[threeseed]

Their answer is this: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/05/microsoft-will-boost...

They will need to get developers up to speed porting their apps to ARM before they are even in a position to re-boot their Windows ARM strategy.

But this is a multi-year journey which is likely to give Intel/AMD time to produce something more competitive.

[babypuncher]

Even if that happens, I'm not sure how much appeal an ARM version of Windows actually has. Right now, the only things keeping me on Windows are Visual Studio and my huge library of legacy software (ahem video games). Microsoft's x86 emulation on ARM is downright atrocious. A native ARM version of Visual Studio could keep me productive, but I'm not about to spend money on a new computer than runs all my favorite old games noticeably worse than my current machine.

If I buy an ARM machine any time in the next 5 years, it will almost certainly run macOS or Linux, with Windows relegated to an x86 box that I use for gaming.

[nick_]

I've got my eyes on the ARM64 build of full Visual Studio coming in "the next few weeks".

https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2022/05/27/news-ro...

I've been using VS 2022 on "Windows 11 for ARM" inside Parallels Desktop on my M1 Max MBP, and it's just barely usable as VS 2022 is 64-bit. JetBrains Rider is pretty good on macOS, and "VS 2022 for Mac" is coming along now, but full VS would be nice.

[Macha]

Microsoft has made three seperate attempts at windows on ARM (Windows RT, Windows 10 for ARM, Windows 10 S). Whether because each attempt produced a more locked down platform than standard windows, or because people prefer compatibility with their existing software over battery life, or because non-M1 ARM chips were not competitive with Intel/AMD even before emulation overhead, none of these attempts took off

[lynguist]

The full Windows 10 runs on ARM64 since 2017. See here for all architectures of Windows. [1]

And the deal is that current ARM processors have higher IPC than even the latest Intel and AMD processors and are much more diverse. The biggest ARM CPUs have 128 cores that have higher multi-threaded performance than any CPU by Intel/AMD and a Cortex-X2 has higher IPC than any Intel/AMD.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_vers...

[Shorel]

True, at that point Linux becomes very competitive.

[skohan]

How is the Linux on Arm situation currently? I mean specifically for desktop Linux?

[lynguist]

Pretty much every distribution and software package is available in ARM64. You will not miss anything.

[kube-system]

I think the popularity of the Raspberry Pi has sorted out most desktop use-cases.

[sliken]

Asahi linux has a port for the M1. Accelerated 3d isn't supported yet, but recently his a milestone of a working rendered triangle.

So not yet, but seems pretty close. Marcan has a Patreon if you want to support it.

[skohan]

Is it actually supported to run Asahi linux on an M-series mac? Or is it kind of a sketchy jailbreak type situation?

[sliken]

Yes, fully supported. No jailbrake/security attack required. In fact Apple even fixed bugs in the bootloader that Asahi linux found. They seem to be intentionally enabling other OSs.

[kyleplum]

As far as I can tell, the ARM hardware linked is vastly inferior to the current M1 hardware, let alone M2.

> But this is a multi-year journey which is likely to give Intel/AMD time to produce something more competitive.

And during this time Apple is going to release M2 Pro/Max, M3, etc. I just have a hard time seeing how Intel/AMD catchup in the laptop space.

[sliken]

Well fabs used to be hugely important, not only did each generation halve in linear size (4x in transistors per area), but each shrink was a big win on clock speed and power use. This revisions happened often, around 18 months.

These days the shrinks are smaller, i.e. 5nm -> 4nm -> 3nm, but each gen lasts longer, and provides very modest improvements in power and clock speed. They are also coming out in ever slower release cycles.

So now the competition has more time to catch up, and less of a disadvantage of they are a process behind. TSMC is currently leading, Apple, Nvidia, AMD, and others are bidding for the latest/greatest, while Samsung and Intel try to close the gap with their fabs.

Apple has an advantage of doing several generations in phones/tablets before bringing out the M1. Additionally they have an architecture license, so they do custom cores, not just what ARM is offering. This allowed them to tune their designs, use engineers from various companies they acquired to tune their chips, and get rid of the cruft, like 32 bit compatibility.

With all that said I expect Apples the perf/watt advantage to decrease over time. What does seem somewhat unique is they have build in a relatively small, power efficient, and inexpensive package (compared to similar functionality) 128, 256, 512, and 1024 bit wide memory interfaces. Sure you could build a dual socket Epyc with 16 dimms and likely burns north of 100s of watts and takes at least 1 rack unit, or you could buy a mbp m1 max. To match the M1 ultra you'd have to switch to some exotic CPUs that use HBM and sold by companies that typically send 3-6 sales people in suites before revealing their prices.

[shadowpho]

It was hard to imagine Intel catching up to AMD pre C2D.

[jamiek88]

And AMD to intel pre Ryzen.

It takes a good 5 years of doing everything right though.

[avereveard]

too bad 2012 was a turmoiled period for microsoft, windows 8 for phone was a concrete seed for an unified development environment with an unified api.

a series of strategic and communication mistakes kinda wasted the shot, and when they finally fixed the desktop side of the experience was too little too late.

[mwcampbell]

Ooh, I want one of these. I've long wished that Microsoft would release its own small-form-factor desktop to compete with the Mac mini.

[DougWebb]

I've been running an Odyssey from Seeed Studio for a while now, as an in-house dev server running SQL Server and IIS. It's the form factor you want, and it's been flawless (even though it's underpowered for what I'm doing with it.)

https://www.seeedstudio.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=win10

[WithinReason]

I've long wished that Microsoft would port Windows on ARM to the Raspberry Pi!

[kube-system]

Isn't there Windows IoT Core?

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=533...

[WithinReason]

Which is different from Windows on ARM

[skohan]

Why? Windows seems like a terrible option for minimal hardware?

[WithinReason]

Why? Unofficial ports work OK. Besides, imagine how efficient Windows on ARM software would be if it was developed on a Rpi

[BackBlast]

Because using poor/slow tools means we end up with better end results? In my experience using poor tools ends up with higher costs. I don't see how higher costs are going to result in better software in the end.

[olliej]

Does windows not have a rosetta equivalent??

[olliej]

For anyone who saw this I saw a few other comments that say that they do, but obviously I don’t have details.

I was very confused that they wouldn’t have it, it just seemed bizarre to ever have win/arm without it?