3 ms·

>So not very exciting, unless Qualcomm and Lenovo are planning to release refreshed hardware soon. Chicken and egg problem. Qualcomm won't invest massive resou

>So not very exciting, unless Qualcomm and Lenovo are planning to release refreshed hardware soon. Chicken and egg problem. Qualcomm won't invest massive resources to make a world beating laptop chip if there's no userbase for it.

speed_spread 3y ago
The interest for Asahi Linux should prove that there is a sizeable market for Linux on ARM. Admittedly the Asahi team are out of this world, but ARM is well understood and having a small Linux team of "ordinarily good" developers would be a drop in the bucket for Qualcomm. I think there should be clear incentive there for a CPU manufacturer to establish itself as the reference ARM PC platform provider like Intel is on the x86 side.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >The interest for Asahi Linux should prove that there is a sizeable market for Linux on ARM Interest for Asahi only proves there's interest for Linux on Apple devices, because they're already so popular and numerous, bought by millions of users first and foremost to run MacOS, not Linux. There's zero interest for non-Apple ARM laptops because, unlike Macbooks, they have no market share. Nobody's gonna spend hundreds of hours reverse engineering GPU drivers for an ARM laptop that only 20 people on the planet bought, and in half of those cases it's sitting gathering dust. Like I said, chicken and egg problem. There's not gonna be a massive upsell of ARM laptops if the equivalent SW ecosystem of Apple isn't there to move the HW off the shelves.
  - kramerger 3y ago
    Nitpick: there are 2-3B Linux devices out there are 64bit ARM. Not many are laptops thought
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >Nitpick: there are 2-3B Linux devices out there are 64bit ARM. The context of this thread was about ARM laptop devices, not generic ARM widgets. Please use the strongest interpretation of an argument when responding, not the weaker one for the sake of nitpicks, as per HN rules: >Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
      - kramerger 3y ago
        Is it really that far fetched?? The software stack is 90% identical and we are seeing smartphones & tables getting closer to laptops both in terms of functionality and form factor See for example Samsung Dex, "pro" and foldable tablets, chromebook Linux and android subsystem, ...
        rbanffy 3y ago
        Android uses the Linux kernel, but, above that, there is very little in common with a Linux laptop or workstation.
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    > it's sitting gathering dust. If it survived an impact with the wall
  - speed_spread 3y ago
    I still contend that a significant portion of the interest for Asahi converts to a desire for a good ARM linux laptop, Apple branded or not.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      Yes, but Macbooks are currently the most best selling mainstream ARM laptops any average consumer has heard about and can easily get thei had on, for MacOS. Apple and MacOS ecosystem guarantee amazing sales and mainstream popularization of these devices, giving them a numbers advantage, meaning it's by far the best choice platform to target with the biggest RoI for your reverse engineering effort versus some more obscure ARM laptops which could be better on paper but nobody bought.
      - speed_spread 3y ago
        The "market size" argument (or rather "installed base") implies that Linux can only exist as a parasitic PC operating system riding the coattails of established vendors, which I believe is no longer true in 2023. Big distros like Ubuntu and Fedora offer first class experience that rivals and surpasses MacOS and Windows in many ways, especially for technical (dev) markets and are worthy of their own ecosystem.
rbanffy 3y ago
> Qualcomm won't invest massive resources to make a world beating laptop There is a tablet market waiting for such chip. Apple is making a killing with their iPads. I am sure other tablet makers would like a slice of that sweet apple pie.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Apple is making a killing with their iPads. You're missing the point. The fact that Android and Windows ARM tablets aren't "making a killing" and not selling even remotely as good as iPads dealing with an abysmal market share, is not because they don't have M1 chips, but it's their shit SW ecosystem that's been a clusterfuck from day one, angering consumers who expected more than just stretched phone apps and 2 years of SW updates, and the indifference and lack of commitment Google has shown to Android tablet ecosystem over the years. iPads were outselling every other tablets even before they got the M1 chips. In this tablet space it's the available SW ecosystem that sells the HW, not the other way aground. Android tablets could get fictional M3 chips from the future and they still wouldn't outsell iPads because both developers and consumers already got burned by the Android/non-Apple tablet SW experience and decided to stick with Apple.
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    > The fact that Android and Windows ARM tablets aren't "making a killing" and not selling even remotely as good as iPads The whole stack is objectively worse - slower, with inferior software. They are cheaper though, but it doesn't help much when everyone competes in price for what is, essentially, variations of the same product. There is a good reason why there aren't many Windows ARM tablets and laptops - they perform worse than the low-end Intel stuff. The tooling to make software for them is not great, and the channels through which one distributes the software is also a limitation. In laptops, Windows on ARM needs to compete against Windows on x86 and, unless Qualcomm and Microsoft pull a miracle, those machines will remain uncompetitive. And yes: apple made a killing from day one. They always had an excellent software stack and a thriving high-quality, ruthlessly curated app ecosystem, something not even Microsoft can't offer with their own products (Hi, Teams team. I'd like to discuss a couple things).

