Windows Arm PCs could be SO much better

[@kerimgueney]

Holy crap. The fact that you could hook up a 4070 to an ARM CPU and actually run Doom is amazing. Linux is incredible.

[@rowaystarco]

In theory this can be done on the new Snapdragon machines too, they have the HW support. But it relies on Nvidia/AMD wanting to release drivers.

[@spicybaguette7706]

The flexibility of Linux and all the cool solutions that people are making is incredible. That's what free software enables: anyone can do what they feel like. Nobody's stopping you from doing what you want, even if they think that it doesn't make sense. If Microsoft says: this doesn't make sense, you're gonna have a hard time

[@SM-qo9gr]

until you have to compile Vulcan shaders for 6 hours

[@Tryh4rd3rr]

@@spicybaguette7706exactly why I use Linux on my mac 😂

[@uranblut]

almost sounded sarcastic :D

[@Vatharian]

> ARM doesn't have Windows device drivers
> people don't use it
> dev kits not available
> devs can't write drivers because no hardware
> ARM doesn't have Windows device drivers
Honestly, at this point, Qualcomm should hand out devkits for free. It should have been doing that for a YEAR already.

[@bradavon]

Windows does have ARM Device Drivers though.

[@turbolenza35]

X86 is better for gaming. I will never buy ARM machine.

[@notNajimi]

@@turbolenza35​​⁠x86 being “better for gaming” is not some eternal quality of the ISA, the landscape of computing can and has changed

[@vilian9185]

to be fair, it's working great in linux

[@spicybaguette7706]

​@@turbolenza35That statement does not make any sense. The ISA is rather arbitrary. It's the design of the chip that actually matters. Maybe in the future, you will buy an ARM PC for gaming, or maybe even RISC-V (though unlikely). Who knows what the future will bring
It's much, much more about the engineering efforts of Intel and AMD than it is about the instruction set. X86 isn't magical

[@lbgstzockt8493]

Aren't devkits supposed to come out before the main product launches? lol

[@JeffGeerling]

One would think.

[@SuperMachead1]

That explains the lack of development 😂

[@MumrikDK]

As long as possible, so yeeeaaah........

[@spvillano]

@@JeffGeerling nonsense! They're just using the DEC Alpha deployment model. Release production platforms, minimal to no OS support and wait for magic to produce those platforms.
Then, a few years after release of the high end production models, release developer platforms.
Then, get bought by a competitor and the entire product line buried.

[@abrahamdsl]

Indeed I believe that was the true when they were developing Windows 9x and Windows NT

[@spicybaguette7706]

Microsoft should really follow its ex-CEO Steve Ballmer's advice: "Developers developers developers developers developers developers developers!"

[@blablamannetje]

... but not too much: In 2001, then-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer called Linux “a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.”

[@SaulidSnake]

Who said sit down?!

[@nathanddrews]

**sweating intensifies**

[@DJRobSunset]

It is insane, how snapdragon just can’t get dev kits out. They just set this up for disaster.

[@yumri4]

Most likely under estimated the demand for them which in a way is good as it shows there is demand but in another is bad as they were not able to meet the demand

[@roccociccone597]

Never underestimate the incompetence of Qualcomm and Microsoft :)

[@vladmihai306]

actually how microsoft can't get the devkits out. because they are not ready software wise

[@ernstoud]

But notebooks with those chips are available so the need for devkits may not be high? Just my eur 0.02

[@alanmay7929]

how about microsoft dumping intel, amd and nvidia support and going full work on ARM/Snapdragon?!

[@jfolz]

Funny how the turns tabled. ARM drivers for Linux, but nothing for Windows.

[@SuperDavidEF]

I was thinking the same thing. Windows on ARM is in a similar position compared to Linux that Linux was in compared to Windows on x86 decades ago. I think the reason is that Linux has been pushed forward into every available piece of hardware by people who really want it to work. So, it has "caught up" and is staying up with newer hardware as it comes out. While Microsoft has been letting Windows languish and resting on their x86 "superiority" from decades ago and therefore they HAVEN'T kept up.

[@jfolz]

@@SuperDavidEF as usual, it's the server market that drives Linux development on ARM. There would be no reason for Nvidia to provide drivers if they weren't selling their own ARM-based CPUs.

[@SuperDavidEF]

@@jfolz That may be true, but NVidia drivers aren't the only thing holding back Windows on ARM.

[@flamingscar5263]

@@SuperDavidEF its server space and server space alone, thats why ARM on Linux is even a thing, and why it sucks for Windows as of rn, Microsoft accepted a long time ago they lost the server race, windows server didn't even support ARM at all until 6 months ago
as will ALWAYS be the case, its companies needing Linux to be better that drove it to be, not DIYers rebelling Windows, companies needing Linux to improve, as much as the Linux community thinks things like proton or wayland or even box64 are community driven free from greed, they are not, they are tools companies need to be good so companies pay people to work on them, its great they are open source don't get me wrong, but 1 look at the contributor lists of any of these will show you that its mainly dev teams at companies working on the software, not hobbyists

[@dinckelman]

Microsoft’s biggest competition are themselves. The industry moves on, and they are trying to latch onto anything that would make them money for the month

[@janevertvangrootheest6769]

It is probably just too expensive to do a full blown Windows
Let me predict... Windows 12, based on Linux 😂

[@spvillano]

And an endless search for brand new ways for Microsoft to shoot their own foot.

