Linux on Snapdragon X Elite Laptop with Tim Benton at the Linaro booth at Embedded World 2024 #ew24

so here I found some Linux and Snapdragon hi hi please introduce yourself hi I'm Tim Benton I am vice president of engineering at lenaro and lenaro works uh to empower and and drive forward the Army Co system so we got some X1 Elite yeah uh running full Linux yeah full how's the performance so the performance is excellent um you can see we we have a demo here here showing um image recognition we have some demos also showing gameplay uh I'm sure able here can fire those up if we need to and um yeah the performance is is comparable we were just discussing it it's it's up there with the with the apple chips and in similar sorts of uh because it's been uh 3 4 years with the M1 M2 M3 but it hasn't been so easy to run Linux on those right indeed kind of impossible or difficult because ly that's more of a closed ecosystem whereas here we've we've managed to we've worked very closely with uh with with Qualcomm and we've been upstreaming all of the the pieces to make it possible we've been tuning it and and now we have um actual real out of the box laptops running Linux on Snapdragon with um no issues you don't have to go build your own kernel how's the GPU performance GPU performance is excellent um as you can see here we've got real time time object detection so this is actually the the last year last year's uh uh platform basically last year's what sorry last year's qualcom platform so it's uh the older version generation gen 3 or what do you call it uh no I forget I think it was CX CX 8 CX yes this is the uh the xlite um it's so we're focusing on Linux now Windows is something that Qualcomm does uh please introduce yourself okay so I'm uh able able I what you do with this I'm actually the one that worked on bringing up this platform Linux wise uh we managed to do this in like think couple of months so right before the announcement uh we got access to the platform itself we started working on it and uh announcement like uh before before CES January it it was the announcement it was in October I think October yeah yes and uh um yes we had the full Debian working on it before the announcement and we had all the patches ready to go for the Linux cannel obviously and uh yes that's how much of the software on this platform could just be ported over or how much do you need to optimize on this new platform so so um the canal itself needs to it's a diff well the drivers are different obviously uh the device ring is different because this cars the hard and then you have uh former stuff that's different obviously because of the platform again everything else should be working out of the box from the uh earlier generation it's the idea with the arm stuff right it's supposed to be uh interoperable and just uh compatible even with new chips that come out but there's so much more performance in here yes to to use so basically this this this supposed to be a competitor with the uh Intel laptops basically and when we're going to have this one out I think uh probably at the end of this year a commercially available one I think Lenovo somebody who I don't know exactly who's going to do one but uh I think it's you you you could probably buy one of these and be better off than a Intel based one because of the power management uh this one is finless so it doesn't have any uh active cooling um yes how good are you going to be compared to the m M1 M2 M3 so again bench benchmarks show it's it's there it's I think it even beats M2 but I'm I don't remember the numbers now but I think it beats M2 I think it's comparable to M3 uh now it depends on what you're looking for if you're looking for single thread or multi thread I think multi thread beats I'm three I think single thread doesn't I don't remember the details now but I think it's somewh it's so fascinating what Apple has been doing last few years and I was always thinking you know the one they can the one way they can make the pro and the Max and everything it's kind of like just putting two chips together or three of of uh like you know and is that a trick is that a way that if you if people might want to do a even more powerful is like you just I don't know they have fast memory between the different kind of like uh you mean the inter connect that they use I don't know the details I think I don't I don't think Qualcomm is doing that as of yet I don't know their plans with that but um to be honest I don't think there is much advantage to that if the so itself if if the the cores itself are are are performant enough you don't need to have an interconnect that's at least that's my take on it I think and this goes to show that exact uh thing so yeah so uh always been since I was in the lenaro connect maybe more than 10 years ago it was always this stuff with all these guys in Laro wanting to work on the arm device right I mean yeah that's what it always been a big thing arm on arm arm on arm right and it's a I mean it's been possible kind of right yes that is now that's possible with with these devices so and I guess a lot of Laro Engineers have MacBooks AR Power some of them do y Engineers are so lots of us are using the this is the this is actually my daily driver you see right here yes it's just a different setup for the demo but yes I'm using this as daily yes and actually I managed to compile a kernel for this one on it on it and I think it got under 9 minutes or something which is I mean comparable with a uh an Intel based one so I guess yeah it should when when when this device is going to be uh commercially available with the the the so basically uh you're you're going to better because there was something about colcom having a exclusive partnership with the um with uh with the Microsoft stuff sometimes I wonder if all these windows on arm will just be allowed to run Linux you know what I mean I think it's I think it's doable yes I think it it depends on the vendor right so colcom is is becoming more friendly with the it's it's there actually we we have so