[Vm-dev] Touch/MultiTouch Events

tim Rowledge tim at rowledge.org
Sun Sep 27 00:44:40 UTC 2020



> On 2020-09-26, at 4:35 PM, Phil B <pbpublist at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>  Yes, I know the RPi is similarly mostly there (to a degree).  The difference is that on other devices where we're running things like Mobian, they use the actual Debian (or whatever base distro you're using) ARM repos which have advantages in terms of package selection.

Raspbian is simply a repackaged Debian ARM, with some extra stuff (like my NuScratch development) and a less-awful UI setup than most distros. All the Debian ARM repos are available and (barring maybe some odd things?) all will work.


> Most (all?) current Pinephone distros run ARM64. Given the previously mentioned anemic storage performance and already taxed SoC, throwing multi-arch into the mix to run ARM32 code (especially just for Squeak) wouldn't be a good experience.

I'm not sure where you picked up the idea I was suggesting any such thing, 'cos I'm fairly sure I didn't. Currently quite a few people are playing with ARM64 kernels and 64/32 mixed userspace on Pi's, as well as several entirely AARCH64 systems. Eliot & Ken have both been using Manjaro quite a lot, for example.

I always feel a bit puzzled when a modern ARM system is treated like some sort of toy; they're the sort of machine we didn't even know to fantasize about not so very long ago. My Pi 4 runs Smalltalk somewhere around 100,000 times as fast as my original ARM1 development machine (which I still have) did in 1986.

>  Isn't the current state of Cog on ARM64 DIY with major caveats such as FFI? (which doesn't help me as I'm very dependent on FFI)

If you're in need of FFI a lot then maybe it isn't ready for you just yet. I think the remaining problem is some float structure returning complications.

> 
>  Realistically, most mobile SoC's that can be used on a remotely open device today are going to have significantly less performance.

Well that's a problem for other makers to get off their butts and fix. It's not like the Pi is based on some exotic special core; merely a quad core A72, which has been available for some time now in SnapDragons, NXP, Jacinto, etc. And the Pi version is on ancient an 28nm process, whereas A72 is available for 16nm and considerably faster clock speeds. Numerous tablets and phones use those. 

Now the Apple A14 is definitely special and I'm really looking forward to using that. My expectation is somewhat better performance than typical i7 and maybe attacking i9 intel things.

But we've got a lng way from worrying about touch events, so...

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Useful random insult:- Cackles a lot, but I ain't seen no eggs yet.




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