16 ms·

I think the raspberry pi started moving compatibility/arm adoption far earlier than apple's migration. Maybe not the dev tools, sure, but I've seen a steady str

by avh02 5y ago

I think the raspberry pi started moving compatibility/arm adoption far earlier than apple's migration. Maybe not the dev tools, sure, but I've seen a steady stream of more and more projects supporting arm and I attribute that to the pi.

Flockster 5y ago
Yes, for nearly every semi-popular project, there already exsists an arm-compatible docker container to deploy it on a pi.
dreamcompiler 5y ago
Agreed. And I think ARM Chromebooks played a role too: Some can run Linux pretty well and are excellent cheap roadworthy development machines.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  ChromeOS is gentoo based linux. ;)
stjohnswarts 5y ago
correlation != causation. ARM has been gaining mindshare for the past 15 years without the Pi. I love rpi but to claim it is what started ARM being more prevalent will take a lot more than just stating it. There were lots of ARM embedded systems before pi was a sparkle in someone's eye.
charwalker 5y ago
Easy, cost effective entry point with tons of applications and options all marketed as a learning/hobby board. Other than pi's, I'm on x86 but could see that changing if I can get away from Windows Server on my homelab.
GhettoComputers 5y ago
Can that not be attributed to Android or even Arduino? If we are talking about OS I would exclude arduino. In terms of Apple, they made the switch from PPC to x86 and ARM, the App Store made developers money and that allowed a huge repository of applications to exist so that Apple would move their computers. Even before Pi my router had DDWRT, I don't think Pi did very much.
teitoklien 5y ago
This is true, don't know why you're getting downvoted. Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone and various arm based embedded systems played a much higher role in getting most linux, BSD tools working under arm. Same thing that’s happening now with RISC-V and SiFive’s boards. It’s not apple M1 that’s making this migration possible, its just the cherry on top of a cake. The cake was all those consumer arm boards and dev kits which got in the hands of various OS developers, software maintainers. Who put in their time to port their codebases to arm and ensure compatibility.
- MisterTea 5y ago
  > This is true, don't know why you're getting downvoted. Apples are upset their $2000+ laptop isn't the revolutionary catalyst for the Arm revolution but instead a crappy $25 computer that's been around for a decade.
  - vmladenov 5y ago
    When are the new n-gate posts coming out?
    - MisterTea 5y ago
      I am not the n-gate maintainer, just someone who enjoys the humor. Last I heard the maintainer has been busy and unable to dedicate enough time. They hang out in in #cat-v on oftc.net.
    - anaganisk 5y ago
      N-gate has no love for pis either. The article would’ve been like, Apples and Pis fight over whose shitty processor paved the way for more underpowered devices , while intel continues war against its users.
  - dang 5y ago
    Please don't post in the flamewar style. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
fulafel 5y ago
Raspberry Pi was a huge boost, but most of the ARM porting work had been done earlier on other Linux/ARM platforms. We had Debian running on StrongARM iPAQ and Novell Netwinder devices 10+ years before RPi 1.
- zibzab 5y ago
  Either way, OP has an extremely Apple centric view on this and completely ignores decades of work on Linux and many others to get us here. For example, consider that golang has been able to cross-compile to ARM since almost the very start. That alone has probably contributed more to actual ARM server deployment than M1 (which is by the way not available for cloud or any server systems).
  - robin_reala 5y ago
    Sure it is: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2021/12/amazon-ec2-m1-mac-instances-macos/ https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2021/12/amazon-ec...
    - zibzab 5y ago
      Funny you mentioned that. Apple most definitely does _not_ support that thing. In fact, they have in past tried to shut down similar initiatives.
    - darkwater 5y ago
      And it's just used to run Apple-ecosystem-only things, not real production load for your typical API (unless you have loooots of $$$ to burn and give as charity to Apple) (already prepared for the comment "I do use AWS M1 to serve production load, not just build/test Apple software")
bayindirh 5y ago
Raspberry Pi didn't have serious resources until 3/4 era. I have every iteration of the board, and while they're all useful in their own regard, only the latest boards can handle serious, biggish projects, resource wise. Of course Pi has started a big movement and prepared the groundwork, but M1, which I also use, is something else in terms of performance, and it caused this build-up to become an avalanche. Cloud systems will inevitably ride this wave, and will seriously eat into Intel's market share. Just provisioned a small docker-lab in an ORACLE Cloud Ampere system. This thing is seriously snappy at the first glance.
- rob74 5y ago
  The Raspi and Apple's ARM chips may be the ones that get the most coverage, but as others have pointed out, the groundwork for this has been laid much earlier: even the first Android phones and iPhones back in 2007 already used ARM-based SoCs and had Linux kernel support from day one, and the support only grew from there. The initial Raspi could only be sold at that low price because it used a mass-produced ARM SoC. So the only thing that is new is that ARM architecture is finally starting to "spill over" into the notebook/desktop and server market and preparing to eat Intel's (and AMD's) cake. But the wide-scale adoption of the architecture already has a long history, so presenting Raspi and Apple M1 as "pioneers of ARM introduction" is a bit misleading (Apple was a pioneer, but already back in 2007).
  - bayindirh 5y ago
    From the hardware perspective you're certainly right, but while iPhone and Android had made the initial groundbreaking in the kernel(s) and userland(s), Raspberry Pi arguably brought it to "touch distance" for the layman. Before that there were already ARM servers too, but they're few and far between. So I was trying to say that, Raspberry Pi and Apple M1 made ARM "touchable" with standard development tools and utilities for the normal people out there. So, this interaction accelerated the acceptance and software porting and grown the ecosystem faster.
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
blihp 5y ago
Pretty much all of the ARM-based SBCs have ensured excellent Linux coverage for the architecture starting over a decade ago. The Pi popularized it with a more mainstream (i.e. plug and play) audience.
nicoburns 5y ago
The big jump for ARM adoption was the iPhone and later Android. A lot of important C libraries got first-class ARM support because they were battle tested on the iPhone.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  iOS was mobile Unix, and Android was mobile Linux. Definitely agree with you.

