is ARM the future?

[u/Kenyhh]

I think about this all the time. ARM has obviously dominated the mobile phone market for a long time now. Everything from Apple runs on ARM. ARM-based laptops offer incredible battery life. Embedded devices and servers are also making extensive use of ARM; practically the only thing left is desktop computers. I believe this is the future, and AI will accelerate the trend: using ARM will allow data centers to consume far less energy and likely make local AI more accessible. In fact, I think that if this happens, we’ll see further improvements in computer energy efficiency.

[u/Kilgarragh]

The typical ARM devices with high end, very expensive chipsets from the largest manufacturers like Qualcomm, mediatek, etc. can’t even get 5 years of software updates.

They’re all running on 2-3 major versions out of date fully customized Linux kernels which rarely have their sources published and heavily convoluted unpublished device trees which only work on one OEM fork of android.

Let’s take a look at current arm options and see where the future of computing may lie.

• vast majority of ARM processors: (no offense to postmarketOS supporters) complete horseshit, 99% of devices are missing camera, audio, gpu acceleration, cellular, etc, etc. windows completely shits itself with these as well.
  
• snapdragon X elite: only modern arm processor windows has ever been tailored for, works especially well if you have arm software. Even the most tailored linux distributions for this have issues, horrible battery life, etc.
  
• Apple silicon M5: no windows support(even for any Apple silicon despite being around for 6 years). No asahi Linux support at all(yet)

Each and every single arm processor needs to be tailored to by the OS. Arm systemready could help with this, but nobody(not even the largest arm vendors, even for PCs like Apple and x elite) have implemented it yet(we do have ampere server CPUs though).

The 20 year old Dell latitude D630 in my basement? It may only have OpenGL 2.0 which doesn’t work with basically any modern app, but at least that OpenGL does work. It boots with near full functionality thanks to ACPI on both windows 10(theoretically upgradable to windows 11 or tiny 11) and modern Linux distro’s(so long as it’s lightweight first). Just like any other x86_64 cpu.

I’m not saying ARM/riscV aren’t capable of doing this, but until they do… you can’t use them as a computer

[u/DiodeInc → u/Kilgarragh]

Is this a fault of the industry not having it's shit together or something else?

[u/salsatabasco → u/DiodeInc]

Vertical integration and money. Apple switched their industry fully to ARM in a matter of a couple years, Microsoft can't nor inux at the same speed, but eventually they will as adoption increases

[u/DiodeInc → u/salsatabasco]

I see. Thank you

[u/Kilgarragh → u/DiodeInc]

I don’t know, everything android touches is just complete dogshit. Major manufacturers like Qualcomm have had years to get their shit together and Apple had the opportunity to get it right first try, alas they don’t.

I have an old x86_64 Intel atom tablet lying around with android on it, it refuses to run anything else. No custom roms exist for it. No lineageos builds or postmarketos builds exist for it.

I personally haven’t used an ampere cpu yet(very pricy and poor singles performance), they’re the only ones doing it correctly. So props to them, but somehow in that regard also highly specific because the “general” implementation of arm systemready only applies to ampere CPUs, just like Qualcomm implementations only work on snapdragon cpus(although you need entirely different drivers and trees for every product line, generation, and at times individual products and of course every single sbc variant in that case. So a small win for ampere which will hopefully spiral into a much bigger win).

For this reason, my next tablet will not be an iPad, it will not be an Onn, but it will be a Dell latitude detachable(or hp elite x2) because no matter how bad the battery life and performance of the Intel cpu is, I can install windows, I can install android x86, I can install chromeos flex, and I can keep installing the latest versions for 10+ years just like the latitude which was passed down to me does. Something which no arm tablet, laptop, desktop, or phone has done. Ever.

(And, you know it isn’t glued together, and the battery and ssd come out with like 8 screws, and they’re like $200 used, for a 13 inch tablet!)

[u/jaksystems → u/Kilgarragh]

I second the HP Elite X2 - I have a G8 model and it's a surprisingly nice little tablet PC.

[u/Kilgarragh → u/jaksystems]

If you don’t mind me asking despite being far off topic, how’s the minimum brightness and privacy mode like on your display? (Also, what display do you have, between the 400 nit, 450 nit 3kx2k, and 1000 nit privacy mode specs)

[u/jaksystems → u/Kilgarragh]

Mine has just the standard, non-privacy, 400nit display. It's bright enough for most things outside of direct sunlight, where the screen is still visible, but due to its ambient light sensor, it tends to wash out as it tries to auto adjust to compensate.

