Cubox? Linux 3.7 released, bringing generic ARM support

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Thomas Milne <thomas.bruce.milne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| I am currently without a computer since they all died at once and I am
| jobless.
| 
| So I am using my Cubox to do basic stuff, but running Ubuntu 10 it is very
| slow.

If I remember correctly, Lennart is a local expert on the Cubox.


There is no "Ubuntu 10".  There is 10.04 LTS and 10.10, but those are
distinct.

What is it slow doing?  Why?

As far as I know, the major thing that *might* get sped up in another
distro is floating point.  Most programs don't care about FP
performance, but a few care a lot -- do you run any of those?

My perception is that these little devices are sometimes slow because:

- the memory interface is narrower than a PC's so memory bandwidth is
  bad

- 1 ARM MIP < 1 x86 MIP for modern x86 implementations

- most I/O is funneled through USB 2.x (example: ethernet on
  RaspberryPI) (example: all disk I/O)

- I think that SD cards (except perhaps the fastest) are slower than
  hard drives even if USB isn't the bottleneck

- video drivers are crap since there are no high-performance open source
  video drivers for any ARM display subsystem yet

- not enough RAM (new desktops start at 4G; most ARM systems stop at
  1G)

| Will this 3.7 kernel mean that Linux will now run on Cubox with normal
| install? I know Debian won't have the 3.7 kernel for a while.

Who knows.  It is a future direction so it may not be embraced by old
products.  Too many embedded systems are "fire and forget" by their
producers.  I don't have any knowledge of the Cubox folks intention.
You could ask them.

| And since I do not have a Linux desktop I can't do any of the tricks
| to get a newer Linux on Cubox.

Surely we can help there.

Where are you?  What does it involve/require (time, equipment, 
expertise, risks)?
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