Database Users

Windows 8 instead of Linux Webtop?

I've been browing the interwebs today, and I saw a little article about Windows 8. It reminded me that Windows 8 was going to be built from the up to support ARM devices. Given the power of ARM devices now (Tegra 2, OMAP dual-core, Apple A5, etc.) It wouldn't be unfeasible to see this in the future? How many people would like to use Windows 8 instead of webtop mode on the Atrix? I'm just rambling on, but it's a neat thought.

paravorheim said:
I've been browing the interwebs today, and I saw a little article about Windows 8. It reminded me that Windows 8 was going to be built from the up to support ARM devices. Given the power of ARM devices now (Tegra 2, OMAP dual-core, Apple A5, etc.) It wouldn't be unfeasible to see this in the future? How many people would like to use Windows 8 instead of webtop mode on the Atrix? I'm just rambling on, but it's a neat thought.
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I think windows phones only support certain drivers for cpus and gpus so if they don't support it I think your SOL regardless of how powerful it is. Kinda how if you bought the best graphics card available but didn't have a driver you might as well have integrated graphics (probably worse than that)
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Double post sorry.

I'm not talking about Windows Phone. Windows Phone 7 is a completely different beast, and I know that mainly Snapdragon CPUs are supported at this time, and probably Adreno 200-205 GPUs.
I'm talking about Windows 8, the next version of windows, slated to come out in maybe 2012, probably 2013.
Here's a link I just searched, can't find the one I originally saw:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20026429-64.html?tag=mncol;9n
If by ARM devices they mean ANY ARM device, then we're in luck. Even if it only supports a certain ARM architecture, Cortex A9 will be fairly prevalent during the time Windows 8 would come out, so it's very likely Tegra 2 would be supported in the OS.

Ohhhh, ok gotcha sorry!
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+1 on topic
+1 on being able to run any version of windows on my atrix lapdock! I've got the debian linux stuff running but I've always had a thing for windows (especially 7 now) and all the programs I run on it. I would surely discard my laptop given the ability to run windows on the lapdock!

I'd love to see a dual boot option once windows 8 does come out
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This would be cool too see, but by the time windows 8 comes out we will all have the next gen Atrix with the tegra3 quadcore or equivalent.

darebear802 said:
+1 on being able to run any version of windows on my atrix lapdock! I've got the debian linux stuff running but I've always had a thing for windows (especially 7 now) and all the programs I run on it. I would surely discard my laptop given the ability to run windows on the lapdock!
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Windows 8 (ARM-build) will not immediately mean you can run any windows programs on it. Programs will have to be compiled for ARM support, just like anything else. It's possible MS may try to streamline it by having some form of on-the-fly x86 emulation but that would be way too demanding for most mobile ARM implementations.

It is unlikely to have many apps or drivers. Open source operating systems are much quicker and easier to port.

Steveg, I think microsoft specifically started that they would not emulate x86 in arm, and that if you wanted a program to work, you had to make sure it compiled in arm.
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Doesn't the webtop work by running an x-server off the existing android kernel and using modified ubuntu components? (I may be entirely wrong on this.)
If so, I we can't use the android kernel to boot Windows and we can't run both kernels concurrently. The only way I see this working is actually booting into a Windows 8 kernel (given Microsoft or more likely nVidia provide drivers), but in that case we wouldn't be running Android and thus probably would be restricted in terms of phone functionality.
Anyone with more webtop experience have any ideas?
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c-genx said:
Doesn't the webtop work by running an x-server off the existing android kernel and using modified ubuntu components? (I may be entirely wrong on this.)
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This is correct, except that the Android and Webtop environments both use the same *Linux* kernel.
If you wanted to run Windows 8 on the webtop, you'd have to either run it across the board or run it in some sort of virtualized machine.

Impossible. Won't ever happen. You know how they say there's no such thing as a dumb question? This thread tests that theory. Sorry buddy!
(Why? There's a litany of reasons: no driver support, no access to source code, Windows 8 is very far from being finished, no driver support, I doubt any devs would be willing to take the project, no drivers, and did I mention that the hardware for the Atrix and webtop doesn't have any NT/Windows drivers? )

deduction said:
Impossible. Won't ever happen. You know how they say there's no such thing as a dumb question? This thread tests that theory. Sorry buddy!
(Why? There's a litany of reasons: no driver support, no access to source code, Windows 8 is very far from being finished, no driver support, I doubt any devs would be willing to take the project, no drivers, and did I mention that the hardware for the Atrix and webtop doesn't have any NT/Windows drivers? )
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Today I will name you "Negative Nancy".

