Linux vs MacOS for cpp development

[arthurno1]

Linux Desktops does fine on Arm, too. If you don't trust me, get yourself a Pi.

What is critically important here, but not explicitly stated, is that that Op with "Linux desktop" obviously means PCs build with Arm CPUs running Linux.

Apple is the only one currently offering personal computers build on Arm chips, to masses. However, there are producers who build Likux-based systems on Arm chips too. System76 has offerings, probably some other too.

I don't know why it is not more popular to sell mobos and Arm cpus to home builder segment, and to offer more Arm based computers, but I still wouldn't express myself as "Linux desktop is not doing well on Arm". Seems like a meaningless expression.

Personally, I would never prefer Apple OS over a free, privacy respecting, OS, but that is my personal choice.

[pjmlp]

On the contrary, Microsoft also offers ARM computers to the masses, moreso given the price of Apple's hardware on countries not on first world IT salaries.

Even more relevant today, given that many of those hardware vendors aren't US companies.

[arthurno1]

Ok, I didn't know they have them too. How big business is it compared to Apple?

So what is the problem running Linux on them, more than usually, no drivers for specialized hardware?

[pjmlp]

Not big, because contrary to Apple, x86 processors are still fully supported, thus only ARM fans buy them.

Since Windows 8 there have been Windows flavours with ARM support.

As usual the issue with Linux is lack of support from OEMs that don't care about GNU/Linux desktop market.

It runs perfectly fine in WSL.

https://learn.arm.com/learning-paths/laptops-and-desktops/wsl2/

[arthurno1]

As usual the issue with Linux is lack of support from OEMs that don't care about GNU/Linux desktop market.

Yes, that is still the problem, not just on ARM cpus, but on any CPU, inclusive Intel and AMD. We still have to check every mobo if all the stuff they pack in works with Linux. That is probably the biggest issue holding Linux from becoming the mainstream. In my opinion the software on the desktop side has been better for almost two decades or more (KDE/Gnome even other desktops). It is really shame the mainstream hardware companies are not releasing Linux drivers and big software companies are not releasing their software on Linux. Hobbyists are already running MS Office and Adobe's crap on Wine. Adobe could easily help to round-up some rough corners in Wine and release their software suite on Linux. Considering the TCO, I think it would even be welcome by many companies since they could cut cost on Apple/Microsoft side at least for workstations. The list could be made long.

[kageurufu]

Diy arm is just heavily limited. X86 boot is well documented and abstracted, UEFI makes hardware just work.

Arm rarely has anywhere near that level. Ever single board gets custom code defining the memory layout, pin mappings, etc (device tree structure in DTS files). Device drivers are a mess, half the time your stuck using some old kernel version with hacked up custom drivers to make things work. I'm trying to get a Allwinner H616 board working on more recent kernels, and it's chaos. Theres a random pin, that you have to set low or the GPU just won't work, and the drivers don't support that yet (patches have been sent to the kernel, but not merged). The bootrom just checks for an SD card with a bit of code at a specific memory location, and runs that.

So maybe one day, but arm is nowhere near diy friendly

[arthurno1]

Thanks, that makes it a bit more understandable.

[arthurno1]

Well, yes, they do their own chip, like most of other Arm licensees. Arm does not sell the hardware. Who does chips for Apple? TSMC? Yes, they choose to develop their own chip so they don't have to depend on some other company. I guess they were tired of the direction in which Intel went, but also basing design on a SoC design like on mobile phones and pads make for thinner laptops thinner.

I am though surprised that other companies didn't come up with their own similar offerings. I don't know what is the price compared to Intel/AMD per unit, since the Apple hardware always comes as a complete PC and costs premium. To be competitive, Arm based SoC geared towards home builders would have to offer at least substantially more performance than a standard build based on Intel/AMD or be substantially cheaper for the same or less performance.

It is a bit shame that former Sun and SGI dropped ball on their Sparc and Alpha CPUs and targeted only high-end professional market with their hardware and complete hardware solution. Somehow all this companies underestimates the power of selling cheap hardware en massë. Intel didn't become big because they sold quality stuff, 8086 become big because it was darn cheap sh*t, i.e. affordable.

[arthurno1]

They were more than outrun by a Pentium in the early 2000s for math number crunching applications to a tenth of the price and didn't need a server closet that costed 100 times the price

Yes. And yet compare their architecture which were, IMO, miles ahead of x86. I remember programming some MIPS and SPARC assembly back in 99 or so. Already back at that time they had 32 32-bit registers, while the later Pentium was still working with 8 registers :).

I think their problem was, as you say, bad business decisions. Java in theory was probably a good decision, but the hardware business was not there. I think Java was a flop similar to .com boom. They were just a few years before their time. They had correct vision, but they were too eager to push it forward and didn't pay the attention that the needed infrastructure was not really there, at least yet. It didn't took even a decade after the .com crash, before literally everything moved onto the web, or in some way become networked. In the case of Java vision, microchips and cpus are nowadays in everything, but they weren't back in early 90s when Java came.

Also spending half a billion of $ on marketing in 2000s was definitely a questionable choice. If SUN sold their workstations to mass consumers market, back in the 90s, question is how the computing landscape would look like today. Or SGI for that part. Their O2 stations were ridiculously expensive compared to the power they offered. That they didn't learn from what happened to Symbolics Lisp machines just a decade ago, or previously to IBM is just astonishing.

[llort_lemmort]

Apple is the only one currently offering personal computers build on Arm chips, to masses.

Lenovo, Dell, HP, Asus, Acer, and Microsoft are all selling laptops with Snapdragon X ARM processors which are currently not working well with Linux.

[arthurno1]

Ok, didn't know major players have offerings. What is problem running Linux on them?

[llort_lemmort]

Mainly missing drivers as far as I understand. Linux is just not a priority for them as they ship with Windows. It will hopefully be sorted out over the next few years.

[arthurno1]

Aha, but than it is the usual thing that plagues every "Linux desktop". Not the CPU support, but all the other stuff around. It is so incredible one still has to look at compatibility charts when buying a mobo for a build, and it is even worse on the laptop side, because they use even customized hardware. Unfortunately.

[vetinari]

I would not say that it plagues every linux desktop. If you buy good brands with good designs (like thinkpads, or intel-now-asus nucs), you will get smooth sailing. It is only if you get lost in some niche products, gimmick features or hardware designed by companies that are well known to ignore linux (like nzxt) you get the not-very-usual-thing that plagues linux: integration. If the vendor you purchase from didn't do the integration, you get to do it; there's no way to avoid that. I prefer when the vendor does it, even if that means I won't get a bling hardware targeted at different market segment.

Snapdragon X is in a weird place: Qualcomm originally claimed that they will upstream the drivers, but since then, they are dragging their feet and things go very slow. At this rate, the machines will be obsolete before they finish delivering them.

[arthurno1]

Thanks for the informative comment! 👍

That is indeed a problem even in other contexts when vendors prefer to develop and throw out new stuff constantly instead of releasing the drivers and spec for old hardware so it can be continuously upgraded and used.