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Comment by solarkraft | Hacker News Reader

As much as I'd like it to be I don't think Linux is a serious desktop contender for most people, so Microsoft is just in second place - and it's not that distant yet, since the Apple transition has just started.

But of course the real (and perhaps obvious) difference is that Apple is much more strict about its ecosystem, having decided ARM will definitely be a thing and developers need to follow to stay relevant.

The Windows version is "maybe there will be ARM devices one day, maybe". That's not nearly as convincing.

I believe the most convincing thing for developers (besides rewards like promotion and filters in the store, which MS badly sucks at) would be a wave of serious ARM devices coming out in the very near future. The longer it takes the slimmer the chance that Windows on ARM will really catch on.

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> As much as I'd like it to be I don't think Linux is a serious desktop contender for most people, so Microsoft is just in second place - and it's not that distant yet, since the Apple transition has just started.

My point here is:

- A huge chunk of Linux software (desktop or server) has been ported to ARM or will soon be.

- A huge chunk of MacOS software will likely be ported within the first few months of launch.

- A very small percentage of Windows software has been ported to ARM. Even the usual Windows strongholds: Games and corporate software have poor support for Windows ARM. Windows x86-64 bit emulation is missing (or at least was at launch) so a significant amount of pro software and games won't run even under emulation.

> The Windows version is "maybe there will be ARM devices one day, maybe". That's not nearly as convincing.

Exactly this. Microsoft has had so many false starts on platform shifts they have a hard job selling this.

Windows software written in .NET and Java has little to worry about what CPU is being used, and there is plenty of it to chose from.

Also outside HN bubble right there in the real world, macOS desktops are about 8% across the whole world. It doesn't really matter what CPU they have.

> Windows software written in .NET and Java has little to worry about what CPU is being used, and there is plenty of it to chose from.

Considering many/ most pro apps like Photoshop are not written in .NET or Java, it is a significant concern. Likewise games—a category of software Microsoft has long dominated—are not generally written in Java/ .NET. Likewise, huge chunks of legacy corporate software is not very portable.

> Also outside HN bubble right there in the real world, macOS desktops are about 8% across the whole world. It doesn't really matter what CPU they have.

I wasn't talking about unit sales, I was talking about how much software the platform supports. Regardless of whether the Mac has 3% or 99%, there is going to be a better selection of software available for Mac on ARM in 6 months than for Windows ARM.

Sure they are, most modern Windows software is a mix of .NET and C++. As for modern Windows programming, UWP has been able to target ARM since ages.

Yeah, not everything will be available, then again it doesn't matter how much software is available, if only a subset of those 8% of the computing world population is going to get it.

Presumably if Photoshop is being ported to ARM for Mac, it will be ready for Windows on ARM won’t it?

> Likewise games...

Nobody who plays games will want an ARM chips anyway because they’re for low powered mobile systems, not desktops with beefy GPUs.

At least for right now. We'll see how things look in a few years. If Intel can't get back on track, ARM might actually surpass them and that's a very good reason for Microsoft to be looking to support ARM.

Lack of 64bit-only pro software isn't matter for 2019-2020 because lack of SoC performance. Possibly MS support 64bit emulation in time for SoC performance improving.

You can play the c++ version of Minecraft on the Surface X, however you couldn't play the Java version. Maybe the openjdk can fix this problem but I'm not really optimistic.

What your post sounds like, and I believe this to be true, is that the primary value proposition of Windows is . . .

to run legacy software.

>As much as I'd like it to be I don't think Linux is a serious desktop contender for most people, so Microsoft is just in second place - and it's not that distant yet, since the Apple transition has just started.

I think market evidence points to the contrary. The Raspberry Pi is a fully fledged Linux Desktop, it's running and marketed with full fledged desktop software. Last I checked 25 million units have been sold.

It's use/sales far outstrips Windows RT or Surface Pro X which from what I know are the only current uses for Windows on ARM.

So yes I think Windows is in a clear 3rd place on ARM architectures.

