4 ms·

I'm curious about the openness of the platform. As long as the openness and standardization of the PC platform is not present, this platform is not a contender

I'm curious about the openness of the platform. As long as the openness and standardization of the PC platform is not present, this platform is not a contender of x86 in my eyes. We can see with the highly praised Apple M platform on the example of the Asahi Linux what the lack of openness brings: people are locked in to operating systems by the vendors, and planned obsolescence, even with long support periods. On the other hand the PCs abandoned by Windows 11 support (sometimes even 1 year old models!) had the freedom to choose from a variety of operating systems, all thanks to the openness of the PC platform. Repairability is important, but why repair something when you can only use terrible, soon out of support operating, which spy on you? (This means practically any OS vendored by large corporations) For ARM systems openness boils down to the custom boot process, and of course the driver support. Has ARM PC vendors standardized on a boot standard yet? I cal recall the horror on reading articles how Raspberry Pi boot was working, or how M1 Mac bootloader is locked down.

thisislife2 5mo ago
Yes, with 128GB RAM, I guess one could even ignore that it is soldered (and hence "unrepairable"), but if it can't run Linux or *BSD it is a definite no go. We definitely don't need two closed hardware platform duopoly (Apple and Microsoft), as together they will dominate and kill the "open" platforms. But I am pessimistic here as everything seems headed towards that eventuality. We should never have accepted smartphones as closed platforms.
- fsflover 5mo ago
  > We should never have accepted smartphones as closed platforms. I didn't. Sent from my Librem 5.
- rbanffy 5mo ago
  > But I am pessimistic here as everything seems headed towards that eventuality. Lots of companies buy average Dell and Lenovo laptops because they are repairable in-house.
  - thisislife2 5mo ago
    That's good to know - but many of their models also have soldered RAM, which is disappointing.
    - rbanffy 5mo ago
      Some of the chips they use are designed for soldered chips. I’m not sure whether that’s because of signal degradation over longer PCB traces and sockets.
- jraph 5mo ago
  > Yes, with 128GB RAM, I guess one could even ignore that it is soldered Unless that RAM fails in some way or another, then you have to replace the whole motherboard because of this.
  - strobe 5mo ago
    in case of macbooks even if something like usb port controller failed is most likely leads to board replacement as well so is high change that even if RAM is fine it could be useless because some $2 component failure
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - hoistbypetard 5mo ago
      macbooks have modular ports. https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-repairable-macbook-in-14-years#:~:text=Modular%20Ports%20and,logic%20board%20work. https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-r...
      - nicoburns 5mo ago
        The MacBook Neo has modular ports. The rest of them don't. They may introduce them more widely in the next redesign but that remains to be seen.
        hoistbypetard 4mo ago
        The piece I linked, along with the parts for sale in the iFixIt shop seem to contradict your assertion. The piece says: "The Neo has the same modular bits and bobs we’ve applauded in recent MacBook designs. The USB-C ports are modular, so a damaged charge port doesn’t turn into logic board work."
        strobe 4mo ago
zahllos 5mo ago
There is ARM SystemReady in a couple of flavours, one of which is UEFI: https://documentation-service.arm.com/static/68512137d12d1a1df64f239d https://documentation-service.arm.com/static/68512137d12d1a1... While I'm not exactly enthused about UEFI I prefer this to android's fork-the-kernel-tree-and-abandon model for your pocket-SBC. The last device I used with this booted fedora using arm UEFI no issue, several years ago. I don't see x86 going away for a long while if at all - too much software is built for it so the inertia is massive.
throwaway2037 5mo ago
> I can recall the horror on reading articles how Raspberry Pi boot was working I am confused by this comment. RPi is legendary for their driver support. A large portion of the company is dedicated to it. I would say this is the primary reason that they can fend off cheap clones from China, whereas 3D printers are all but defeated at this point.
- coldtea 5mo ago
  The bootloader boot/process however is not related to driver support. Not that I know what's nightmarish about it in the Pi.
  - mkesper 5mo ago
    The Pi is really a GPU with a CPU added on so the whole system needs to be brought up by the (binary blobs for running the) GPU. Hopefully not the case in these more PC-like systems...
    - coldtea 5mo ago
      Huh? Never got deep into it, but always thought it was some kind of arm cpu with underpowered integrated gpu or similar.
  - garretraziel 5mo ago
    It’s actually a GPU that handles initial stages of booting, through some closed-source firmware blob.
  - throwaway2037 4mo ago
    Bootloader doesn't count?