ChumleyEX said:
Today I will name you "Negative Nancy".
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Debbie downer has a point tho
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ChongoDroid said:
Debbie downer has a point tho
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true true
arg

Kal-el is rumored to be the ARM architecture that Microsoft showed off their Windows 8 demos on. nVidia has stated they intend to have ARM chips with Windows 8 support. It's entirely possible that they'll only release Windows 8 drivers for Tegra 3, but I see no reason why anyone can know for sure that nVidia won't provide Tegra 2 driver support. All this talk about it being impossible seems incredibly premature given nVidia's Windows 8 pledge.
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Okay, either you misunderstand me, our you are replying to someone else in this thread. Of course there its no source code yet. It's not finished. I was just throwing out an idea that if nvidia releases the drivers once windows for arm is released, then maybe instead of the linux webtop, we could use the windows 8 environment.
Edit: And the xda app doesn't quote replies.
As for windows 8 being run on I kal el,
yea, that's probably what will end up happening, but hey, we can dream, right?
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paravorheim said:
Okay, either you misunderstand me, our you are replying to someone else in this thread. Of course there its no source code yet. It's not finished. I was just throwing out an idea that if nvidia releases the drivers once windows for arm is released, then maybe instead of the linux webtop, we could use the windows 8 environment.
Edit: And the xda app doesn't quote replies.
As for windows 8 being run on I kal el,
yea, that's probably what will end up happening, but hey, we can dream, right?
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There's no source code yet? yet? it will never be! MS won't release its main product source code. It's just impossible, or totally impractical. I don't know if developers would be interested on this.

AMD Joins Android

It was only a matter of time before AMD followed Nvidia's lead and finally jumped onto the Android bandwagon, as the company is now recruiting engineers to create chipset drivers for Android. According to unnamed sources, the nation's second largest CPU manufacturer is now looking to offer notebook and tablet partners chipset solutions supporting Google's popular mobile platform.
"The Linux Base Graphics team is looking for Android Driver Development engineers to help us evolve our driver stack for new platforms and in line with the development trends in the Android ecosystem," reads the job description. "Experience with video decode acceleration within the Android web browser or video player application would be an asset. Experience with webm and/or OpenMax would be a bonus."
The company confirmed its interest in Android during an interview back in mid-March. Neal Robison, senior director of content and application support at AMD, indicated that offering support for Google's mobile platform makes a lot of sense for the company. "That is something we will be investigating as we take our Fusion architecture [into new markets] and we are able to create versions of this architecture for lower power environments that would work quite well for, perhaps, a tablet using this operating system."
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Full article @ http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Brazos-Llano-APU-AMD-Fusion-Google-Android,12548.html
Funny because the other week I speculated this

Does AMD even have an ARM CPU? Or can Android run on x86?

It's good ATI will come to Android.

I just ordered a lot of ati gear. Great was my surprise to receive it in hp boxes. So basically hp is creating phones?

sargasso said:
I just ordered a lot of ati gear. Great was my surprise to receive it in hp boxes. So basically hp is creating phones?
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HP is WebOs but they aren't apart of AMD. They're just buyers of AMD/ATI products and embed them within their systems.

good news for us
hopefully this time they actually make the drivers open source
last time i purchased an AMD/ATI based Windows Phone, it was a disaster, no drivers, so the GPU was wasted

AllGamer said:
good news for us
hopefully this time they actually make the drivers open source
last time i purchased an AMD/ATI based Windows Phone, it was a disaster, no drivers, so the GPU was wasted
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blame it on Microsoft they'll have to release source to comply with android. Otherwise they will be in trouble.
Who knows? Nexus 4 could feature amd. Amd definitely have a lot of work to do to catch up to its competitors.
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a company who open the specs to some of their products
imagine they open the specs to the CPU, GPU, Sound Processor, WiFi, radio.... you know the rest and a Google Experience device... maaan
I WANT!

mingkee said:
It's good ATI will come to Android.
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All the Qualcomm CPUs use Adreno GPUs, which is a rehashed ATI product. ATI used to own Imageon.

Hopefully this will lead to cheaper phones too....like the six core they have for like 200
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Intel also jumped on the bandwagon and is reportedly going to use its atom cpu.
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[Q] [question]Windows 8 on Iconia?

