this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024

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AMD, Intel, and a slew of tech companies are teaming up to fend off ARM chips (www.theverge.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 142 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (11 children)

I'm conflicted on ARM.

The additional competition is great, but it presents a great risk of PCs becoming more locked down. They don't have an open, standardised BIOS/UEFI like x86 systems do.

Booting alternate OSes on ARM systems can be a nightmare. Usually it's straight up not possible.

I don't want PCs to be like smartphones. I don't want locked bootloaders.

EDIT:

FFS people. I know there are some ARM devices that allow booting of non-official OSes. That's why I said usually.

Even for those devices though, they typically have to use non-standardised firmware (you can't just take an OS for device A and use it for device B in the same way you can take an .iso and install it on any x86 machine), and it requires the OEM to want the device to be open.

Your desire to go "umm ackshully..." and be technically correct over a point I never made in the first place is blinding you to the point I was actually making: x86 is fairly open, standardised, and modular by default. ARM isn't. And all it takes is a look at the phone/tablet market to see that OEMs don't want them to be.

I worry, and I don't think unreasonably, that ARM becoming the standard could mean a further erosion of the openness of PCs.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

Standardized firmware isn't something that's specified in the ISA, is it? It's just shitty phone manufacturers.

Asus had some x86 phones a few years back. I haven't dug into them, but I doubt they had a full bios/efi.

pine64 arm devices have u-boot, while a bootloader does fullfil a subset of the uefi spec.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

As a simple user of Linux, I totally understand what it means for me....less choice, more google-android-like shit hardware. No thanks 👍.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

I would like RISC-V to also get 'good enough', considering that it seems to be a shitton more open than ARM is.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think that there's a legitimate place for all-in-one "smartphone" SoC PCs. You can make them cheaper, smaller, and use less power.

It's just not really what I want for myself in a PC. I want the modularity and third-parties competing to provide components.

But I am pretty sure that there are plenty of people who don't care about that.

There has to be enough scale to support products like that, though. SoC systems might cannibalize enough to make scale hard.

sigh

Well, we'll see where things go.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I mean, different use cases yeah? There's certainly a big market for people that just do the basics on their devices, ie email, web browsing, documents/spreadsheets etc that don't need a full blown powerhouse computer, nevermind that they have no clue what an operating system even is nor do they care, as long as they get their memes and cat videos in between work tasks.

I'll bet there will always be an x86 segment of the market for gamers, power users, tinkerers, and the like. Though, that market may unfortunately shrink in the coming years that could lead to vendors abandoning the space, which could lead to fewer choices and higher component prices. On top of which, major venders might see it as an opportunity for lock-in and advertising, so yeah it'll be interesting to see what happens.

The sliver of hope here is that the hacking community has always found ways around proprietary bullshit, and we can only hope and support that those efforts continue, lest we further our race in to a stupid corporate dystopia.

[–] gravitas_deficiency 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Tbh I really want to get my hands on a snapdragon X laptop at some point just to play around with it. The energy efficiency alone makes me very curious.

I was under the impression that most of the issues around getting Linux to work on them was around driver support. As in: people are absolutely able to install an arbitrary OS, but the functionality is just super janky in most cases. Is that not accurate?

[–] prosthetiknow 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You’re definitely right in terms of arbitrary OS installation, some folks have got Ubuntu running on Lenovo snapdragon laptops recently.

The lack of “portability” though is a bit troubling, it seems each device (tree) has to be manually added, developed, tested, and have an install image created for it, unless I’m missing something. And this will be arduous and potentially problematic for corner cases or small numbers of adopters of a particular machine model (so basically the same as right now I guess).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

As well, software packages have to be ported to the new architecture, which in some cases is easier said than done. Sure basic Unix utilities are portable enough, but more advanced and complicated software might have some issues, unless an efficient compatibility layer could be developed.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

I don't want PCs to be like smartphones. I don't want locked bootloaders.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but since Microsoft made TPM mandatory for Windows 11+, locked down bootloader are on their way.

Basically, TPM allows (Windows) software to validate/verify the integrity of the OS and hardware. This also (could) include the bootloader/bios if Microsoft chooses to do so.

TPM is the equivalent of attestation on Android, which is the exact reason why your Banking App won't work on your rooted/custom Android Phone.

That being said, we should embrace ARM. X86/AMD has 30+ years worth of "history" baked into each ( CISC) chip. This complexity is why your PC draws soooo much power and generates soooo much heat.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

This! Exactly!