[@SuperDavidEF]

@@janevertvangrootheest6769 "too expensive to do a full blown Windows" while they're still charging hundreds of dollars for Windows. 😂

[@lloydbond13]

@@janevertvangrootheest6769 Yep, CBL-Linux -> Azure Linux -> Windows 12. It only makes sense. Running Windows instances in the cloud for Office 365 has to be really expensive. If they can put a Windows Userland on top of the Linux kernel, users wouldn't know or care it's Linux and MSFT would save a grip on data center costs as well as save money on Engineers.

[@IsoMacintosh]

@@janevertvangrootheest6769unlikely with microsoft wanting to keep backwards compatibility.
they seem to be using more open source code tho recently

[@JoelKalich]

That Linux>Windows thumbnail hits hard this morning specifically...

[@trowawayacc]

Hell i was like woah this guy is soo good at clickbait. 😂 but title fit. And this content is 100% more info than the BS running on the news from supposed experts.

[@RadikAlice]

It gets truer by the day, and Linux only gets better

[@luxluth]

i use arch btw

[@notanetcher]

linux sucks

[@IsoMacintosh]

@@notanetcher for desktop yeah but server linux is so much better than windows in many ways.
its bagfling how bad storage spaces still is.

[@zimbu_]

You're my favorite Ampere gaming influencer, Jeff.

[@JeffGeerling]

hahaha

[@PKperformanceEU]

@@JeffGeerlinghalf as fast as the latest apple silicon in ST?
More like 25% of apple m3 in single core or 1/4.
Wake up boy
Or 1/5 of apple m4 in ST.

[@notNajimi]

@@PKperformanceEUhuh? What is this even in response to

[@Watchandlearn91]

@@PKperformanceEUthat’s a weird comment to put in a reply to someone else. Also this chip is 128 cores. Apple doesn’t make anything close to that so these really aren’t even in the same category really.

[@JeffGeerling]

@@Watchandlearn91 I do dream of what one could do with an M4 Ultra-Super-Max, with 128 cores at 3000+ Geekbench score with like 512 GB of on-chip RAM :D
It would be about the size as the new Nvidia monster GPU+CPU cards.

[@calicomorgan2408]

I put Linux Mint Cinnamon on my surface laptop 2 because, with NOTHING on it, it was struggling to run windows. It's like a dream laptop now. It's my first Linux home device and it's snappy as hell and everything just makes sense. I can't wait to try it on a newer machine one day.

[@ikkuranus]

If it's a "home device" then why did you get a laptop?

[@EmyrDerfel]

​@@ikkuranusyou can use a laptop in multiple rooms at home, rather than being installed on a desk.

[@calicomorgan2408]

@@ikkuranus It's something the whole family can use anywhere in the house or out of the house. I also use it to configure my home server too. All of these things have been surprisingly easier on Linux for me than windows.

[@pfitz4881]

@calicomorgan2408 Don't be in a hurry to purchase the latest hardware to run Linux.. I bought a Dell XPS 15 9530 (i7-13700h).. Mint doesn't seem to be up to speed with the new hardware. The machine runs quite a bit warmer when running Linux, something that doesn't happen under Win11(I can feel the heat in the keyboard when running Mint).. So I'm assuming it's using more power. There is also an issue with sound production.. My understanding is this XPS has two sound systems.. regular and woofers.. The woofers aren't working under Mint, I only hear the high frequency sounds with no bass. I have the problem up through Mint 21.3 EDGE. I could not get Mint22 to boot.. hangs with the Mint logo in the middle of the screen.

[@funnyberries4017]

Linux runs best on hardware that's at least 2 years old. If you want a good linux experience, buy a used computer and install it on that

[@MegaKrustyman]

It's pretty wild when you stop to consider that you pay Microsoft for a license to install an OS that sells your personal info, search history etc.
They don't pay you for those rights, you pay them. Crazy.

[@alliejr]

Most underrated the real genius of M1 which was seamless real-time Intel code translation with higher performance than the Intel hardware it was replacing. Somehow Microsoft has lost the script on compiler-level technology.

[@JeffGeerling]

That plus I'm sure Apple was able to iron out a few code paths in silicon that Microsoft probably couldn't-you'd think they could work close enough with Qualcomm to do that but... sadly no.

[@monad_tcp]

I don't know why they just don't make a better interpreter, they had an amazing JIT translator for 16 bits, maybe when they unified the 32bit systems they got rid of that team.
Someone could ask Raymond Chen

[@monad_tcp]

@@JeffGeerling Qualcomm is to high heels probably. Maybe Microsoft could make their own ARM CPU instead, why wouldn't it ? they have workloads on ARM on their Azure servers.

[@vmiguel1988]

@@monad_tcpmost of the great developers they had for windows already retired or went to work on azure

[@vincei4252]

Microsoft is too busy going down the Google "we make money from advertising" as opposed to innovating. Windows is history in this shop.

[@MeepMu]

"These laptops would probably run better without Windows". And grass is green and the sky is blue.

[@z0phi3l]

There's a lot of proof out there that Linux runs way better than Windows on the same hardware, I know back in the win 7 days that was the case, hell I played WoW in Linux and it was somehow more stable than on Windows, and it's only gotten better since then

[@Azemed]

​@@z0phi3li saw significant boost in minecraft fps in linux. I also play cs2 but it runs much worse than windows even tho its native. I think Linux has potentially to be 3x better in gaming bcz minecraft gave me 3x better fps. Its just devs that are not optimizing it

[@luxluth]

@@Azemed java just runs better on linux

[@Flopster101]

​@@AzemedThe CS2 Linux version is pretty ass, but overall it's true that a lot of games can run better over there.

[@vidm96]

5:18 It's actually perfectly on brand for portal 2 to have issues with cores ;)

[@raven4k998]

are you sure it's not the lack of x86 instructions or the lack of being able to do division on the arm cores that's what hurts it ability to play x86 games?🤔

[@confusedbeard69]

Tuxedo with TuxedoOS is working with Qualcomm and has their own Snapdragon Linux PC's coming, TuxedoOS will also work with current Snapdragon Elite X laptops so it's actually looking good.

