Dell leak details next-gen Windows on Arm chips • Hacker News Board

Re: Dell leak details next-gen Windows on Arm chips

#61

Post by eigenspace » Wed, May 15, 2024, 5:04 PM UTC

shrubble wrote: post #60

eigenspace wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qualcomm posted an article to their blog recently about their efforts to upstream support for their processor to the Linux kernel: https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/blog/2024/05/upstreaming-... Only time will tell how good the support is, but it's at least a start.

That is great news, and very encouraging! Of course the bootloader / boot process has to be able to be modified as well; we'll see how good/bad Dell does with that.

Here's what they say about the boot process in the blog post:

> The boot stack on Snapdragon X Elite supports standard UEFI-based boot. Linux boots up using devicetrees, and all standard bootloaders, including Grub and system-d boot, should just work out of the box. We use Grub to boot into Debian, and to dual-boot Windows and Debian.

> We’re working closely with upstream communities on an open problem with the UEFI-based BIOS while booting with devicetrees. The problem is that, when you have more than one devicetree blob (DTB) packed into the firmware package flashed on the device, there is no standard way of selecting a devicetree to pass on to the kernel. OEMs commonly put multiple DTBs into the firmware package so it will support devices with slightly different SKUs, so we’re keen to solve this problem. (See the Embedded Open Source Summit presentation on this topic by my colleague Elliot Berman. Links below.)

Re: Dell leak details next-gen Windows on Arm chips

#62

Post by TiredOfLife » Wed, May 15, 2024, 5:50 PM UTC

uyzstvqs wrote: post #39

Most probably this will be Microsoft's response to Chromebooks in the classroom. Same concept but integrated with Microsoft Office, Outlook and whatever, something many schools are using on their Chromebooks already. The entire shtick of Windows is it's userbase and app library on x86. Porting your app to Android tablets makes more sense than porting to Windows on ARM, and developing a PWA web app makes more sense th…

The cpu is in the same price bracket as Intel i5/i7. WOA runs all(except the ones that ship drivers like rootkits and drm) x86/64bit software.

Re: Dell leak details next-gen Windows on Arm chips

#63

Post by nipperkinfeet » Thu, May 16, 2024, 1:04 AM UTC

ho_schi wrote: post #26

cjk2 wrote: post #7

Oh Dell, Windows and Qualcomm. I’d rather cut my hands off and shove the bloody stumps in a bag of salt. Have had nothing but trouble with all of them over the years.

I will not buy an device with ARM running Microsoft Windows. Ship it with Linux or we ignore it like the other devices with ARM. Windows isn’t built for ARM and the closed-source software isn’t running well or slowly on ARM. The reason to use Windows is that nothing changes and legacy software from 1988 runs like on MS-DOS. What did Qualcomm think when they signed a monopoly deal with Microsoft? That they will benefi…

It's no longer 2012. Windows has progressed much since RT. I have a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 device running Windows 11, and I'm really impressed with how well it operates, how long the battery lasts, and how well it emulates practically any 64-bit software I've tested. This is coming from someone who hates Windows 11. The majority of the software I use has been or will be complied for ARM eventually.

Re: Dell leak details next-gen Windows on Arm chips

#64

Post by AtlasBarfed » Thu, May 16, 2024, 11:29 PM UTC

eigenspace wrote: post #55

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree this is a prime moment for Linux on the desktop to shine, but so has the last 10 years of windows destroying its UI and backwards compatibility. ...I have no faith.

> ...I have no faith. You don't need faith, you just need to look around: It's already shining! Support for Linux in consumer software applications and devices has improved a huge amount over just the past few years. Using a Linux desktop in 2024 is not a second class experience at all anymore. Sure the userbase is still quite small relative to Windows and MacOS, but in absolute numbers it's still a huge population o…

I daily drive mint and Linux distros for 25 years now.

I'm avoiding Wayland and whatever rewrite of gnome/kde is underway. Not to mention snaps are noxious and counterintuitive to user applications. At least flatpaks are easily jail broken / repermissioned with flat seal easily.

Upgrading breaks way too often. At least the 32/64 bit migration has occurred. About 80% of the time I've simply needed to reinstall the OS on major upgrades.

The killer app of Linux desktop migration, WINE, is still a crap shoot, although I use it for a lot of retro gaming, but even WinRAR or other common utils are hit and miss.

Hardware support (amd integrated graphics especially) drags.

Portables still are worse at powermgmt last I checked.

A lot of this is only marginally better (or for the rewrites, actually worse, and snaps are worse) over the last decade as ms shot itself in the foot.