[francis-io]

I know nothing about ARM, but I think it's time to learn.

Am I right in saying you need to compile the OS and all applications to run on ARM? If so, I bet at least one thing I use daily wont work, and I don't want to commit to a laptop like this unless I know it will be a full replacement for my Intel machine.

Whats the state of this in Ubuntu?

[masklinn]

> I know nothing about ARM, but I think it's time to learn

Is it? Unless you’re routinely working with assembly it’s essentially irrelevant, unless you’re writing low-level multithreaded native code (aka you’re directly working with atomics and barriers).

Though obviously if you assume customers are or may be switching hardware, it can be useful to test or bench on ARM to get some inkling as to their eventual experience, or make sure you’re not relying on ISA details.

Don't get me wrong, ARM is neat and all, but your comment’s assertion that “it’s time to learn” doesn’t seem motivated by anything real, any more than “it’s time to learn” about RISCV or PPC.

> Am I right in saying you need to compile the OS and all applications to run on ARM?

Technically you could run emulated, although that has a non-trivial cost.

> If so, I bet at least one thing I use daily wont work, and I don't want to commit to a laptop like this unless I know it will be a full replacement for my Intel machine.

You could always get an ARM-based devboard (e.g. a raspberry pi or similar) to play around, that’s hardly a major investment, although obviously it is what it is.

An other alternative is to use ARM-based “cloud” systems.

[ZiiS]

Applications need recompiling to run nativly on ARM. However you can still emulate x86 for programs that need it (with a speed penalty).

Ubuntu has great support for ARM. However the is an extra dimension that Arm laptops are also _much_ less standardised then x86; I would wait to see hardware compatability this this precise device.