This is an odd place for Microsoft to be, on ARM, both Linux and MacOS have much more complete suites of software available than Windows. Obviously both Windows and MacOS support emulation of their respective x86 platforms, but in terms of native software, Windows is kind of a distant 3rd place.
I guess this opens up the chance JetBrains will point IntelliJ and PyCharm over.
As much as I'd like it to be I don't think Linux is a serious desktop contender for most people, so Microsoft is just in second place - and it's not that distant yet, since the Apple transition has just started.
But of course the real (and perhaps obvious) difference is that Apple is much more strict about its ecosystem, having decided ARM will definitely be a thing and developers need to follow to stay relevant.
The Windows version is "maybe there will be ARM devices one day, maybe". That's not nearly as convincing.
I believe the most convincing thing for developers (besides rewards like promotion and filters in the store, which MS badly sucks at) would be a wave of serious ARM devices coming out in the very near future. The longer it takes the slimmer the chance that Windows on ARM will really catch on.
> Obviously both Windows and MacOS support emulation of their respective x86 platforms, but in terms of native software, Windows is kind of a distant 3rd place.
Much (most?) new Windows software these days is written in .NET and might just work out of the box, since that's technically speaking what .NET is supposed to enable.
(With the obvious reservations about platform specific quirks. I've ported my fair share of code to different platforms, and now it's often not that simple)
Transparent DBT for userspace programs has been a thing on Linux the whole time, more or less. QEMU could stand to do a lot better performance-wise, though, for programs that actually care about that.
Microsoft is a software producing company. It makes sense for them to be able to support their software on every hardware/OS that is good as a business decision. The fact that they produce an operating system as well, it's irrelevant in current landscape. I don't get your oddness.
I wouldn't bet against MS regarding backward compatibility. I'm sure that everything running on x86 runs or will soon run on ARM. Perhaps a little slower yes, but your average consumer will be unaware of the difference beside that, so for every practical purpose Windows will have 'more complete suites of software available'.
There's one Windows software sector that this is not good enough for - games (really care about performance+latency, unlikely to ever port to ARM), but that sector is the least likely to want to switch to ARM in the first place. Gamers will go Windows+AMD anyway.
The bigger problem for Windows-on-ARM is that non-Apple desktop-class ARM processors are right now rather weak, and that affects all applications, even ported apps.
This really depends on the implementation, which is a number of factors ranging from the specific ARM CPU, the fidelity of the emulation environment, and possible hardware acceleration. Apple has the latter and compares well in the first two, so I think we're going to get quite good results out of Rosetta.
Depends on the ARM processor and which x86 CPU to compare with. For example, a high end ARM CPU translating x86 code could compare well against an Intel Atom.
With Apple Silicon being implemented on ARM architecture as well, we are seeing a major shift to ARM in general. I’d expect major OS makers to accelerate ports to ARM.... Linux should follow suit..... as hardware makers start tailoring platforms, we don’t want Linux locked out of the house.
Edit: My concern was that Apple or MS would have divergent hardware and other support with firmware variations in their “custom” implementations. Kinda like the hardware driver issues Linux has had for years, but now burned into firmware.
Theres been plenty of ARM support on Linux the issue if I am not mistaken is that ARM isnt a processor its a spec you license and manufacturers go from there so code between processors should be completely icompatible even within the same manufacturer. You see discussions about it on HN plenty of times. Theres plenty of ARM based devices out there though due to the rising popularity of SBCs. Then we have the Pinebook and similar devices.
Windows has been available for ARM since 2012, called Windows RT back then. macOS is actually the last of the popular operating systems to port to ARM, not the first.
> major OS makers to accelerate ports to ARM.... Linux should follow suit
Have you heard of Raspberry? Even before it was released there were almost all of Debian packages in ARM, so Raspberry had it easy, they just took something that already worked.
And it was years ago.
[+] [-] ogre_codes|5 years ago|reply
I guess this opens up the chance JetBrains will point IntelliJ and PyCharm over.
[+] [-] solarkraft|5 years ago|reply
But of course the real (and perhaps obvious) difference is that Apple is much more strict about its ecosystem, having decided ARM will definitely be a thing and developers need to follow to stay relevant.
The Windows version is "maybe there will be ARM devices one day, maybe". That's not nearly as convincing.
I believe the most convincing thing for developers (besides rewards like promotion and filters in the store, which MS badly sucks at) would be a wave of serious ARM devices coming out in the very near future. The longer it takes the slimmer the chance that Windows on ARM will really catch on.
[+] [-] josteink|5 years ago|reply
Much (most?) new Windows software these days is written in .NET and might just work out of the box, since that's technically speaking what .NET is supposed to enable.
(With the obvious reservations about platform specific quirks. I've ported my fair share of code to different platforms, and now it's often not that simple)
[+] [-] microcolonel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unnouinceput|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yyyk|5 years ago|reply
There's one Windows software sector that this is not good enough for - games (really care about performance+latency, unlikely to ever port to ARM), but that sector is the least likely to want to switch to ARM in the first place. Gamers will go Windows+AMD anyway.
The bigger problem for Windows-on-ARM is that non-Apple desktop-class ARM processors are right now rather weak, and that affects all applications, even ported apps.
[+] [-] jayd16|5 years ago|reply
MacOS does? By what measure?
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] pjmlp|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ineedasername|5 years ago|reply
And is it complete enough that any x86 application running native would also run on ARM emulation?
[+] [-] saagarjha|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] als0|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kweinber|5 years ago|reply
Edit: My concern was that Apple or MS would have divergent hardware and other support with firmware variations in their “custom” implementations. Kinda like the hardware driver issues Linux has had for years, but now burned into firmware.
[+] [-] giancarlostoro|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frant-hartm|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foepys|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slezyr|5 years ago|reply
Linux has been there entire time
[+] [-] krzyk|5 years ago|reply
Have you heard of Raspberry? Even before it was released there were almost all of Debian packages in ARM, so Raspberry had it easy, they just took something that already worked. And it was years ago.
Right now the only OS ready for ARM is Linux.
[+] [-] znpy|5 years ago|reply
Linux has been running on ARM for at least the last 15 years.
[+] [-] bl4ckm0r3|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gspr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josteink|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Son_Oyun|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] modmans2nd|5 years ago|reply