this this one is was was brought like in a couple of months after the announcement of the the the uh thing pad itself we had Linux working on it but I mean it's it's an ongoing process we're still uh working on that stuff so so what's been happening The Last 5 Years let's say with Laro and optimizing the whole ecosystem around something that can work like this yes I think we've we've been working I think more on the end to end and and the than the complete Solutions um if you think about the history of lenaro you know way back when we were much more focused on solving specific technology Pro problems such as just get Linux to work on arm get it to be comparable and now we we've solved a lot of those problems and so that we we've sort of moved into a slightly new phase where we're looking at projects like this which is you know it's it's not about enabling a driver or or or or getting Linux kernel to work it's about getting actual devices end to endend out there and working and and in people's hands and I think that's that's sort of the next phase of of where we go with um driving the arm Eco system forward it's it's it's grown up it's it's much more professional it's much more about um solving the the big Solutions the big problems so I see behind all the logos of the members right and it's often as I understand uh they each contribute the engineering to the open source project but you also kind of like work with the kind of the end product to optimize to make it really really work to make it really really work yeah um yeah and we've you know we obviously we do the the whole um collaborative engineering is is key and and core piece of what we do as is the open source aspect of it but also you know we have um engagements with individual companies so remarkable um we worked with them on on this run um what does this run underne this one is running Linux Linux you say what Linux yeah this one is running Linux so this is a Custom Distribution D on top of Linux and here at Laro we help that company to create that kind of product optimizing Powers uh optimizing and on because many of these devices have been using the Android there different different more optimized ways maybe to yes get things done right but Android Android is really made for I mean mobile phone High hand product here we want it to really C have custom system so it's really optimized power so for example when you are not touching the screen the CPU can go in very low power modes okay this is based on ink technology so this is um the display is raining its states uh even if you are shadowing down all the CPU all the other subsystem in the on the platform so Ultra optimize General system to go low low power and then come up that's the IDE yeah that's the idea and that's what we can do with that kind of technology and display technology so you can you can use use that tablet for days for weeks without having to uh to recharge it so that's awesome and potentially you can have it as a laptop display huh yes there is a actually a a keyboard that exists for it and um and yeah and there is a strong community on on on around that products some people um developing hard because some Engineers right at Laro yeah are getting so many hours on the screen and there's back light even if it's an ref it is it's great to see I mean this is a fantastic product and it's a really fun device to use but yeah as like says there there's a big Community around it of people trying to do even more and trying to trying to make it you know usable as a laptop and uh and and that's that's great to see that Innovation happening within the community what other uh boards and stuff are you showing here the boo okay um so we should talk about about one lap um so here we have okay let me sign let me start so this is um you may have heard of lava which is the really the industry standard for automated testing which linaro created um many many people using it yes yes it's used right across the industry for for testing um here we have based on the lava manage service so this is cloud orchestrated lava testing um and we have developed this beautiful board which is a Leno's own Hardware uh and it's a lava Appliance and this handles all of the uh all of the connectivity and all of the test running for the device under test here um what it means is that instead of spending days months sometimes enabling your board for automation you have this board which takes care of it all so instead of massive test harnesses and pdus and switches and USB connection is you have one board plug it into the ethernet um that can drive your your device under test remotely anywhere in the world so you no longer need to have that in a lab in physically in our lab you can you can take your board we can ship you one of these we plug it in and and it will all work out of the box so that's the that's the sort of the the bottom end the the actual testing infrastructure these are called um nibs this is the the mechanical interface board so that's a very cheap sort of $5 board which goes between the the lover Appliance and the uh and the device under test and does the translation of the headers so that we can drive it um and then at the other end we have we have one lab and and one lab is a a collaboration with with arm and and this is around um automate continuous automated testing of standards so here we're we're testing system ready we're testing PSA and we're testing carc um and as you can see here we're testing the whole software stack so from the far firmware um through the distributions we're testing the security enabled we've got PSA and Parc um we're testing it on multiple distributions and with Cloud native Integrations here we have all of the boards currently under test which are are linked in and tested automatically here so what you can see very quickly is if I pick my board I can look across and say okay I I've got um I've got our own assas board here um it's passing the system ready tests on on V1 it's passing the AWS Green Glass tests Kanto tests um it's running on 37 of Dora so it's