[@bernardogalvao4448]

Nice! Cant wait.

[@notNajimi]

Hopefully they can deliver!

[@notanetcher]

linux sucks

[@argonthepanda8720]

I would absolutely love socketed ARM chips for consumer desktop space. It would be so fun to build an SFF HTPC or a server

[@nadtz]

I keep hearing that at least Nvidia and AMD are supposedly working on this and have been waiting to hear something official about it. I would also like to have a decent ARM (or RISC-V) system to slot into my homelab.

[@udadog]

I have been wanting this since I saw the ampere altra processor.

[@arahman56]

Like, socketed CPU+CAMM2+m.2 for some pretty compact motherboards.

[@ThylineTheGay]

@@arahman56 or at *least* normalize putting a bootable m.2 slot on most SBCs, it is so awful that such an unreliable storage format as microsd got chosen as practically the standard

[@chedds]

​@@nadtzquite weird since AMD basically also owns x86_64

[@gunayorbay]

I remember having absolutely no luck with Wacom drivers with WoA on the 2023 dev kit, and later found out it just works with linux. As long as there is a proper kernel that is.

[@notanetcher]

linux sucks

[@alderonmatt]

I'm extremely thankful this video is not sponsored by Qualcomm. Thanks for covering the issues we ran into with the Dev Kit. I also have one ordered.

[@JeffGeerling]

The ship date is now moved to August 14... let's hope that holds.
Would've been nice to have dev kits in August-last year!

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

WIndows ARM PCs could be so much better, but Jeff's content has already reached perfection.

[@alanmay7929]

apple was able to easily swtich because they were only working with Intel CPUs and AMD GPUs, microsoft on the other hand support everything from intel, amd and nvidia its too much work tbh!

[@rowaystarco]

@@alanmay7929 It's not like there's native eGPU support for M-chip Macbooks either.

[@vincei4252]

I'm shocked Cloud Strike allowed you to post this video.

[@paulstubbs7678]

They are probably way to busy to notice anything at this moment

[@lkruijsw]

@@paulstubbs7678 He is using ARM.

[@CathrineMacNiel]

you mean crowdstrike, right?

[@user-hs1dd4tc7t]

too much ff7

[@randomgamingin144p]

clownstrike

[@metacob]

Windows is showing ads to paying customers.
That's the kind of thing that companies do when they have to tell shareholders how they are going to squeeze more money out of their customers every quarter.
Just a little preview of what's to come for Raspberry Pi...

[@gabe_0x]

Run Win11 LTSC IoT with simplewall and O&O Shutup and never worry about Microsoft crap ever again.

[@todortodorov6056]

So does Amazon Prime Video (shows adds). And so does Spotify, and I can go on. If you don't want ads, buy the premium tiers, Windows has that too.

[@trowawayacc]

​@@todortodorov6056😂 oh boy i got bad news for you boy.

[@trowawayacc]

And people dont get it. The model this large corpos are built on does not work. The world is a finnite place. Hell even the dam universe. So why how can you buy something infinite?

[@catto-from-heaven]

@@todortodorov6056 The premium tier for Windows is just buying a Mac or installing Linux

[@sandmanxo]

I can't say I really care about Windows on Arm. I've already decided to go full time on Linux on my next computer anyways. After Windows 10 support goes away I'll only use Windows for the one server I admin and my work laptop.

[@leocompany]

You know people said the same thing about windows 7 back then…
Well guess what they never switched to Linux instead they just updated to windows 10

[@tuttocrafting]

I'm only waiting for a proper GPU to switch to linux. I have a Nvidia Pascal that is a no go.

[@TheBadFred]

I still have Windows 11 installed, but I only use it for specific software. My daily drivers are Linux and macOS.

[@MikeDS49]

@@tuttocrafting The 555 driver works flawlessly on Linux now and should support anything from that architecture. As well, Nvidia just announced they're opening their driver with version 560. I guess now's your chance?

[@monochromeart7311]

@@MikeDS49 they're opening the driver *modules*, not the driver itself.

[@MarkDenovich]

Windows Arm on Mac running under Parallels has been fantastic (for the rare thing I need that’s Windows only).

[@aarocka11]

This is kind of funny, considering that a bunch of windows machines are bricked right now due to a botched update involving some security software.

[@MumrikDK]

Same security company has messed up on Linux before. They're the issue.

[@marsovac]

The same company that crashed Red hat time ago.

[@razpeitiamx]

Maybe in 2025 when the exclusivity deal with qualcomm ends. Maybe that would be better for the PC

[@alexlandherr]

At 1:33, having worked an internship with writing setup instructions for and testing VMs on Apple silicon I really appreciated the power and relatively good battery life.

[@whophd]

This Box86 and Box64 thing is making me wonder if moving it from ARM+Linux to ARM+Mac is out of the question. Boy I'd love if an eGPU would work.

[@pimpstick2]

How are we in the M4 era and we still don't have a decent ARM based competitor in the space?

[@Insightfill]

I'd even take a multi-CPU board if per-chip performance is the bottleneck.

[@spvillano]

The same way that DEC fucked up moving their AXP forward.

[@sergioyichiong7269]

All bells and whistles and Macs cant go beyond 25 % marketshare.

[@sergioyichiong7269]

M4 era? Where are the macbook with M4 like M4 would be the fastest chip.
In the end power computing are still on RISC ,x86 side. A computer on arm needs 4x cores more than x86 like fugaku computer.