Today at Build Microsoft announced that Windows 8 would launch with ARM support. Does this mean someone could potentially port it for the Iconia to be used in those times when a Window based software is needed but neither PC nor VLC is unavailable?
Please save "why would you want to use Windows" comments. This is a mature developer website, send those comments to Engadget.

brady.wassam said:
Today at Build Microsoft announced that Windows 8 would launch with ARM support. Does this mean someone could potentially port it for the Iconia to be used in those times when a Window based software is needed but neither PC nor VLC is unavailable?
Please save "why would you want to use Windows" comments. This is a mature developer website, send those comments to Engadget.
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This being a "mature developer website" has a search function and q&a section. Both would lead you to this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1259742
Anyway, only time will tell if win8 will be ported to the iconia (or any other android tablet). I haven't heard of wp7 being ported to an android phone, so I wouldn't bet on it. Still I can see the potential in it and would gladly try it (especially if it can be made as dual-boot).
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Downloaded and installed the "Developers Preview" of Win 8 last night. Remember this is a pre-beta release, and for certain it's in it's infancy relatively speaking. As of this moment in time, Android has a much smoother interface for touch. Win 8 still feels a bit sticky for lack of a better word. I installed it on my HP Touchsmart TM2 2150 US laptop (core i3 with 8Gb ram), so it's not exactly a slouch in terms of hardware. It's a total touch screen laptop that has a screen that folds down onto the keyboard to create a tablet. As of this moment, Win 7 has a much better touch screen experience, but I fully expect that to change as the builds mature.
There are very few apps that come with it (28 I believe), and no app store as of yet obviously.
I read last night that typical Windows apps will not run on the ARM version of Win 8, and that MS is going to do it's best to prevent side loading of apps on the ARM version to keep people purchasing apps, instead of loading them from a USB stick or SD card, but that is just rumor as of right now.
Long story short, you're not missing much yet.

tkolev said:
only time will tell if win8 will be ported to the iconia
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I appreciate this is in the A500 forum, but the Iconia also comes in a W500 variant which does indeed run Win8:
http://youtu.be/_CNQVk7nok0

twisticles said:
I appreciate this is in the A500 forum, but the Iconia also comes in a W500 variant which does indeed run Win8
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Some of us already have an a500. No need to bring up another piece of hardware. "Yeah your Honda s2000 can fit a Corvette engine, but why not get a Corvette instead"
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I don't think Microsoft will be releasing a beta for ARM chips and we will see Windows 8 run on ARM only during retail. After that XDA will not port Windows 8 simply because it would be considered illegal.

twisticles said:
I appreciate this is in the A500 forum, but the Iconia also comes in a W500 variant which does indeed run Win8:
http://youtu.be/_CNQVk7nok0
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The OP was asking about the ARM version of win8, so I seriously doubt that it is about the w500.
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I installed Windows 8 on my pc a few hours ago. It is very smooth! But my DVD burner doesn't work... Anyway, I would love to see it on the A500.

Here's a preview of Win 8 tablets. Acer's is running an AMD chip instead of a Tegra:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4811/windows-8-tablets-running-on-ti-qualcomm-nvidia-amd-intel-silicon

Windows 8
Windows 8 *might* just support ARM. Everyone on the net is talking about it but no one is really sure. But as for now if you want something similar to Windows 8 there's always WinCE7 :-D Cheers.

masands said:
I don't think Microsoft will be releasing a beta for ARM chips and we will see Windows 8 run on ARM only during retail. After that XDA will not port Windows 8 simply because it would be considered illegal.
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Look at HTC HD2, illegal?! I think no retail arm based version. No retail maybe dev can port. Maybe it is hard to port and that is the be ass.

emo-dudes said:
Windows 8 *might* just support ARM. Everyone on the net is talking about it but no one is really sure. But as for now if you want something similar to Windows 8 there's always WinCE7 :-D Cheers.
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There's no "might" about it. Microsoft confirmed ages ago that there WILL be an ARM version of Windows 8, and recently clarified that it will NOT run native x86 applications. It's conjectured that that .NET applications should run with either minimal changes, or straight off the bat.
It's also been demoed running on Tegra 3 hardware.

FloatingFatMan said:
There's no "might" about it. Microsoft confirmed ages ago that there WILL be an ARM version of Windows 8, and recently clarified that it will NOT run native x86 applications. It's conjectured that that .NET applications should run with either minimal changes, or straight off the bat.
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Pure .NET applications should run just fine as long as they're using the same .NET framework as W8 does, but Microsoft is encouraging devs to use HTML5 for anything simple enough. They're aiming for HTML5 support to be top-notch and W8 and to be all-encompassing.
And yes, I concur with FloatingFatMan: why do people even think an ARM W8 would be able to run x86 binaries? That's just plain stupid. ARM applications will run on ARM W8, x86 applications will run on x86 W8, that's that.