[–] tophneal 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Not all ARM chips are in phones, nor are they all locked down like one. There are several ARM devices and SBCs now where switching OSes is as easy as swapping out an SD card. Most do use uboot as a standard and some are even capable of utilizing UEFI.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But it's not standard.

What made PCs take off was the BIOS war, which occurred because manufacturers were dependent on 3rd party OS's, which were still competing for dominance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Where can I watch or read about this? Like what can I Google for more?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Some SBCs only boot from said SD card though, while some do support more robust media. However, too many images are presuming you boot from SD which is a pita.

With or without Das Uboot, they still rely on board specific firmware (even Uboot is customised for many boards to make it work). OSes that state they do support aarch64, often require to have UEFI on your system so no way they are gonna boot on e.g. your Raspberry Pi.

Add to that, that is unlikely that browsers compiled for arm64 will have feature parity with their x86-64 counterparts. Goodbye Digitale Rights Management, and with that goodbye services like Tidal or Spotify (unless you run an OS that is still supported by their apps).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I was gonna say I thought Raspi was ARM.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

ARM isn't the x86 solution people like it to be. It's at least as proprietary as x86 and the fact that it's more widely licenced today than x86 is a happy coincidence. ARM licensing can dry up with a change in corporate leadership or a takeover by one of a myriad large corporations. A solution worth cheering would be a good enough open RISC-V core.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

And universal drivers are an issue in ARM, bad for Open Source.

[–] mindbleach 3 points 2 months ago

Right, but ARM breaking x86's monopoly opens the door to RISC-V, pretty directly. We're talking about serious corporate money going toward a lot of software that's not technically emulation. Once it's easy to plug in x86 executables at one end and ARM chips at the other end... they don't have to be ARM chips.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Tisc-v ftw

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (9 children)

This is a sign of ARM approaching the "enough" level. I remember the times when it was actually important to buy the latest PC at least every other year to have enough power to run a basic office suite or similar programs with acceptable speed.

Nowadays, you can staff offices with about any PC off the shelf - it is powerful and big enough to fulfill the needs of the majority of users. Of course there are servers, there are power users, engineers running simulations, and of course gamers who need more power, and who still fuel the cutting edge of PC building. But the masses don't need to be cutting edge anymore. A rather basic machine is enough.

Here comes the ARM: For many years, ARM-based chips were used as SOCs, running anything from washing machines to mobile phones. But they have grown bigger and faster, and I can see them approaching the point that they can cover the basic needs of the average office and home user - which would be a damn big chunk of the market. It would be enough for those needs, but it would be cheaper and in many aspects less troublesome than Intel and AMD. Take for example power consumption in relation to computational power, where ARM is way better than the old and crusty x86 architecture. And less power leads to less cooling requirements, making the machines smaller, more energy efficient, and less noisy.

I can see ARM-based systems approaching this enough level, and I can see that Intel and ARM are deadly afraid of that scenario.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (3 children)

This!

I have wondered for a long time when we'll hit that ceiling (ssd size, cpu power, ram, ...) and I think it's about right now. There are not many exciting PC hardware news nowadays is another sign IMO.

I also windered for a long time why I shouldn't have a mobile phone PC, or more like "where are they?", I have an old Xiaomi redmi note pro 9, 4+4 core with 6+2GB RAM (Whatever that +2 means), 128GB storage and, well, graphics. For not expencive.

It could be an OK home computer.

A little bit of interesting times ahead!

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

basic needs of the average office and home user

I mean, ARM chips have been at that level of performance for at least a decade by now. Normal people's most strenuous activity is watching Youtube, which every cellphone since what? 2005? could do.

power consumption in relation to computational power

The thing is that's very much not the actual situation for most people.

Only Apple really has high performance, very low power ARM chips you can't really outclass.

Qualcomm's stuff is within single-digit percentage points of the current-gen AMD and Intel chips both in power usage, performance, and battery life.

I mean, that's a FANTASTIC achievement for a 1st gen product, but like, it's not nearly as good as it should be.

The problem is that the current tradeoff is that huge amounts of the software you've been using just does not work, and a huge portion of it might NEVER work, because nobody is going to invest time in making it behave.

(Edit: assuming the software you need doesn't work in the emulation layer, of course.) You might get Photoshop, but you won't get that version of CS3 you actually own updated. You might get new games, but you probably won't get that 10 year old one you like playing twice a year. And so on.

