this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I mean, Linux definitely does have ARM apps in that for the open-source stuff, you can just use an ARM build of the distro. So the transition for Linux is definitely easier from the standpoint of obtaining native binaries than it is for MacOS or Windows; a huge chunk of the software has the source publicly-available.

But if you want to play closed-source games on Linux -- like, off Steam or GOG or whatever, some of which is Windows binaries -- most if not all of that doesn't have ARM available, and a lot of it will definitely never have ARM builds, because the stuff was written ages ago and the source was lost, even if the rightsholders were able and interested in getting an ARM build out. And ARM can't really efficiently emulate x86.

CPUs aren't that expensive. Maybe it's possible to create some kind of ARM-based laptop with an x86 coprocessor that is only used when running x86 code, or something like that.