Comment by 999900000999
2 months ago
I don't have much faith in Arm Linux. Tuxedo gave up.
Cheap Windows Arm laptops are flooding the market, if someone can pick ONE laptop to support they could easily buy them on sale , refurbished them with Linux and make a profit.
Looks likes their are some challenges with doing this.
Do you mean "desktop arm linux"? Because AWS, Google, and others all run Linux on their arm servers and that market segment is only growing.
I've been running ARM VM's on my M1 MBP for the last few years, and outside of the very beginning, it's been pretty smooth sailing.
Valve is gonna save the day once again.
I was about to comment to say that unless Valve is prepared to invest significant effort into an x86 -> ARM translation layer that's not going to happen but a quick search for "linux x86 to arm translation" led me to an XDA article[1] proving me wrong. The recently announced Steam Frame runs on ARM and can run x86 games directly using using something called FEX.
Now we just need to be as good as (or better than) Apple's Rosetta.
[1] https://www.xda-developers.com/arm-translation-layer-steam-f...
From yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46126446
Apple Silicon actually has microarchitectural quirks implementing certain x86-isms in hardware for Rosetta 2 to use. I doubt any other ARM SoC would do such a thing, so I doubt third-party translation will ever get quite as efficient.
Running Windows stuff.....
I don't use Windows but I do run a lot of software made only for Windows. I don't see any problem with that.
5 replies →
I quite prefer that to the alternative of not running Windows stuff.
3 replies →
Isn't Valve's new VR headset running ARM?
I have faith!
1 reply →
They probably gave up on their Snapdragon X efforts as Snapdragon X2 Elite was nipping at their heels and they'd have a redundant device by the time their efforts came to market.
Valve seems to be putting a lot of resources into this area for their Steam Frame
> I don't have much faith in Arm Linux. Tuxedo gave up.
I was also slowly loosing hope, although I do still run some NixOS ARM Raspberry PIs. But with the recent Valve backing, I'm back on the train again, and eagerly awaiting the slow but steady improvements, and figuring out where I can contribute back.
Supposedly the ARM ThinkPads are alright on Linux.
Not really. The drivers are not upstream, so it only works well on specially made Ubuntu spins that carry out of tree patches and random binary blobs. It is really still quite a mess at the moment.
> It is really still quite a mess at the moment.
Integration, testing, and support are all expensive. Right or wrong, that's a reason why if a laptop "just works" (like a Mac, Windows Thinkpad, or a Chromebook), it probably has proprietary binaries.
Also, if you aren't paying for the OS (via the hardware it's coupled with), you can't expect the OS to have the benefits of tight hardware integration.
Even Framework laptops use proprietary boot firmware, and they've been pretty clear that they only provide support for Ubuntu and Fedora, not the alphabet soup of other Linux desktop distros.
2 replies →
We run a handful of Linux workloads on Graviton without any issues.
Honestly, I don't have much faith in Linux anymore, and it has everything to do with the explosion of the kernel's codebase due to the explosion of cheaper devices running linux and the (admittedly difficult) management issues surrounding the kernel. I feel like from a security perspective, macos is a better choice and that pains me as a long time linux user.
Can we please move on to microkernels already? I'm fine with a tiny performance hit, I just don't want to get rooted because I plugged in the wrong USB stick.
You can use microkernels whenever you want. Just be aware that they typically have the same issues with zombie/cruft code and aren't necessarily more secure for every application.
I think the point is that even drivers could be non-trusted and live outside of the kernel and just provide the exact service required with minimal access.
That said, why do we still need drivers in 2025? Most regular printers should be dumb, U-MASS should be dumb, webcams should be dumb, monitors are dumb, etc... very few devices coming really needs custom drivers anymore (even with many customizations we could provide class specific descriptors that drivers could adhere to).
If you don't want to go macOS route and want to leave Linux world, your destination would be FreeBSD or OpenBSD.
On the other hand, if you're not running Wine, you can't get autorun virii from USB drives, plus the Windows virii just lives there and can't do anything.
What about plan9? ;)
1 reply →
I want a 4TB SSD.
To do that on a MacBook I'm spending a minimum of 3200$.
If you have unlimited money ( or can expense it) a 3200$ to 4k MacBook is going to be the best experience money can buy.
If you have limited funds, a 200$ used computer can get the job done with the right distro.