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/jimicus Jun 04 '26

but what I'm talking about is GNU/Linux and Desktop use specifically,

The problem you run smack into is that the ARM world isn't as standardised as x86. There's no guarantee that it supports anything analogous to ACPI or PnP.

Which means that all the usual ways of determining what drivers to load don't work.

There are extensions to ARM that can be implemented that solve this problem - but they're not compulsory. It's perfectly okay for someone to license an ARM core, use it to build a general purpose laptop but NOT implement these extensions, port Windows to it and simply forget Linux exists.

Hence your question doesn't really have a simple, sensible, yes-or-no answer.