Open Source Project Aims To Make Ubuntu Usable on Arm-Powered Windows Laptops (techrepublic.com)

A group of programmers and device hackers are working to bring proper support for Ubuntu to Arm-powered Windows laptops, starting with first-generation Snapdragon 835 systems, like the HP Envy x2 and Asus NovaGo. From a report: The aarch64-laptops project provides prebuilt images for the aforementioned notebook PCs, as well as the Lenovo Miix 630. Although Ubuntu and other Linux distributions support aarch64 (ARMv8) by default, various obstacles including the design and configuration of Qualcomm Snapdragon processors make these default images not practically usable. The aarch64-laptops project developers are aiming to address these difficulties, though work is still ongoing. Presently, the TouchPad does not work properly on the Asus, with all three lacking proper support for on-board storage and Wi-Fi, which rely on UFS support. According to their documentation, this is being worked on upstream.

Comments

Linux

[Bert64]

ARM laptops should really have been offered with linux from the get-go, the only benefit of windows is compatibility with the existing masses of x86 software and drivers for arbitrary peripherals - a benefit which is lost when running windows/arm. A linux/arm laptop would have the same software as linux/x86 as virtually everything has already been compiled for arm.

Having windows/arm will only result in user disappointment, either because expected things don't work or perform poorly under emulation.

Re:Linux

[drinkypoo]

Having windows/arm will only result in user disappointment, either because expected things don't work or perform poorly under emulation.

We went through some of this with netbooks, now they're repeating it all over again with armbooks. Netbooks could run windows software since they were x86, but they could only run it poorly because of memory limitations. Linux wasn't so memory-hungry at the time, so it made more sense.

Unfortunately, the market rejected Linux then, because they wanted to run Windows software. Today, the people who would want a low-power laptop are probably more likely coming from the other end — they don't want a lower-powered windows laptop, they want a higher-powered Android or iOS one, with the keyboard that their phone doesn't have.