[@gustavgurke9665]

I really want a powerful ARM Laptop that "just works" with Linux.
It's a shame that these Windows on ARM Laptops are likely never all going to "just work" with generic Linux ISOs (like your Workstation) because they all need individual DTBs as far as I know. So decent Linux support is probably going to be limited to a few specific models. And who knows if they'll support virtualization on Linux either. Older WoA devices don't.
I'm also looking at Macbooks since even though they don't support standard UEFI+ACPI but at least there are popular and increasingly well supported on Linux. But Macbooks are ridiculously expensive for higher RAM/storage configs which you can't even upgrade yourself. Looks like Windows laptops are going the same way though.
It's so frustrating, because it isn't the architecture itself that's holding me back from using ARM, it's the lack of good consumer friendly hardware.

[@azufendusgarendum6583]

The lack of virtualization is as I understand it primarily a Qualcomm limitation, it's not a thing with general ARM machines. Apple's M series supports it with their virtualization APIs, and so does Ampere Altra with KVM on Linux.
Qualcomm apparently allowed virtualization on certain Windows machines through a special proprietary blob that afaik only Microsoft was allowed to ship with Windows. That way Windows could hook into the Qualcomm CPU's native virtualization features, but only possible by getting Qualcomm's permission to use said binary blob

[@zachzimmermann5209]

I was feeling the same way about wanting an ARM laptop worked well with Linux, but I recently came across an ebay deal on a 32gb M2 MacBook that was just too good to pass up. I'm not really planning to install Asahi, because with some (unfortunately a lot) of tweaking and utility apps (tiling, package manager, etc), I have found macOS to be very enjoyable. Between brew and nix I've been able to install and do everything I might want on a linux laptop, plus all of the apple polish.
That's all just to say pre-owned macs are a decent option in my experience.

[@scratchos9816]

Need someone like system 76 or framework to do it

[@gustavgurke9665]

@@azufendusgarendum6583 Oh yeah, I'm aware of that. That's part of what I mean: The architecture isn't the problem, the existing devices are because they're stupid

[@gustavgurke9665]

@@zachzimmermann5209 All the used Macbooks I see for sale are either partially broken or still way too expensive for what they are, unfortunately. So, congratulations on getting a good deal :D

[@porovaara]

i keep repeating this so everyone remembers. qualcomm has lied about their processor performance ever since they started making processors. how they keep getting a pass by the press is absolutely confounding.

[@justbubba4373]

I got a galaxybook go 5g a few months back just to have something ARM on hand to test with. Strongly recommend. They're dirt cheap and very much "okay enough"

[@pablonavarro4244]

It's my main laptop. I use it for RDP into my workstation and the battery lasts quite some time. I got it for 150€ on eBay (used)

[@HoaTheNguyen85]

did you make this vid before worldwide outage on windows pc with crowdstrike? lol

[@JeffGeerling]

Heh, what crazy timing.

[@lucasheringer]

This video couldn't have been uploaded in a better time! lol

[@SlyEcho]

It’s really amazing how far Arm on Linux has come. The launch of the Raspberry Pi starts it all back in the day, I remember how hard it was to get stuff working in the beginning.

[@blablamannetje]

It still is a scattered landscape. No standard image possible. Armbian is doing a lot of the hard work per SBC. Resulting in an image image per SBC type.

[@SlyEcho]

@@blablamannetje There is some progress being made in standardizing booting, for example u-boot can boot EFI bootloaders. Many newer boards also have a SPI flash to permanently write the bootloader, as well.
I was actually more thinking about the OS and userland. In the early days it was sometimes not trivial to get most software that ran on x86 to run on the Pi.
Then, a lot of "Pi edition" builds appeared for popular software. Some of it encouraged to write better cross-platform code, which ran on any Arm32 or Arm64 cpu, or even others like RISC-V.
There are still some "Pi edition" releases out there, for example Steam Link, that are only still Arm32 or supporting the Pi's VideoCore only. I think this is holding back the ecosystem by tying it to a single platform, as well as tying any future Raspberry Pi boards to the Broadcom SoCs that are not really as performant as some others out there.

[@tuttocrafting]

Wait, those laptops doesn't uses UEFI/ACPI? So the hardware configuration is hardcoded into windows?

[@nadtz]

Yeah it's been a pretty big problem for Linux devs having to work on device tree stuff without the hardware in hand.

[@tuttocrafting]

@@nadtz yeah but generally uboot can push the device-tree to the kernel and ACPI/UEFI are device-trees on steroids

[@blablamannetje]

FWIW: I'm typing this on an older Windows-on-ARM (Snapdragon 7c) laptoppie, and BIOS Mode says "UEFI". So why whould there not be UEFI in the newer Windows-on-ARM laptops?

[@notanetcher]

linux sucks

[@tuttocrafting]

@@blablamannetje Uhm if I remember correctly on the Windows RT days they had UEFI but some stuff was hardcoded as what was advertised by UEFI/ACPI was wrong.
UEFi and ACPI have a similar device tree descriptor similar to what embedded linux does.
So the things at this point are 2:
- The drivers only expect device tree entries and skip the ACPI tables.
- The advertised ACPI stuff is wrong and it breask some driver initialization.
On such devices device tree should not be needed as the "bios" should handle that. Device tree are needed on embedded system where the bootloader knows nothing or very little about the hardware capabilities. For example a bootloader doesnt care about the hardware definition outside serial, network if network boot, memory addresses and boot media. (This is an oversemplification due to shared device tree with uboot and kernel, fit images, overlays, etc)
As Jeff said on his system a generic arm image can boot without issues, this is what ACPI/UEFI are for. Abstract hardware initializaiton and provide info to the kernel about its undelaying HW and how to access it.

