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I hope this and projects like it spearhead a movement of ARM laptops outside of the Apple-sphere. I wonder if System76, for example, has their eyes on being th

I hope this and projects like it spearhead a movement of ARM laptops outside of the Apple-sphere. I wonder if System76, for example, has their eyes on being the first to market as “the Linux laptop on ARM”. Seems right up their alley. Also worth noting that I understand that System76 and Apple are not comparable companies. One is a humble operation installing a custom Linux build on rebranded hardware, and the other is a vertically integrated powerhouse building it’s own hardware.

fsflover 6y ago
> I wonder if System76, for example, has their eyes on being the first to market as “the Linux laptop on ARM”. They are not the first already: https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/ https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/
- corytheboyd 6y ago
  Ah yeah pine64! But how does it compare to the M1 performance? I should have explicitly stated that these ideal computers would match or outperform Apple’s hardware, since that is very much the case with current intel based MacBooks
  - spurdoman77 6y ago
    Pinebook does the typical "as cheap and low-end as possible" linux stuff. I would love to see ARM linux hardware manufacturer who would aim to create a high-end fanless powerhorse like mac mini.
    - corytheboyd 6y ago
      You and me both. I believe it will happen eventually, it seems inevitable now
    - esclerofilo 6y ago
      Minor correction: The mac mini isn't fanless
zucker42 6y ago
The problem is no other laptop manufacturer besides Apple has the capital and resources to build their own chip.
- bgorman 6y ago
  Definitely not true, IP blocks are available for all critical features and chip layout can be outsourced. ARM has a Cortex-X chip available for licensing for anyone that wants a high performance CPU core. For example, HP (who also makes laptops) has custom ASICs running Linux in their printers.
  - wmf 6y ago
    Even if you use all licensed IP the market might not be profitable enough to pay back the cost. We're talking about a $50M+ leap of faith.
    - bgorman 6y ago
      HP had 10.2 billion in profit last year. Source: https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/HPQ/financials/annual/income-statement https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/HPQ/financials/annual... Certainly enough to take a 50 million dollar risk.
- SomaticPirate 6y ago
  Not just their own chip, arguable one of the highest performance ones. At Intel, the mobile division was simply trying to keep pace with Arm with Apple always a distant dream. Later at Arm, no one had any idea what the hell Apple was doing. They pay for the ISA and that is basically as far as I ever saw the collaboration going (besides poaching top engineers). Most interesting thing I ever saw was that they bought Intrinsity[1] to create custom EDA tools for them. There is a decent technical moat to overcome. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsity
  - johnwalkr 6y ago

fsflover 6y ago

> I wonder if System76, for example, has their eyes on being the first to market as “the Linux laptop on ARM”. They are not the first already: https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/ https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/

corytheboyd 6y ago
Ah yeah pine64! But how does it compare to the M1 performance? I should have explicitly stated that these ideal computers would match or outperform Apple’s hardware, since that is very much the case with current intel based MacBooks
- spurdoman77 6y ago
  Pinebook does the typical "as cheap and low-end as possible" linux stuff. I would love to see ARM linux hardware manufacturer who would aim to create a high-end fanless powerhorse like mac mini.
  - corytheboyd 6y ago
    You and me both. I believe it will happen eventually, it seems inevitable now
  - esclerofilo 6y ago
    Minor correction: The mac mini isn't fanless

zucker42 6y ago

The problem is no other laptop manufacturer besides Apple has the capital and resources to build their own chip.

bgorman 6y ago
Definitely not true, IP blocks are available for all critical features and chip layout can be outsourced. ARM has a Cortex-X chip available for licensing for anyone that wants a high performance CPU core. For example, HP (who also makes laptops) has custom ASICs running Linux in their printers.
- wmf 6y ago
  Even if you use all licensed IP the market might not be profitable enough to pay back the cost. We're talking about a $50M+ leap of faith.
  - bgorman 6y ago
    HP had 10.2 billion in profit last year. Source: https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/HPQ/financials/annual/income-statement https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/HPQ/financials/annual... Certainly enough to take a 50 million dollar risk.
SomaticPirate 6y ago
Not just their own chip, arguable one of the highest performance ones. At Intel, the mobile division was simply trying to keep pace with Arm with Apple always a distant dream. Later at Arm, no one had any idea what the hell Apple was doing. They pay for the ISA and that is basically as far as I ever saw the collaboration going (besides poaching top engineers). Most interesting thing I ever saw was that they bought Intrinsity[1] to create custom EDA tools for them. There is a decent technical moat to overcome. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsity
- johnwalkr 6y ago