http://liliputing.com/2015/02/raspberry-pi-2-can-run-windows-10-ubuntu-core.html\

Raspberry Pi 2 can run Windows 10, Ubuntu Core (and more)




You vaguely remember the Raspberry Pi from two-three years ago when it made a big splash as being a real functional computer for school kids to "learn computer programming" upon while in early grade school.  

For $35 each kid could have one to torture to his heart's content, sorta like that little toot a tone Tonette flute they gave you so you could get exposed to music.   Millions and Hundreds of Millions have been put in the hands of school kiddies and indeed they did lap them up and turn them into remarkable robotics projects which have been haunting the HS science fairs ever since.

Broadcom finally quit making the chipset (ARM v6 was like way way out of date) in any real volume and replaced it with a "more current" ARM v7 chipset swinging four A7 LITTLE cores and a full GIG of systems memory (with Broadcom really intending to overspec the little thing to future proof it a little bit so they could continue to run it for a while).

Price was the same, size was the same, ball connect solder pattern was the same,  but it required an update on the Raspberry Pi's guts as extra memory was needed and the difference between the v6 and v7 generations was somewhat pervasive on all the connected bits and pieces and ALL THE SOFTWARE HAD TO BE UPGRADED AS WELL.

Ah, the software mass originally had to be rewritten "down" for the then obsolete v6 processor, so now the software needed to be moved back up to v7 which is still the main mass of stuff these days.

A quad core A7 with a gig of memory is enough grunt to run Win 10 embedded, and it is plenty enough to run current full versions of Android 4.4.4 or Ubuntu or Linux Mint at a respectable rate.

It is more processor and memory than a XP box had when it was new.

It is equal to or better than what came on the early Win 7 machines.

Broadcom and the Raspberry Pi folks have put out a LOT OF COMPUTING POWER into the eager hands of them little kiddies -- let's see what they go do with it.

$35 sure buys a lot of computer these days .....   the little computer comes with Raspian, which is a full OS, some games and has the common Office type softwares -- all for $35.

Once again, you are teaching kids Linux from the very beginning.  Then they grow up and get a Chrome laptop when they get a bit older .....




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What games can you run on the old Pi?

Better way of saying that is what systems can you emulate?    Answer:  lots of them:

Amiga (UAE4All)
Apple II (LinApple)
Apple Macintosh (Basilisk II)
Armstrad CPC (CPC4RPi)
Arcade (PiFBA, Mame4All-RPi)
Atari 800
Atari 2600 (RetroArch)
Atari ST/STE/TT/Falcon
C64 (VICE)
CaveStory (NXEngine)
Doom (RetroArch)
Duke Nukem 3D1
Final Burn Alpha (RetroArch)
Game Boy Advance (gpSP)
Game Boy Color (RetroArch)
Game Gear (Osmose)
Intellivision (RetroArch)
MAME (RetroArch)
MAME (AdvMAME)
NeoGeo (GnGeo)
NeoGeo (Genesis-GX, RetroArch)
Sega Master System (Osmose)
Sega Megadrive/Genesis (DGEN, Picodrive)
Sega Mega-CD (Picodrive)
Sega 32X (Picodrive)
Nintendo Entertainment System (RetroArch)
N64 (Mupen64Plus-RPi)
PC Engine / Turbo Grafx 16 (RetroArch)
Playstation 1 (RetroArch)
ScummVM
Super Nintendo Entertainment System (RetroArch, PiSNES, SNES-Rpi)
Sinclair ZX Spectrum (Fuse)
PC / x86 (rpix86)
Z Machine emulator (Frotz)


What can you run on the new Pi?    Answer -- lots & lots more of much more modern stuff

Or if you want the shortest answer  .....   Steam for Linux and most all Android games

ARM Holdings has just released a new cortex A-72 chipset which is three and a half times faster than the A-15 and uses 75 percent less energy.

This is significant because Intel just released their new chip and it is only 4 percent faster comparing it back to their old one.   3.5 times faster is like a 5x improvement (compared to your old stuff in both cases) over what Intel just released as its improvement.

PREDICTION ..... this is a combination of smaller lithography,  a new generation of processor layout, and new ARM \ Linaro software that incorporates that new big cache that Google and ARM are using.  

Next,  the only reason you are hearing about this now is somebody's getting ready to put the first product out with some A-72s inside it.