[@-someone-.]

Did you pre record this before the Microsoft boo boo internet outage? 😅👍

[@lonesock]

@4:36 what was that "abduction" game that popped up??? A narrative alien abduction game sounds spooky. Can't find it on steam.

[@JeffGeerling]

It's Obduction, kind of in the vein of Myst

[@BillsWorkbench]

Thanks Jeff for your insight. I can’t wait to see what you build. I am luckily enough to have a new ARM Windows laptop and I have been happy with the performance. There are some compatibility issues with printer drivers and such but I hope in time as more people start using ARM the drivers and support will come. I think the Windows Dev community is a bit cautious after the previous failed attempts. oh, the battery life is not up to Mac standards, but is it 2x my old i7 13 gen laptop.

[@JeffGeerling]

Yeah; I think some people didn't hear when I say it's *better*, just not as good as MS/Qualcomm were hyping it up to be.
From their early benchmarks, you'd think it was going to absolutely demolish Apple's M3 and blow past all AMD/Intel offerings. It's better than the status quo, but AMD and Apple especially still have a lot of wins.

[@BillsWorkbench]

@@JeffGeerling 100%. It's not a good at the M3 and the Apple Ecosystem. But it's good enough for me not to send it back and use it day to day for my day job.

[@christophercrader8888]

I appreciate using Obduction in the benchmarks. Though now I feel I'll have to go back and replay it again....

[@jacekruzyczka3058]

Yes, and as a corporate Windows user, you've gotta install some obscure security solution like Crowdstrike, which can literally kick out your whole IT with a buggy update.

[@SuperMachead1]

Did you say crowdstrike or Skynet 😂

[@notanetcher]

fun fact they crashed Linux before and linux sucks

[@FujinBlackheart]

To the guys at Ampere i have money and want a solid 16+ Core Desktop focused version that wont cost me a liver and you have a costumer :3

[@JoeSpeed]

we make an itty bitty 32 core CPU🤷‍♂️

1:48 -> "Microsoft has lost sight of what it means to build an operating system." Oh boy, that gentleman expressed in simple words what everybody is feeling right now. Too much AI, too much ADs, too much bloat, too much dependency on online services, and almost zero usability. And they even charge for that! Hope that the today's CrowdStrike incident make some people open their eyes.

[@jjptech]

Micrisoft and qualcom, Two companies going through the enshtifification road together

[@danagoyette7932]

Something interesting I noticed, when I was considering getting a Snapdragon X and trying Thunderbolt devices: Windows on ARM has no drivers for Intel 10-gigabit ethernet chips, but it *does* have drivers for NVIDIA/Mellanox NICs (a number of models of ConnectX-4 and above, some all the way up to 100 gigabits).

[@hishnash]

Does Snapdragon X have full TB through? or is it just USB4 without PCI tunnelling?

[@danagoyette7932]

@@hishnash Beats me, I haven't seen any videos where anyone has extensively tested it.

[@bradavon]

The Qualcomm Dev Kit isn't intended to be The Mac Mini of Windows. One is a consumer product, the other is well the clue is in the title.

[@Chuck_vs._The_Comment_Section]

Instead of forcing all these things on people, MS could instead convince people with the quality of their service. So that they have real additional value for the user. But in order to understand and achieve this, they would have to be as clever as Valve, for example.

[@jkrhu]

This is what I have been waiting for a long time. I would love a desktop class ARM chip with a discrete GPU in a ITX case running Fedora. Just a while longer and its here 🤞

[@user-zb2wd1se7b]

This.

[@Samael1113]

Not a fan of Apple, and I grew up swimming in the shallow end of Window's guts, so it's what I'm most comfortable with... but having experienced all the "Bad" windows builds (except 8), recently, I've seriously been considering switching to Linux.
Maybe building a R.Pi 5, or Orange Pi if it can get a solid base of support systems up, fooling around with it to set up a retro gaming PC as an introduction to the process, then maybe building a mini PC to learn more and maybe replace my laptop when it's time for it to go. The current lack of proper GPU support is the only thing that stopped me from impulse buying an R.Pi 5. But the moment it gets that and can properly emulate a few more recent, but still outdated and discontinued, systems and properly run PC games, I'd be completely sold.

[@thegreenguy5555]

Just so you know, you will be waiting a long time until proper GPU support for the RPi 5. With the RPi4, it took years to get one 10+ year old GPU displaying a basic output. You should probably look into some other boards with support out of the box, which are probably gonna be x86 and more expensive. I've heard good things about the ZimaBoard, but there is others out there

[@Samael1113]

@@thegreenguy5555
IIRC, RPi 4 didn't have any community Graphics Card support because it didn't have PCIe functionality at all, which limited it to cards from before ~2008. And most of those cards are not going to help compared to the tiny onboard GPU RPi4 had. And if you are a regular watcher of Jeff's videos, you'll know that jury-rigging it to work was a terrible monstrosity of impracticality. He barely brute forced it to work before the R Pi 5 launched.
R Pi 5 however, really just needs basic support as it does have that PCIe functionality. However, that would be a community project for each of the various cards out there that could work with thee Pi 5. And I'm just looking for enough support to run something the equivalent of about a decade old. Something that will do more than the onboard GPU with 3D rendering type stuff.
And Jeff did a video in like February? shortly after R Pi5's launch, showing how he got a much newer video card working on R Pi 5 as a proof of concept. With his final thoughts being IIRC - Very possible, just lacking robust driver support at the moment, and a better cable management set-up.
I'm not looking for perfect functionality with current cards, just something stable and that is reasonably more capable that the anemic on board GPU the R Pi 5 has

[@thegreenguy5555]

@@Samael1113 Isn't PCIe support basically the same between the CM4 and the Pi5? Both have PCIe lanes, or does the Pi5 have some sort of better architectural support for more devicea?