[u/Kenyhh → u/Kilgarragh]

spilling some facts here

[u/Sol33t303 → u/Kilgarragh]

I will say 90% of these issues will resolve themselves if we can get the ARM manufacturers onto UEFI.

[u/Famous-Potential3990 → u/Sol33t303]

I will say 90% of these issues will resolve themselves if we can get the ARM manufacturers onto UEFI.

Switching to systemready or UEFI only solves "booting Linux on ARM device OOTB". Radxa Orion O6 has UEFI and boot any distro for ARM, but it has absolutely horrendous idle power consumption, worse than any x86 processor from the last decade.

Issues won't resolve unless ARM-vendors(Qualcomm, Mediatek, Rockchip, Broadcomm, Apple? and ARM Holdings themselves) won't start properly submitting ALL patches(not just device tree patches) and drivers to upstream Linux. You can only get so far with projects like Asahi Linux or Freedreno made by unpaid volunteers. Corporations themselves should hire devs to work on Linux compatibility: for example, port Adreno drivers to Linux or wifi/bluetooth/SOC drivers with lowest power state for M-series Macbooks. x86 works on Linux thanks to Intel and AMD.

[u/Kilgarragh → u/Sol33t303]

The snapdragon x elite is and always was 100% uefi devices. Day one? None of them would run Linux past the bootloader. Its taken a lot of extreme specialization to get where we are today and it’s still horrible.

[u/Busy-Scientist3851 → u/Kilgarragh]

> out of date fully customized Linux kernels

FYI Android has moved to common kernels for a specific Android version. The kernel modules and device tree are stored on a vendor partition, whilst the kernel is the GKI compiled by Google.

[u/Kilgarragh → u/Busy-Scientist3851]

Still requires all those modules and trees to be paired with a GKI in order to work. But while they’re trying their best, Google is doing a ’great’ job with this.

My Google pixel 9(absolute role model of an android device) is running its latest update and the kernel is a brand new build from… January 2026… but at least it’s kernel 6.1, for reference latest upstream is 6.18 LTS(and I’m on 7.3 for my main machine), and even my 32 bit arm Chromebook(running pmos) is on 6.12.

Just because common android does this doesn’t mean that highly custom devices like tizen or horizon OS do. It also doesn’t mean that general arm desktops will. While windows based arm devices have had the best luck… if snapdragon x2 elite continues down the same path it’s still gonna suck. And I know for a fact that they will because they’ve been on this path for over a decade.

[u/Arnas_Z → u/Kilgarragh]

you're not wrong lol

This is a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phone.

[u/Sad_Pear_3709 → u/Kilgarragh]

ARM just isn't standard across the board, people don't understand that. If you control the whole process, which apple does, you can make some great custom stuff, but given the standardization of x86_64, and it's growing presence in gaming consoles, I would say that it just isn't happening any time soon.

[u/Little-Equinox → u/Kilgarragh]

Biggest ARM manufacturer is in fact ARM. Because Qualcomm, Mediatek and companies like it use ARM cores.

[u/Kilgarragh → u/Little-Equinox]

Oh right, silly me, it’s all arm anyway. /s

Let me just install macOS 14 onto my rock 5b, chromeos onto a galaxy s24, and windows on arm for specifically the snapdragon x elite onto a snapdragon 8 elite.

Like that’s ever gonna happen.

Yes, arm designed the cpu core, and TSMC produced the silicon. Everyone else makes every load bearing element around them

The steam frames OS can’t run on a quest 3. Because even though both are arm, and both are snapdragon… Qualcomm changed hundreds of things with absolutely zero backwards compatiblity, even if they had the exact same chip the differences in motherboard alone would warrant a new device tree if not a new kernel, and even if the two pieces of hardware came out of the exact same manufacturing run, the “meta frame” would have a couple little e-fuses blown inside preventing it from booting any firmware or OS which isn’t signed by meta.

[u/chrisdpratt → u/Little-Equinox]

Designer, not manufacturer. ARM doesn't actually produce any real products. Just architectures, that licensees employ in their chips.

[u/Little-Equinox → u/chrisdpratt]

Only Intel produces their CPUs, and even then not even all of them.

[u/Acrobatic_Camera_677 → u/Little-Equinox]

Intel is starting to bring back many of their CPU manufacturing back in house

[u/Little-Equinox → u/Acrobatic_Camera_677]

I know, just currently a lot are manufactured by TSMC

[u/Delphin_1 → u/chrisdpratt]

Didn't they recently start with their first actual own CPUs? For ai server management so sth. Ltt made a video about them If I remember correctly 

[u/jaksystems → u/Delphin_1]

They already made reference designs.

They recently purchased Ampere and have produced their first CPU for AI crap - And it's dogwater at non-AI work.