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Personally for me I only care about x86 for 2 reasons. 1) Steam library. 2) And the just works combo of ATX & the ability to use any ISO on almost any x86 mac

Personally for me I only care about x86 for 2 reasons. 1) Steam library. 2) And the just works combo of ATX & the ability to use any ISO on almost any x86 machine. I'm personally scared if x86 dies the open market of ATX and bring your own OS won't exist as every company will just lock you in to only there stuff on their devices.

seanw444 1y ago
My hope is that the death of x86 results in everyone flocking to RISC-V.
- Joker_vD 1y ago
  Which will drastically improve things with how the boot sequence(s) work and non-CPU devices are discovered, initialized, and managed, I am sure. So far, SBI doesn't look very promising.
  - monocasa 1y ago
    SBI doesn't attempt to handle that, just like EFI doesn't really handle that on x86. Just about every device your x86 computer uses looks like PCI (or on a bus hooked up to PCI), and is handled through those configuration mechanisms rather than via boot firmware.
- jabl 1y ago
  RISC-V being an open source ISA does not imply that devices using that ISA won't be locked down. An open ecosystem in the way that historically emerged around the PC platform seems to be a completely orthogonal issue.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  Who is this "everyone"? Just because RISCV ISA is open doesn't mean the ecosystem will be too. Because wile the ARM ISA is licensable by everyone so in theory everyone can be making X86 PCs, the current PC ARM ecosystem is way worse and way more locked down than X86. Reminds me when people wanted Intel to die and then they realized AMD started raising their prices with no competition and they tough that maybe AMD isn't their friend and is like any other for profit corporation. So I have no idea why people want to see the most open PC ecosystem die. What kind of short sighted masochism is this?
  - spauldo 1y ago
    I suspect part of it is just the desire for something different. I browse eBay and still get the irrational urge to buy unusual hardware, even though my Sparcstations and Alpha have proven time and time again that the novelty dies away quickly. Another part is the desire for a fresh start. x86 carries a lot of baggage. There's this idea that a new CPU architecture would somehow stop holding us back. Problem with that idea is that for the most part, x86 doesn't hold us back. Then of course there's the remnants of the old RISC vs CISC debate that never quite died away. People will always be fascinated by the what-ifs and if-onlys - "if only Sun had survived to the cloud era" is my personal favorite. It's harmless fun.
thewebguyd 1y ago
> I'm personally scared if x86 dies the open market of ATX and bring your own OS won't exist as every company will just lock you in to only there stuff on their devices. I share this fear, and have for a while. x86/the WinTel era has offered a lot of computing freedom, both hardware and OS wise and I believe we are in real danger of losing that. Not just because of an architecture change in isolation either, but also with the recent age verification stuff, and pushes for requiring "verified platforms" to access certain services, we are quickly heading down a proprietary-OS only world if you actually want to interact with web services.

seanw444 1y ago

My hope is that the death of x86 results in everyone flocking to RISC-V.

Joker_vD 1y ago
Which will drastically improve things with how the boot sequence(s) work and non-CPU devices are discovered, initialized, and managed, I am sure. So far, SBI doesn't look very promising.
- monocasa 1y ago
  SBI doesn't attempt to handle that, just like EFI doesn't really handle that on x86. Just about every device your x86 computer uses looks like PCI (or on a bus hooked up to PCI), and is handled through those configuration mechanisms rather than via boot firmware.
jabl 1y ago
RISC-V being an open source ISA does not imply that devices using that ISA won't be locked down. An open ecosystem in the way that historically emerged around the PC platform seems to be a completely orthogonal issue.
FirmwareBurner 1y ago
Who is this "everyone"? Just because RISCV ISA is open doesn't mean the ecosystem will be too. Because wile the ARM ISA is licensable by everyone so in theory everyone can be making X86 PCs, the current PC ARM ecosystem is way worse and way more locked down than X86. Reminds me when people wanted Intel to die and then they realized AMD started raising their prices with no competition and they tough that maybe AMD isn't their friend and is like any other for profit corporation. So I have no idea why people want to see the most open PC ecosystem die. What kind of short sighted masochism is this?
- spauldo 1y ago
  I suspect part of it is just the desire for something different. I browse eBay and still get the irrational urge to buy unusual hardware, even though my Sparcstations and Alpha have proven time and time again that the novelty dies away quickly. Another part is the desire for a fresh start. x86 carries a lot of baggage. There's this idea that a new CPU architecture would somehow stop holding us back. Problem with that idea is that for the most part, x86 doesn't hold us back. Then of course there's the remnants of the old RISC vs CISC debate that never quite died away. People will always be fascinated by the what-ifs and if-onlys - "if only Sun had survived to the cloud era" is my personal favorite. It's harmless fun.

thewebguyd 1y ago

> I'm personally scared if x86 dies the open market of ATX and bring your own OS won't exist as every company will just lock you in to only there stuff on their devices. I share this fear, and have for a while. x86/the WinTel era has offered a lot of computing freedom, both hardware and OS wise and I believe we are in real danger of losing that. Not just because of an architecture change in isolation either, but also with the recent age verification stuff, and pushes for requiring "verified platforms" to access certain services, we are quickly heading down a proprietary-OS only world if you actually want to interact with web services.