On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 11:33 PM, peter green wrote: > >> ARM/x86/MIPS all can run Linux. >> > They can but it's not about just running linux, it's about what is on > top of linux. > > The result of this is most non-x86 netbooks are going to end up using a > custom distro and switching away from it is going to be painful. While a > custom distro gets arround the issues mentioned above it has problems of > it's own. Installing extra software can often be a pain and the custom > linux distro is likely stop getting security updates in an unacceptablly > short timeframe (even major distros tend to have pretty short lifecycles > for each release but at least with those there is typically a new > release to upgrade to). > Do you think that big companies and organizations ( like Intel, Nokia, Linux Foundations, ARM, Google and IBM) can help standardizing the Linux distros for use in Smart Phones, MID and Netbook? I understand this is difficult judging from the current fragmentation of the Linux market. MID: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Internet_Device On the CPU front, x86 seems to dominate now in the Netbook market, followed by the MIPS. But I think ARM can be a strong contender soon. PowerPC is missing here but it is leading in the game console market. On the OS front, both Windows XP and Linux are strong contenders. The other potential contender is Windows Embedded (x86 only) or Windows CE (x86, ARM, SH4 and MIPS) but it is a bit difficult for them to compete with full-brown XP/Linux in the MID/Netbook market. Mac OS X is another one if Apple sees the need to go into the MID/Netbook market. Iphone gives them a good start already in the smart phone market. Xiaofan -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist