ARM devices as viable desktop computers?

[mimosa]

raspberrypi, an educational computer minimalist in every sense, has just been released at GBP 22 . It comes with Linux preinstalled ...

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

There are a number of similar devices around, such as the Pandaboard - see here for a post about making it run Salix. In general, no peripherals are included, and there may or may not be the all the ports you might want to attach them.

http://www.salixos.org/forum/viewtopic. ... ard#p15659

These aren't really meant for day-to-day use, though. However, CuBox and Cotton Candy (also just launched) seem to be aimed at the home user:
http://www.solid-run.com/products/cubox
http://www.fxitech.com/products/

Unlike the hobbyist / engineering products above, these come with 1GB of memory, a reasonable video card, and are seriously intended to be plugged into a monitor and keyboard and off you go.

It seems likely there will be more such products. (In fact I'm sure there already are, but those are the ones I found by a bit of searching). The CuBox (EUR 99) is half the price of the Cotton Candy, and comes with more sockets and a power supply. I'm not very good at reading hardware specs but the two look comparable in terms of power.

If something like this could actually be a viable machine (using ARMed Slackware and Salicifying it as described in the post linked above), at that price, it seems worth exploring. I also like the idea of low power consumption, no fan noise, and greater resistance to tropical humidity and dust (no fan).

[thenktor]

I cannot find info about the CPU in the Rasperry, but probably it's a slow one (I guess ARM9) and it has not enough RAM (256 MB) for a desktop. The CuBox has at least a ARM11 or a Cortex-A type of CPU, that's way better, but still only 800 MHz and I guess single core -> not fast.
The CPU in the CottonCandy is the best: a recent Cortex-A with Quadcore and 1.2 GHz. If I would want to build a desktop I'd try this one.
Note: even an Intel Atom with 1.2 GHz should be much faster than a Cortex-A CPU with 1.2 GHz.

[mimosa]

There's also this one, which comes in a slightly bigger box, and has more sockets and ports:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... Trim-Slice

... again I think it's around EUR 200.The SATA disk fits inside the case, but it's an optional extra taking the price up quite a bit.

The CPU is an Nvidia Tegra 2; I think it's dual core. This seems to be targeted at developers rather than the general user, but with a focus on video.

Finally, there's this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SheevaPlug

and its spinoffs. The ARMed Slack site mentions it as a principal target of their efforts.

[thenktor]

I've read about the TrimSlice some time ago, but have never seen it for sale anywere.
Don't consider the SheevaPlug as desktop computer. I've got a Seagate Dockstar with similiar hardware (Marvell Kirkwood CPU). This one has 1.2 GHz single core, but it's and old ARM9 design. Not very fast.
Of course this is all fine as small home server.

[laprjns]

I cannot find info about the CPU in the Rasperry, but probably it's a slow one (I guess ARM9) ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi

The design is based around a Broadcom BCM2835 system on a chip (SoC),[3] which includes an ARM1176JZF-S 700 MHz processor, VideoCore IV GPU, and 256 Megabytes of RAM.

[Quax]

Hi,

...The SATA disk fits inside the case, but it's an optional extra taking the price up quite a bit.

Realize that the SATA disk is hooked to the USB bus and thus think about whether it is worth the price...

Manfred

[mimosa]

@Quax

Does that mean you can't boot off it, that is, it's as though it were an external disk, intended for data storage?

The same company also sells these:

http://www.fit-pc.com/web/fit-pc/fit-pc2-models/

and has just launched these:

http://www.fit-pc.com/web/fit-pc3-info/

...both of which have conventional chips, that is, they are more immediately suited to use as desktop machines. The price is no longer an advantage, but size, power consumption, and the absence of noise all are. I have a hunch this format is about to take off ...

[thenktor]

The design is based around a Broadcom BCM2835 system on a chip (SoC),[3] which includes an ARM1176JZF-S 700 MHz processor, VideoCore IV GPU, and 256 Megabytes of RAM.

Thanks for the info. So it's an ARM11 but only 700 MHz. I don't know how this compares to the ARM9 with 1.2 GHz in the Seagate Dockstar. It may be around the same speed, and therefore it is IMHO not fast enough for a desktop. This is about the slowest chips (or even slower) you can find in smartphones nowadays.

Realize that the SATA disk is hooked to the USB bus and thus think about whether it is worth the price...

Any more info about it? There are ARM chips with SATA interfaces, e.g. some of the Marvell chips you find in recent Pogoplugs. I don't know about the Tegra2 though. If it is really connected to USB I would not want to pay more for it. Actually the USB hard disks are some kind of bottle neck. Not only because of the transfer speed, but because e.g. on my Dockstar there is only one USB port, splitted by a hub. So all USB devices have to share the bandwidth of one hub. For me this made problems at playing FLAC files from USB hard disk to USB sound cards on my Dockstar.

Does that mean you can't boot off it, that is, it's as though it were an external disk, intended for data storage?

No, you can boot from USB disks:
1. Load kernel from NAND flash and use USB disk as root file system. Should always be possible.
2. Also load kernel from an ext2/3 or vfat partition on USB. That depends on your bootloader and it's build time options.

[mimosa]

This is about the slowest chips (or even slower) you can find in smartphones nowadays.

My understanding is that the Raspberry is meant to be an educational toy, a "new BBC Micro": that is there's no expectation you should be able to do anything useful with it, but it should force you to roll your sleeves up and learn. There's even talk of giving one to "every British schoolchild".

I remember when towers came out I thought they took up far too much room, and unlike the horizontal box that fit neatly under your monitor, it wasn't obvious where to put them. OK, you can put them on the floor, but they might still be in the way there, and it means bending down to access everything from the power button to the optical drive - and all those wires trailing all over the place!

I suppose the other thing you can do is put the computer inside the peripherals, and that's already happening too. However I'd rather the monitor was a separate brick.

[Quax]

Hi,

Does that mean you can't boot off it, that is, it's as though it were an external disk, intended for data storage?

No, you can boot from it. But you are limited to USB2 speed by design of the controller chip used

Manfred