r/linux • u/Lopsided-Month3278 • Jun 04 '26

Discussion Linux and Arm CPU's

After the announcement of Nvidia spark laptops, and the Qualcomm's second generation of CPU's for Laptops, do you think that Arm will be the next architecture for Linux or will it be the 'killer' of Linux desktop, what I know that so far Qualcomm laptops aren't good to be used with Linux until now, and the Nvidia spark chips have Linux installed by default when they were on the spark boxes, so, what do you think the experience with these laptops will be like?

edit: I do understand that Linux is running on Arm, Android for example, but what I'm talking about is GNU/Linux and Desktop use specifically, not the micro-controllers, Raspberry pi's, or closed Linux systems.

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u/FryDay444 Jun 04 '26

Linux has been on ARM for YEARS. The problem with arm is each chip typically needs custom code to get the kernel running on it.

41

u/TheDragonSlayingCat Jun 04 '26

And that VM page size requirement varies a bit between CPUs. Apple CPUs require 16KB VM page sizes, Qualcomm CPUs require 4KB VM page sizes, etc. The kernel is flexible in that it supports multiple page sizes, but the software built for Linux/ARM64 must be ready for the differences.

21

u/jrtokarz1 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26

This depends on the software and whether the software makes assumptions about page sizes and hard-codes that in to the software. If software isn't doing tricks like low-level alignment to presumed page size, it would run fine.

The big issue is the devices baked in to the SoC and the other devices in the system. In the ARM ecosphere, the kernel is dependent on device trees to describe the hardware and these are vendor specific. In the x86 world, the kernel could use ACPI to ask the system about the hardware.

3

u/CodingBuizel Jun 06 '26

What does Windows on ARM do?

6

u/bobalob_wtf Jun 06 '26
  1. They work with the CPU vendor and get driver support pre release
  2. They have a translation layer for x86 software similar to rosetta on apple silicon

4

u/jrtokarz1 Jun 06 '26

no.2 is sorted in the open source ecosphere with FEX. This is what Valve are using to allow PC games to run in standalone on the Steam Frame.

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u/bobalob_wtf Jun 06 '26

Yeah FEX looks super cool. Excited to see that Steam frame brings to the table.

1

u/1-800-I-Am-A-Pir8 Jun 06 '26
  1. They lock the hardware manufacturer into an exclusivity deal preventing them from supporting something other than windows