13 ms·

What is wrong with all those AArch64 desktops?

90 points by djsumdog 7y ago

timthorn 7y ago
Don't be afraid to get in touch with Avantek to ask what you need to know. They're very friendly, in my experience.
selimnairb 7y ago
Just wait until Apple releases a Mac mini powered by an A-series CPU. If I had to bet, I’d say this will be the first Arm Mac they will release. This way developers can easily buy one for porting their apps before A-series-based MacBooks are released.
- jdswain 7y ago
  Which would look a lot like an Apple TV but running macOS.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 7y ago
    So, the first Apple TV, then.
  - OrangeMango 7y ago
    The Apple TV is more or less an iPad. It already supports bluetooth keyboards and other accessories, so you could really say that Apple already has an ARM desktop Mac, it just needs more user software.
- ken 7y ago
  I find it interesting that every Apple CPU transition has started at the top, but everyone and their dog seems to know that ARM will happen and this time start at the bottom. Apple rumors are half prediction and half wish. I don’t disagree with your wish (10 year old performance is fine for me) but it’s really not Apple’s MO. They aren’t going to release a new pro workstation and then turn around and make cheap low-end hardware aimed at developers.
- AndrewStephens 7y ago
  I am going to go out on a very short limb and predict that Apple does no such thing in the foreseeable future, say 3 or 4 years. In the past, Apple has only transitioned to a new architecture once it was so powerful that it could easily emulate older hardware. Apple doesn't care about backwards compatibility as much as Microsoft on desktops but even they cannot release a new desktop/laptop that doesn't run existing software. Although ARM processors are fast in certain benchmarks, they cannot compete with x86 for performance and certainly cannot emulate the instruction set at a speed users would find acceptable. ARM makes great sense for low power devices and _maybe_ servers. Apple already makes tons of the former and seems uninterested in the later.
  - runjake 7y ago
    Apple is (gradually) transitioning to ARM as we speak, right before our very eyes: the T2 chip and Bitcode. The A-series chips in the iPhone and iPad seem to compare pretty favorable to Intel processors in the low to mid end. Now imagine a version of the A-series processor with more space, thermal headroom, and cores.
    - ksec 7y ago
      >the T2 chip and Bitcode. BitCode is iOS only.
      - runjake 7y ago
        There's a plan for that. https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20190518-Translating-an-ARM-iOS-App-to-Intel-macOS-Using-Bitcode https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20190518-Translatin...
        saagarjha 7y ago
        That article is overly optimistic and only works for the very specific, tailored example application. However, Bitcode is essentially repackaged LLVM IR so it's not hard to see it coming to macOS.
- terhechte 7y ago
  If I were to bet, I'd bet on the reappearance of the 12" Macbook with a ARM processor as the "Macbook Mini"
  - sam_lowry_ 7y ago
    Something like Samsung xe303c12?
  - twoodfin 7y ago
    My guess is a developer-focused supercar of a Macbook. 16 cores, FaceID, maybe OLED? Jet black, announced for preorder at WWDC. They wouldn’t be able to make enough, and now a boring, disruptive CPU transition is sexy. There have been some weird rumors out of Asia about a Mac “gaming laptop” that could easily be misinterpreting a product like this. Also, I think folks ITT are overestimating the difficulty of acceptable performance binary translation (not direct emulation) of x64->AArch64, especially when Apple controls and has experts at every level of the stack. 32-bit apps weren’t de-supported this year just to save some memory.
- leonidasv 7y ago
  But Apple's CPUs are so powerful because they have lots and lots of cache compared to most ARM SoCs. I'm not saying they can't release a Mac with ARM under the hood (they probably will), but I don't see it setting a trend for ARM desktops elsewhere. Apple can use a lot of cache in their CPU designs because they can charge a lot for their hardware (L1/L2 cache is very expensive). But the rest of the market can't since they're mostly selling commodity hardware — with commodity chips — and price is a very sensitive point there. So Apple could in theory make and sell plenty of Premium ARM laptops with performant x86 compatibility for older software while being fast and cool for native apps while the Windows/Linux competitors will be still lagging way behind with a poor user experience.
pcwalton 7y ago
Without mention of Apple's plans for MacBooks, I don't buy this doom-and-gloom prediction. Remember that everyone thought AArch64 was DOA right up until Apple released an iPhone using it, and then all the other manufacturers instantly followed suit. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is the first to release a mainstream AArch64 desktop/laptop, and then everyone else follows them.
- loeg 7y ago
  It's vaporware until it exists. Sure, Apple seems to have the strongest ARM CPU at this time. It remains to be seen if they can single-handedly create an entire arm64 PC ecosystem.
  - fmajid 7y ago
    I suspect they'd start with their server farms, just as Amazon is doing with its own ARM AWS instances based on the Graviton SOC it bought when it acquired Annapurna. Amazon is on record saying they are going to migrate their internal services like ELB over to ARM.
joecool1029 7y ago
I'm trialing using AArch64 for desktop use. I bought a Raspberry Pi 4 4GB desktop kit awhile back and it sucked in the beginning. So I did what most people do with their pi; that is to leave it unused and unplugged like a Nintendo Wii. Finally after the firmware fixes came about to improve cooling a few months ago and it was advised to just run the thing set up on its side, I decided to revisit running a 'desktop' on it. Raspbian, as most people know, is 32-bit and the idea is you can plug the microsd card it into any model of pi ever made and it'll run. This sucks for performance and you can't run a version of firefox made the past few years. Chromium isn't an option on a 4GB ram system, it's just not. I eventually settled on using sakaki's gentoo pi64 build and it was fairly painless to get running. Unfortunately, she hasn't kept the build up to date and there's a lot of weird customization she performed to get things running in the early days. Anyways aside from having it run some compiles