Interesting announcement

[Christopher Browne]

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 4:43 PM, William Park <opengeometry-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> This brings up one of my pet peeves...  I can download .iso files for ARM or
> MIPS.  Then, what?  I don't have motherboard that I can play with.  Eg. For the
> longest time, I want to try Slackware version for ARM processor.  The only ARM
> hardware I can buy is "pogoplug" computer which has only USB and RJ45 port.
> Pretty much useless as desktop computer.

Pretty fair, yeah.

There were some PowerPC designs that looked kind of interesting, but
when the vendors were:
a) IBM, who want to hawk AIX servers,
b) Apple, who have *zero* interest in selling it without MacOS, and
c) Some "embedded system" vendors that aren't really interested in
talking to you if you don't want either thousands of units, or to pay
$ thousands per unit,
that you can "run Linux on PPC" is of rather academic interest.

MIPS and ARM have frequently been not terribly different.  For a long
time, your choices were:
a) Buy thousands of them, or
b) Buy them for $thousands, MUCH pricier than an Intel/AMD motherboard.

The popularity of ARM for embedded disk arrays and network routers has
changed this a little, though only a little, because the result tends
to be a box that's mighty wimpy for doing anything more sophisticated.
 You don't get to have video output, for instance.  PogoPlugs are
pretty neat, but...

The new NVidia Tegra stuff *might* change that.  There's the would-be
"game changer" that at this year's CES, there were machines being
announced that were not "WinTel", in involving neither Windows nor
Intel.

The relevant "neat thing" I saw today was this:
<http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/25/compulab-makes-a-tiny-tegra-2-computer-for-the-lilliputian-commu/>

But it's still a story I have heard before too many times to believe
without a large grain of skepticism.  Only if they start delivering
little boxes to stores in Toronto will I truly believe it.

That's another dose of "warm stuff freezing" :-)  Not that I'd be
disappointed to see it!  :-)
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