, Sebastian <shop at open-t.co.uk
> <mailto:shop at open-t.co.uk>> wrote:
>
>     In many ways (and I know this might just start a flame war - but
>     bear with me) I am thinking that Android is nowhere near what *I*
>     would have hoped from a Linux based os for portable devices.
>
>     I do understand the need for phone manufacturers and networks to
>     lock these devices down - to minimise costs. But strictly from a
>     technical perspective, I am looking forward to a device which is
>     truly shrunken down computer. Smaller size, long battery, but still
>     the same level of connectivity and compatibility of an x86 based
>     Linux machine. Even if it would only be a small tablet form (but
>     with 3g data link integrated and access to a good sip client) which
>     works on a standard platform - so that devices from 10, 20 or 50
>     different manufactures can be upgraded with the same
>     distribution/software set - that would be really good. Otherwise the
>     community effort will have to be really fragmented, each project
>     working to support the vagaries of each ARM micro-platform - be it
>     NSLU's, various tablets, mini-gaming console or anything else. The
>     community development and support of these ARM devices would surely
>     be far more effective if all of them would be based on the same
>     booting method, same firmware upgrade method etc.
>
>     Well, a bit rhetorical really.
>
>     Sebastian
>
>
>     On 10/08/2010 02:00 PM, Ste wrote:
>
>         On 08/10/2010 13:56, Sebastian wrote:
>
>
>             Thanks Graeme. In a sense that is an answer to my question.
>             I have
>             installed Linux on some NSLUs a while ago (which are ARM
>             based). I
>             know it can be done in many cases. I was just wondering if
>             there will
>             ever be some sort of universal method which will work on all
>             of them.
>             I guess you have already answered that - the short answer is no.
>
>             Well, one can keep on hoping. I guess until that will be
>             that case, I
>             don't see ARM breaking out of the 'device' type market, into the
>             general computing market - where x86 is. Not that the
>             'device' market
>             is not lucrative, or large enough, or fairly useful to all
>             of us as it
>             is now :-)
>
>
>         I think a best-case scenario would be if every arm-based
>         tablet/phone/device could boot into a standard 'recovery' mode (by
>         holding down a 2nd button when powering the device on, for
>         example) - in
>         which, you'd be able to flash the on-board storage with either
>         an image
>         on an attached USB stick, or over a USB connection to a host running
>         something similar to android's 'adb' thingy which you get with the
>         development kit. These images would all be nice and standard,
>         like how
>         bootable CDs are made with .iso files now.
>
>         Hands up if you can see this ever happening!
>
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