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this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
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I wanted an Arm based Linux netbook or laptop for many years ever since the multi-core Smartphones came out around 2008.
Already back then the Intel based Netbooks were laughably bad compared to Arm, and couldn't even play video properly, while you could do that with ease even on early smartphones with Arm at 1080p.
But for some reason Arm has given Linux very little love with their GPU drivers, and AFAIK they still don't support it well, so now I say go fuck yourself.
Arm is NOT a good company for Linux. How they missed that opportunity for a strong market entry for over a decade I simply cannot fathom.
If AMD made an Arm CPU with Radeon graphics, that would be cool. Because AMD has good open source drivers on Linux, and has generally good Linux support.
You're right. We shouldn't use proprietary bullshit and hope the corporations do the right thing.
RISC-v is the way.
Framework just announced a RISC-V motherboard you can get which is pretty awesome. Obviously designed for developers etc, but its a good step.
Even the RPi, which has major Linux support has a blob for its graphics driver (at least the last time I checked). And I wouldn't exactly say Broadcom is falling over themselves to support Linux. Qualcomm, less so.
In theory yes, in practice I'm not so sure. Risc-V is BSD, so whatever company chooses to make it, can change it as they like and completely ruin compatibility.
I don't think it will work, because the BSD license doesn't protect it from whatever abuse any maker feels like.
I do follow it as a potential alternative, and alternatives are always nice.
That makes absolutely no sense. No company is going to go through all the trouble of making an entirely different processor that will need all new toolchains when risc-v is free. It's a monumental undertaking. MAYBE china, but who cares? Don't buy chinese chips.
They will make it incompatible exactly for the purpose of it being incompatible for proprietary purposes, the history of IT is riddled with examples of this being the goto strategy to maintain complete control of the ecosphere you create Apple is probably the best example of this. CPU has been an exception only because they traditionally aren't designed by the product companies.
So just use another chip... the whole point of RISCv is that anyone can make chips.
risc-v is maturing at a breakneck pace:
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/18/24181278/framework-laptop-risc-v-laptop-isa-arm-amd-intel-x86
https://riscv.org/news/2024/06/worlds-first-risc-v-laptop-gets-a-massive-upgrade-and-equips-with-ubuntu/
Why would AMD make an ARM CPU? The power efficiency isn't related to the instruction set.
Yes that's what Intel has been preaching for 2 decades now, but I don't believe it, if it were true, then how come Intel could not compete spending more than Arms entire revenue for 10 years to try to make a better CPU than Arm? They failed for 10 years with $10 billion in losses trying, and then they simply gave up, because they were basically no closer after 10 years than they started out with. And that was back when they still had a production process advantage!!!
But apart from that AMD would make an Arm CPU because it's become a huge ecosystem competitive in scope to X86. AND I have zero doubt that if they do, they will prove to have better power efficiency than their X86 offerings.
AMD was at it before, but that was when they were near bankrupt, now AMD is hugely profitable, and can easily afford the extra R&D, but of course they will only do it, if they believe they can capture Arm marketshare enough for it to be profitable.
Internally, AMD got pretty far along in making an ARM architecture called K12, but it got scrapped because they didn't have the money to make two architectures, so they focused on Zen.
And AMD is likely working on ARM stuff right now.
Reportedly, they recently restarted their efforts on an ARM SoC design in order to try to get Nintendo to switch (heh) to them for the Switch 2. Nintendo stuck with Nvidia because they could guarantee 100% backwards compatibility with the Switch and AMD couldn't.
Again reportedly, AMD didn't shut their new ARM group after this, seeing that Microsoft is opening up Windows to non-Qualcomm ARM SoCs (believe it or not, MS did give Qualcomm an exclusivity deal for Windows on ARM). AMD wants in on that before others take up a piece of that pie.