WereCatf said:
Pure .NET applications should run just fine as long as they're using the same .NET framework as W8 does, but Microsoft is encouraging devs to use HTML5 for anything simple enough. They're aiming for HTML5 support to be top-notch and W8 and to be all-encompassing.
And yes, I concur with FloatingFatMan: why do people even think an ARM W8 would be able to run x86 binaries? That's just plain stupid. ARM applications will run on ARM W8, x86 applications will run on x86 W8, that's that.
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There was some rumour that Ms would my providing some transcoding layers as part of the ARM kernel, much like Apple did with the first x86 versions of OSX, but that would be horrendously slow and open the ARM platform to x86 malware.
Pure .NET apps SHOULD run fine, unless MS ship the compact framework instead of the full one. As for HTML5... URGH! (I'm a C# programmer, and after being shafted by MS over first WPF and now Silverlight, they can blow HTML5 out their asses! )

FloatingFatMan said:
There was some rumour that Ms would my providing some transcoding layers as part of the ARM kernel
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I know there was such a rumour, but anyone with half a braincell should've realized that it was just wishful thinking from people who don't know what they're talking about.
ARM devices are first and foremost mobile devices so an emulation layer would eat horribly on the battery. Not to mention that I am not aware of a single ARM processor sporting any kind of hardware virtualization features or transcoding mechanisms, so the performance would be really poor, too.
And if Microsoft did make such an emulation layer it would be Microsoft that would get all the blame for horribly low battery-life and poor performance because people wouldn't understand the underlying problem. Microsoft saves themselves a lot bad PR just by avoiding the whole thing altogether.
Pure .NET apps SHOULD run fine, unless MS ship the compact framework instead of the full one. As for HTML5... URGH! (I'm a C# programmer, and after being shafted by MS over first WPF and now Silverlight, they can blow HTML5 out their asses! )
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They're already churning lawyers at full speed from their arses, there's no more capacity for HTML5 there, too.

(BUILD ATTENDEES) System Dump Please!

5000 of the attendees of the BUILD conference were given Sammy Tablets with Windows 8. This is most likely the only public source of the ARM version of Win 8. Please upload what you can, within legal limits...

That Samsung Tablet wasn't ARM-based I think.

Nope it is not arm
I would love an arm dump to get it on touhpad via making install.wim...

slimshady322 said:
That Samsung Tablet wasn't ARM-based I think.
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It was nVidia based. I'll post the article link in a sec.

Core i5, that was told at conference.

No its not
Its an intel i5 no arm on the Samsung model

daweiteh said:
It was nVidia based. I'll post the article link in a sec.
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Nvidia Tegra 2 and above are ARMv7+ Chips. All Nvidia does it put their name on it. But those are ARMv7 chips. This goes for all the current and future mobile devices. If they are using i5 Intel with the builtin Intel GPU then that's a different story and it's not Nvidia. It's Intel. As far as I know Nvidia's mobile devices are going to be entirely ARM based.
As a matter of fact even Intel uses ARM to a lesser degree with memory managment chips for example. Everyone uses ARM to be specific. There isn't really a chip manufacturer out there that does not deal with ARM Holdings in some form. I'm very interested in putting Windows 8 on ARM so I'm following these threads closely myself. I have yet to see the ARM build and being a dev for MS myself, I have been testing Windows 8, but when I have conference calls with Microsoft and I ask for ARM support, they are telling me the setup is not done yet most likely and the support just isn't ready for developers yet. Stay tuned for sure. It should be a higher build number than 8200 I think.
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RedLineJoes said:
Nvidia Tegra 2 and above are ARMv7+ Chips. All Nvidia does it put their name on it. But those are ARMv7 chips. This goes for all the current and future mobile devices. If they are using i5 Intel with the builtin Intel GPU then that's a different story and it's not Nvidia. It's Intel. As far as I know Nvidia's mobile devices are going to be entirely ARM based.
As a matter of fact even Intel uses ARM to a lesser degree with memory managment chips for example. Everyone uses ARM to be specific. There isn't really a chip manufacturer out there that does not deal with ARM Holdings in some form. I'm very interested in putting Windows 8 on ARM so I'm following these threads closely myself. I have yet to see the ARM build and being a dev for MS myself, I have been testing Windows 8, but when I have conference calls with Microsoft and I ask for ARM support, they are telling me the setup is not done yet most likely and the support just isn't ready for developers yet. Stay tuned for sure. It should be a higher build number than 8200 I think.
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Nvidia makes the tegra line of arm socs as well as chipsets for x86 and gpus for pcs. lets try not to get their products confused. Nvidia does a lot more than just "put their name on it" They tape out the chip and add their gpu to it. It's a custom implementation of an arm chip based loosely around the "standard" that arm creates. The series 7 slate that was passed out at build is the same series 7 that is going on sale later this month with an i5 in it, it also uses intel graphics. It's x86 aka not arm. Because there is no standard off the shelf arm system I highly doubt they will release any sort of preview arm build. Most likely it will take many many system dumps and a lot of work to get arm windows 8 working fully on devices that did not ship with it.
---------- Post added at 01:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:54 PM ----------
Remember Texas Instruments and Qualcomm are also throwing their hats into the windows 8 ARM(s) race. Don't count them out. Likely each device will have a version of windows compiled specifically for it ala windows mobile. I just don't see any real way around that. Unless they give the different arm chips special drivers and build them all in - but that would make for less efficiency and a waste of storage and more complexity considering that no one is going to be putting a windows 8 dvd into their tablet to install the arm version ever ever ever. I'm thinking this will all be precompiled specifically for each device and it will likely lack certain features like device manager and complicated driver handling controls. This is going to be a pain in the ass.

