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Linus Torvalds on Why ARM Won't Win the Server Space

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Re: Linus Torvalds on Why ARM Won't Win the Server Space

#71

Post by deng »

mtgx wrote: post #31
mangecoeur wrote: post #24

Well all the kids are learning programming with ARM-based RPis so...

That's probably the strongest counter-argument. New generations will learn programming on Arm and RISC-V (whether it's something like an iPad or a Raspberry Pi). Linus very much sounds like a grumpy old man saying "get off of my lawn!" (as he usually does).

Well, it's difficult to not get grumpy when you hear the same promises for many years. It's not like "ARM for servers" is something new. The exact same things were already promised over a decade ago, and somehow, it never really came to pass. And I think his reasons are spot on: aside from very specific workloads, it just did not make sense to buy ARM-based servers. They were usually not much cheaper, and they usually did not save much power, compared to x86-based machines. Combine that with cross-development, and you have a loser.

Re: Linus Torvalds on Why ARM Won't Win the Server Space

#73

Post by alexandernst »

Vast majority of "cloud" user develop and deploy code written on languages that have "no idea" what architecture the CPU is running on. Eg, I code on Python/Django. Why would I care even a little bit about what set of instructions the CPU of my EC2 instance has? I don't. Because Python/Django will run exactly the same way on x86 and on ARM.

Re: Linus Torvalds on Why ARM Won't Win the Server Space

#74

Post by rbanffy »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #38
mangecoeur wrote: post #24

Well all the kids are learning programming with ARM-based RPis so...

Yeah, but it seems unlikely that many of them are learning in languages or environments where the arch really makes any difference. If the dominant OS on RPi was RiscOS (a man can dream...) it might be a different story.

And where does it? Almost nothing I write will get compiled down to native code. Linus is forgetting the immense volume of code that's written in Java, PHP, Python, C#, Ruby and dozens of other languages that rely on runtime interpreters.

I agree I will not even think of optimizing my code to run on POWER, SPARC, or ARM and that I won't care where my software runs enough to create a market for these, but I don't care enough to keep an x86 market either.

Having said that, it would be good for those who propose new architectures to ensure there is a ready supply of entry level machines for enthusiasts and early adopters. Seeding these groups will ensure their architectures and software is more thoroughly used and tested.

Re: Linus Torvalds on Why ARM Won't Win the Server Space

#75

Post by scraft »

xoa wrote: post #33

It's of course impossible not to respect Linus' opinion and first hand experience in this space, but doesn't this whole post completely ignore the 100 ton blue whale in the room? Namely smartphones . That's an entire enormous segment of the industry and it's nearly 100% (or entirely 100%?) literally develop-on-x86-deploy-on-ARM. Smartphones also fit > "This isn't rocket science. This isn't some made up story. This is…

Not disagreeing, but answering the question of are all phones ARM: no, there Intel too. Source: had to add Intel build support for our Android SKUs to run on said phones. Some Unity stats from about 6 months ago indicated:

    ARMv7: 98.1%
    Intel x86: 1.7%
I think a lot of the Intel stuff has been discontinued, not sure what is actively being developed outside of ARM right now.

Re: Linus Torvalds on Why ARM Won't Win the Server Space

#76

Post by porpoisely »

titzer wrote: post #43

> Some people think that "the cloud" means that the instruction set doesn't matter. Develop at home, deploy in the cloud. > That's bullshit. If you develop on x86, then you're going to want to deploy on x86, because you'll be able to run what you test "at home" (and by "at home" I don't mean literally in your home, but in your work environment). This is why having a compilation target that works the same way everywhe…

I disagree. Let passionate people on all sides have their say. I think it's more toxic to stifle passionate people.

It's amazing how everyone from Steve Jobs to Bill Gates to Linus Torvalds is labeled as "toxic" and yet the "toxic" environment they created led to substantial advancements.

And poisoning the well ( or any ad hominem derivatives ) doesn't stop discussion, it generally leads to more discussions - though often times more contentious and off topic. And though I agree that it can make people angry, polarized and amp up the stakes, those aren't necessarily bad things. Most of the time, it is actually a good thing and a basis for competition.

Finally, I'd say HN has a different culture, not necessarily better. Also, what you are doing could be viewed as a form of shaming and virtue signaling. And at the end of the day, if you don't like linus's style of communication, you don't have to read or listen to it.

I don't understand the mentality of "I don't like it so you should change".

Re: Linus Torvalds on Why ARM Won't Win the Server Space

#77

Post by solatic »

I disagree with Linus here, in large part because modern system architectures are so distributed. There are so many parts of modern deployments which are not developed in-house anymore. Databases, organizational productivity software, monitoring systems... the list goes on.

