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Why does Linux run so well on ARM
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this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Linux runs well on practically every CPU architecture.
But why though?
Because it's open source and most of the applications for it are open source. That means you can compile it and the applications specifically for the hardware you have.
Windows does kind of support ARM on its specific hardware, but it can't be adjusted for other hardware and they have to translate most applications to work. Apple has done much of that work for their hardware to work well, as well as very good translation for x86, and because they leaned hard into the transition, developers were mostly forced to compile for ARM going forward. Microsoft hasn't done the same, and ARM is a tiny target, so it doesn't happen with any regularity there.
Because people have been doing so for a long time and have ironed out most of the quirks. The software is also generally quite simple, meaning there are just fewer quirks that need to be ironed out. And the ecosystem is largely open source, meaning everything can be recompiled to target the relevant architecture, so while translation layers are still useful, they're not the essential tool they are in proprietary ecosystems. The main headaches that plague windows on arm mostly just don't exist on the Linux side.
Because it's not developed by some corporate fuckers whose only goal it is to make as much money as possible, it's developed by individual skilled people in their free time, because they're passionate. They don't want to sell some garbage, they genuinely want to make a good operating system for themselves and everyone else to freely use without any restrictions. FOSS is not about the money, it's about actually creating something good.
The funny thing is the dishwasher they sell you doesn't work half the time
Honestly MSFT does a pretty good job at getting things to work and keeping them working.
You can open a windows laptop and trust it will start. You can close it, and trust it will sleep. You can open it and … there it is, as it was!
You even have sound and networking. And that widget some contractor built 20 years ago in vb.whatever? It still runs OOTB.
Yes, they have some backwards shit because of this but for a lot of people, these ticks are the high watermark of computation.
Not saying I agree it should be that way, or that any should be satisfied. Just be aware these are things that Microsoft excels at … and Linux is still getting there.
But:
VBA why are you still a thing? WHY? Why is MS Access still not treated as the virus that it really is?
Why does InfoPath still exist?
Many grievances.
It’s so you’ll have to buy the other one when you discover this
Because you can try compile it on arm, and if something doesn't work you can report it or fix it yourself. That said windows worked fine on arm years ago. Many gps, medical, and such devices used to use windows ce on arm, mips. (Windows phone too, arm)
ARM the company as well as industry partners contribute code & resources to the linux kernel...so that would be one reason why linux on ARM runs well.
Unsure how we are tracking Microsoft ARM as worse than Linux arm, what benchmarks did we see?