It is not confusing because I was only speaking on Nvidia ARM SoCs, not anything else they do. Ye have little faith if you think Microsoft can't bring a mutli kernalized version of Windows 8 to market for all the different platforms similar to what Linux/Android already does.
The big buzz about Windows 8 when we first started talking about it with Microsoft was "kernalized versions with ARM support". That's right from the horses mouth. I sure hope they deliver on that more than anything else. And seeing as how I help make the OS what it is, i'll be testing the functionality eventually. Due to NDA you aren't allowed to say much about it though until these types of releases become available to the general public and developers. Then we can discuss what works and what doesn't with the people who plan to actually use it and make applications for it.
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Motorola Shamu (aka Nexus 6) benchmarked

Nexus 6 got benchmarked from Geekbench few days ago (spotted by GadgetzArena.com).
http://blog.gadgetzarena.com/rumours/motorola-shamu-nexus-6-spotted-in-geekbench-benchmarks/

I don't get why release with Snappy 805 without 64bit support but Android L is 64Bit....
The battle will come when 808 / 810 release in 2015.:silly:

ps000000 said:
I don't get why release with Snappy 805 without 64bit support but Android L is 64Bit....
The battle will come when 808 / 810 release in 2015.:silly:
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Um where did google state android L has to be 64gb?
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ps000000 said:
I don't get why release with Snappy 805 without 64bit support but Android L is 64Bit....
The battle will come when 808 / 810 release in 2015.:silly:
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I've seen a lot of people complaining about this. Who cares if it comes with a 64-bit processor versus a 32-bit? Do you need 4GB+ of ram for arguing that you must have a 64-bit OS? Or are you hoping they launch it in 64-bit so you get the next latest and greatest processor? Android L will launch in 32/64-bit flavors. I would put my bet on the tablet containing the 64-bit version.

monkeypaws said:
Um where did google state android L has to be 64gb?
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Nowhere, what gigabytes has to do with Android L?

mara- said:
Nowhere, what gigabytes has to do with Android L?
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I meant 64bit processor being a requirement.
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Totally agree with adio01, I believe that having 64 bit support will only be useful if you need to allocate more than 4GB of memory. There is however, a per process limit of 3GB on 32bit. So 64bit support would make sense if you:
a) Have more than 4GB of RAM
b) Have an application that is very very thirsty and needs more than 3GB of memory
Scenario a is obvious. If the device has less than 4GB of memory there is no problem. 64bit actually introduces some additional overhead so it might actually perform marginally worse than 32bit.
Scenario b is very unlikely on a mobile device. This would make sense when doing heavy video editting or photoshop on a desktop.
It does look good on the box though but that would be beneficial to marketing only.

So what's the screen size for it? Some sites say 5.9 and others 5.2. I'm hoping it's not 5.9..

64bit has lots more advantages than larger memory addressing capabilities!
Know your facts before spouting off in a public forum!
HTC One M8

We've had a Nexus 6 rumor thread dedicated since March :http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/general/google-nexus-6-t2696145
Please use that one to continue discussion.
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