Many x86 Laptop Improvements In Linux 6.10 Plus Acer ARM Laptop

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Many x86 Laptop Improvements In Linux 6.10 Plus Acer ARM Laptop

The x86 platform driver updates have been merged for the ongoing Linux 6.10 merge window. The platform-drivers-x86 changes continue to primarily revolve around x86 Intel/AMD laptops but also some other desktop/platform drivers. Now in Linux 6.10 there is also a new "ARM64" sub-section of the platform drivers...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.10-x86-Platform-Drivers

[tildearrow]

Acer! See... why just 4GB RAM?
Don't delegate ARM to low-end... Prove it can compete hand-to-hand with x86!

[loganj]

what advantage has arm over x86? (other than power consumption)
im curios why everybody want to produce arm cpus

[sbivol]

why just 4GB RAM?

Because Acer is an ultra-budget brand and their market segment only cares about price.

Prove it can compete hand-to-hand with x86!

It really can't, at least not the CPU cores. The ASIC part of the chipset can "compete" because it's more or less the same circuits.

[klokik]

what advantage has arm over x86? (other than power consumption)
im curios why everybody want to produce arm cpus

Because there is a space for more than two vendors with cross-licensing agreement. Effectively, no other company can enter x86 CPU market now. And these two companies do not deliver exciting stuff that geeks want. ARM, on the other hand, is happy to sell you a competitive IP Core at good price, or an architecture license for you to create your own, compatible with all the existing software and tools.
Tool-wise ARM ecosystem is more that ready for all kinds of use, and in general is better documented, ISA is of a much cleaner design compared to amd64.
Years ago consumer CPU market was more diverse, and folks would be happy to see something new at once.

[tildearrow]

It really can't, at least not the CPU cores. The ASIC part of the chipset can "compete" because it's more or less the same circuits.

How are Apple and Ampere still alive then?

[zexelon]

Picked up a Lenovo T16 (21K7-000AUS) with the AMD Ryzen Pro 7 a few weeks ago, its been an absolute dream on Kubuntu 24.04. These distros have come a very long way in the last few years on the user friendliness front.

Everything just works! Even gaming has been a dream! Nothing major mind you... it is a T16...

[sbivol]

How are Apple and Ampere still alive then?

Why wouldn't they be? Using a slower CPU doesn't trigger instant bankruptcy.
More to the point, one company sells fashion accessories and the other one sells CPUs with very high core counts, and both are hugely lucrative.
Even more to the point, Acer have sold garbage with bottom of the barrel components for decades, and here they are, continuing the tradition.

[Smurphy]

Have a Pine64 Pro laptop that barely did cost me 200 U$. Nice animal, even though the touchpad is crap. Even the latest firmware updates couldn't help.
Slightly better CPU than the Acer IMHO, 4GB Ram, and 64GBytes mmc, and the screen (matt) is amazing. Wonder who copied who.

[loganj]

Because there is a space for more than two vendors with cross-licensing agreement. Effectively, no other company can enter x86 CPU market now. And these two companies do not deliver exciting stuff that geeks want. ARM, on the other hand, is happy to sell you a competitive IP Core at good price, or an architecture license for you to create your own, compatible with all the existing software and tools.
Tool-wise ARM ecosystem is more that ready for all kinds of use, and in general is better documented, ISA is of a much cleaner design compared to amd64.
Years ago consumer CPU market was more diverse, and folks would be happy to see something new at once.

thank you. that makes sense. but if amd/nvidia/whoever starts to produce arm and add same features as x86 will this not make the said procesor as close as before?
are they force in anyway to make the feature available for the rest of manufacturers if they decide to go arm? cause if not everything will be the same