[ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu Wireless, was: A Windows Mobile- Ubuntufied?

[Robert McWilliam]

On Mon, Sep 01, 2008 at 02:50:59PM +0100, Javad Ayaz wrote:
> sticking with this topic i want to ask a question...can i install a windows
> app on windows mobile i.e Virtualbox, and then install a ubuntu mobile
> version on that? and do a dual boot ...a bit like my pc..i could boot ubuntu
> of a memory card.....
> 
> Apologies to everyone for repeating the same old question!!
> 

Short answer: no. "Windows mobile" and "Windows XP/Vista" are
completely different code bases. Marketing is what links them. It is a
similar situation to Windows XP vs ubuntu: apps have to have different
calls to interact with the OS. 

There might be x86 emulators for Windows mobile but I doubt they'd
have the performance to run ubuntu as they will have to do full CPU
emulation, which is going to be very slow on an embedded CPU*. It
might be possible to build a virtualisation app that would let you run
ubuntu compiled for the CPU architecture in the device with reasonable
performance but that is likely to be a big undertaking.  

	   Robert

* Don't read clock rates for embedded processors and think performance
  will be comparable to a desktop processor with that clock
  rate. Embedded chips tend to use simpler instructions so you get a
  smaller chunk of work for each clock tick, they have simpler branch
  prediction so are wrong more often, and tend to have less
  parallelism in the hardware to save power. The lower performance is
  to let the battery last more than the few minutes it could power a
  desktop CPU. 

________________________________________________________
Robert McWilliam     rmcw at allmail.net    www.ormiret.com

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of
people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."