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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Why does Linux run so well on ARM (ls.buckodr.ink)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've seen people talking about it and experienced it myself with a server, but why does Linux run so well on ARM (especially compared to Windows)?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The issue with Arm is they aren't all one board/chip, you have ARM based design licenced from them and they are built to meet the criteria of what the customer requires. i.e. for my iomega NAS there isn't firmware boot, you just have to generate an empty section of 00s on the first 32bytes of the drive so the board knows that is the drive to load the kernel from (no grub no uboot) and the board is set to do the rest from the next partition.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Booting isn't the only problem with ARM. Instead of saving information about builtin devices on the board and exposing it via ACPI, board manufacturers create a devicetree and ship it with the kernel. This means that if you want to run your own kernel you need to build your own devicetree

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But all x86 instructions are the same right, thus why it doesnt matter what era your chip is from or what manufacturer, arm can be very different

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the info, I appreciate the reply