So let's say the developers of PostgreSQL or Prometheus or JIRA or Mattermost or any one of numerous others were to come to their audience and say, "we support ARM 100%, you can run our software on ARM in production with no issues, and in fact it's the favored deployment model because it'll cut a significant slice off your operating costs." Does Linus seriously think that, what, customers aren't going to run ARM servers because they can't run the vendor's binary on their development machines?

Maybe there's a chicken-or-the-egg problem here. But just off the bat, PostgreSQL and Prometheus are both supported and built for ARM. There are non-official binaries available for many other projects. Developers are using cheap Raspberry PIs as local desktop development platforms. The more development the ARM ecosystem sees, the easier it'll be for enterprises to justify moving away from x86.

Re: Linus Torvalds on Why ARM Won't Win the Server Space

#78

Post by rbanffy »

acomjean wrote: post #28

linus worked at a 'failed' intel competitor "transmeta", which was trying to make low powered chips. intel/amd are tough competitors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmeta

They still aimed to run x86 binary code through an emulator layer on a VLIW CPU.

Re: Linus Torvalds on Why ARM Won't Win the Server Space

#79

Post by xoa »

disiplus wrote: post #39
xoa wrote: post #33

It's of course impossible not to respect Linus' opinion and first hand experience in this space, but doesn't this whole post completely ignore the 100 ton blue whale in the room? Namely smartphones . That's an entire enormous segment of the industry and it's nearly 100% (or entirely 100%?) literally develop-on-x86-deploy-on-ARM. Smartphones also fit > "This isn't rocket science. This isn't some made up story. This is…

but with smartphones you don't have a choice. so it's different.

>but with smartphones you don't have a choice.

You don't have much choice now sure, but it's not as if there weren't any efforts at x86 smartphones (like the ZenPhone). Nor is it as if there wasn't a long run up of phones leading to the modern smartphone either. And even in this how is not directly relevant to the case of x86?

I mean, we're directly doing a comparison to the RISC/MIPS/etc era yeah? Couldn't back then someone say "well but with PC you don't have a choice, so it's different"? x86 got heavy traction on the back of WinTel, then moved up to bigger iron, which didn't really fight hard in the lower end lower margin space. Does there really seem to be no deja vu with that vs ARM gaining heavy traction in iOS/Android/embedded then moving up to PCs and servers, where Intel/AMD didn't really play in the lower end lower margin space? There was a period with plenty of choice in servers, but then x86 won.

And again it's not as if someone can't come up with compelling arguments, x86 has some real moats even beyond pure performance. There is enormously more legacy software for x86 for example, and the ISA for it will be under legal protection for a long time to come which complicates running it on ARM. But it's hard to say how much that matters in much of the cloud space, particularly if we're imagining 5-10 years further down the line. x86 takeover didn't happen overnight either, and the first efforts were certainly haphazard. But momentum and sheer volume matter. It just seems like something that needs to be addressed at any rate, more deeply then you have and certainly more then Linus did.

Re: Linus Torvalds on Why ARM Won't Win the Server Space

#80

Post by MaulingMonkey »

oblio wrote: post #36
MaulingMonkey wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can install a reasonably performing x86 Linux VM on an x86 Windows host. If the same can be said for an ARM VM on an x86 host, please share how, I'd love to learn that trick.

Most of those enterprise devs don't even get to touch the test/staging/prod environment, yet they still do their jobs. Regarding the VM, today I guess it would be a bit ugly through Qemu but tooling is always solved if there's a need.

> Most of those enterprise devs don't even get to touch the test/staging/prod environment, yet they still do their jobs.

They can usually run at least some part of the stack locally. Maybe not the full thing, at least part of it.

> Regarding the VM, today I guess it would be a bit ugly through Qemu but tooling is always solved if there's a need.

Tooling doesn't magically fix perf. Have you actually tried that specific setup? Searching online I get results like https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/12144 which aren't impressive, and I don't count as "reasonably performing".

Those results also jive with my experience - the meager demands of mobile apps are outrageously slow inside an ARM emulator running on x86 every time I've tried it, although I'll admit I haven't tried it on Qemu specifically. I can only imagine the horror of trying to run a full ARM server stack on x86 via emulator - perf is bad enough when it's native. For mobile, the first thing I do is fix the x86 builds (so I can use an x86 device emulator), buy a real ARM device out of my own pocket, and/or educate and/or fire my employer for their outrageously wasteful use of my time if they're serious about me and my coworkers using mobile ARM emulators on x86 for any serious length of time (that kind of waste of expensive resources like developer time can't possibly be a sustainable business decision.)

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