x86 vs ARM // ATM vs IP History Repeat

[nixonwastaken]

Okay, so I have been thinking this for awhile now and I genuinely think we may be seeing history repeat itself, 

With the next generation of CPU architecture (ARM) beginning to take its foothold in the market, I began seeing AMD/Intel respond similarly as once Nortel or Lucent once did with their original response to Cisco's IP alternative to ATM (predecessor to IP) my point being we are clearly seeing another major architectural change within computing, and how the major players (AMD/Intel) being nearly non-responsive until only now, are we seeing another Nortel/Lucent situation begin to unfold slowly in front of our very own eyes. 

If anyone has thoughts, feel free to drop them, I might just be an idiot, but this is my observation at least.
 

[Eigenvektor]

Outside of Chromebooks, I don't see ARM currently taking any significant foothold in the Windows/PC market.

 

Until you can replace or emulate millions of legacy x86 programs, I don't think AMD or Intel are in any immediate danger, at least in the professional/server market and gaming market.

 

Plus, they are looking into manufacturing ARM CPUs of their own.

 

Check the news subforum. There was a recent news topic around the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, that already contains a lot of discussion.

[Lurking]

Many hardware manufacturers with new (and maybe better) architecture learned the hard way that everything is about software.

 

A company or industry uses specific software and buy the computer/OS based on that and not the other way around. 

 

One huge advantage of x86 is that it has one major OS. So, any software will work for everyone (forget about Linux for now). With ARM, it seems you have different architectures and multiple OS (Android, iOS etc ). So a software doesn't work on all ARM devices. 

 

I'm no ARM expert. But my understanding is it is more a licensing scheme and each manufacturer build a somewhat proprietary chip to their device and OS. Like a Mac with M3 isn't really compatible to a Samsung S23 or Motorola phone and any software needs quite some re-writing to work on multiple devices. I'm also not sure if a mobile platform will be a very powerful desktop CPU. 

[Issac Zachary]

I'm not sure about what the Cisco IP and ATM thing was or is about. But I do feel that the handwriting is on the wall for the x86 architecture.

 

If you take Apple as an example that can be followed then x86 is pretty much doomed. If no one can figure out how to do what Apple did then we will continue to have x86 for decades to come.

16 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

Until you can replace or emulate millions of legacy x86 programs, I don't think AMD or Intel are in any immediate danger, at least in the professional/server market and gaming market.

Yes, you would need and ARM chip that surpasses all x86 chips and there also needs to be GOOD emulation of x86 programs and games for a certain period, much like Apple has proved is possible.  I think both of these are possible for a company like Microsoft or a colaboration between Microsoft and Intel. Who knows, maybe Microsoft will make their own chips and Intel and AMD will no longer have any business left.

 

3 hours ago, Lurking said:

One huge advantage of x86 is that it has one major OS. So, any software will work for everyone (forget about Linux for now). With ARM, it seems you have different architectures and multiple OS (Android, iOS etc ). So a software doesn't work on all ARM devices. 

That's not relevant. The same programs that work on M1 and M2 Macs also work on M3 Macs. The same programs that work on a Samsung Galaxy S23 will work on a Nokia G400. Sure, there's a bit of hardware family fueding going on here, but I'm sure that all Windows-on-arm chips (maybe the W1, the W2, then W3-pro, etc.) will all be able to run all the same programs, albeit certain special programs with special hardware, just like with x86. Who cares if you can install Windows-on-arm onto your Samsung Galaxy, that isn't going to stop the ARM revolution.

[Blue4130]

17 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

Outside of Chromebooks, I don't see ARM currently taking any significant foothold in the Windows/PC market.

 

Until you can replace or emulate millions of legacy x86 programs, I don't think AMD or Intel are in any immediate danger, at least in the professional/server market and gaming market.

 

Plus, they are looking into manufacturing ARM CPUs of their own.

 

Check the news subforum. There was a recent news topic around the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, that already contains a lot of discussion.

They aren't really going after the desktop market though, They are all about the server side, and they have stuff that is pretty impressive.