The future might be ARM, but only Apple has a real hat in the ring, still.

(Please someone make better ARM chips than Apple, thanks.)___

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Qualcomm's stuff is within single-digit percentage points of the current-gen AMD and Intel chips both in power usage, performance, and battery life

Back in June, the new Snapdragon X processors were a lot more efficient than their x86 based counterparts. I can personally attest to much lower levels of heat generation.

The problem is that the current tradeoff is that huge amounts of the software you've been using just does not work, and a huge portion of it might NEVER work, because nobody is going to invest time in making it behave.

I agree with the sentiment, but IMO this is a PC and Windows problem. I would also extend this beyond pure comparability. I say this for a few reasons

I lose about 5% charge/day with my laptop asleep. It does wake up very quickly, but 5%/day feels like a lot. At this point, I don't think Microsoft has a strong incentive to really optimize the kernal for efficiency
Historic massive variability in hardware across devices also makes it hard to optimize efficiency, although the current crop of snapdragon x laptops seem to have less variability
One of the strengths of windows is that it can run applications written 20+ years ago fairly reliably. There's a ton of software that's still floating around that hasn't been actively supported in years. I don't see all of these software companies desiring to port their code over, especially without guarantees that the market will adopt ARM (the Apple approach) or until they see the ARM adoption rate go up (the current Windows approach)

All that said, I've had zero issues with emulation so far. I never personally used a M1 max when they launched, but from reports of that era the current Windows experience is at least as good as that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Valve is currently working on some tech to let x86 games work on arm64.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Windows* runs on arm. Microsoft Surfaces user arm processors. Even with windows apps being emulated... It's basically enough already.

Windows* RT but Microsoft dropped the differentiator this time around.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (13 children)

Really they need to work on power usage and temperature of x86 so the chips are easier to use in mobile devices without a fan and dying in 3 hours. Stationary devices seem to be chugging along with x86 comfortably, but the chips are currently impractical otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The new Intel chips already addressed that, at least for notebook class devices.

Realistically, there wasn't really a reason for Intel and AMD to be super power efficient, simply because there wasn't any competition for quite a while. It took Apple Silicon to show how powerful arm can be and how easy the transition could be.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

Apple took all the old tricks Intel was always way too cheap to use, and turned them to 11.

Nothing magic, nothing special, just balls and the willingness to spend silicon.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It seems that they're finally taking that seriously though so it's good to see. They never really had any incentive to put too much effort in making x86 more efficient for consumer devices since their server chips have much, much higher profit margins.

Lunar Lake and AMD's Z1 is a good start and it's interesting to see where this goes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It’s amazing what a modern process node and not cranking clock speeds to high hell will do.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

You forgot about ditching more of the chipset etc. in favour of integrating everything into the CPU die.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago

LOL this is the biggest sign out there that ARM is making a superior product. Once people start going protectionist, it's time to move on to the new thing.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This means we must band together and wholeheartedly support the architecture. Clearly, it is a ship shaker, and industries don't like ship shakers (even if it would result is a better industry or is better for the consumer, maybe especially if it was better for the consumer).

ARM is shaking the ship, so we must shake it too.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Agreed. I'd really like RISC-V to be where ARM is, but having some competition is a good thing since it keeps that door open.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

RISC-V is where ARM was a few years ago. It'll be a ship shaker, too, if it keeps developing at this rate. But, for now at least, we have ARM and clunky old (solid) x86 as the major players.

[–] Croquette 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Do you have good resources to read on risc-v. I hear about it a lot, but haven't found meaningful resources (to me) on it.

Thanks

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 2 points 2 months ago

I'm not sure what you'd like to read about, but risc-v is basically an open source CPU design. It's not compatible with anything else, so developers will need to build software specifically for it, just like how x86 and ARM are completely different.

The nice thing about it being open source is that any company can tweak the design and send it off to a fab to get chips made, so you're not really at the mercy of the big chip companies like AMD, Intel, or Qualcomm. So if someone like Samsung wants a super low-power device (e.g. for a watch), they can remove unnecessary stuff from the chip design and fab their own. Or they can go full-fat for a desktop chip. Or if they need a special instruction for their particular workload, they can implement it themselves and fab it.

At its current state, Linux largely works on it and there are hobby boards available and some other small devices, but it's nowhere near ARM in performance or efficiency (hopefully getting there).

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