not it's not been tested on the latest version it either failed that or it hasn't yet been tested so I can very quickly see the interoperability and know that if I have system ready Rena board I can run it with any of these things out of the box with no problem and it's continuous so the moment I make an update the moment I change my firmware um this is retested and that is a massive useful resource for partners who are looking to use uh and find boards to use and also for those silicon vendors and for the OEM and the odms to make sure that their boards are system ready certified and they stay that way and if there are problems they catch it instantly um and this is this is a a really powerful tool which we're getting a lot of a lot of interest and a lot of people uh are engaging with us we we'll be making some more announcements about that later on how uh how is Laro focus on the different segments in the in the market like how much are you doing into servers right now so servers are really interesting at the moment because we have uh we've spent a lot of time working on server enablement on S spsa V yeah um but service are a reality now that we for a long time we we came to Laro connect and everyone said when are arm service going to actually be viable and and and work and and alls of initiatives big are happening AWS yeah amp AWS are running running graviton um in China the market is massive um and so China which which one do they use over there um so that will probably be the theway the the Kung pangs and and those I think it's about 30% of the server Market in in China is now Arm based so it's crazy um and and it's and it's now again as as I was saying earlier it's kind of grown up so we're moving from enablement to looking at doing this kind of thing for servers and doing this is this is this is focused more on on the edge an automotive world at the moment but no reason you shouldn't have that for service and it's about how do we how do help the mature ecosystem to to run and operate that could be the Amper chip in the lava absolutely or something else yes indeed um so yeah serve as a big automotive and all the big companies are talking about designing their own arm chips Y and maybe they're in the process of doing it or they already have done it like the Google Microsoft every yeah all all the csps that they're doing their own I mean Google Microsoft and Amazon's been doing it for years everyone yeah um so that's that's definitely one way to go and and as a as a big company like that you can see that you you might want to have absolute control over that and you've got the volume and the scale that it makes it worthwhile um obviously smaller companies are not going to be building their own they're going to be going to ampire and and and using their chips or or whoever else would you say Laro is a huge success absolutely because it's like change the whole world yeah no I mean it's I it's really exciting when you look around all the products around here uh our our products are on you know our software is in everything um every Android phone that ships we're the guys who who who build and and and make those kernels and test them with alongside Google um you know every every instance of Linux has got significant amount of lenaro code running in it so um yeah we are as we say we're the we're the software engine of the arm ecosystem uh and we're really excited to be a part of everything that that's going on here I'm even going to say you know like there's amazing stuff Apple has been doing for sure they've been using all the stuff lenaro has been doing and putting in the OS X and the Mac the Mac OS is because open source everybody can use it yeah indeed so it's been used by the Microsoft guys by the Apple guys yeah um and of course we're working with Microsoft as well and windows on home so we're not just Linux these days where we've also been working with with Microsoft and qualcom to what do you do with the Microsoft Windows so we are mainly working on the the enablement of the tools and the software Stacks uh the software packages so we're not working on core Windows that's obviously proprietary um but we've had a big program for the last couple of years with with Microsoft to make sure that all of the open source software works with Windows on arm so that's enabling the tool sets it's it's getting things like Python and uh and and AI work uh AI packages like python working uh and optimized we've been working on Windows per to uh to make sure that developers have a really great experience um and that's uh again windows and arm is is a reality now it's it's been taken very seriously and and they real laptop shipping and and Performing exceptionally well and uh here you have a big team going around talking with all the different uh yeah uh companies here yes we we've got quite a few people here um because we're everywhere and you know we we we we work with with a lot of the companies here so it's a really good opportunity for us to to be here to meet them um and to to network so yeah we we have sah behind there is doing a demonstration oh you want to right dive in and have a look doing uh he will do a lot better than me demonstrating it yeah talking about a bunch of stuff and uh how big is the Laro connect how many people show up to that um I think it's about 600 at the last one I'm not sure how many this year but hopefully it will be larger again this year um and we're really um it's becoming a little bit more of a of an open uh event so we're we're encouraging people who are not necessarily lar members we want to embrace the arm developer ecosystem and and and really bring people from uh from the armed Community together uh to to interact Beyond just sort of the the the membership where is going to be this one uh it'll be in Madrid this year in May uh I forget exactly which which venue but um it's all on the website all right

Channel: Charbax

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Length: 20min 41sec (1241 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 10 2024