[Lurking]

2 hours ago, Issac Zachary said:

That's not relevant. The same programs that work on M1 and M2 Macs also work on M3 Macs. The same programs that work on a Samsung Galaxy S23 will work on a Nokia G400. Sure, there's a bit of hardware family fueding going on here, but I'm sure that all Windows-on-arm chips (maybe the W1, the W2, then W3-pro, etc.) will all be able to run all the same programs, albeit certain special programs with special hardware, just like with x86. Who cares if you can install Windows-on-arm onto your Samsung Galaxy, that isn't going to stop the ARM revolution.

At minimum ARM is split in a large iOS and Android sector that are not compatible. Probably more I'm not aware of. 

 

Most commercial software is x86 only. Your bank, engineers, accountants, scientists all use software that only exist on x86. Games. I'm not saying this couldn't change. But it is a lot of inertia since the user would need ALL applications on ARM, and needs to learn those, and everyone they exchange work with also has to switch at the same time. Imagine you switch the UK to drive on the right side. All you need is one car-free weekend to change all intersections, traffic lights and signs and give everyone a new car, truck and bus.

[Issac Zachary]

1 hour ago, Lurking said:

At minimum ARM is split in a large iOS and Android sector that are not compatible. Probably more I'm not aware of. 

 

Most commercial software is x86 only. Your bank, engineers, accountants, scientists all use software that only exist on x86. Games. I'm not saying this couldn't change. But it is a lot of inertia since the user would need ALL applications on ARM, and needs to learn those, and everyone they exchange work with also has to switch at the same time. Imagine you switch the UK to drive on the right side. All you need is one car-free weekend to change all intersections, traffic lights and signs and give everyone a new car, truck and bus.

True, but we do have an example that it can be done: Apple. All of Apple's computer software was x86. Now it runs on both, with ARM beating their previous x86 offerings. There's no reason it can't be done with Windows. Emulation would be key for a while until most everyone changes over. The process on Apple was rather seemless. You won't see anyone that needed to relearn the ARM based programs for Macs.

 

There's no reason it couldn't happen for Windows. It's all a matter of cost of investment vs. turnout. Put lots of money into making a killer ARM chip that can become econimic enough to compete with x86, but with better performace. Put more money into making a really good version of Windows-on-Arm. And put a ton more money into developing stellar x86 emulation on ARM, and you'd have the receipt for Microsoft switching completely to ARM just as Apple did.

 

The two factors to make ARM take over would be these:

1. If there's reason to believe that you can make an ARM chip that both outperforms and is cheaper than compareable x86 offerings.
2. If legislation pushes for more efficient PC's.

[Lurking]

29 minutes ago, Issac Zachary said:

True, but we do have an example that it can be done: Apple. All of Apple's computer software was x86. Now it runs on both, with ARM beating their previous x86 offerings. There's no reason it can't be done with Windows. Emulation would be key for a while until most everyone changes over. The process on Apple was rather seemless. You won't see anyone that needed to relearn the ARM based programs for Macs.

 

There's no reason it couldn't happen for Windows. It's all a matter of cost of investment vs. turnout. Put lots of money into making a killer ARM chip that can become econimic enough to compete with x86, but with better performace. Put more money into making a really good version of Windows-on-Arm. And put a ton more money into developing stellar x86 emulation on ARM, and you'd have the receipt for Microsoft switching completely to ARM just as Apple did.

 

The two factors to make ARM take over would be these:

1. If there's reason to believe that you can make an ARM chip that both outperforms and is cheaper than compareable x86 offerings.
2. If legislation pushes for more efficient PC's.

I don't think a move to an Apple model with proprietary parts, no upgrade path and walled garden is what the World needs. And hardware that can't or isn't economical to repair or upgrade also has an environmental impact. 

 

I can build and repair or upgrade my Windows PC with a variety of manufacturers without any MS input. I can write my own or use anyone else's software without ever talking to MS. What would be the advantage to give this up?

 

And most professional software never existed on Mac. There is a LOT of integration of the software with Windows. 

 

Not only there is a lot of Windows-only commercial software. There also are many company-specific software developments and industry-specific API to commercial software. These aren't just fartnoise apps that easily get remade for ARM. 