Scuttlebutt has Samsung and Qualcomm being the most likely candidates for pushing Cortex A72 out early, but the things are actually reflected in the Apple A-9 and upcoming A-10 monster chipset Apple designs (A-10 will have 4 of them).

Intel feels like they are on very very shaky ground at this stage of things, and are having to sell their Skylake well below cost to simply keep on making chipsets for Apple.

This will not end with Skylake, but will continue with Cannonlake as well .....

ARM Cortex A-72 is intended for:

Key target markets include:

Premium smartphones
Larger screen mobile devices
Enterprise networking
Servers
Wireless infrastructure
Digital TV
Automotive ADAS/IVAI

Google is pushing for driverless delivery vehicles (over the road trucks first).  These are the chips that will make that happen.

Going back to the Raspberry Pi 2 for a minute, Eric Upton the dude that pulls it together was clear that Broadcom isn't racing to keep up with the Jones, but is going for industrial applications over the long haul and they do see the RP2 as being an industrial controller.

(duh, the original RP1 sold at least a third of its volume to be resold commercially as a custom Linux controller for a whole mort of oddball uses as it cost 1/2 to 1/3 as much as a real controller would cost and could do more stuff)

Broadcom will up the chipset again in 2-3 years to just kiss the bottom end of what is current at that point in time.   My point is (and will continue to be) that this is an adequate enough Linux box right now at the RP2 level.   It is fast enough not to bore you to death .....

Issue I really have right now is my current 10 year old $80 refurbie 3 ghz Core2 Duo Dell box with 4 gigs of systems memory looks good to last me the rest of my life running Linux Mint and all my various Steam for Linux games just as good as could be wished.

I got NO unmet needs -- and my Linux box is rock solid and I listen to my wife whine about her Windows boxes and laptops misbehaving all the time (I just point at my rock solid Linux set up and promise her I can fix her issues just as soon as she retires or else gets sick enough of the whole mess to give me the go ahead).

Oldfeller--FSO wrote on 02/03/15 at 22:34:55:

Keep telling yourself that, you know as well as I do some users can crack granite.

http://techreport.com/news/27767/arm-unveils-cortex-a72-cpu-mali-t880-graphic...

More stuff on the A-72, also showing the energy consumption on the yet to be released matching LITTLE chipset for the first time.    These are some pretty drastic energy savings .... and you can count on the Orient to use a lot of these new LITTLES in multiples of 4-8 really really quickly as low cost and battery life is king in the orient rather than just pure performance.

Why is ARM taking over in servers?  

Energy cost is the largest cost element of running a server farm and the A57 generation got into server farms in the first place by saving half on primary running energy electrical bills and saving half again on the cooling refrigeration system electrical bill.  

Saving half of the ongoing energy costs of running the place PAID for the new ARM server racks inside of one year, an ROI which a bean counter will take every time it is offered to him.

A72 is twice as efficient on both compared to A57 generation of products, so look for a similar wave of replacement to take place in the server farm arena next year.   Anyone running tech older than 3 years old needs to be looking hard at their energy bills again ......

Next element is the new BIG trend of server farm CUSTOMIZATION.  Facebook and Google are both examples of large customers who now custom design their own matching ARM server processor racks and matching home written Linux softwares for use in their very own server farms.  

Major customers like these are knowledgeable enough to NOT be fooled by Intel's claims of "superiority" because they don't run MS operating systems at all and they DO understand ARM intimately.   Linux is what they use, 100% everywhere as stipped down Linux is the fastest lightest OS out there.

Can MS bullshite their way back into the server farms using their 14nm tech ???   No, not with only a 4% efficiency increase (compared only to themselves) which is all they have to claim right now.   Their 14nm generation is NOT more energy efficient than the current 20nm planar ARM RISC stuff, much less the 16nm finFET ARM RISC stuff that is coming on board now.

And especially not if they have to price support all of it because their new 14nm process costs too much to run.

I would say that Intel would have to use their very best production process TO MAKE A 14nm ARM HOLDINGS DESIGNED RISC CHIPSET in order to have any possible advantage to show a server customer at this stage of things.   Do what they were doing with Altera, in other words.

x86 CISC compatibility is not an advantage any more here in the age of Linux servers, nor is putting in MS compatibility features .....

Intel has always had a habit of running off to "do a new tech" every time they get into trouble -- so look to see Intel start spewing off a lot of stinky brown future talk of 10nm before they have even finished their first production runs of 14nm.