overnight and finding a new binhost to pull prebuilt stuff from, it runs pretty well. Actually better than my Intel Atom powered GPD Pocket (as it does not throttle ever). All the hardware works, and I've had no video issues since switching to the 5.4 kernel. It checks most of the boxes that OP asked for aside from the RAM being limited to 4GB. Unlike more powerful options on the market, it's got a wide release and a low price point so developers will be working on it. So yeah, there's your AArch64 desktop you can buy today that everything works on for around $50. If you want to improve performance a bit more for IO, there's SSD/nvme adapters for it, and while I'm unsure about hooking into pci-e, the device has it... Oh, and the audio thing is dumb as hell to complain about. Just output the audio through HDMI to your receiver and call it a day. What's the big friggin deal that the desktop lacks a 7.1 analog output. If you want high quality headphone audio, USB audio is practically plug and play on any OS these days. I don't get it.
- kick 7y ago
  What happens if you enable zram? That would probably help the limited RAM situation pretty strongly.
  - joecool1029 7y ago
    I don't know, probably adds to my CPU overhead a little and I don't feel like doing that. Not using chromium or electron apps helps my RAM situation pretty strongly. The only time I run OOM is if the pi is doing on-device compiling with too many threads. I run a modest 8-12 firefox tabs. Usually just over half the ram is utilized throughout the day.
cesarb 7y ago
The author's description of what is a "desktop system" sounded a lot like a "no true Scotsman" to me. I've had several desktop systems that didn't meet all of the author's criteria - in fact, I've had desktop systems that met none of these criteria. And these systems did meet what most people would consider to be "desktop systems": box shaped, designed to be put over or under the desk, tethered (no built-in battery other than the RTC battery), internally expansible (not all-in-ones or NUCs), with a x86-32 or x86-64 processor, and booting with traditional BIOS and/or UEFI.
- hootbootscoot 7y ago
  indeed. onboard audio is questionable in quality typically anyway, being some strange monstrosity (ac97 lol... intel-hd-anything)
- wyldfire 7y ago
  That just means that he used a poor term or didn't qualify it. Ultimately those features are the desired ones. So that's what they are looking for, regardless of what it's called.
- wolrah 7y ago
  I disagree, the author's description matches the majority of x86 motherboards in production, and if you were to wander in to a random computer store and ask for a standard desktop PC you'd be led to an array of machines that met all of those requirements. If it's not "small form factor" it almost certainly checks all the boxes. I agree with the author, what AArch64 (or any alternative architecture) really needs to be taken seriously for more than "toy" or "appliance" type use cases is a real desktop board that an interested party could swap in place of the motherboard of one of their old PCs without having to invest in a pile of adapters. To me, that means the following: * Standard ATX or MicroATX formfactor * Standard ATX power input * At least two standard DIMM or SODIMM slots, preferably four * At least 32 lanes of PCIe 3.0 or greater, exposed as at least one x16 and one x4 slot plus one x4 M.2, leaving eight lanes for onboard accessories or more slots as desired * At least two SATA channels, preferably four * At least one copper gigabit ethernet interface * At least six USB 3.0 ports, preferably more and faster. * Onboard audio sufficient for watching Youtube or participating in a VoIP/videoconference call. Since I'm pretty sure that providing video from power on rather than after the OS loads requires support in the video card itself, onboard video of some sort is probably also a requirement for now as well. Specifics don't matter, but it should be able to handle an accelerated desktop and video decoding.
tyoma 7y ago
Desktop and workstations will be the last place to find non-x86 chips. Power use doesn’t matter, and critical consumer applications and raw performance are a must. Its much more exciting to see what will happen with laptops and (in cloud) servers.
zamadatix 7y ago
I think the Jetson AGX Xavier is probably a better match out of the box to the requirements than anything listed on that page. The only thing it doesn't meet is the plus on 16+ GB of RAM. For the same price you could get a much better x86 desktop though. - 8 core CPU - 16 GB LPDDR4x - Volta based GPU - Gig ethernet (native) - PCIe x8 (x16 physical slot) - m.2 E key (PCIe wireless or LTE) - m.2 M key (PCIe NVMe SSD) - 2 USB 3.1 - HD audio header - eSATAp through PCie bridge (allows native 2.5" SATA drives) But really there isn't really much reason to use ARM on a desktop outside of needs relating to specifically needing to have ARM.
magicalhippo 7y ago
His list of requirements for a "desktop system" is ok for a developer desktop PC, but for most people it's complete overkill. The RPi4 running Raspbian is just a tad short of being perfectly acceptable for users like my GF. It's just a tad sluggish, so either a bit more streamlining of the platform, or a bit beefier CPU and GPU and it would be just fine for her.
- zamadatix 7y ago
  The lack of quality storage interfaces is a killer too. Pi 4's still eat SD cards and even when they don't it's not exactly speedy. USB to mSATA/m.2 SATA adapters provide a step up but it's still quirky and you still need a functioning SD card to boot to it with the current firmware.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    Needing an SD card to boot is especially annoying because the pi 3 did have the ability to boot from USB and I think network with no SD card present. EDIT: To be clear, non-SD boot on the pi 4 "will be added in the future via optional bootloader updates"[0], so hopefully this is a temporary complaint. [0] https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/booteeprom.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...
    - T3OU-736 7y ago
      Not for everyone's setup, but network booting the Pi's is an option [1]. Probably not wireless, but it may be something. Bonus points for the instructions using a Pi as a server for this setup. [1] https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/net_tutorial.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...
      - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
        That's for pi 3; I don't think it works on 4 (yet)
Koshkin 7y ago