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, Lurking said:

I don't think a move to an Apple model with proprietary parts, no upgrade path and walled garden is what the World needs. And hardware that can't or isn't economical to repair or upgrade also has an environmental impact. 

 

I can build and repair or upgrade my Windows PC with a variety of manufacturers without any MS input. I can write my own or use anyone else's software without ever talking to MS. What would be the advantage to give this up?

 

And most professional software never existed on Mac. There is a LOT of integration of the software with Windows. 

 

Not only there is a lot of Windows-only commercial software. There also are many company-specific software developments and industry-specific API to commercial software. These aren't just fartnoise apps that easily get remade for ARM. 

There is no reason that switching to arm means switching to proprietary hardware. There is no reason that Apple needs to be proprietary because they are arm based.

 

Correlation something something causation something somthing.....

[Eigenvektor]

2 hours ago, Issac Zachary said:

True, but we do have an example that it can be done: Apple. All of Apple's computer software was x86. Now it runs on both, with ARM beating their previous x86 offerings. There's no reason it can't be done with Windows. Emulation would be key for a while until most everyone changes over. The process on Apple was rather seemless. You won't see anyone that needed to relearn the ARM based programs for Macs.

There's a big difference between Apple and Microsoft though. Apple controls their own ecosystem, both hardware and OS. Microsoft does not.

 

If Apple transitions to ARM, developers have no choice but to follow. If a developer isn't willing to switch their software to ARM, they can just as well stop making software for macOS. Apple stopped building new x86 machines, so in a few years there won't be any x86 Macs left. So it is ARM or bust.

 

Microsoft isn't committed to ARM in the same way, nor could they really. Windows for ARM is an "also ran". If your Windows software doesn't run natively on ARM at this point, nobody cares. And there's no strong incentive for developers to even consider it. On the other hand, if you made software that runs exclusively on ARM, very few people would use it. If a company released a major new game that only runs on Windows for ARM, they could just as well shut down their company right now because there's no market for it. And there's not enough market share to make a port on top of x86 economically viable.

 

Getting an ARM laptop only really makes sense if you need maximum battery life and you can live with the fact that your software choice is limited. Until that changes there's no strong incentive for people to switch to ARM. And until they do, there's no incentive for more developers to support it. Chicken and Egg. Unlike Apple that can dictate that everything is ARM now, this will be a long an drawn out transition.

 

6 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

They aren't really going after the desktop market though, They are all about the server side, and they have stuff that is pretty impressive.

True. Power savings are a strong incentive to have ARM based servers. But I don't think the software that is used on these machines will have a strong effect on the private sector. Unless it triggers a lot of software to also natively support ARM, making ARM based machine more attractive to the average user, I don't see many people making the switch to ARM.

[Blue4130]

15 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

True. Power savings are a strong incentive to have ARM based servers. But I don't think the software that is used on these machines will have a strong effect on the private sector. Unless it triggers a lot of software to also natively support ARM, making ARM based machine more attractive to the average user, I don't see many people making the switch to ARM.

Oh I agree with you. On the desktop side, I don't think the switch will happen. On the server side, for things like hyper scalers and cloud providers, I DO think it will happen.

[starsmine]

On 11/14/2023 at 11:02 PM, nixonwastaken said:

Okay, so I have been thinking this for awhile now and I genuinely think we may be seeing history repeat itself, 

With the next generation of CPU architecture (ARM) beginning to take its foothold in the market, I began seeing AMD/Intel respond similarly as once Nortel or Lucent once did with their original response to Cisco's IP alternative to ATM (predecessor to IP) my point being we are clearly seeing another major architectural change within computing, and how the major players (AMD/Intel) being nearly non-responsive until only now, are we seeing another Nortel/Lucent situation begin to unfold slowly in front of our very own eyes. 

If anyone has thoughts, feel free to drop them, I might just be an idiot, but this is my observation at least.
 

Nortel unfolded because it was playing toxic financial games with their stocks and new laws had to be made to handle it. Not because it lost ATM VS IP. 