Intel is in trouble again, their house of cards is beginning to get shaky again and they can't find any money sources to pay for "contra revenue" to support literally over half the stuff they make any more.


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Intel is now frantically looking for a savior tech ....  looking at things like these.

http://liliputing.com/2015/02/ultra-super-fast-processor-chips-made-silicene-...



I am waiting for Intel to break to the dark side, to go RISC and start using ARM HOLDINGS designs just like they had to do on that Spreadtrum produced $29 phone chipset that they were peripherally involved in making for MS's Nokia semi-smart phone.   Or agree to produce an ARM design for somebody else, like they did for Altera, except this time do a LOT of it.

There is nothing stopping Intel from doing this, other than misplaced pride.   Plus the glaring fact they really aren't very good at it (failed to produce for Altera on schedule twice in a row) and their USA based production costs are 3x what they need to be (which is what drove Altera to TSMC finally).

Now we wait a bit for the smoke to clear and Intel to respond before ARM outlines their final killing stroke, the LITTLE side of the new equation.

ARM has a good starting point right now in the A53, which is why they have the luxury of waiting for Intel's counterstroke before finalising the rest of their big little package.

Intel can go high, and come out with something "over the top" of A72, but I bet it wouldn't be as efficient and as scaleable -- Intel already  has Core i7 chipsets out there that are more powerful and way less efficient and that is why they will finish losing server space this time around.  

Intel will need to use 14nm generation to REFINE what they already have .....  they need to defend their existing turf, not blow tons of money all over trying to get into ARM's low end neighborhood.   Intel, you failed at that for four years running, YOU FAILED, get used to it and GET PAST IT.

Then ARM can rip the bowels out of whatever Intel comes out with using a new more energy efficient LITTLE that is enough more powerful such that it is over half as powerful as the final Intel chips and yet so much smaller and simpler and cheaper to put on silicon wafers.

That's the magic of LITTLES you know, and why the Orient loves them so much.   Buy a single license for the LITTLE and simply stack them up in a pile to overwhelm the competition, cheaply quickly and neatly.

Remember, the current, quite capable and well centered A53 is actually stronger than the old A9 chipset used to be.   Now what blows my mind is the A72 will be about the same physical size and same power consumption level as the current A53 LITTLE and yet it is going to be a big, swinging a wide large capacity data bus that can carry server sized data loads no less.

ARM will take great care building a new LITTLE that is stronger still than the A53, uses that big new server level bus, yet I bet it tucks into old existing product designs (two for the space of one) using the same ball grid spacing so it can drop right into old motherboard designs (a slick trick that has worked out for ARM very very nicely in the past).

Think of all those A53 quad core products suddenly coming back out on the same old board designs as Axx octas ......    

MS and Win 10 and the capabilities they put into the ARM version of the OS actually play a part in this next affair, since the whole of PC space is now in contention.    This is no longer just about phones and tablets ......

A72 will define the upward penetration attack that ARM can take, but the new LITTLE will define the defense of the ground already taken.

The speed at which Intel is driven to go to 8-10nm will tell you how well the completed attack/defence actually went.  We are no  longer able to get sales data in these warring zones because Intel and MS both are now intentionally withholding this information.

(which might be because it isn't  all that favorable to them).    

Intel will sell some chips into the ARM camp as well as the x86 camp.   Supposedly MS will supply an OS to both camps as well.

There are many alternative approaches to computing now, with most folks now owning at least 2-3 of what is a whole crowd of alternative approaches to computing.

Apple is still sitting on the sidelines developing their next play, watching and judging which players are strong enough to support their chipset needs for one full season.

Google is googling its way by inches into making up a single real OS system.   MS is struggling hard not to write the same old crap all over again.

We got the traditional American desktop computing infrastructure slowly collapsing all over the place as their markets become very small and irrelevant.    What comes out of Korea and China will determine what computing is to be in the upcoming year.  

We got everybody putting out handheld devices that outclass the old Cray II supercomputer and any of them could run your monitor and keyboard and mouse if you just hook them up.





http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240238329/Intels-mobile-communications-re...

..... speaking of which, ComputerWeekly just rolled up what is available out of Intel's performance last year -- so enjoy sorting through Intel's strange exaggerated fiscal reporting and realize that Wall Street downgraded Intel afterwards, discounting some of these financial results since Intel "reorganized" during the midst of rolling them all up (hiding what they could while they did so).