On 07-11-2012, at 1:39 PM, Open Slate <openslateproj at gmail.com> wrote:

> I just saw where the FreeBSD foundation has awarded a grant to have the OS ported to the Genesi Efika MX Smartbook portable computer. I would like to get Squeak running on this platform. Also looking at their MX53 as the core of a self-made project. I am concerned that the hardware is underpowered, 800MHz Freescale i.MX515 CPU and 512MB RAM. I see where the new OLPC uses 1GB RAM. If we assume that the FreeBSD port will be on par with the available Linux OS in terms of RAM requirements and performance, is this enough juice to provide an acceptable level of performance in Squeak?
> 
> How difficult would it be to port the existing FreeBSD vm, which is Intel based, to the Freescale CPU? (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=i.MX515)

It wouldn't.

Leaving aside the work to make the dynamic translation VM, you load the code, build environment, OS etc on your machine. You `make`with whatever options and stuff is currently required (see the unix vm instructions, probably on squeakvm.org) and wait. Your main problem would be RAM related; so far as I can make out pretty much all current *nix & related OSs have insane memory appetites. Squeak - indeed Smalltalk in general - is now typically less memory hungry than a simple word processor. Hell, a Squeak image can be smaller than a Word document.

As an aside, there are literally dozens, possibly hundreds of extremely cheap ARM based tablets and laptops now available. How does a $70 10" screen ARM CortexA9 laptop grab you? Or a $46 7" tablet? Or perhaps a MacBookAir clone 13" screen A9 laptop?


tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
"Bother" said Pooh as he said f**k in the wrong conf.