Think more Enron or GE, and less 3dfx or Power PC

[Issac Zachary]

5 hours ago, Lurking said:

I don't think a move to an Apple model with proprietary parts, no upgrade path and walled garden is what the World needs. And hardware that can't or isn't economical to repair or upgrade also has an environmental impact. 

 

I can build and repair or upgrade my Windows PC with a variety of manufacturers without any MS input. I can write my own or use anyone else's software without ever talking to MS. What would be the advantage to give this up?

 

And most professional software never existed on Mac. There is a LOT of integration of the software with Windows. 

 

Not only there is a lot of Windows-only commercial software. There also are many company-specific software developments and industry-specific API to commercial software. These aren't just fartnoise apps that easily get remade for ARM. 

While I'd hate for upgrade paths to change to walled gardens there is still a lot of reasons why this may still happen.

• Most customers don't know or care how to upgrade. If you know how, you're the minority.
• Many companies with specific software and hardware also are less likely to upgrade, which is why there are companies still running 386 processors with MS-DOS. For them, newer, faster x86 processors don't really do anything for them. Upgrading is usually not necessary, and when they finally do upgrade it's an entire redo of everything, which is a good reason to try a different platform.
• If it is a company that relies on upgrading to the newest, fastest computing, then there's not really a reason to stick with x86 either. Sure, there would be a learning curve for programers, but if their programs will work better and faster on ARM, then they will switch. 

4 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

There's a big difference between Apple and Microsoft though. Apple controls their own ecosystem, both hardware and OS. Microsoft does not.

 

If Apple transitions to ARM, developers have no choice but to follow. If a developer isn't willing to switch their software to ARM, they can just as well stop making software for macOS. Apple stopped building new x86 machines, so in a few years there won't be any x86 Macs left. So it is ARM or bust.

 

Microsoft isn't committed to ARM in the same way, nor could they really. Windows for ARM is an "also ran". If your Windows software doesn't run natively on ARM at this point, nobody cares. And there's no strong incentive for developers to even consider it. On the other hand, if you made software that runs exclusively on ARM, very few people would use it. If a company released a major new game that only runs on Windows for ARM, they could just as well shut down their company right now because there's no market for it. And there's not enough market share to make a port on top of x86 economically viable.

 

Getting an ARM laptop only really makes sense if you need maximum battery life and you can live with the fact that your software choice is limited. Until that changes there's no strong incentive for people to switch to ARM. And until they do, there's no incentive for more developers to support it. Chicken and Egg. Unlike Apple that can dictate that everything is ARM now, this will be a long an drawn out transition.

With the way things are now, ok, sure, there's no big push, or any push at all, for a customer to go get a Windows-on-Arm laptop, other than a bit better battery life. But I still feel the handwriting is on the wall. There are way too many benefits to an ARM System On Chip design. Once someone comes out with an equivalent Windows version of the M1, M2 and so on family of chips, it will be the begining of the end for x86. There's just too much performance potential with a RISC based SOC compared to a CISC based modular design.

 

To be honest I don't like the idea of an all-ARM future. But the reasons not to do it aren't as big as people think they are, and the potential is huge. Keep building your custom PC's while you can.

[Lurking]

5 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

There is no reason that switching to arm means switching to proprietary hardware. There is no reason that Apple needs to be proprietary because they are arm based.

 

Correlation something something causation something somthing.....

Hard to speculate what could have.... But Apple would have a hard time forcing a switch to ARM if there would have been a choice in hardware and software and if it wouldn't have been a closed system. And the proprietary thing is the whole reason they are as successful as they are. Switching the Windows World to ARM would be a whole different thing.

 

Before speculating if ARM can be a desktop system replacing Windows, let's see some actual desktop ARM hardware and OS first.

[Blue4130]

13 minutes ago, Lurking said:

Hard to speculate what could have.... But Apple would have a hard time forcing a switch to ARM if there would have been a choice in hardware and software and if it wouldn't have been a closed system. And the proprietary thing is the whole reason they are as successful as they are. Switching the Windows World to ARM would be a whole different thing.

 

Before speculating if ARM can be a desktop system replacing Windows, let's see some actual desktop ARM hardware and OS first.

