In this post, I want to outline my thoughts regarding Intel processors ; and
why the FOSS community ought to distance itself from Intel and move towards ARM
processors.
In my view, FOSS is more a philosophy, and a way of life, and applies to many
other aspects than mere software. Since Intel is part of the "Trusted Computing
Group" which governs the specification of the TCPA; I think it is safe to
assume that Intel has implemented TCPA in all their recent product lines, such
as Haswell an Atom.
ARM Holdings licenses the technology to several dozens of manufacturers;
leading to the tremendous innovations we have seen in mobile devices, SoCs;
SBCs such as Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone; which are unheard of in the Intel or
x86 world.
When Linus Torvalds was approached for introducing changes in the kernel to
parse binaries as part of secure boot process, he reacted violently, and in a
series of mailing list postings; lucidly explained the true meaning of
'security' and 'trust'.
A college in Coimbatore has implemented Linux in about 650 out of 700 PCs. But
still they are all Intel PCs. Now that the Raspberry Pi is a fairly decent PC
capable of running 'Linux'; it's only drawback is slow GUI performance. I have
searched in vain for readily available low cost ARM PCs or Server systems,
capable of running Linux (not Android). If any one has any links to share, it
would be useful to the community.
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html ;
http://www.cs.umd.edu/~waa/TCPA/TCPA-goodnbad.html ;