Re: ARM-based desktop computer ? (Hybrid computers ?: Low + High performance ;))

Jun 09, 2010 2 Replies


One problem which I see people mention is:


>
> x86 software does not work on ARM...
>
> A solution for this problem is the following (Not my idea, but some crazy
> noob ?):
>
> An x86 compiler which compiles x86 to ARM code.

Impractical; each x86 instruction would compile to an entire subroutine. The problem is that you have to handle every case which might occur, regardless of whether or not it will occur in practice.


E.g. every memory access would have to emulate the x86 segmentation model, even though the segments will just provide a flat address space


99.999% of the time.

Every memory access will have to allow for unaligned access, even though



99% of accesses will be aligned.

If you want an ARM-based desktop system, run Linux. Ubuntu, Slackware and Gentoo all have official support for ARM-based systems.



There's Windows Mobile if he insists:

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But I'd rather have a Chumby for that same price...

crazy=20

Not at all. They would correspond to a particular path through a moderate subroutine in the object code converter program and only be one to a few instructions in the final object code.

ibid

and

Though there seems to be no problem creating similarly sized executables for a wide to wild variety targets seems to elude you.

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