First, I wasn't speculating on what could have been. You linked apples arm to proprietary hardware. I simply stated that it doesn't need to be proprietary. That was apple choice, not a requirement.

 

Second...

https://store.avantek.co.uk/arm-desktops.html

 

Here you go. They exist. No speculation needed. Does it make sense for the average user to change? No. Can it function and run? Yes.

[LAwLz]

On 11/15/2023 at 5:02 AM, nixonwastaken said:

With the next generation of CPU architecture (ARM) beginning to take its foothold in the market

You shouldn't think of arm as a "next generation of CPU architecture". The basis for ARM is very old, just like the basis of x86. But both instruction sets have changed a lot over time.

 

 

 

On 11/15/2023 at 5:02 AM, nixonwastaken said:

my point being we are clearly seeing another major architectural change within computing, and how the major players (AMD/Intel) being nearly non-responsive until only now, are we seeing another Nortel/Lucent situation begin to unfold slowly in front of our very own eyes. 

I don't think this is the case. I don't think the big change will be moving from x86 to ARM. If anything happens, then it will be that more companies start offering processors for Windows because ARM is more "open" than x86. 

 

If I had to make some predictions, I would say these things will happen:

1) More companies selling processors for Windows. This won't really be a war between x86 and ARM, but rather to end users it might just be as if more players decided to start offering processors for computers. Hopefully, consumers won't even have to think about which ISA the processor uses. I don't think AMD and Intel are in any danger because they use x86. I think they might be in danger because they will (hopefully) suddenly find themselves having more competition than before. Instead of just having each other to compete with, they might get 2-3 other companies they also have to compete with in terms of price, performance, features, power consumption, etc.

 

2) NPUs will become more and more important. AMD and Intel are already adding NPUs to their processors, and so are everyone else. Microsoft has announced that the task manager will soon show an "NPU" section just like it does for CPU and GPU. I don't think anyone is missing this.

 

3) I think computers will become more and more tightly integrated, and desktops will die out more and more. They obviously won't go away 100%, but this is a trend we can trace back many years. Fewer and fewer people are getting desktops. Most people prefer laptops if they want a Windows PC at all.

 

4) The server space will probably phase out x86 more and more. This is the area where I think the difference between ARM and x86 will play the biggest role. A higher degree of flexibility to modify the hardware to the specific needs of these massive cloud vendors (AWS, GCP, Azure, etc) and the ability to develop their own hardware is probably appealing to those companies. And they are a massive market. Again, x86 will probably not go away anytime soon, there might even be more x86 cloud servers in 10 years than there are today, but I think ARM servers will grow more and faster than x86 in this particular sector.

 

 

 

Those are my 2 cents.

[LAwLz]

17 hours ago, Lurking said:

Many hardware manufacturers with new (and maybe better) architecture learned the hard way that everything is about software.

 

A company or industry uses specific software and buy the computer/OS based on that and not the other way around. 

 

One huge advantage of x86 is that it has one major OS. So, any software will work for everyone (forget about Linux for now). With ARM, it seems you have different architectures and multiple OS (Android, iOS etc ). So a software doesn't work on all ARM devices. 

 

I'm no ARM expert. But my understanding is it is more a licensing scheme and each manufacturer build a somewhat proprietary chip to their device and OS. Like a Mac with M3 isn't really compatible to a Samsung S23 or Motorola phone and any software needs quite some re-writing to work on multiple devices. I'm also not sure if a mobile platform will be a very powerful desktop CPU. 

This is false for a few reasons.

 

 

1) You do have multiple OSes for x86. Even if we forget Linux (which comprises hundreds of different OSes) you also have MacOS and the various flavors of BSD. But this is kind of besides the point.

 

2) Not all Windows software works on all versions of Windows. Businesses are very well aware of this fact, which is why we still to this day have quite a lot of stuff running Windows XP out in the world. Or for another example, software written using CUDA won't run on AMD GPUs.

 

 

3) What you are describing is not how ARM works. Don't get hardware mixed up with software.

