Resource: Q2.12 Name: The Future of ARM Linux Date: 28-05-2012 Speaker: David Rusling

1. The Future of ARM Linux
David A Rusling, CTO
May 2012
For more information: connect.linaro.org
Contact: david.rusling@linaro.org

2. What do I Want?
● My phone is my primary device, I don't want it hacked
● Always available, portable, connected
● Take out of my pocket / bag and just use (no delays, no waiting)
● 10 hours of battery life whatever the load (video / games)
● All my devices and information syncronised with the cloud
● ARM based systems already deliver this, just not everywhere
(yet)...

3. The Future
● Mobile
● iOS versus Android – it's all about the user experience
● Post PC
● Desktop fades (think workstation)
● Laptop / tablet – it's all about battery life and keyboard versus touch
● Enterprise
● It's all about cooling and power
● Ready for innovation
...So where does Linux and Linaro fit into this future?

4. Linux
● Android has driven ARM Linux into mobile
● Tension with 'classic' Linux (fork-ing)
● Not (yet) successful on tablets, but will be
● Fragmentation diluting efforts
● Linux is amazingly successful in enterprise
● Not the desktop (5%, maybe)
● Kernel engineering is largely driven by this conservative (x86) market
● How does the ARM community influence this conservative community?
How do we make ARM one of two key Linux architectures?

5. Taking ARM Linux Beyond Mobile
● Linaro was invented to solve the whole problem, not just mobile
● We are a team that we can engineer complex, collaborative, open source
solutions
● Finish consolidating mobile
● Generalize Android support across many platforms
● Merge Android kernel and 'classic' kernel
● Flexible platform infrastructure support in the kernel
● Embrace diversity
● Kernel accelleration
● Graphics and audio buffer handling
● Networking
● RAID, Crypto ...

6. Standards
● Enterprise relies on standards
● So does Windows 8
● We need to pay attention to standards, supporting and
promoting them
● UEFI, ACPI etc
● Boot architecture
● The pirates won't like it...

7. Avoiding Disasters
● Linaro continues to work on
resolving engineering problems
● Kernel consolidation
● UMM
● Device Tree
● We need to prevent
fragmentation before it happens
● Cortex-A15
● ARMv8 kernel
● UEFI

8. Products and Technology
Our job is to enable the
product makers:
● Create stable, reliable,
tested technology that can
be integrated into platforms
and be able to be tuned
and proved
● big.LITTLE a good
example of this