Red Hat / Fedora To Work On Bringing Up Arm Laptops Under Linux

[M@GOid]

I've considered this concept, since they kinda did the same thing with AMD64 (which is arguably a hybrid architecture). But I think it'd add way too much bloat and complexity to run both ARM and x86-64 binaries at the same time. Keep in mind that the separate cores would have to run their own kernel and basically run totally independent of each other, which also implies there'd be some performance issues getting them to communicate to each other.
I think it'd make more sense for AMD to make an x86 equivalent of big.LITTLE, where you have 4 low-power cores without SMT, uses short pipelines, and limited instructions. They'd likely remain below 1GHz and don't have boost clocks. Then you have another set of cores (of varying quantities depending on model) that are much more beefy, and can adjust their clock speeds independently of the low-power cores.
The low-power cores would be used for background processes and foreground tasks that barely demand any CPU power, like a text editor or a calculator. Then all of your main foreground and CPU-intensive tasks would be used for the other cores. All this would take is an adjustment to the CPU scheduler, and there could even be a profiler implemented so the scheduler automatically knows which core to assign the process to. In most systems, I'm sure you could just simply set the affinity based on the user (so for example, root-run processes would be run by the low-power cores).
Using a big.LITTLE-like approach for x86 could really help improve efficiency without the need to recompile software or have a nasty impact on latency. It's the same idea as using ARM.

Fixed that for you, Intel evangelist. /S

Anyway, AMD is about to release the Zen 2 architecture with that chiplet thingies, that could be perfect for the big.LITTLE format.

[Vistaus]

A much better and cheaper laptop for real (no company connection) open source Linux users:

https://www.notebooksbilliger.de/notebooks/acer+aspire+3+multimedia+notebook+414001

Yup, totally an ARM laptop......

[the_scx]

Sounds like you failed to take note of the 22 hours of battery life from the ARM models. Twenty two hours!

Yeah, on paper (and maybe while watching a screen saver... just maybe). Paper will accept everything.
Only 10-12 hours (Snapdragon 835) in real usage, i.e. web browsing.

https://static.techspot.com/articles-info/1599/images/1.png

On Linux even less, because of power management issues.

No x86 based device even comes close.

Actually, we have a lot of x86-64 laptops which can work for more than 10 hours on the battery. Even old MacBook can do that.

Toshiba Portege Z20t (Core m5-6Y54/m7-6Y75) from 2015 - "17 Hours of Battery Life"

ThinkPad X270 (i7-6600U) from 2016 - "up to 21 hours of battery life"

https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/ThinkPad-X270/p/22TP2TX2700

"Intel says a standard Dell XPS 13 with the screen installed lasted 25 hours and 14 minutes, while a prototype Intel device managed the full 28 hours."

https://www.cnet.com/news/intel-teases-28-hour-laptop-battery-life-heres-what-you-need-to-know/

And all of them are much less problematic under Linux. So, what is the point? To make life harder? I don't get it.

[kpedersen]

Late to the party for once. KDE already has Arm notebooks.

I might have to call your bluff.

Can you link me to the online store "Buy it now" button where I know it will arrive within the month like a real web store?

Or is it perhaps some early-access / kickstarter / build to order fantasy as usual when it comes to all non-intel consumer hardware?

Take this page as an example: https://www.pine64.org/?page_id=3707

It may look like a web store... it may smell like a web store... but I bet you can't buy sh*t from it XD

If you end up with something like this:

"Please register with your email. We will fulfill the BTO queue based on first come first served basis and starting on 28 March 2017. Our sales team will email when it is your turn in the queue."

Then yeah... a fantasy.

[the_scx]

Can you link me to the online store "Buy it now" button where I know it will arrive within the month like a real web store?

Or is it perhaps some early-access / kickstarter / build to order fantasy as usual when it comes to all non-intel consumer hardware?

He probably meant PineBook.

https://www.pine64.org/?product=11-6-pinebook

A special coupon code is required to buy Pinebook during checkout. Visit Pinebook Build To Order (BTO) Booking page to register, we will fulfill the BTO queue based on first come first served basis and starting on 28 March 2017. Our sales team will email the special coupon to you when it is your turn in the queue.

This crapbook is even worse than the first generation netbooks were 12 years ago.
To make it more funny, you can see some similarities in the specification. To be honest, there were even better, because you could buy a model with 4 GB RAM and 750 GB HDD. And yes, I am talking about Asus Eee PC and Acer Aspire One.

[kpedersen]

Do I need to specify that I mean "has an Arm laptop" in the sense of KDE is actively pursuing Arm notebooks, and not in the sense that they are "selling" Arm laptops? Come one people, language is not that ambiguous.

I don't think it was ambiguous in any way. The KDE community isn't a hardware reseller after all. I didn't think for one second that the KDE project was actually selling Arm laptops. Thats the point *no-one* is actually selling Arm laptops XD.

I don't suppose you can you still link me to where the KDE community "found" their Arm laptops?

And yes, I am talking about Asus Eee PC and Acer Aspire One.

Ah. If I could pick up an Arm variant of one of these, I would pay thousands!
If I could pick one up made out of solid metal (so it wouldn't break the same day), I would pay many thousands!

[vegabook]

Forget about watching netflix or amazon prime.....

[the_scx]

I don't get your point. The laptop I'm referring to is the Pinebook. You can buy it here for $99.

Buy or rather pray for it?

A special coupon code is required to buy Pinebook during checkout. Visit Pinebook Build To Order (BTO) Booking page to register, we will fulfill the BTO queue based on first come first served basis and starting on 28 March 2017. Our sales team will email the special coupon to you when it is your turn in the queue.

[p4prik4]

these laptop have finger scanner integration? so i won't need to type in my password all the time on linux?

[schmidtbag]

Fixed that for you, Intel evangelist. /S

Anyway, AMD is about to release the Zen 2 architecture with that chiplet thingies, that could be perfect for the big.LITTLE format.

Yes, there is real potential there, though as of right now that doesn't seem to be what they're planning on doing.

ARM does have UEFI. It's used in ARM Servers (the few that exist) as well as Microsoft's Windows Phone 8+ and Windows 10 ARM devices.

I wasn't aware of the servers have a UEFI (never had access to one) but I'm not entirely sure if the Windows phones and tablets use it. It could just be a pseudo-UEFI, kinda like what some of the Chromebooks and Android devices have, where you get a primitive boot menu but you can't really do anything else with it.