From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D70541381F4 for ; Sun, 9 Dec 2012 03:53:05 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 5889F21C051; Sun, 9 Dec 2012 03:52:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-bk0-f53.google.com (mail-bk0-f53.google.com [209.85.214.53]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 9725521C040 for ; Sun, 9 Dec 2012 03:51:16 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-bk0-f53.google.com with SMTP id j5so681989bkw.40 for ; Sat, 08 Dec 2012 19:51:15 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type; bh=4N8klGvN8n+bV8pInFBEnvm0yC3ynBsBmU5AxfC+iDg=; b=ZNtvx82kaB9KTW4kREEXC8hdr2pn+bRO007VTzClYvAujNPYo9sCb5c8FIlmI6zUpH xJMVXNzIWlzLuRaAm35vRbI9AMlfF5oz7E7m1Pq6dgASd3SEiScPwV/SJ7UIFu3FpzqR J8e1hPVdczwZYHxD1/L54oefeMpHe2chPPIjlyX+Tyf3ohnPftbZjN5FkIsuCP+GcmKj hCgGHBo0jE8B9DDSKBUl/4pMw+LmXr5X+GjtePRsapEsToCosnOtjKu0UR3cwJQDUY1d Z+sia/t3rJnCpTmW+N9V3k3hiJP/IfIvy9Tew5lsVSqepBKXl4JY9T+0XFqUJvsI+c0i A3xw== Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.204.149.86 with SMTP id s22mr3254479bkv.57.1355025075143; Sat, 08 Dec 2012 19:51:15 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.205.26.137 with HTTP; Sat, 8 Dec 2012 19:51:15 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2012 22:51:15 -0500 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Will ARM take over the world? From: Michael Mol To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Archives-Salt: c00f3eef-0868-4019-bec3-f9b6868f0b91 X-Archives-Hash: b85ced31f8b9d1f201a4538fb35cce99 On Sat, Dec 8, 2012 at 10:25 PM, Grant wrote: > It seems like ARM processors will destroy x86 before too long. Does anyone > think this won't happen? It's looking promising. Not that I have a horse in the race, but I very much like ARM's low power consumption. The way I see it, they're only a short list of features away from obliterating x86: * I'd like to see fast division. I keep hearing about how this or that is slow because of ARM's lack of strong division. * I'd like to see a modern baseline of strong instructions. x86 kept continually improving in a very fragmented way, but there were, from time to time, baseline collections of feature sets you could expect all processors to have. i386 represented one. i686 represented one. Currently, it's x86_64, which implies not only a 64-bit flattened address space and a departure from real mode, but also a collection of SIMD instruction sets and other features developed between the release of the Pentium Pro and AMD's Hammer architecture. ARM just feels...fragmented. And I don't have the impression I could write my code assuming the availability of SIMD (presuming I use things like OpenMP to expand my code to leverage it, rather than writing processor-specific code. Though OpenCL could very well alleviate that issue.) * I'd like to see virtualization be a thing. Productivity and efficiency on x86 *soared* with the compartmentalization that came with hardware-assisted (and therefore cheap! and fast!) virtualization. I haven't heard about the same on ARM, although Citrix is working hard on porting Xen there. Paravirt may well be the first common means of virtualization on ARM... -- :wq