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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

#101

Post by disiplus »

sitkack wrote: post #56
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…

Linus is mostly wrong except for HPC. Very few dev pipelines for folks result in native executables. The vast majority of code is delivered as either source (python, ruby, etc) or bytcode, JVM, Scalia, etc. And the Xeon class machines folks deploy to in data center envs is a world apart from their MacBooks. These truths are true for Linus, but not for the majority of devs. Even those creating native binaries, this is…

he just said its not worth it and as a developer if i could chose that i develop on the platform that will run my code i will chose it even if its slightly more expensive. granted that on both i could be same level of productive.

we had those problems when developing in scripting language on windows a code that will run on linux because at some point we needed something that called native and would make us problems with different behavior. after some of that experience we tried to get everybody the same environment that is close to what will run in production.

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

#102

Post by seanalltogether »

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…

> That's an entire enormous segment of the industry and it's nearly 100% (or entirely 100%?) literally develop-on-x86-deploy-on-ARM.

I'm not sure I agree with. My coding environment is on x86, and I build on x86, but my Run/Debug cycle is on ARM. No one is really encouraged to test on the simulator even though it's available, you are almost entirely asked to test on your actual arm device and run it and see the results of your work.

Linus is making the argument that people want their release builds to run in the same environment as their daily test builds, and I don't see smartphone development as an exception to that rule.

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

#103

Post by robterrell »

_underfl0w_ wrote: post #85
scraft wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is strange. Maybe like a Windows phone? Where does it get those device metrics? < 2% makes me think it might just be that Androidx86 emulator project.

There really are android phones running Intel atom CPUs. Can’t recall models off the top of my head but adding x86 support was a thing we had to do.

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

#104

Post by reacharavindh »

enragedcacti wrote: post #10

I disagree with Linus for a couple of reasons. The main one being that not every service in a product needs to be running ARM for it to be useful. There is nothing preventing heterogenous solutions in the cloud and if third parties vet their code on ARM then deploying your DBMS on ARM and your web server on x86 (or whatever services most of your business logic is in) is totally valid for cost or performance reasons.…

It would genius of Apple to simply own this phenomenon.

Want an iPod/iPhone like phenomenal opportunity?

Go all in on ARM chips and ship out MacBooks with next gen performance. Alongside, develop server grade ARM chips and make it easy for the army of devs weilding the shiny Macs to deploy straight to it. Impress with performance - you get to take the cake and eat it too.

I doubt an operation guy like Tim Cook will understand such a strategy.

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

#105

Post by blattimwind »

amelius wrote: post #9

> 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). But developers can ssh to the cloud, and develop there, right?

"ssh and develop there" is so painful. Linus' cross-development argument pretty much applies 1:1.

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

#106

Post by bryanlarsen »

Tehnix wrote: post #49
disiplus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I’m not sure if this is what you were implying, but I don’t know of any x86 processors that can compete with the Arm processors that are in use, on power consumption to performance ratio. Take e.g. Apple’s A12, which compete with their MacBooks in performance, and assuredly draw much less power.

"assuredly draw much less power."

The Macbook uses a 14nm 4.5W m3 with 1.5 billion transistors.

The iPad uses a 7nm 12W A12X with 10 billion transistors.

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

#107

Post by blattimwind »

scarface74 wrote: post #50
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But developers can ssh to the cloud, and develop there, right? Then why do they insist on 32GB i9 laptops running MacOS or Linux? One must assume that there is some practical purpose, unless one is rather cynical and believes that maybe the just like shinnies.

There is nothing stopping you from developing on x86 and SSHing to a remote ARM computer for final validation. Cross compilation has been a thing for decades.

Linus' point is literally that the pains associated with cross developing/compilation are what brought x86 to power and keeps it there.

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

#109

Post by [deleted] »

sitkack wrote: post #56
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…

Linus is mostly wrong except for HPC. Very few dev pipelines for folks result in native executables. The vast majority of code is delivered as either source (python, ruby, etc) or bytcode, JVM, Scalia, etc. And the Xeon class machines folks deploy to in data center envs is a world apart from their MacBooks. These truths are true for Linus, but not for the majority of devs. Even those creating native binaries, this is…

[deleted]

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

#110

Post by AstralStorm »

xoa wrote: post #79
disiplus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

Most legacy software needs an emulator anyway. X86-64 and OS libraries are not sufficiently similar.

Try running a Windows 95 era application on Windows 10. You can even have problems with Windows XP era stuff.

And server space in general does not do legacy without keeping everything intact. The only real issue is lack of ARM developer PCs.

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