Looks like Odroid N2 is as close as it gets to an AArch64 desktop. (Still not a true Scotsman though.)
- reggieband 7y ago
  I've recently been recommended YouTube videos by ExplainingComputers and that channel introduced me to the new breed of SBC (single-board computers) including the Odroid. One of the more recent videos is for the Khadas VIM3 [1] which was a very interesting ARM based SBC. I am blown away these days by the power of these cheap and small boards. I just don't have any use for them right now and I know I would tinker with them for a few days then they would end up in a drawer collecting dust. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryTykjUbJIs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryTykjUbJIs
TD-Linux 7y ago
If you want a non-x86 desktop, but not AArch64 in particular, I'd recommend looking at the Talos POWER9 systems instead. I have a Talos II Lite, and my only two complaints (less pcie slots with only a single socket, and no built in sata) were solved with their new Blackbird motherboard. It's gotten closer to the desktop experience than any AArch64 computer I've tried, and in some ways it's even better (petitboot is awesome).
- Koshkin 7y ago
  But in all fairness, why would anyone just "want a non-x86 desktop" (as in: "anything but x86"). Doesn't make sense to me...
  - hootbootscoot 7y ago
    maybe you detest x86 and love aarch64. it's like cars. i dunno...why do you need to understand it for it to be a "thing" that exists in the world outside of your head?
    - hootbootscoot 7y ago
      it's the 64bit leap from the acorn risc machine, for crying out loud, it's its own goal, wantable for it's own sake. pity that riscos will never be 64bit lol
      - qubex 7y ago
        Precisely: I want to do it because it’ll be interesting, the same reason I had a BeBox in the mid nineties and a Plan9 network in the 2000s.
  - Symmetry 7y ago
    It can be useful to test code that's supposed to be portable on a system with a weaker than x86 memory model. And a self-synchronizing instruction stream can be a security advantage and a fixed instruction width means Power and AArch64 are trivially self-synchronizing. And really just not having the dominant ISA is a pretty big security advantage in some cases. I'm pretty sure that neither of those is a huge deal for most people but I can see wanting it.
sam_lowry_ 7y ago
On a related note, I just got my Pine64 Pinebook Pro, and it's much better than my beloved Samsung xe303c12 in all apects. Lightweight, FHD screen resolution. No need to fiddle with the OS.
- fmajid 7y ago
  I'm still waiting for mine, it seems like the most viable option for someone who wants to develop for armv8 Linux. I had the original PineBook and found it disappointing, how would the PineBook compare to, say, a MacBook Air?
  - sam_lowry_ 7y ago
    Screen bleeding is an issue. Otherwise, a great small laptop.
zmix 7y ago
Why would one want an ARM desktop system (except if (s)he is an ARM developer)? For my desktop I want as much power as money permits. And the most important thing is ergonomy, since I rather invest into my eyes and wrists than into the silicon.
- watchdogtimer 7y ago
  I use a pedal-powered computer. For me, every watt counts. My desktop system is a NanoPi M4 and a 16" Sceptre monitor. The combined system draws a total of about 6.5 W. Granted, there are some laptops that come near that level of power consumption. I simply like the form factor of a desktop PC.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    > I use a pedal-powered computer. Does it suddenly shut down if you stop pedaling?!
  - danbolt 7y ago
    That sounds really interesting. Would you have more information on such a setup?
- Koshkin 7y ago
  I do not believe even "ARM developers" use ARM-based desktops.
  - cameron_b 7y ago
    I think that the main argument here is that there isn't a developer desktop machine that fits the HEDT slot for ARM. There is the Raspi / Odroid / Pine64 tinkerer scale, and the ThunderX2 scale, but nowhere in the middle. I think the Gigabyte ThunderX Station is being marketed in some channels, like the main page of this site: https://www.phoenicselectronics.com https://www.phoenicselectronics.com The new Fujitsu venture Socionext does sell stuff, but like everyone has said, they're interested in doing design-build for your factory robot controller or your edge supercomputer. But they do sell a box: http://www.socionext.com/en/products/assp/SynQuacer/Edge/ http://www.socionext.com/en/products/assp/SynQuacer/Edge/ It just isn't marketed as a GP /HEDT box because that isn't their market
ohazi 7y ago
We don't have AArch64 desktops because it's not possible to build an AArch64 motherboard. There are no standard sockets -- and every ARM vendor starts their system using a proprietary, inscrutable Rube Goldberg machine. On the Raspberry Pi, the GPU starts the processor for crying out loud.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  Wouldn't it be better to start from the server side? IIRC they at least have UEFI over there.
- leeter 7y ago
  It is actually, but it requires AMD or Intel to care. AMD could easily make an AArch64 CPU that is x570 compatible, it would require a BIOS update for sure but they could do it. There is nothing Physically stopping them from making a CPU with all the interconnect bits needed and a ton of AArch64 cores... other than there is really no fiscal incentive to do it.
  - IntelMiner 7y ago
    AMD did (briefly) sell ARM64 chips, the Optero A1100, aka "AMD Seattle" CPU - 4 or 8 Cortex-A57 cores at 1.7 or 2Ghz - support for up to 128 gig of either DDR3 or DDR4 memory - 14 SATA 3 ports - 2 10GbE ethernet ports - 8x PCI-E 3.0 (EDIT: Fixed formatting, sorry!)
    - cameron_b 7y ago
      I regret not getting one of these when SoftIron was selling theirs
- djsumdog 7y ago
  I made this same complaint about Android/ARM a while back[1]. ARM is just random shit soldered to random pins. I wish Microsoft would open source all the drivers to their dead phone line, since at least that had ARM+UEFI. I suppose there's DeviceTree but .. honestly that's just laughable and I've seen very few boards even release a correctly configured/working device tree. [1]: https://battlepenguin.com/tech/android-fragmentation/ https://battlepenguin.com/tech/android-fragmentation/
bhouston 7y ago
Raspberry PI 4 runs with 1 4k monitor pretty well and has audio and you can attach peripherals. It is desktop like. Arm desktops are just single board computers. Why? Because that is all you need. If you want to assemble overprice parts yourself to get marginal benefits stick with x86. The truth is the market for desktops even in the x86 market has shrunk considerably because there are few benefits except if you are rendering and even then you should be using cloud compute in that case.
