[raverbashing]

But I wonder if this is "much better" than x86 emulation or virt?

Is there really SW that's limited to (Linux) ARM and not x86?

[Jarwain]

Technically aren't most android apps limited to ARM?

[toast0]

There's certainly some, but I don't think most.

I'd guess most apps are bytecode only, which will run on any platform. Some apps with native code have bytecode fallbacks. Many apps with native code include multiple support for multiple architectures; the app developer will pick what they think is relevant for their users, but mips and x86 are options. There were production x86 androids for a few years, some of those might still be in user bases; mips got taken out of the Native Development Kit in 2018 so probably not very relevant anymore.

[wmf]

Probably Intel and AMD aren't willing to do this deal but Arm is.

[kev009]

IBM actually owns x86 rights still. They last used it to do something similar called Lx86 which ran x86 VMs on POWER CPUs.

[wmf]

Developing a good x86 CPU is far beyond IBM's abilities. The rights aren't enough.

[kev009]

Price competitive to AMD and intel? Sure. Abilities? There is no magic, the Tellium and Power11 are each as complicated as something like Epyc and the former has both a longer and taller compatibility totem pole than x86.

Anyway this post was never about building ARM or x86 CPUs, the point is they could have done a zArch fast path for x86 for "free", so there is some other strategy at play to consider doing it with ARM.

[MikePlacid]

> Is there really SW that's limited to (Linux) ARM and not x86?

MacOS? (hides)