ARM is the instruction set. It's the layer between the OS and the actual hardware. If you write your code in the standard ARM instructions, then your code will work the same regardless of whether it runs on the processor in the Samsung Galaxy S23, some Motorola phone, Apple's M1, or M3 or whatever.

You absolutely do not need to rewrite software to work on multiple devices either. Facebook is not writing or modifying its "facebook app" for every single Android phone out there.

 

The reason why you can't take an Android app and run it on an iOS device, is because of the OS, not the hardware instruction set the CPU uses. The compatibility issues are higher up in the chain. It's the same reason why you can't take a program written for MacOS and run it on Windows without modifications. 

The reason why you can't take the OS from an Android phone and install it on another Android phone is not because of CPU instruction set differences either. It's because they lack the plug-and-play standards that BIOS/UEFI provides us with. In some cases, they do provide that, but other things such as SecureBoot get in the way. This is the same reason why you couldn't install MacOS on a Windows PC even when both used x86 processors. It is not an ISA thing.

Modern computers have several layers of abstraction built on top of each other, and each one has to support what you want to do for it to work. The CPU ISA is just one out of let's say 10 different abstraction layers you press a key on your keyboard goes through, and each layer has to support the layer above and below it in order for something to work. 

 

 

4) ARM is not a mobile platform. ARM is just an instruction set that can be adapted to work on smartphones, desktops, servers, or anything else. Do not think of ARM as a mobile processor.

 

 

 

On 11/15/2023 at 6:57 AM, Eigenvektor said:

Until you can replace or emulate millions of legacy x86 programs, I don't think AMD or Intel are in any immediate danger, at least in the professional/server market and gaming market.

We can already do that. Running programs written for x86 on ARM processors is something Microsoft has supported for a long time.
At first it didn't work very well, but they have over the years slowly improved it and today we are mostly lacking decent ARM processors aimed at Windows.
In the server market, you oftentimes don't even need to emulate the software, because you can recompile it to be ARM-native. At least if we're talking about the big players that write their own software.

 

Gaming is the area with the biggest obstacles because software gets abandoned very quickly, and companies use a ton of closed-source components (so they can't be changed if necessary), performance is very important, and there are also a lot of very nasty DRM software that will throw a fit if you look at it the wrong way.

[Lurking]

1 hour ago, Blue4130 said:

First, I wasn't speculating on what could have been. You linked apples arm to proprietary hardware. I simply stated that it doesn't need to be proprietary. That was apple choice, not a requirement.

 

Second...

https://store.avantek.co.uk/arm-desktops.html

 

Here you go. They exist. No speculation needed. Does it make sense for the average user to change? No. Can it function and run? Yes.

What OS and actual application do those ARM desktops run? I naively just think of the software I or people I know use at work. Those are industry leading software and only available for Windows.

 

I don't know if those linked desktops are powerful or not. But at the price I don't see regular users abandoning their Windows platforms.

 

I'm sure there are some niche ARM desktop/workstation applications. But are those the ones the majority of employees use at work?

 

Any new standard would have to support professional use (accounting, engineering etc software) and also home (games etc.).  If all that software won't be available in the same quantity and quality, no one will buy ARM. 

 

37 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

This is false.

 

 

1) You do have multiple OSes for x86. Even if we forget Linux (which comprises hundreds of different OSes) you also have MacOS and the various flavors of BSD. 

 

2) Not all Windows software works on all versions of Windows. Businesses are very well aware of this fact, which is why we still to this day have quite a lot of stuff running Windows XP out in the world.

 

 

3) What you are describing is not how ARM works. Don't get hardware mixed up with software.

ARM is the instruction set. It's the layer between the OS and the actual hardware. If you write your code in the standard ARM instructions, then your code will work the same regardless whether it runs on the processor in the Samsung Galaxy S23, some Motorola phone, Apple's M1, or M3 or whatever.

You absolutely do not need to rewrite software to work on multiple devices either. Facebook is not writing or modifying its "facebook app" for every single Android phone out there.

 

The reason why you can't take an Android app and run it on an iOS device, is because of the OS, not the hardware instruction set the CPU uses. The compatibility issues are higher up in the chain. It's the same reason why you can't take a program written for MacOS and run it on Windows without modifications. 