- Jonnax 7y ago
  If I'm rendering, I should use cloud computing? Like an artist is supposed to use a remote desktop to do 3D modelling? Or an engineer doing CAD? Or a video editor creating 4k video? There are a lot of professionals that need powerful computers. Not everyone just needs a text editor to write their SaaS application.
  - jdietrich 7y ago
    >If I'm rendering, I should use cloud computing? Like an artist is supposed to use a remote desktop to do 3D modelling? Or an engineer doing CAD? Or a video editor creating 4k video? Yes. High-end workstations are effectively obsolete for professionals rather than prosumers, it's just taking some IT departments a while to catch on. All those workloads are highly bursty and involve substantial collaboration, which makes virtualization a natural fit. I haven't tested and wouldn't necessarily recommend a Raspberry Pi as a client terminal, but it just doesn't make sense any more to put a really powerful machine under everyone's desk rather than having a rackload of servers as a pooled resource. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/quadro-vdws/ https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/quadro-vdw...
Jonnax 7y ago
I had some representatives from ARM and NXP come and give a demo of some ARM boxes. Now these were in the context of white box customer premises networking equipment, but what I found quite interesting was that these machines all supported UEFI. There's certainly an effect to have some standardisation for ARM machines. But who knows when it'll get to the desktop.
- cameron_b 7y ago
  Yea I think the model here (especially since the article seems to really be conflating "desktop" with "High end desktop" especially in terms of the Arm ecosystem ), will be that we do see these features developed from the server side first, and then given the "content creator" treatment. I don't think that this is bad as the article implies. Rocking the top of the HEDT market is good for magazine covers, but it isn't exactly where the profits are. Filling datacenters will fund the work that we're interested in -- namely the robust, expandable, systems that have the muscle and the mainstream features that make for a cushy desktop experience. But also, Aren't we still complaining about linux on the desktop?
  - blattimwind 7y ago
    > and then given the "content creator" treatment Content creation is done almost exclusively through proprietary software that's heavily optimized for a given platform, so this would be one of the worst markets to tackle first with an architecture change.
- knownunown 7y ago
  UEFI seems pretty prevalent with AArch64 in general -- pretty much all recent Qualcomm Android devices do UEFI boot.
tomc1985 7y ago
Every time I've tried to run AArch64 like a desktop (mostly via ODROIDs), it's been an exercise in misery. Endless tweaking, and almost always an important service, like 3D graphics or audio, doesn't work. Last I checked the driver situation there is just lacking
- watchdogtimer 7y ago
  Support for the Rockchip RK3399-based boards seems pretty good. Audio and wireless on my NanoPi M4 have worked flawlessly for me. No problem playing YouTube videos, either, even at 1.5x speed. Editing 3D CAD files using Freecad in Debian 10 has also worked great. The only things I miss are being able to run the latest versions of some software, which are often compiled only for x86 or MacOS. For instance, I'm currently stuck on Debian's Firefox ESR (currently Firefox 68.4) because Firefox doesn't offer precompiled binaries for AArch64 on Linux.
qwerty456127 7y ago
> 4U rack/tower case sounds clearly like “we know it is server but will try to sell it as a desktop”. No m.2, no audio, no mention about USB ports, no 1GbE network. Isn't every server meant to have a 1GbE port nowadays? Dont most of the servers have m.2? And for PCIe slots - aren't those extensible with raisers? > That system was kind of Frankenstein’s monster. Audio over some USB stereo-only dongle, all USB devices plugged into hubs due to only two ports on mainboard I/O panel. Perhaps one could just put a USB hub and the audio dongle inside the actual case?
- toast0 7y ago
  Maybe some of these have SFP+? 10G only interfaces that need a transceiver. That would be a pain in a home setup.
  - qwerty456127 7y ago
    Perhaps. But I haven't actually seen servers with SFP+ 10G on-board. All the servers we buy have a classic 1GbE RJ-45 built-in and we extend them with SFP+ 10G PCIe adapters when needed.
    - haerwu 7y ago
      AArch64 servers tend to have 10G (or faster) SFP+ ports rather than 1GbE.
anfilt 7y ago
Honestly, would like to see more RISC-V offerings instead of 64bit arm. Although the ISA is still relatively new. Also some the extensions like bit manip are not finalized. However, the base instructions are.
- solarkraft 7y ago
  I'd love to have a RISC-V tablet one day, but think ARM will be an intermediate step, which will, through gained experience and already built infrastructure, ease the second switch of ISA.
  - anfilt 7y ago
    Like on the open source side things, it's already possible to run a RISC-V desktop. Problem is no cheap hardware outside some expensive dev boards. https://abopen.com/news/building-a-risc-v-pc/ https://abopen.com/news/building-a-risc-v-pc/ Also that thing does not have up-gradable RAM, but you do have PCI-E.
ChuckMcM 7y ago
Sigh, no definition of what a "desktop" would be. That would be a start. Does it have to have "on board audio" ? All my early desktops up through the Pentium 3 used an add in card (typically a Soundblaster) to provide audio. So why make it the "requirement" for a desktop? Graphics? All graphics were "plug in" in early desktops until transistors got so cheap you could throw one into the southbridge for "free." The list goes on. It would a much better exercise to create a systems design document for what an AArch64 desktop should have, required, extras, and nice to have. Start there and work forward, not at a full fledged PC desktop with 30 years of evolution behind it and start there.
- haerwu 7y ago
  Extra PCIe x1 slot on mainboard would be fine instead of on-board audio.
qubex 7y ago
I really wish somebody would produce a single-board system with a Qualcomm 865 or 8cx processor, NVM support, and PCIe.
LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
No OpenFirmware? No good!

