this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
151 points (93.1% liked)

Linux

48376 readers
1038 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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)?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

Apple can be much more heavy handed than Apple can. Apple controls their hardware ecosystem. They make everybody buy the architecture they want. They make the OS stop working on older hardware. They set minimum OS requirements for application writers. So, all the software ( from everybody - not just Apple ) gets moved to the new architecture quickly. It does not take long before being on the new architecture is all that makes sense.

Windows on the other hand does not control the hardware. They are trying. They make their own now so they can at least seed the new ecosystem. However most Windows users buy their Windows hardware from somebody other than Microsoft. It makes sense for most hardware to target the larger application audience and that will be the old architecture. It makes sense for application devs to target the older architecture. For a long, long time, the older arch makes the most sense for almost everybody in the ecosystem. Only early adopters make the switch ( both users and application sellers ). In practice, that means that moving to the new arch means not having native apps in many cases which means the new arch will, in practice, be worse than the old one.