[Liverpool] Linux on ARM

[Sebastian]

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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