90 points by djsumdog 7y ago

Don't be afraid to get in touch with Avantek to ask what you need to know. They're very friendly, in my experience.

Just wait until Apple releases a Mac mini powered by an A-series CPU. If I had to bet, I’d say this will be the first Arm Mac they will release. This way developers can easily buy one for porting their apps before A-series-based MacBooks are released.

jdswain 7y ago
Which would look a lot like an Apple TV but running macOS.
- ThePowerOfFuet 7y ago
  So, the first Apple TV, then.
- OrangeMango 7y ago
  The Apple TV is more or less an iPad. It already supports bluetooth keyboards and other accessories, so you could really say that Apple already has an ARM desktop Mac, it just needs more user software.
ken 7y ago
I find it interesting that every Apple CPU transition has started at the top, but everyone and their dog seems to know that ARM will happen and this time start at the bottom. Apple rumors are half prediction and half wish. I don’t disagree with your wish (10 year old performance is fine for me) but it’s really not Apple’s MO. They aren’t going to release a new pro workstation and then turn around and make cheap low-end hardware aimed at developers.
AndrewStephens 7y ago
I am going to go out on a very short limb and predict that Apple does no such thing in the foreseeable future, say 3 or 4 years. In the past, Apple has only transitioned to a new architecture once it was so powerful that it could easily emulate older hardware. Apple doesn't care about backwards compatibility as much as Microsoft on desktops but even they cannot release a new desktop/laptop that doesn't run existing software. Although ARM processors are fast in certain benchmarks, they cannot compete with x86 for performance and certainly cannot emulate the instruction set at a speed users would find acceptable. ARM makes great sense for low power devices and _maybe_ servers. Apple already makes tons of the former and seems uninterested in the later.
- runjake 7y ago
  Apple is (gradually) transitioning to ARM as we speak, right before our very eyes: the T2 chip and Bitcode. The A-series chips in the iPhone and iPad seem to compare pretty favorable to Intel processors in the low to mid end. Now imagine a version of the A-series processor with more space, thermal headroom, and cores.
  - ksec 7y ago
    >the T2 chip and Bitcode. BitCode is iOS only.
    - runjake 7y ago
      There's a plan for that. https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20190518-Translating-an-ARM-iOS-App-to-Intel-macOS-Using-Bitcode https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20190518-Translatin...
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        That article is overly optimistic and only works for the very specific, tailored example application. However, Bitcode is essentially repackaged LLVM IR so it's not hard to see it coming to macOS.
terhechte 7y ago
If I were to bet, I'd bet on the reappearance of the 12" Macbook with a ARM processor as the "Macbook Mini"
- sam_lowry_ 7y ago
  Something like Samsung xe303c12?
- twoodfin 7y ago
  My guess is a developer-focused supercar of a Macbook. 16 cores, FaceID, maybe OLED? Jet black, announced for preorder at WWDC. They wouldn’t be able to make enough, and now a boring, disruptive CPU transition is sexy. There have been some weird rumors out of Asia about a Mac “gaming laptop” that could easily be misinterpreting a product like this. Also, I think folks ITT are overestimating the difficulty of acceptable performance binary translation (not direct emulation) of x64->AArch64, especially when Apple controls and has experts at every level of the stack. 32-bit apps weren’t de-supported this year just to save some memory.
leonidasv 7y ago
But Apple's CPUs are so powerful because they have lots and lots of cache compared to most ARM SoCs. I'm not saying they can't release a Mac with ARM under the hood (they probably will), but I don't see it setting a trend for ARM desktops elsewhere. Apple can use a lot of cache in their CPU designs because they can charge a lot for their hardware (L1/L2 cache is very expensive). But the rest of the market can't since they're mostly selling commodity hardware — with commodity chips — and price is a very sensitive point there. So Apple could in theory make and sell plenty of Premium ARM laptops with performant x86 compatibility for older software while being fast and cool for native apps while the Windows/Linux competitors will be still lagging way behind with a poor user experience.

pcwalton 7y ago

Without mention of Apple's plans for MacBooks, I don't buy this doom-and-gloom prediction. Remember that everyone thought AArch64 was DOA right up until Apple released an iPhone using it, and then all the other manufacturers instantly followed suit. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is the first to release a mainstream AArch64 desktop/laptop, and then everyone else follows them.

loeg 7y ago
It's vaporware until it exists. Sure, Apple seems to have the strongest ARM CPU at this time. It remains to be seen if they can single-handedly create an entire arm64 PC ecosystem.
- fmajid 7y ago
  I suspect they'd start with their server farms, just as Amazon is doing with its own ARM AWS instances based on the Graviton SOC it bought when it acquired Annapurna. Amazon is on record saying they are going to migrate their internal services like ELB over to ARM.

joecool1029 7y ago

I'm trialing using AArch64 for desktop use. I bought a Raspberry Pi 4 4GB desktop kit awhile back and it sucked in the beginning. So I did what most people do with their pi; that is to leave it unused and unplugged like a Nintendo Wii. Finally after the firmware fixes came about to improve cooling a few months ago and it was advised to just run the thing set up on its side, I decided to revisit running a 'desktop' on it. Raspbian, as most people know, is 32-bit and the idea is you can plug the microsd card it into any model of pi ever made and it'll run. This sucks for performance and you can't run a version of firefox made the past few years. Chromium isn't an option on a 4GB ram system, it's just not. I eventually settled on using sakaki's gentoo pi64 build and it was fairly painless to get running. Unfortunately, she hasn't kept the build up to date and there's a lot of weird customization she performed to get things running in the early days. Anyways aside from having it run some compiles overnight and finding a new binhost to pull prebuilt stuff from, it runs pretty well. Actually better than my Intel Atom powered GPD Pocket (as it does not throttle ever). All the hardware works, and I've had no video issues since switching to the 5.4 kernel. It checks most of the boxes that OP asked for aside from the RAM being limited to 4GB. Unlike more powerful options on the market, it's got a wide release and a low price point so developers will be working on it. So yeah, there's your AArch64 desktop you can buy today that everything works on for around $50. If you want to improve performance a bit more for IO, there's SSD/nvme adapters for it, and while I'm unsure about hooking into pci-e, the device has it... Oh, and the audio thing is dumb as hell to complain about. Just output the audio through HDMI to your receiver and call it a day. What's the big friggin deal that the desktop lacks a 7.1 analog output. If you want high quality headphone audio, USB audio is practically plug and play on any OS these days. I don't get it.