[@Samael1113]

@@thegreenguy5555
I'm not an expert, and I guess I forgot the CM4 put in a PCIe slot... but I believe it's about half the size of the R Pi 5's, and because the 5 has exposed pins it lets you double up or parcel out some of the pins as necessary.
I should also mention as part of my initial, but unspoken thoughts, the R Pi 4 base CPU is also not as strong as I want, so even if it could support a decent card, it's not going to be able to effectively harness it in many use cases I have in mind - most notably mid-range gaming.
The R Pi 5 or Orange Pi 5 have very solid board specs for how I'd want to experiment with them. On Paper I think the O Pi 5 is like 2-4x better than R Pi 5
If I knew the Orange Pi had the kind of support and community around it as the R Pi does, I probably would have grabbed it like 6-8 months ago.
But I also really want to learn more about Linux rather than root around in Windows or Android - two OSs that have been turning me off year-on-year - and are the two that Rockchip supports most IIRC.
O Pi 5 uses the Rockchip 3588 and has options for more system ram than R Pi 5 (I think it can get up to 64 now, but know it has options for 32gb)
But I probably digress and just brain dumped the things I was looking at and considering.
Long story short, R Pi 4, wasn't in contention for a number of reasons. R Pi 5 fixes the issues I had with the R Pi 4, and makes external Graphics cards more plausible, functional and less of a masochistic programming hobby project just to do it - which makes me much more hopeful that the R Pi / Linux programming community, which is far more knowledgeable than I on the matter, gets some drivers together or creates a R Pi 5 Graphics hat or something to give it the functionality I want. It is so frustratingly close - a decent GPU is basically all it needs for me to want to play around and experiment with it. I imagine it would draw a lot more hobbyists to it as well.
And I know it may be a bit - but it shouldn't be as long as the R Pi 4, which took basically it's entire lifecycle to sort of almost get a Graphics Card working.
I'm also hoping R Pi makes it easier on the community as well by releasing a R Pi 5 Plus or CM5 that lubricates the process.

[@SprocketHoles]

I think the future for desktops is a small arm device that can be used as a laptop/tablet and some kind of standard dock connection, maybe an oculink like connection with 16pcie lanes or something that will house the GPU for gaming and HEDT.

[@purpleguy3000]

Damn, Ampere can really just eat Qualcomm's lunch here. The potential for ARM workstations is there for the taking.

[@blablamannetje]

Can you explain how and which lunch? Ampere based systems are more expensive than Snapdragon X based systems. Ampere is for the very very high end market, which is s small market.
-- sent from my Windows on ARM laptop

[@Jdvc-yd5tx]

I LOVE the waterfall. I could sit and watch it all day. ❤

[@soniamoura325]

😅 the smartereveryday and total solar eclipse sent me here! Nice work! Definitely need more neurons to understand your channel, but it looks really cool! 👍 👍 😂😂

[@JeffGeerling]

Ha, well also check out @Level2Jeff where I tinker with other projects, many of which are a little less technical than here :D

[@soniamoura325]

@@JeffGeerling thanks! I will check out!! 😊👍👍

[@jeremyhendricks1339]

+100 points for mentioning Obduction. One of the most underrated and forgotten games. Definitely the best Kickstarter I've ever done.

[@tonyscaminaci7959]

I’ve been running Win11 under Parallels on an M3 MacBook. Win11 is snappy even with the Intel -> Arm translation for most of my apps. No driver issues I’ve found so far.

[@JoeSpeed]

So our choice is Elite X dev kit in June 2026 or Ampere Altra dev kit via Newegg next day?🤔

[@SnowDrift-bh7wb]

As a developer I want high single core performance and full Linux (Ubuntu) compatibility. But then I'd seriously consider it, especially as Notebook system because of the long battery runtime.

[@DrathVader]

It's funny how even with microsofts resources Windows on ARM has so many huge caveats, meanwhile on linux it's pretty much the same experience as x86

[@notNajimi]

Linux gaming nowadays is a wild thing, you’re running windows games through two different compatibility layers and it runs impressively well.

[@notanetcher]

linux sucks

[@thegorn]

Microsoft needs to work on a OOBM/BMC/IPMI solution that integrates with with an advanced filesystem that supports snapshots and rollbacks, so that that IT sysadmins can easily roll back operating system stuff ups remotely, so that we never again get "crowdstruck". THIS NEEDS TO BE THE #1 PRIORITY!!!

[@ocelotmadness6287]

Please compare the performance of prism versus box86 on your Ampere chip so we can see which is faster.

[@Ctrl_Del_0]

The way that you make it seem (or how understand it) is that Linux seems to develop itself as the OS for future home usage and Windows will be used in Professional surroundings.
Eventually people will demand the same experience at work as they have at home.

[@tablettablete186]

I didn't know NVIDIA already had functional GeForce drivers for ARM (I even knew this CPU).
This is soooo cool!!!

[@KAMiKAZOW]

Considering that Nvidia make their own ARM CPUs (Tegra), they better make drivers for their own platform.

[@tablettablete186]

@@KAMiKAZOW I know about this, especially for CUDA workloads in the cloud.
My surprise is that it works for GeForce GPUs

[@PixlRainbow]

Their ARM SoCs use the same architecture as their desktop GPUs internally, albeit a few generations behind. The drivers share significant amounts of code.

