Hi there, I've tried to google and search high and low in regards to virtualization on the 770 and n800 but to no avail, henceforth this post.

I've been doing some wishful thinking on paper. Since Nokia has designs for their two products and seemingly not "updating" the 770 OS/software any time soon because of the hardware differences between the 770 and its successor, why not rebuild the entire OS from scratch with the mindset of a universal container with add-on patches for drivers that utilizes current hardware and be future-proof?

For example, let's take a look at VMware's ESX design. They have specifically dedicated server hardware to capsulate individual VM sessions, having multiple instances utilizing the same hardware resource (cpu, ram, video, network, etc). If you change processor's, add ram, change video/nic/raid, it wouldn't matter much because the host layer would have the drivers neccesary to handle the communication between the physical hardware layer and the VM session. It would not harm the VM in any way because the VM's have their very own virtual hardware video/nic/sound/etc drivers.

Now with this in mind, what's there to say that Nokia cannot do the same with the 770, n800, and future handsets?

The foundation of the internet tablet is basically a computer with an OS. The universal components are that of a cpu, ram, storage medium, wifi, bluetooth, and touchscreen. What differentiates each model release is the components used; be they a faster cpu, more memory, better video, faster wifi, newer bluetooth stack, etc.

Instead of concentrating on the hardware limitations, they should create a host layer to handle virtualization and keep the ITOS infrastructure in a universal container. This way, anything inside the VM's (which the end user would be using on a daily basis) wouldn't be affected much, but in effect, would solve compatibility problems between the past, present, and future handsets.

I believe that if Nokia and VMWare (or some other company/community/group experienced with virtualization technology) can somehow create an ESX-like layer on their current 770 and n800 models, this would solve quite a many problems in regards to hardware issues (or it may open a brand new door to many headaches).

Thoughts?

I'm surprised you didn't find anything on this subject. Try searching on "hardware abstraction". I can't speak to all of your specifics, but Nokia has acnowledged the importance of this topic.

I did the search on "hardware abstraction" and read up on certain hardware limitations and minimum requirements to run certain codecs and such. Perhaps I'm going on explaining this in a misunderstood way.

Let's try this; think nVidia drivers. All-in-one package design for entire family productline. It includes code/libraries used across all family lines. If the feature of the hardware exists, then it's utilized/turned on/toggle-able. If the specific feature does not exist, then that particular code/library is not installed.

With this in mind, the analogy can be compared to keeping all core software package dependencies from 770 to n800 and beyond universal in the ITOS container. If there's a need, or a call, or existance for performance enhancement from something 770 cannot handle and yet the n800 and beyond can, then apply a patch over to the 'newer' units so that everything can function better.

Rather than put the 770 on the back burner, I believe they should concentrate on all the similiarities the 770, n800, and beyond and create a universal container first, then think of performance enhancements thereafter. Not for eternity, but for a good enough lifespan or market pricepoint when people can 'move on' (be it because of pricing of the current market units, availability of the unit, or obsoletion of the unit such that it's 'time' to move on).

That's the underlying principle of linux, isn't it? Small simple kernel; finds all the similarities between OS's, keeps it in a container. Then whatever else is required to make it function and 'work' like it's suppose to, just install packages. Albeit on a OS/kernel level, across platforms (x86, sparc, powerpc, arm, etc architecture), but thereafter, it's the software applications that ties everything together (chat protocols, browser protocols, file management, file transfer protocols, etc).

[tangent]mmm... then again, perhaps it's all in the GUI. Like Apple, no matter how many OS changes with the different underlying code and hardware, each revision of an Apple product has the same GUI interface that people can be familiar with. Don't care anything about the backend nitty grity, just turn on and it works (Well, most of the time anyway). [/tangent]

Very interesting idea!
In my experience, virtualization reduces performance. On the 770's underpowered hardware, I would complain about even a minor performance loss.

The software should be developed for all devices, not just the newest one. For example, MPlayer contains a fair amount of device specific code yet is easily compiled for either device.

well, i think that with such a small portable device, nokia can't afford to put in more powerful chips that are power-hungry. my guess is that maybe we can push the arm arch up to maybe 600-800mhz, but nothing substantial enough to allow say, 800x480 h.264 decoding - even the mp3 codec is hardware based, so i think that once we hit the arm proc limit, nokia will probably add on hardware support codec support for formats like h.264 (imagine h.264 video conferencing!) or a chip for basic opengl support (it's all in the gui =P )

also, VMs on anything but top notch hardware usually results in a lot of performance degredation, esp. if you try to emulate hardware features in software (and esp. esp. when your software is running on a slow proc)

as much as i would like to see compatability of software between 770 and n800, i don't think it will happen because it's not cost effective for nokia