kick 7y ago
What happens if you enable zram? That would probably help the limited RAM situation pretty strongly.
- joecool1029 7y ago
  I don't know, probably adds to my CPU overhead a little and I don't feel like doing that. Not using chromium or electron apps helps my RAM situation pretty strongly. The only time I run OOM is if the pi is doing on-device compiling with too many threads. I run a modest 8-12 firefox tabs. Usually just over half the ram is utilized throughout the day.

cesarb 7y ago

The author's description of what is a "desktop system" sounded a lot like a "no true Scotsman" to me. I've had several desktop systems that didn't meet all of the author's criteria - in fact, I've had desktop systems that met none of these criteria. And these systems did meet what most people would consider to be "desktop systems": box shaped, designed to be put over or under the desk, tethered (no built-in battery other than the RTC battery), internally expansible (not all-in-ones or NUCs), with a x86-32 or x86-64 processor, and booting with traditional BIOS and/or UEFI.

hootbootscoot 7y ago
indeed. onboard audio is questionable in quality typically anyway, being some strange monstrosity (ac97 lol... intel-hd-anything)
wyldfire 7y ago
That just means that he used a poor term or didn't qualify it. Ultimately those features are the desired ones. So that's what they are looking for, regardless of what it's called.
wolrah 7y ago
I disagree, the author's description matches the majority of x86 motherboards in production, and if you were to wander in to a random computer store and ask for a standard desktop PC you'd be led to an array of machines that met all of those requirements. If it's not "small form factor" it almost certainly checks all the boxes. I agree with the author, what AArch64 (or any alternative architecture) really needs to be taken seriously for more than "toy" or "appliance" type use cases is a real desktop board that an interested party could swap in place of the motherboard of one of their old PCs without having to invest in a pile of adapters. To me, that means the following: * Standard ATX or MicroATX formfactor * Standard ATX power input * At least two standard DIMM or SODIMM slots, preferably four * At least 32 lanes of PCIe 3.0 or greater, exposed as at least one x16 and one x4 slot plus one x4 M.2, leaving eight lanes for onboard accessories or more slots as desired * At least two SATA channels, preferably four * At least one copper gigabit ethernet interface * At least six USB 3.0 ports, preferably more and faster. * Onboard audio sufficient for watching Youtube or participating in a VoIP/videoconference call. Since I'm pretty sure that providing video from power on rather than after the OS loads requires support in the video card itself, onboard video of some sort is probably also a requirement for now as well. Specifics don't matter, but it should be able to handle an accelerated desktop and video decoding.

tyoma 7y ago

Desktop and workstations will be the last place to find non-x86 chips. Power use doesn’t matter, and critical consumer applications and raw performance are a must. Its much more exciting to see what will happen with laptops and (in cloud) servers.

zamadatix 7y ago

I think the Jetson AGX Xavier is probably a better match out of the box to the requirements than anything listed on that page. The only thing it doesn't meet is the plus on 16+ GB of RAM. For the same price you could get a much better x86 desktop though. - 8 core CPU - 16 GB LPDDR4x - Volta based GPU - Gig ethernet (native) - PCIe x8 (x16 physical slot) - m.2 E key (PCIe wireless or LTE) - m.2 M key (PCIe NVMe SSD) - 2 USB 3.1 - HD audio header - eSATAp through PCie bridge (allows native 2.5" SATA drives) But really there isn't really much reason to use ARM on a desktop outside of needs relating to specifically needing to have ARM.

magicalhippo 7y ago

His list of requirements for a "desktop system" is ok for a developer desktop PC, but for most people it's complete overkill. The RPi4 running Raspbian is just a tad short of being perfectly acceptable for users like my GF. It's just a tad sluggish, so either a bit more streamlining of the platform, or a bit beefier CPU and GPU and it would be just fine for her.

zamadatix 7y ago
The lack of quality storage interfaces is a killer too. Pi 4's still eat SD cards and even when they don't it's not exactly speedy. USB to mSATA/m.2 SATA adapters provide a step up but it's still quirky and you still need a functioning SD card to boot to it with the current firmware.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  Needing an SD card to boot is especially annoying because the pi 3 did have the ability to boot from USB and I think network with no SD card present. EDIT: To be clear, non-SD boot on the pi 4 "will be added in the future via optional bootloader updates"[0], so hopefully this is a temporary complaint. [0] https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/booteeprom.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...
  - T3OU-736 7y ago
    Not for everyone's setup, but network booting the Pi's is an option [1]. Probably not wireless, but it may be something. Bonus points for the instructions using a Pi as a server for this setup. [1] https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bootmodes/net_tutorial.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...
    - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
      That's for pi 3; I don't think it works on 4 (yet)

Koshkin 7y ago

Looks like Odroid N2 is as close as it gets to an AArch64 desktop. (Still not a true Scotsman though.)

reggieband 7y ago
I've recently been recommended YouTube videos by ExplainingComputers and that channel introduced me to the new breed of SBC (single-board computers) including the Odroid. One of the more recent videos is for the Khadas VIM3 [1] which was a very interesting ARM based SBC. I am blown away these days by the power of these cheap and small boards. I just don't have any use for them right now and I know I would tinker with them for a few days then they would end up in a drawer collecting dust. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryTykjUbJIs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryTykjUbJIs

TD-Linux 7y ago

If you want a non-x86 desktop, but not AArch64 in particular, I'd recommend looking at the Talos POWER9 systems instead. I have a Talos II Lite, and my only two complaints (less pcie slots with only a single socket, and no built in sata) were solved with their new Blackbird motherboard. It's gotten closer to the desktop experience than any AArch64 computer I've tried, and in some ways it's even better (petitboot is awesome).