[@francescormp3163]

great video as alway.
I'm really looking forward to see a desktop class PC based on arm, with a form factor and approach as similas as possible to the one we are used with x86 PCs.
Ampere so far the the closest you can get, but it's not for everyone, and still too expensive for the general public.
Having major hardware vendors jumping in and starting to produce motherboards that can host the ampere CPUs would most likely cause the ARM for desktop market to skyrocket.
but as said, in my humble opinion, we need an open ecosystem: stuff like qualcom SoCs, where the CPU vendor tries to incorporate EVERYTHING into the SoC in a proprietary manner is something that cripples the potentials of the arm architecture too much. the ampere approach is the way to go if we want to see a shift.

[@lkruijsw]

I think we underestimate how much software we have these days and how much work it is to port that all. Porting is not particulary difficult, however, the sheer size is the problem. I think moving from x86 to ARM will be the last migration, unless there comes something spectacullary better. I think Microsoft is commited, but yes, a little push will help.

[@SoundToxin]

RISC-V is in the process of becoming more relevant, there's also IBM POWER stuff on the higher end, though that's even more niche. ARM certainly wins the popularity contest, but it's been trying for a very long time. At least most free (as in freedom) software will support all these architectures in due time even if the proprietary OSes never do. I believe most of the entire Debian repo already works on RISC-V.

[@kmemz]

The thing about Windows - If you have a computer, anything from the last fifteen years, you have a product key for Windows 10 and 11. The Windows 8.1+ era requires you to extract the key from the firmware, as well as a select few early Windows 8 devices from before UEFI was standard across the board, but once you get the key, you can use it on an appropriate edition of Windows 10 or 11, and it will activate without fail.
I have a notepad with a sizeable collection of upwards of thirty Windows 7 Professional product keys, just pulled off of old trash pick systems.
So, while it's not *actually* free, Windows 10 and 11 both are *basically* free as long as you ha e some random computer you pulled from a trash bin and five minutes to either boot it into a UEFI reader or peel away the label. And that's part of why they feel the need to inject advertising into their OS.

[@xeienar]

Wow. An ARM CPU with support for NVIDIA external GPU in Linux!!! What the hell!! That's absolutely mind blowing.

[@notanetcher]

linux sucks

[@nsteblay]

Windows is Windows yes, but these new Windows ARM PCs are refreshing. It will take some time, similar to the M1 release, for software to catch up.

[@kekistanifreedomfighter4197]

I'll drop my hot take: I don't Windows on ARM matters at all for consumer systems, hyperscalers sure. But consumers simply won't know the differences or won't care, or both. Anybody who sets out on running an ARM system such as that sweet Ampere system you've been testing will be running an open source OS or MacOS on a mac.

[@MrThisIsMeToo]

What language is this?

[@Call_Me_David]

I'm glad I actually bought a Win 7 Pro upgraded license back in the day. I can still use that license to clean install Windows today.

[@vladbintintan7659]

The reason snapdragon chips aren't so groundbreaking now is because from when m1 launched intel laptop cpus have also gotten significantly better.

[@XeonProductions]

My Windows Dev Kit was cursed from the day I got it. The sound kept cutting out and distorting, and it would reboot or shutdown if you overtaxed the CPU/GPU. Not a very good first impression of Windows for ARM.

[@andre-le-bone-aparte]

Question: @04:16 - What was your favorite from the Batman Arkham Series?

[@drebes]

Don't call me Shirley!

[@moogs]

Why does the studio Mac have an Intel arc sticker?

[@robfalk]

Jeff, weird question, but does the anti-cheat for Halo MCC work using box86/64?

[@JeffGeerling]

Good question, and so far no. I had to disable it to get the individual games to work.

[@leakyabstraction]

I watched a ton of reviews about these laptops, and I was quite hesitant about buying any; I genuinely felt negative. But then I walked into a shop to generally check laptops, and I saw the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, so I checked it, and I fell in love with the build quality. It's incredibly solidly built, I'd argue it almost feels better than a Macbook Air M3 (which I also checked in the shop) - I definitely liked the trackpad more on the Surface Laptop 7. So, since laptops are super physical devices, and quality matters a lot, I bought it. And I had significantly better experience with it so far than what I expected based on some reviews. It DOES categorically feel like a different kind of Windows laptop, something we haven't had until now: Putting asleep and waking it up is instant, doesn't drain the battery during sleep, the fan rarely spins and even then it has incredibly low noise emissions, and I rarely have to think about charging it. And it genuinely feels performant. Shockingly even the games I tried ran without issues, but obviously the graphics capabilities are way worse than on AMD Hawk Point, not to mention the new Strix Point iGPU, which is probably like twice as fast in games. The main problem I think is the latency, in some games it feels like there is significant latency between the input and the render.

[@JeffGeerling]

I've been hearing similar things from others who bought the Surface 7-it does sound like a winner from Microsoft. I think outside of gaming performance, it may be the most Macbook Air-like experience with Windows ever (which I like). Just... Microsoft and Qualcomm both could've done their launch so much better by not focusing on CoPilot and AI features.

[@mannkeithc]

Microsoft and Qualcomm Windows 11 arm exclusivity agreement ends this year, so we may see Nvidia and MediaTek enter the Arm PC fray in 2025. I tried purchasing a Snapdragon Dev Kit 2024 from the link provided in my email from Qualcomm but failed when entering the shipping address. UK was OK but despite specifying for personal use, it still wanted me to enter a VAT ID, which I don't have because I am not a business with VAT registration. It would have made more sense if Qualcomm had retailed these Dev Kits via Microsoft Store etc! Another Qualcomm / Microsoft home goal!

[@LymanPhillips]

"Until next time, I'm Jeff Geerling..." Who are you going to be next time... Batman?