speed_spread 3y ago

The interest for Asahi Linux should prove that there is a sizeable market for Linux on ARM. Admittedly the Asahi team are out of this world, but ARM is well understood and having a small Linux team of "ordinarily good" developers would be a drop in the bucket for Qualcomm. I think there should be clear incentive there for a CPU manufacturer to establish itself as the reference ARM PC platform provider like Intel is on the x86 side.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>The interest for Asahi Linux should prove that there is a sizeable market for Linux on ARM Interest for Asahi only proves there's interest for Linux on Apple devices, because they're already so popular and numerous, bought by millions of users first and foremost to run MacOS, not Linux. There's zero interest for non-Apple ARM laptops because, unlike Macbooks, they have no market share. Nobody's gonna spend hundreds of hours reverse engineering GPU drivers for an ARM laptop that only 20 people on the planet bought, and in half of those cases it's sitting gathering dust. Like I said, chicken and egg problem. There's not gonna be a massive upsell of ARM laptops if the equivalent SW ecosystem of Apple isn't there to move the HW off the shelves.
- kramerger 3y ago
  Nitpick: there are 2-3B Linux devices out there are 64bit ARM. Not many are laptops thought
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Nitpick: there are 2-3B Linux devices out there are 64bit ARM. The context of this thread was about ARM laptop devices, not generic ARM widgets. Please use the strongest interpretation of an argument when responding, not the weaker one for the sake of nitpicks, as per HN rules: >Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
    - kramerger 3y ago
      Is it really that far fetched?? The software stack is 90% identical and we are seeing smartphones & tables getting closer to laptops both in terms of functionality and form factor See for example Samsung Dex, "pro" and foldable tablets, chromebook Linux and android subsystem, ...
      - rbanffy 3y ago
        Android uses the Linux kernel, but, above that, there is very little in common with a Linux laptop or workstation.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  > it's sitting gathering dust. If it survived an impact with the wall
- speed_spread 3y ago
  I still contend that a significant portion of the interest for Asahi converts to a desire for a good ARM linux laptop, Apple branded or not.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Yes, but Macbooks are currently the most best selling mainstream ARM laptops any average consumer has heard about and can easily get thei had on, for MacOS. Apple and MacOS ecosystem guarantee amazing sales and mainstream popularization of these devices, giving them a numbers advantage, meaning it's by far the best choice platform to target with the biggest RoI for your reverse engineering effort versus some more obscure ARM laptops which could be better on paper but nobody bought.
    - speed_spread 3y ago
      The "market size" argument (or rather "installed base") implies that Linux can only exist as a parasitic PC operating system riding the coattails of established vendors, which I believe is no longer true in 2023. Big distros like Ubuntu and Fedora offer first class experience that rivals and surpasses MacOS and Windows in many ways, especially for technical (dev) markets and are worthy of their own ecosystem.

rbanffy 3y ago

> Qualcomm won't invest massive resources to make a world beating laptop There is a tablet market waiting for such chip. Apple is making a killing with their iPads. I am sure other tablet makers would like a slice of that sweet apple pie.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Apple is making a killing with their iPads. You're missing the point. The fact that Android and Windows ARM tablets aren't "making a killing" and not selling even remotely as good as iPads dealing with an abysmal market share, is not because they don't have M1 chips, but it's their shit SW ecosystem that's been a clusterfuck from day one, angering consumers who expected more than just stretched phone apps and 2 years of SW updates, and the indifference and lack of commitment Google has shown to Android tablet ecosystem over the years. iPads were outselling every other tablets even before they got the M1 chips. In this tablet space it's the available SW ecosystem that sells the HW, not the other way aground. Android tablets could get fictional M3 chips from the future and they still wouldn't outsell iPads because both developers and consumers already got burned by the Android/non-Apple tablet SW experience and decided to stick with Apple.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  > The fact that Android and Windows ARM tablets aren't "making a killing" and not selling even remotely as good as iPads The whole stack is objectively worse - slower, with inferior software. They are cheaper though, but it doesn't help much when everyone competes in price for what is, essentially, variations of the same product. There is a good reason why there aren't many Windows ARM tablets and laptops - they perform worse than the low-end Intel stuff. The tooling to make software for them is not great, and the channels through which one distributes the software is also a limitation. In laptops, Windows on ARM needs to compete against Windows on x86 and, unless Qualcomm and Microsoft pull a miracle, those machines will remain uncompetitive. And yes: apple made a killing from day one. They always had an excellent software stack and a thriving high-quality, ruthlessly curated app ecosystem, something not even Microsoft can't offer with their own products (Hi, Teams team. I'd like to discuss a couple things).