4 ms·

Microsoft is sleeping on Qualcomm with their lousy port of Windows to Arm processors…

by Danox 5mo ago

reactordev 5mo ago
10000000x this. They have been sleeping on Arm since windows phone. I just don’t see them ever having an original thought again. They could have had a 128core arm chip by now.
- adabyron 5mo ago
  They have original thoughts! It's just that those employees get squashed by other divisions or having to meet short term quarterly profits it seems. There's also the whole giant trillion dollar company doesn't want to invest and let small ideas grow. They only focus on things that move the needle, which isn't much at the size. Had Microsoft executed and invested, they could have made a come back imo in both search, mobile & hardware. Unfortunately major lack of leadership or they just don't want those areas.
  - reactordev 5mo ago
    No doubt the individuals have thoughts. It’s just corporate never actually does ANY of them. It’s a MBA mill.
- dylan604 5mo ago
  Unless the chip was called Copilot, they are not thinking anything about it. If was called Copilot, they'd have already figured out how to shove it down your throat.
  - reactordev 5mo ago
    I'm sure there's an AI diagram of it on a powerpoint slide on some mid-level executive's deck that he thought would probably be clever.
criticalfault 5mo ago
and is Qualcomm is sleeping on Linux?
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  Seems like not? Judging based on https://github.com/qualcomm-linux https://github.com/qualcomm-linux something is happening, although I can't say how much. They definitively seem awake at least.
  - jeroenhd 5mo ago
    The problem with these chips on Linux is that something has been happening for months but you still end up needing to download special editions of ARM Linux images to get these devices to work properly. Some distros still need extracting Qualcomm firmware from Windows to get Linux to work properly. Audio remains a challenge, like x86 Linux decades ago. Apparently camera stuff works these days but produces images of subpar quality. These issues also occur on normal Linux. My experience with my Lenovo+Intel laptop was that it took three months after release for the firmware to work properly (and the Nvidia drivers took much longer, but that's my fault for buying something containing Nvidia hardware). Intel managed to do what Qualcomm did in months rather than years. I hope Qualcomm finally sorts this shit out, I really do, but with the prices of computers these days, I'm going to need to see quite the discount before I'll consider buying anything with a Snapdragon.
    - ChocolateGod 5mo ago
      > but you still end up needing to download special editions of ARM Linux images to get these devices to work properly This is a problem with Linux on ARM generally (Android has had it since inception), it's not a Qualcomm problem.
      - criticalfault 5mo ago
        it's an UEFI Problem they seem to have dealt with this for the server hardware
hypercube33 5mo ago
I'm not sure they are sleeping. I have an older version and it can run games and other things just fine, its just over priced and not properly cooled. The driver/firmware support from Lenovo / Qualcomm is purely garbage. You're lucky to get a driver update to fix anything. For months it just overheated and video would start corrupting but that got fixed finally. You cant just go to Qualcomm's website and download new drivers even though it looks like you can - they really dont get how modern GPU's work on Windows - a driver updates to optimize for games is really something important because of how Windows is but the experience is pulling teeth. If the systems were Neo priced (500-700 USD) and had a cooling fan I'd be all on board with these systems. Right now, AMD with unified memory is just the better deal for the $1200 (2025) systems to run Windows and an average workload.
sedatk 5mo ago
> with their lousy port of Windows to Arm processors… What's lousy about it? I use it daily and have zero problems.

Microsoft is sleeping on Qualcomm with their lousy port of Windows to Arm processors…

by Danox 5mo ago

Microsoft is sleeping on Qualcomm with their lousy port of Windows to Arm processors…

10000000x this. They have been sleeping on Arm since windows phone. I just don’t see them ever having an original thought again. They could have had a 128core arm chip by now.

adabyron 5mo ago
They have original thoughts! It's just that those employees get squashed by other divisions or having to meet short term quarterly profits it seems. There's also the whole giant trillion dollar company doesn't want to invest and let small ideas grow. They only focus on things that move the needle, which isn't much at the size. Had Microsoft executed and invested, they could have made a come back imo in both search, mobile & hardware. Unfortunately major lack of leadership or they just don't want those areas.
- reactordev 5mo ago
  No doubt the individuals have thoughts. It’s just corporate never actually does ANY of them. It’s a MBA mill.
dylan604 5mo ago
Unless the chip was called Copilot, they are not thinking anything about it. If was called Copilot, they'd have already figured out how to shove it down your throat.
- reactordev 5mo ago
  I'm sure there's an AI diagram of it on a powerpoint slide on some mid-level executive's deck that he thought would probably be clever.

criticalfault 5mo ago

and is Qualcomm is sleeping on Linux?

embedding-shape 5mo ago
Seems like not? Judging based on https://github.com/qualcomm-linux https://github.com/qualcomm-linux something is happening, although I can't say how much. They definitively seem awake at least.
- jeroenhd 5mo ago
  The problem with these chips on Linux is that something has been happening for months but you still end up needing to download special editions of ARM Linux images to get these devices to work properly. Some distros still need extracting Qualcomm firmware from Windows to get Linux to work properly. Audio remains a challenge, like x86 Linux decades ago. Apparently camera stuff works these days but produces images of subpar quality. These issues also occur on normal Linux. My experience with my Lenovo+Intel laptop was that it took three months after release for the firmware to work properly (and the Nvidia drivers took much longer, but that's my fault for buying something containing Nvidia hardware). Intel managed to do what Qualcomm did in months rather than years. I hope Qualcomm finally sorts this shit out, I really do, but with the prices of computers these days, I'm going to need to see quite the discount before I'll consider buying anything with a Snapdragon.
  - ChocolateGod 5mo ago
    > but you still end up needing to download special editions of ARM Linux images to get these devices to work properly This is a problem with Linux on ARM generally (Android has had it since inception), it's not a Qualcomm problem.
    - criticalfault 5mo ago
      it's an UEFI Problem they seem to have dealt with this for the server hardware

hypercube33 5mo ago

I'm not sure they are sleeping. I have an older version and it can run games and other things just fine, its just over priced and not properly cooled. The driver/firmware support from Lenovo / Qualcomm is purely garbage. You're lucky to get a driver update to fix anything. For months it just overheated and video would start corrupting but that got fixed finally. You cant just go to Qualcomm's website and download new drivers even though it looks like you can - they really dont get how modern GPU's work on Windows - a driver updates to optimize for games is really something important because of how Windows is but the experience is pulling teeth. If the systems were Neo priced (500-700 USD) and had a cooling fan I'd be all on board with these systems. Right now, AMD with unified memory is just the better deal for the $1200 (2025) systems to run Windows and an average workload.

sedatk 5mo ago

> with their lousy port of Windows to Arm processors… What's lousy about it? I use it daily and have zero problems.