by avh02 5y ago

Flockster 5y ago

Yes, for nearly every semi-popular project, there already exsists an arm-compatible docker container to deploy it on a pi.

dreamcompiler 5y ago

Agreed. And I think ARM Chromebooks played a role too: Some can run Linux pretty well and are excellent cheap roadworthy development machines.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
ChromeOS is gentoo based linux. ;)

stjohnswarts 5y ago

correlation != causation. ARM has been gaining mindshare for the past 15 years without the Pi. I love rpi but to claim it is what started ARM being more prevalent will take a lot more than just stating it. There were lots of ARM embedded systems before pi was a sparkle in someone's eye.

charwalker 5y ago

Easy, cost effective entry point with tons of applications and options all marketed as a learning/hobby board. Other than pi's, I'm on x86 but could see that changing if I can get away from Windows Server on my homelab.

GhettoComputers 5y ago

Can that not be attributed to Android or even Arduino? If we are talking about OS I would exclude arduino. In terms of Apple, they made the switch from PPC to x86 and ARM, the App Store made developers money and that allowed a huge repository of applications to exist so that Apple would move their computers. Even before Pi my router had DDWRT, I don't think Pi did very much.

teitoklien 5y ago

This is true, don't know why you're getting downvoted. Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone and various arm based embedded systems played a much higher role in getting most linux, BSD tools working under arm. Same thing that’s happening now with RISC-V and SiFive’s boards. It’s not apple M1 that’s making this migration possible, its just the cherry on top of a cake. The cake was all those consumer arm boards and dev kits which got in the hands of various OS developers, software maintainers. Who put in their time to port their codebases to arm and ensure compatibility.

