News Dell's Project Sputnik is go for launch

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/07/20/project-sputnik-launch/1

 

Article links to a thread about Maine in GD, might want to edit

 

I think selling ARM based laptops are probably going to be slightly more successful than x86 ones, and here's why:

When you compare linux to Windows RT, linux is far ahead in performance, stability, hardware compatiblity, and software compatibility. The changes in both Windows 8 and Ubuntu versus Windows 7 and older are different enough that neither would be considered a comfortable change. Linux by default doesn't run Windows programs and Windows RT can't run x86 programs, so if ARM laptops are sold side by side with Windows RT laptops, people will realize "hey, this (linux model) is cheaper and runs more programs" whereas if you compare linux on x86 vs windows on x86, the general public will think "This (linux model) doesn't run any of my programs whereas this (windows model) does".

And yes I know about wine but the average person doesn't and AFAIK, ubuntu doesn't ship with it. However, wine is being developed for ARM, which would give linux an even greater advantage over Windows RT.

 

No Ubuntu, nor it's many variants don't come packaged with wine, though I've never met a user who didn't know about it, mostly through complaints that -insert program here- is cludgy and slow in wine and when will -insert company here- release a linux version...

That is, excepting my dear old mum, who's laptop was dying such a death under XP that it was mercifully granted a second chance under Ubuntu. However she just uses it for the web and skype, so hasn't noticed any difference except appearance.

 

I wish the public thought about the choice between Windows and Linux in that way schmidtbag... But sadly brand-name means a lot to the Average Joe.

Now, being a person who has experience with Linux on ARM with multiple devices I don't think performance will be better than Windows RT. Windows has been tuned for user experience on ARM (as opposed to server loads) really well, and they have Hard Float from the get go where as many distributions are only now just catching up. Windows Phone 7 has *excellent* performance on mediocre hardware though I have not seen Windows Phone 8 (which uses a NT kernel rather than a CE kernel) yet.

Wine for ARM will *not* be compatible with x86 binaries, however there is the possibility that it will be compatible with Windows RT binaries however the framework libraries are probably too immature to actually run anything useful.

 

WINE is Windows API emulation layer, not x86 hardware emulation (such as QEMU). Even if WINE was compiled for ARM target, it wouldn't run x86 applications without some kind of x86 hardware emulation or x86-to-ARM code translation (something along the lines of FX!32 for Digital's Alpha) underneath it.

 

I know its an emulation layer, I didn't say it was hardware emulation. I also didn't say it was going to run x86 programs. All I heard is wine for ARM was being worked on. Whether that means it'll run Windows RT programs or regular x86 binaries, that's still good.