Koshkin 7y ago
But in all fairness, why would anyone just "want a non-x86 desktop" (as in: "anything but x86"). Doesn't make sense to me...
- hootbootscoot 7y ago
  maybe you detest x86 and love aarch64. it's like cars. i dunno...why do you need to understand it for it to be a "thing" that exists in the world outside of your head?
  - hootbootscoot 7y ago
    it's the 64bit leap from the acorn risc machine, for crying out loud, it's its own goal, wantable for it's own sake. pity that riscos will never be 64bit lol
    - qubex 7y ago
      Precisely: I want to do it because it’ll be interesting, the same reason I had a BeBox in the mid nineties and a Plan9 network in the 2000s.
- Symmetry 7y ago
  It can be useful to test code that's supposed to be portable on a system with a weaker than x86 memory model. And a self-synchronizing instruction stream can be a security advantage and a fixed instruction width means Power and AArch64 are trivially self-synchronizing. And really just not having the dominant ISA is a pretty big security advantage in some cases. I'm pretty sure that neither of those is a huge deal for most people but I can see wanting it.

sam_lowry_ 7y ago

On a related note, I just got my Pine64 Pinebook Pro, and it's much better than my beloved Samsung xe303c12 in all apects. Lightweight, FHD screen resolution. No need to fiddle with the OS.

fmajid 7y ago
I'm still waiting for mine, it seems like the most viable option for someone who wants to develop for armv8 Linux. I had the original PineBook and found it disappointing, how would the PineBook compare to, say, a MacBook Air?
- sam_lowry_ 7y ago
  Screen bleeding is an issue. Otherwise, a great small laptop.

zmix 7y ago

Why would one want an ARM desktop system (except if (s)he is an ARM developer)? For my desktop I want as much power as money permits. And the most important thing is ergonomy, since I rather invest into my eyes and wrists than into the silicon.

watchdogtimer 7y ago
I use a pedal-powered computer. For me, every watt counts. My desktop system is a NanoPi M4 and a 16" Sceptre monitor. The combined system draws a total of about 6.5 W. Granted, there are some laptops that come near that level of power consumption. I simply like the form factor of a desktop PC.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > I use a pedal-powered computer. Does it suddenly shut down if you stop pedaling?!
- danbolt 7y ago
  That sounds really interesting. Would you have more information on such a setup?
Koshkin 7y ago
I do not believe even "ARM developers" use ARM-based desktops.
- cameron_b 7y ago
  I think that the main argument here is that there isn't a developer desktop machine that fits the HEDT slot for ARM. There is the Raspi / Odroid / Pine64 tinkerer scale, and the ThunderX2 scale, but nowhere in the middle. I think the Gigabyte ThunderX Station is being marketed in some channels, like the main page of this site: https://www.phoenicselectronics.com https://www.phoenicselectronics.com The new Fujitsu venture Socionext does sell stuff, but like everyone has said, they're interested in doing design-build for your factory robot controller or your edge supercomputer. But they do sell a box: http://www.socionext.com/en/products/assp/SynQuacer/Edge/ http://www.socionext.com/en/products/assp/SynQuacer/Edge/ It just isn't marketed as a GP /HEDT box because that isn't their market

ohazi 7y ago

We don't have AArch64 desktops because it's not possible to build an AArch64 motherboard. There are no standard sockets -- and every ARM vendor starts their system using a proprietary, inscrutable Rube Goldberg machine. On the Raspberry Pi, the GPU starts the processor for crying out loud.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
Wouldn't it be better to start from the server side? IIRC they at least have UEFI over there.
leeter 7y ago
It is actually, but it requires AMD or Intel to care. AMD could easily make an AArch64 CPU that is x570 compatible, it would require a BIOS update for sure but they could do it. There is nothing Physically stopping them from making a CPU with all the interconnect bits needed and a ton of AArch64 cores... other than there is really no fiscal incentive to do it.
- IntelMiner 7y ago
  AMD did (briefly) sell ARM64 chips, the Optero A1100, aka "AMD Seattle" CPU - 4 or 8 Cortex-A57 cores at 1.7 or 2Ghz - support for up to 128 gig of either DDR3 or DDR4 memory - 14 SATA 3 ports - 2 10GbE ethernet ports - 8x PCI-E 3.0 (EDIT: Fixed formatting, sorry!)
  - cameron_b 7y ago
    I regret not getting one of these when SoftIron was selling theirs
djsumdog 7y ago
I made this same complaint about Android/ARM a while back[1]. ARM is just random shit soldered to random pins. I wish Microsoft would open source all the drivers to their dead phone line, since at least that had ARM+UEFI. I suppose there's DeviceTree but .. honestly that's just laughable and I've seen very few boards even release a correctly configured/working device tree. [1]: https://battlepenguin.com/tech/android-fragmentation/ https://battlepenguin.com/tech/android-fragmentation/

bhouston 7y ago

Raspberry PI 4 runs with 1 4k monitor pretty well and has audio and you can attach peripherals. It is desktop like. Arm desktops are just single board computers. Why? Because that is all you need. If you want to assemble overprice parts yourself to get marginal benefits stick with x86. The truth is the market for desktops even in the x86 market has shrunk considerably because there are few benefits except if you are rendering and even then you should be using cloud compute in that case.