MisterTea 5y ago
> This is true, don't know why you're getting downvoted. Apples are upset their $2000+ laptop isn't the revolutionary catalyst for the Arm revolution but instead a crappy $25 computer that's been around for a decade.
- vmladenov 5y ago
  When are the new n-gate posts coming out?
  - MisterTea 5y ago
    I am not the n-gate maintainer, just someone who enjoys the humor. Last I heard the maintainer has been busy and unable to dedicate enough time. They hang out in in #cat-v on oftc.net.
  - anaganisk 5y ago
    N-gate has no love for pis either. The article would’ve been like, Apples and Pis fight over whose shitty processor paved the way for more underpowered devices , while intel continues war against its users.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't post in the flamewar style. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

fulafel 5y ago

Raspberry Pi was a huge boost, but most of the ARM porting work had been done earlier on other Linux/ARM platforms. We had Debian running on StrongARM iPAQ and Novell Netwinder devices 10+ years before RPi 1.

zibzab 5y ago
Either way, OP has an extremely Apple centric view on this and completely ignores decades of work on Linux and many others to get us here. For example, consider that golang has been able to cross-compile to ARM since almost the very start. That alone has probably contributed more to actual ARM server deployment than M1 (which is by the way not available for cloud or any server systems).
- robin_reala 5y ago
  Sure it is: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2021/12/amazon-ec2-m1-mac-instances-macos/ https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2021/12/amazon-ec...
  - zibzab 5y ago
    Funny you mentioned that. Apple most definitely does _not_ support that thing. In fact, they have in past tried to shut down similar initiatives.
  - darkwater 5y ago
    And it's just used to run Apple-ecosystem-only things, not real production load for your typical API (unless you have loooots of $$$ to burn and give as charity to Apple) (already prepared for the comment "I do use AWS M1 to serve production load, not just build/test Apple software")

bayindirh 5y ago

Raspberry Pi didn't have serious resources until 3/4 era. I have every iteration of the board, and while they're all useful in their own regard, only the latest boards can handle serious, biggish projects, resource wise. Of course Pi has started a big movement and prepared the groundwork, but M1, which I also use, is something else in terms of performance, and it caused this build-up to become an avalanche. Cloud systems will inevitably ride this wave, and will seriously eat into Intel's market share. Just provisioned a small docker-lab in an ORACLE Cloud Ampere system. This thing is seriously snappy at the first glance.

rob74 5y ago
The Raspi and Apple's ARM chips may be the ones that get the most coverage, but as others have pointed out, the groundwork for this has been laid much earlier: even the first Android phones and iPhones back in 2007 already used ARM-based SoCs and had Linux kernel support from day one, and the support only grew from there. The initial Raspi could only be sold at that low price because it used a mass-produced ARM SoC. So the only thing that is new is that ARM architecture is finally starting to "spill over" into the notebook/desktop and server market and preparing to eat Intel's (and AMD's) cake. But the wide-scale adoption of the architecture already has a long history, so presenting Raspi and Apple M1 as "pioneers of ARM introduction" is a bit misleading (Apple was a pioneer, but already back in 2007).
- bayindirh 5y ago
  From the hardware perspective you're certainly right, but while iPhone and Android had made the initial groundbreaking in the kernel(s) and userland(s), Raspberry Pi arguably brought it to "touch distance" for the layman. Before that there were already ARM servers too, but they're few and far between. So I was trying to say that, Raspberry Pi and Apple M1 made ARM "touchable" with standard development tools and utilities for the normal people out there. So, this interaction accelerated the acceptance and software porting and grown the ecosystem faster.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago

blihp 5y ago

Pretty much all of the ARM-based SBCs have ensured excellent Linux coverage for the architecture starting over a decade ago. The Pi popularized it with a more mainstream (i.e. plug and play) audience.

nicoburns 5y ago

The big jump for ARM adoption was the iPhone and later Android. A lot of important C libraries got first-class ARM support because they were battle tested on the iPhone.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
iOS was mobile Unix, and Android was mobile Linux. Definitely agree with you.