> The Raspberry Pi is a fully fledged Linux Desktop,

I'm not sure I agree with this, lots of Pis are sold for projects which don't involve use as a desktop. In fact—from what I've seen—only a small percentage of Pis are actually used as day-to-day computing devices.

But in addition to the Pi, there is Pine64 which is exclusively sold as a "Desktop" platform with both laptops and workstations.

But I was talking more about the number of apps available on the platform than the number of units sold.

Software support for Windows ARM is a bit of a crapshoot which makes it hard to estimate what's out there.

It may not majority be used as a desktop, but it is marketed as such. You go to the raspberry pi store in Cambridge, and the first thing you see is it's use as a desktop.

The use cases for the Raspberry PI is ridiculously varied which I think reinforces it's application support relative to Windows on ARM.

I have seen it used for openstack development, as a desktop, home theatre pc, pihole, nextcloud instance, emulator etc... I haven't really found software that I can't just install/use.

Can you say the same for any windows on arm deployment? Especially if they are only just coming out with mainstream support for OpenJDK and Electron support.

You are talking to the choir here.

In fact the alternative uses for the Pi are arguably as interesting/ important to its significance as a platform. A lot of little side projects which the Pi gets used for now used to be low end Windows boxes.

My raspberry pi alerts if there is too much water in my basement sump. No desktop there, and I suspect for most Pi's.

If Windows is in 3rd place for desktops, it's because of sales of ARM based Chromebooks, not Raspberry Pi.

>I think market evidence points to the contrary. The Raspberry Pi is a fully fledged Linux Desktop, it's running and marketed with full fledged desktop software. Last I checked 25 million units have been sold.

That's a statistical error level compared to the number of PCs in the world.

And even the premise is wrong. The "Raspberry Pi" is not bought as a "fully fledged Linux Desktop" (whether it's marketed as such or not), but used mostly for special utility purposes, from automation and DIY experiments to multimedia servers and such...

Even if you add all Linux desktop machines, it's like 2% or something...

We aren't comparing it to the total number of PCs in the world and that marketshare relevance. I am sure there aren't particularly accurate statistics for that usage anyway.

This is a comparison between Linux on ARM and Windows on ARM. Not against Windows vs Linux as a whole. I assume this is in the context of future consumer desktop platforms on ARM hardware. In that context, OEMs who want to release a functional desktop product with ARM chips would find it a lot easier/appealing with ARM than on Windows at present.

In that context, Linux on ARM is vastly ahead of Windows of ARM.

My argument is that the total number of raspberry pis being used a Linux ARM desktop outstrips the amount of Windows ARM desktops (which are composed of surface RT/X tablets).

Chromebooks rather than Pis amount to some percentage of Linux "desktop" used. Dunno how much but their CPUs are definitely ARM devices.

Well, we weren't talking about the desktop, were we? Especially when Java is involved. (Unless, of course, it is Java code development, in which case Linux is still a better platform anyway.)

Especially when Java is involved

Uh, what? Java started as a write-once-run-anywhere platform for applications. Java gained popularity as a browser plugin for richer UIs. Significant amounts of enterprise and in-house software are written in Java using AWT/Swing, SWT, etc.

>Well, we weren't talking about desktop, were we?

It is implied. To be accurate, it started being implied when mac os has been brought into discussion.

Is there even a Windows ARM server platform which the public can port software to?

There is no publically available Windows Server Arm, no.

I'm not concerned about the server. If the performance were good and Microsoft's built in Narrator screen reader worked well with vscode I could use an arm computer for all my hobby programming now. I don't know how well Narrator works with vscode but unfortunately as far as I can tell NVDA is not being ported to arm. Yet another example of the lack of software. I'd consider getting a cheep Windows ARM laptop to investigate porting it but it looks like everything is over $500.

Says who?

I have been developing on Windows and deploying into whatever OS almost since Java exists, thanks to IT policies regarding desktop computers.

And yes, I also have deployed my share of Java applications running on Windows based JEE containers.

There already are ARM devices. Surface Pro X, for example.

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