Re: [vox] [news] World's first single-core Linux phone demoed

[wenk@pudMAPSdleglum.homeip.net]

On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 11:35:23AM -0700, Bill Kendrick wrote:
> World's first single-core Linux phone demoed
> http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8513245752.html
> 
>   FSMLabs and Infineon Technologies claim to have achieved the world's
>   first demonstration of a Linux mobile phone based on a single
>   processor core: a working prototype based on a single ARM9 core
>   running FSMLabs's RTLinux real-time Linux OS, along with a functional
>   2G/3G (WCDMA/EDGE/GPRS/GSM) stack[...]
> 
> 
> So why does this matter? :^)
> 
>   Current-generation mobile phones based on "complex OSes" such as
>   Symbian, Linux, and Windows use two separate processors to run all of
>   their embedded software.  An applications processor runs the high-end
>   OS, GUI, and user applications, while a "baseband" processor runs a
>   low-level RTOS (real-time OS) that handles signal-plane functions such
>   as managing the cellular radio and its communications protocols.
> 
> 
> In other words, the devices will be cheaper, since they'll have only 1 CPU :)
> 
> 
> I, for one, welcome our new Linux phone overlords,

Not that this isn't cool, but will it really lower prices, or just boost
someone's margins.  Then again, most of the phone I have gotten have
been pretty cheap, but usually come with strings(such as contracts), and
I really don't see those strings going away.  

Mike
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