Jonnax 7y ago
If I'm rendering, I should use cloud computing? Like an artist is supposed to use a remote desktop to do 3D modelling? Or an engineer doing CAD? Or a video editor creating 4k video? There are a lot of professionals that need powerful computers. Not everyone just needs a text editor to write their SaaS application.
- jdietrich 7y ago
  >If I'm rendering, I should use cloud computing? Like an artist is supposed to use a remote desktop to do 3D modelling? Or an engineer doing CAD? Or a video editor creating 4k video? Yes. High-end workstations are effectively obsolete for professionals rather than prosumers, it's just taking some IT departments a while to catch on. All those workloads are highly bursty and involve substantial collaboration, which makes virtualization a natural fit. I haven't tested and wouldn't necessarily recommend a Raspberry Pi as a client terminal, but it just doesn't make sense any more to put a really powerful machine under everyone's desk rather than having a rackload of servers as a pooled resource. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/quadro-vdws/ https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/quadro-vdw...

Jonnax 7y ago

I had some representatives from ARM and NXP come and give a demo of some ARM boxes. Now these were in the context of white box customer premises networking equipment, but what I found quite interesting was that these machines all supported UEFI. There's certainly an effect to have some standardisation for ARM machines. But who knows when it'll get to the desktop.

cameron_b 7y ago
Yea I think the model here (especially since the article seems to really be conflating "desktop" with "High end desktop" especially in terms of the Arm ecosystem ), will be that we do see these features developed from the server side first, and then given the "content creator" treatment. I don't think that this is bad as the article implies. Rocking the top of the HEDT market is good for magazine covers, but it isn't exactly where the profits are. Filling datacenters will fund the work that we're interested in -- namely the robust, expandable, systems that have the muscle and the mainstream features that make for a cushy desktop experience. But also, Aren't we still complaining about linux on the desktop?
- blattimwind 7y ago
  > and then given the "content creator" treatment Content creation is done almost exclusively through proprietary software that's heavily optimized for a given platform, so this would be one of the worst markets to tackle first with an architecture change.
knownunown 7y ago
UEFI seems pretty prevalent with AArch64 in general -- pretty much all recent Qualcomm Android devices do UEFI boot.

tomc1985 7y ago

Every time I've tried to run AArch64 like a desktop (mostly via ODROIDs), it's been an exercise in misery. Endless tweaking, and almost always an important service, like 3D graphics or audio, doesn't work. Last I checked the driver situation there is just lacking

watchdogtimer 7y ago
Support for the Rockchip RK3399-based boards seems pretty good. Audio and wireless on my NanoPi M4 have worked flawlessly for me. No problem playing YouTube videos, either, even at 1.5x speed. Editing 3D CAD files using Freecad in Debian 10 has also worked great. The only things I miss are being able to run the latest versions of some software, which are often compiled only for x86 or MacOS. For instance, I'm currently stuck on Debian's Firefox ESR (currently Firefox 68.4) because Firefox doesn't offer precompiled binaries for AArch64 on Linux.

qwerty456127 7y ago

> 4U rack/tower case sounds clearly like “we know it is server but will try to sell it as a desktop”. No m.2, no audio, no mention about USB ports, no 1GbE network. Isn't every server meant to have a 1GbE port nowadays? Dont most of the servers have m.2? And for PCIe slots - aren't those extensible with raisers? > That system was kind of Frankenstein’s monster. Audio over some USB stereo-only dongle, all USB devices plugged into hubs due to only two ports on mainboard I/O panel. Perhaps one could just put a USB hub and the audio dongle inside the actual case?

toast0 7y ago
Maybe some of these have SFP+? 10G only interfaces that need a transceiver. That would be a pain in a home setup.
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  Perhaps. But I haven't actually seen servers with SFP+ 10G on-board. All the servers we buy have a classic 1GbE RJ-45 built-in and we extend them with SFP+ 10G PCIe adapters when needed.
  - haerwu 7y ago
    AArch64 servers tend to have 10G (or faster) SFP+ ports rather than 1GbE.

anfilt 7y ago

Honestly, would like to see more RISC-V offerings instead of 64bit arm. Although the ISA is still relatively new. Also some the extensions like bit manip are not finalized. However, the base instructions are.

solarkraft 7y ago
I'd love to have a RISC-V tablet one day, but think ARM will be an intermediate step, which will, through gained experience and already built infrastructure, ease the second switch of ISA.
- anfilt 7y ago
  Like on the open source side things, it's already possible to run a RISC-V desktop. Problem is no cheap hardware outside some expensive dev boards. https://abopen.com/news/building-a-risc-v-pc/ https://abopen.com/news/building-a-risc-v-pc/ Also that thing does not have up-gradable RAM, but you do have PCI-E.

ChuckMcM 7y ago

Sigh, no definition of what a "desktop" would be. That would be a start. Does it have to have "on board audio" ? All my early desktops up through the Pentium 3 used an add in card (typically a Soundblaster) to provide audio. So why make it the "requirement" for a desktop? Graphics? All graphics were "plug in" in early desktops until transistors got so cheap you could throw one into the southbridge for "free." The list goes on. It would a much better exercise to create a systems design document for what an AArch64 desktop should have, required, extras, and nice to have. Start there and work forward, not at a full fledged PC desktop with 30 years of evolution behind it and start there.

haerwu 7y ago
Extra PCIe x1 slot on mainboard would be fine instead of on-board audio.

qubex 7y ago

I really wish somebody would produce a single-board system with a Qualcomm 865 or 8cx processor, NVM support, and PCIe.

LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago

No OpenFirmware? No good!