Thursday, November 13th 2008
ARM Plans to Join Intel and VIA in the Netbook Market from Next Year
Now that Intel's Atom is on top of the netbook processor market, while VIA and AMD are trying to compete somehow, it appears that a fourth chip maker is going to enter the netbook business and try to give Intel's Atom architecture a run for its money. ARM and Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, are co-operating to make Ubuntu Desktop operating system that will run well with ARM's ARMv7 processor architecture. This will enable new Linux netbooks and hybrid computers to enter the market.
"The release of a full Ubuntu desktop distribution supporting latest ARM technology will enable rapid growth, with internet everywhere, connected ultra portable devices," said Ian Drew, vice president of Marketing, ARM. "The always-on experience available with mobile devices is rapidly expanding to new device categories such as netbooks, laptops and other internet connected products. Working with Canonical will pave the way for the development of new features and innovations to all connected platforms."
This version of the Ubuntu Desktop operating system will handle the ARM Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9 processor-based systems. The final Ubuntu ARM distribution will debut in April 2009. Now we only need volunteers to choose ARM and Linux for their netbooks.
Source:
ARM
"The release of a full Ubuntu desktop distribution supporting latest ARM technology will enable rapid growth, with internet everywhere, connected ultra portable devices," said Ian Drew, vice president of Marketing, ARM. "The always-on experience available with mobile devices is rapidly expanding to new device categories such as netbooks, laptops and other internet connected products. Working with Canonical will pave the way for the development of new features and innovations to all connected platforms."
This version of the Ubuntu Desktop operating system will handle the ARM Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9 processor-based systems. The final Ubuntu ARM distribution will debut in April 2009. Now we only need volunteers to choose ARM and Linux for their netbooks.
8 Comments on ARM Plans to Join Intel and VIA in the Netbook Market from Next Year
:respect: Open Source.
Ubuntu :rockout:
If I can find a way to run Netflix online movies to run on Ubuntu, then I will load Ubuntu on my PIII 850 + 256 mb laptop :D
:laugh: Now this doesn't sound too good.
ARM based chips are incredibly low power, so in theory, you can multicore them and still have a very low powered device. BUT, unless they do some additional design work, ARM is not designed for multicore. AND, unless somehow Windows or Linux can actually rewrite and multithread the kernel, rather than just host multithreaded applications, it will suffer from the weakest link: ARM chips are perfect for industrial applications or hand held devices, but dont have the horsepower for modern operating systems.
I DO HOPE they can fix it though! My first computer was a Acorn BBC micro. The key people in Acorn went on to set up ARM. Their aim (at the time) was to get a 32bit chip working that was as efficient in design as the old 6502 processor (8bit), but solving lots of the issues they had trying to "upgrade" beyond what the 6502 could do.
The first ARM microprocessor was release IIRC around 1984.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro
www.mcmordie.co.uk/acornhistory/archist.shtml
**EDIT**
Yes, ARM has just designed a multicore: www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARMCortex-A9_MPCore.html
ARM dosnt really intrest me, no x86 compat=no go for me being the kinda geek i am.
oh and boo to nUbuntu!!!
But yes, if you want to add commercial software, that will be much more limiting. But for an OS, browser, email client, Open Office, you are good to go!