The reason why you can't take the OS from an Android phone and install it on another Android phone is not because of instruction set differences either. It's because they lack the plug-and-play standards that BIOS/UEFI provides us with. In some cases they do provide that, but other things such as SecureBoot get in the way. This is the same reason why you couldn't install MacOS on a Windows PC even when both used x86 processors. It is not an ISA thing.

 

4) ARM is not a mobile platform. ARM is just an instruction set that can be adapted to work on smartphones, desktops, servers, or anything else. Do not think of ARM as a mobile processor.

Good info 

 

But we then still would need one single OS to ensure all the required applications run. Right? 

 

I'm not necessarily a Windows fan and in private life I could see using something else and less complex. But at work, I see nothing non-Windows software anyone in the industry uses. I really don't care what OS I use, I just care it supports the software I actually use 

[Blue4130]

3 minutes ago, Lurking said:

What OS and actual application do those ARM desktops run? I naively just think of the software I or people I know use at work. Those are industry leading software and only available for Windows.

 

I don't know if those linked desktops are powerful or not. But at the price I don't see regular users abandoning their Windows platforms.

They can run many linux distros, they can run windows for arm, they could theoretically run OSX.

 

As for the power, they are insanely powerful. But as I stated, ARM is not destined for home users. It is a server/ highly specialized use architecture. Think AWS, facebook, google etc. Those are places that will switch to arm, not your mom and pop writing emails.

[LAwLz]

14 minutes ago, Lurking said:

But we then still would need one single OS to ensure all the required applications run. Right? 

I am not sure what you mean. Why would we need a single OS to run all programs?

If you're talking about consumers then no, we don't. In fact, we already have multiple OSes we interact with every day. Your phone doesn't run the same software as your desktop. Not even inside Apple's own ecosystem does all devices run the same OS.

 

 

My mom uses as Chromebook as her only computer besides her phone, and it works wonderfully for her. In fact, I'd say it is working better than Windows did. The same is true for a lot of children in schools these days.

 

If you're talking about servers then we certainly don't have a single OS that runs everything today, and I don't see any reason to need that in the future.

 

 

But all of this is kind of meaningless when talking about ARM vs x86 because all widely used operating systems already support ARM. You can install Windows on ARM machines if you want. There are several computers out there that come with Windows (that you can install a Linux disto on) that uses ARM processors. I don't think they are very good but that's a hardware issue rather than a software issue. And by hardware issue, I do not mean an ISA-related issue (ARM vs x86). It's just that the particular ARM-based processors that have ended up in Windows machines haven't been very good. 

Same goes for servers. There are a ton of servers running on ARM hardware.

 

Here is one example of a Windows laptop that uses an ARM-based CPU:

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadx/thinkpad--x13s-(13-inch-snapdragon)/len101t0019

There are plenty more.

 

These laptops have an ARM processor and can run 99% of the software you can run on an x86-based Windows laptop. 

[Lurking]

8 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

They can run many linux distros, they can run windows for arm, they could theoretically run OSX.

 

As for the power, they are insanely powerful. But as I stated, ARM is not destined for home users. It is a server/ highly specialized use architecture. Think AWS, facebook, google etc. Those are places that will switch to arm, not your mom and pop writing emails.

So they can run Linux distro that also run on x86? Or are those specific ARM distros?

 

I understand server and mobile exists for ARM. I'm mainly talking about possible ARM use for what we use regular desktops for (from gaming at home to what most people have at their work).

 

And I don't doubt ARM could technically do all the Windows stuff. I just doubt it had the same software support since you need an ARM version for all software at once to make the switch. Like at work I use a few industry standard software and everyone I collaborate with has to use the same software. We all would have to get ARM hardware and the ARM version of that software at once. And obviously there are multiple software that ALL would have to provide an ARM version. Some of the programs started 20-30 years ago and developed over time. I just don't see the entire industry making the switch.

[Lurking]

4 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I am not sure what you mean. Why would we need a single OS to run all programs?