thisislife2 5mo ago

Yes, with 128GB RAM, I guess one could even ignore that it is soldered (and hence "unrepairable"), but if it can't run Linux or *BSD it is a definite no go. We definitely don't need two closed hardware platform duopoly (Apple and Microsoft), as together they will dominate and kill the "open" platforms. But I am pessimistic here as everything seems headed towards that eventuality. We should never have accepted smartphones as closed platforms.

fsflover 5mo ago
> We should never have accepted smartphones as closed platforms. I didn't. Sent from my Librem 5.
rbanffy 5mo ago
> But I am pessimistic here as everything seems headed towards that eventuality. Lots of companies buy average Dell and Lenovo laptops because they are repairable in-house.
- thisislife2 5mo ago
  That's good to know - but many of their models also have soldered RAM, which is disappointing.
  - rbanffy 5mo ago
    Some of the chips they use are designed for soldered chips. I’m not sure whether that’s because of signal degradation over longer PCB traces and sockets.
jraph 5mo ago
> Yes, with 128GB RAM, I guess one could even ignore that it is soldered Unless that RAM fails in some way or another, then you have to replace the whole motherboard because of this.
- strobe 5mo ago
  in case of macbooks even if something like usb port controller failed is most likely leads to board replacement as well so is high change that even if RAM is fine it could be useless because some $2 component failure
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - hoistbypetard 5mo ago
    macbooks have modular ports. https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-repairable-macbook-in-14-years#:~:text=Modular%20Ports%20and,logic%20board%20work. https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-r...
    - nicoburns 5mo ago
      The MacBook Neo has modular ports. The rest of them don't. They may introduce them more widely in the next redesign but that remains to be seen.
      - hoistbypetard 4mo ago
        The piece I linked, along with the parts for sale in the iFixIt shop seem to contradict your assertion. The piece says: "The Neo has the same modular bits and bobs we’ve applauded in recent MacBook designs. The USB-C ports are modular, so a damaged charge port doesn’t turn into logic board work."
        strobe 4mo ago

zahllos 5mo ago

There is ARM SystemReady in a couple of flavours, one of which is UEFI: https://documentation-service.arm.com/static/68512137d12d1a1df64f239d https://documentation-service.arm.com/static/68512137d12d1a1... While I'm not exactly enthused about UEFI I prefer this to android's fork-the-kernel-tree-and-abandon model for your pocket-SBC. The last device I used with this booted fedora using arm UEFI no issue, several years ago. I don't see x86 going away for a long while if at all - too much software is built for it so the inertia is massive.

throwaway2037 5mo ago

> I can recall the horror on reading articles how Raspberry Pi boot was working I am confused by this comment. RPi is legendary for their driver support. A large portion of the company is dedicated to it. I would say this is the primary reason that they can fend off cheap clones from China, whereas 3D printers are all but defeated at this point.

coldtea 5mo ago
The bootloader boot/process however is not related to driver support. Not that I know what's nightmarish about it in the Pi.
- mkesper 5mo ago
  The Pi is really a GPU with a CPU added on so the whole system needs to be brought up by the (binary blobs for running the) GPU. Hopefully not the case in these more PC-like systems...
  - coldtea 5mo ago
    Huh? Never got deep into it, but always thought it was some kind of arm cpu with underpowered integrated gpu or similar.
- garretraziel 5mo ago
  It’s actually a GPU that handles initial stages of booting, through some closed-source firmware blob.
- throwaway2037 4mo ago
  Bootloader doesn't count?