[@daniel29263]

Qualcomm has officially said Linux support is being worked on but it will take 1-2 more versions until it's good enough. So end of the year most likely.

[@monkev1199]

imo Qualcomm getting the X series to run on Linux upstream might be hedging a bet on Chromebooks

[@Dave102693]

Pretty much

[@hnasheralneam]

I dunno, it looks like they were testing real Linux on the red laptops, and that enough people care inside Qualcomm. Either way, as long as it helps desktop linux it's all good

[@notanetcher]

linux sucks

[@rhone733]

No one cares about Co-pilot.

[@Lucius_DeBeers]

Worse still, some people actively dislike Copilot. I certainly do.

[@ben53933]

There are thousands of consumers using it daily. The real issue is on when and how it works. If it's on browser and office apps, OK. But, not running all the time on the O.S and specially not grabbing consumers data without any privacy control (user defined)

[@notanetcher]

idc about you

[@PrinceAlberts]

This launch feels more like a rushed answer to ARM’s rise to more than cellphones than even a poorly executed plan, while it’s obvious that Apple had been working on their switch well before it was ever announced, or even leaked. Maybe even years before. “Microsoft has lost sight of what it means to build an operating system” is accurate. They laid off most of the test teams years ago in search of higher profitability and it’s catching up to them.

[@Peterthethinker]

Apple plays the long game...

[@charleshines5700]

The single core performance of the Ampere Altra Max may not be so great but if I can run something other than Windows on it easily and not have to do weird things like you might with a Mac to even attempt to make it possible I want the Ampere chip! It may not be as great as I may think but it is a usable option and nothing is wrong with it since a lot of software uses more than one core anyhow. As for Portal 2 not running on a processor with a lot of cores, we need to have a word with GlaDOS about that!

[@LoganX83]

Hey :D. Remember that Tuxedo Computers is also working on a Linux based X Elite Laptop. Hope they will show something "soon".

[@notanetcher]

linux sucks

[@svettnabb]

"this system is a little niche". The most niche of niche I would argue

[@plica06]

That desktop PC is monster.

[@jasonjayalap]

Every year is the year of the Linux desktop and the MacBook killer.

[@pixels_per_minute]

I don't know much about the Qualcomm & Microsoft partnership, but what I do know is that it's all marketing mumbo jumbo.
This seems like an absolute disastrous launch for something that was hyped up so much by both parties.

[@bradavon]

There wasn't/isn't ARM device drivers for MacOS either. No one talks about that though. Here's me using my Printer, Scanner and Minidisc Recorder from 2002 on my Surface Pro X and Surface Laptop 7.

[@herozero777]

Agreed. I'm also waiting for a Linux based ARM laptop to come out. I don't want to buy a Windows machine and then install Linux. So I'm hoping companies like Tuxedo or System76 can also release a laptop quickly.

[@oneamongmany1392]

Hey Jeff. In some of your SBC/Compute module videos you mentioned that ARM implementation with' other hardware' was nowhere near as standardized as in x86/64, and that held a lot of those solutions back. In this case it seems the opposite is true (maybe just nVidea). You'd think by attaching themselves to a single chip manufacturer MS would be able to nail that since they don't need to worry about anyone else's implementation of ARM. Or do i have that wrong?

[@richarddaugherty8583]

As a retired IT dev who used Microsoft products almost exclusively during my career, I have ditched Windows almost completely. Windows 11 won't run on my current PC, a ThinkCentre M700. I refuse to go out and purchase a computer I don't need just to upgrade my version of Windows. Microsoft, like IBM and Apple before them, have lost their way and gotten too big for their britches. I hope they learn their lesson and reform the way the other companies did. Humility is a wonderful thing. In the meantime, I'm happy playing with Pi's and running Linux Mint on my M700 and my laptop. Apple has yet to learn not to try and lock users into their universe. Their products cost too much, and I don't like being dictated to. Sad, because they have good machines.

[@pablonavarro4244]

The problem is that you can't even create a Windows installer media for arm64 directly, because it requires including drivers for everything, as they're avoiding every "PC compatible" standards for some reasons I don't understand (maybe they don't want to succeed?).
Unless you include the drivers explicitly, keyboard and USBs won't work out of the box, at least in my Samsung Galaxy Book Go

[@DarkionAvey]

I cant wait for mainstream arm desktops.

[@salvadorGC338]

Bring Windows to sub $100 ARM devices instead of betting on Ultra premium hardware and you will see how the problems will solve themselves out... But nooooo, better to charge north of $1000 on a premium device with tons of incompatibilities that 5 people will use maybe 10 times.
HELP the people developing UEFI for RPI5 and RK3588, offer a reward for the first one to make a working Mali G610 / VideoCore 7 driver for Windows...
No no... Keep doing what you are doing Microsoft, it is going really well.

[@user-fv6jp1cv1x]

очень ждал это видео) Спасибо

[@TheBadFred]

Time will tell. I think that the flow of native ARM software for Windows will quickly dry out, if those copilot+ laptops don't sell like hot cake.

[@braillynn4903]

Looking forward to when Tuxedo Computers puts out their Linux on ARM laptop.

[@notanetcher]

linux sucks

[@JosDehaes]

Funny I'm actually watching this on a yoga slim 7x running linux 😁. Most things work already quite well, wifi, touchscreen, usb. Not working yet: speakers, bluetooth, webcam. In a few weeks it'll run better than asahi linux on my M1 MBA

[@notanetcher]

linux sucks

[@mojoloop]

The biggest problem with Windows on ARM is Windows. I can emulate pretty much any app I need on Linux asnd most of the time a native version already exists. Plus, if I can't emulate an app, I'll just find an alternative.