If you're talking about consumers then no, we don't. In fact, we already have multiple OSes we interact with every day. Your phone doesn't run the same software as your desktop. Not even inside Apple's own ecosystem does all devices run the same OS.

 

 

My mom uses as Chromebook as her only computer besides her phone, and it works wonderfully for her. In fact, I'd say it is working better than Windows did. The same is true for a lot of children in schools these days.

 

If you're talking about servers then we certainly don't have a single OS that runs everything today, and I don't see any reason to need that in the future.

 

 

But all of this is kind of meaningless when talking about ARM vs x86 because all widely used operating systems already support ARM. You can install Windows on ARM machines if you want. There are several computers out there that come with Windows (that you can install a Linux disto on) that uses ARM processors. I don't think they are very good but that's a hardware issue rather than a software issue. And by hardware issue, I do not mean an ISA-related issue (ARM vs x86). It's just that the particular ARM-based processors that have ended up in Windows machines haven't been very good. 

Same goes for servers. There are a ton of servers running on ARM hardware.

 

Here is one example of a Windows laptop that uses an ARM-based CPU:

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadx/thinkpad--x13s-(13-inch-snapdragon)/len101t0019

There are plenty more.

 

These laptops have an ARM processor and can run 99% of the software you can run on an x86-based Windows laptop. 

By single OS I mean if we use the same software. I'm talking actually desktop software, not a mobile application or something simple like a Chromebook. 

 

Like an accounting software or game only runs on Windows (ignore that there is W10 and W11, they basically are the same). They don't run on Linux etc. So for an ARM version we also need to settle on one OS to run the very same software. 

 

Maybe software more being vendor hosted will make a transition easier and then everyone just accesses the software with browser. But I don't see much movement to that model. Basically like Google Sheet works that any browser from any platform can use.

 

Just as an example, I use use Autodesk Revit at work. Everyone who works on the same project needs to be on the very same version. It only exist for Windows, and that alone will make sure Windows is required. If that fact doesn't change, it won't matter if ARM is 100x better. If it can't run the software we use, it isn't better.

[Eigenvektor]

1 hour ago, Lurking said:

So they can run Linux distro that also run on x86? Or are those specific ARM distros?

Any Linux based distribution can theoretically run on ARM.

 

The only thing you need to do is recompile the kernel and all software that is included to an ARM binary.

 

The biggest obstacle are likely device drivers. If the ARM based machine uses hardware the Linux kernel has no drivers for (yet) you first need to solve that problem.

 

But there is nothing that makes a distro x86 specific as such.

 

Just as an example: https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

 

You can see that Debian has .iso files for many different CPU architectures:

• amd64
• arm64
• armel
• armhf
• hurd-i386
• i386
• mips64el
• ppc64el
• s390x

Its the same OS in all cases, simply recompiled for a different CPU architecture.

[Eigenvektor]

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

We can already do that. Running programs written for x86 on ARM processors is something Microsoft has supported for a long time.

You are right, it can already do that. Though emulation of 64-bit (x86_64) apps didn't come until Win 11.

 

What I meant is that it doesn't necessarily work for every program and doesn't always work perfectly.

 

Emulation also comes at a performance cost. This makes it less ideal for anything with high performance requirements, like games.

 

So if you have to decide between a laptop with a 12 hour battery life, that should run all you software and a laptop with a 7 got battery life that is effectively guaranteed to run all your software, most people will likely continue to go with the x86 machine.

[Lurick]

13 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

You are right, it can already do that. Though 64-bit (x86_64) didn't come until Win 11.

 

What I meant is that it doesn't necessarily work for every program and doesn't always work perfectly.

 

Emulation also comes at a performance cost. This makes it less ideal for anything with high performance requirements, like games.

 

So if you have to decide between a laptop with a 12 hour battery life, that should run all you software and a laptop with a 7 got battery life that is effectively guaranteed to run all your software, most people will likely continue to go with the x86 machine.

64-bit support has been around since the days of Windows XP....

Windows 11 did drop the option for choosing between 32-bit and 64-bit versions and defaulted to the 64-bit version though.

 

Edit:

Completely missed this was in reference to 64-bit emulation support, derp on me