Cubox? Linux 3.7 released, bringing generic ARM support

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Scott Sullivan <scott-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org>

| On 12/14/2012 11:54 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
| > | From: Thomas Milne <thomas.bruce.milne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| > 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?
| 
| The Cubox SoC is a ARMv7 instruction set, which means it has a mandatory
| hardware floating-point unit. It's also why Ubuntu works on it as Ubuntu's
| developers have choose only to support ARMv7 architecture and above.

Good to know.  That means that my FP hypothesis is wrong.

| > My perception is that these little devices are sometimes slow because:
| [...]
| > - not enough RAM (new desktops start at 4G; most ARM systems stop at
| >    1G)
| 
| The Cubox is fortunately equipped with 1G of ram, but core CPU speed is much
| lower then it's peers at a partly 800Mhz.

Based on my own experience, the difference between 800 MHz and 1GHz or
1.2GHz isn't intrusive.  It is unlikely that you'd get frustrated by
the user experience difference.  Gamers and the like could be an
exception.

| The ease of installation we see on x86 dervied systems has to do with the
| consistent boot environment provided by the BIOS.

Yes.  But not just the boot environment.  The ACPI mechanism (part of
what is loosely called the BIOS) is important too: it lets the OS do
generic operations on the specific hardware without having to create
an 8088 runtime environment, long after booting.
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