Windows ARM Dev Kit 2023(microsoft.com)
microsoft.com
Windows ARM Dev Kit 2023
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/windows-dev-kit-2023/94k0p67w7581
49 comments
Microsoft doesn't want to be beholden to the Intel-AMD duopoly. By threatening them with ARM Windows, they force Intel and AMD to improve their low power offerings and to lower prices, even if ARM Windows never sees mass market adoption
In the laptop world Apple is so far ahead it's unbelievable. My wife just bought an M1 MBA for like $900 and there's really nothing in the PC market that can beat that in terms of value.
If Apple released a cheap M1 laptop for like $500 it would be game over for laptop PCs and probably would make a huge dent in the Chromebook market.
If Apple released a cheap M1 laptop for like $500 it would be game over for laptop PCs and probably would make a huge dent in the Chromebook market.
Chromebooks are only popular on US school system, and bloodly expensive for what is a Chrome jungling OS constrained by what Web APIs are able to expose from modern computer hardware.
Yeah, when Windows moves to ARM they lose all their legacy software support, which is legitimately the one of only reasons people use Windows in the first place.
Windows ARM64 runs x86 binaries pretty well.
Well enough that it doesn't matter that much you don't have a native Google Chrome, for instance. AMD64/x86-64 version runs just fine.
Well enough that it doesn't matter that much you don't have a native Google Chrome, for instance. AMD64/x86-64 version runs just fine.
While I doubt ARM port will go anywhere (RISC-V is where it's at), they have x86 emulation support in place, to run legacy binaries.
I'll wait for the RISC-V version of the SDK. I see no future where Windows for ARM meets ample success.
We know there's a Windows for RISC-V in the works, as the foundation's talks at the Summit referenced it multiple times.
ARM-based, hardware-wise, there's only Qualcomm-based laptops. Qualcomm is very obviously not going to be making SoCs based on ARM CPUs for long.
They have been RISC-V members for a while, they are being sued by ARM, and they've clearly expressed their intent re: RISC-V in their talks at the RISC-V Summit.
As for other SoC vendors, I doubt there is interest. Not now that RISC-V is already taking off.
We know there's a Windows for RISC-V in the works, as the foundation's talks at the Summit referenced it multiple times.
ARM-based, hardware-wise, there's only Qualcomm-based laptops. Qualcomm is very obviously not going to be making SoCs based on ARM CPUs for long.
They have been RISC-V members for a while, they are being sued by ARM, and they've clearly expressed their intent re: RISC-V in their talks at the RISC-V Summit.
As for other SoC vendors, I doubt there is interest. Not now that RISC-V is already taking off.
How about Windows running on M Series Macs? That would probably be one of the best Windows machines on the market. Risc-V while a noble idea will initially lead to some really junk laptops just like the wave of Chinese ARM "laptops" from a few years back and more recently the junk from Qualcomm. Eventually I image the experience will get decent but there will be nothing but disposable junk for a few years until the ecosystem and performance become something consumers can use.
I don't think Microsoft is interested, and I honestly do not care about ARM hardware anymore.
I have never cared about Apple hardware to begin with.
I have never cared about Apple hardware to begin with.
I guess the mass market won't care about whatever you end up caring about. You are missing out if you haven't given a serious try of Apple M-Series hardware.
Let me know once Microsoft supports Windows for ARM on M-Series.
Till then, it does not exist for Windows purposes.
Till then, it does not exist for Windows purposes.
ZDNet: Microsoft now supports running Windows 11 on Arm on Apple Silicon Macs, but there are some limitations.
https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/microsoft-finally-a...
or an article from Microsoft themselves: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/options-for-usin...
Feel free to move the goalposts to "non-virtualized, even though you didn't specify that originally :)
https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/microsoft-finally-a...
or an article from Microsoft themselves: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/options-for-usin...
Feel free to move the goalposts to "non-virtualized, even though you didn't specify that originally :)
I got loopholed :(
Windows 11 virtualized on M Series is probably one of the snappiest Windows 11 experiences you'll probably get. I run it from time to time on my M1 Mac Mini and it is tolerable for when I need to use Windows.
If Windows on ARM is already an hard sell after a decade of trying, RISC-V is an impossible dream.
RISC-V is taking over the world at quite the pace.
I doubt it won't be bigger than ARM ever was or ever will be; within just 3 years from now I expect it to be taking on x86.
I doubt it won't be bigger than ARM ever was or ever will be; within just 3 years from now I expect it to be taking on x86.
Wishful thinking, it hardly matters beyond some embedded workloads.
It does appear to be at least trying to go up the value chain, and - perhaps weirdly - it also seems to be getting a look-in with supercomputers.
For the "up the value chain" bit, things like the very-early-stage PineTab-V:
https://www.pine64.org/2023/04/01/march-update-tablet-bonanz...
Plus the Tenstorrent (Canadian based) server oriented stuff:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tenstorrent-shares-roadmap...
For the supercomputer bit:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-explore-risc-v-is...
and:
https://www.nextplatform.com/2022/06/09/strong-showing-for-f...
Whether any of that will get traction is clearly a "who knows" thing, but the signs seem to be pointing in the positive direction.
For the "up the value chain" bit, things like the very-early-stage PineTab-V:
https://www.pine64.org/2023/04/01/march-update-tablet-bonanz...
Plus the Tenstorrent (Canadian based) server oriented stuff:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tenstorrent-shares-roadmap...
For the supercomputer bit:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-explore-risc-v-is...
and:
https://www.nextplatform.com/2022/06/09/strong-showing-for-f...
Whether any of that will get traction is clearly a "who knows" thing, but the signs seem to be pointing in the positive direction.
The timeline is what it is. Specs such as V, H or the Zb* needed for server/workstation workloads were ratified in late 2021.
Assuming hardware was developed alongside the specs, which didn't change much near the time of ratification, then 2-3 years need to be added for actual products. We are about to see the first wave.
We know Tenstorrent (CEO: Jim Keller) has a design they expect to release in 2024 with performance competitive with projected Zen5 (also 2024), but using less power. That's Ascalon, a design led by the same person who was M1's chief architect at Apple.
We also know SiFive, MIPS, Rivos, Ventana are each working on their own very high performance designs, and have teams full of extremely capable people who have a history of success in high performance chips. That's a lot, and that's just what we know of. There's necessarily more efforts beyond the surface, which we don't yet know about.
Ventana's Veyron might be the first to market, with server chips expected 2023H2.
Assuming hardware was developed alongside the specs, which didn't change much near the time of ratification, then 2-3 years need to be added for actual products. We are about to see the first wave.
We know Tenstorrent (CEO: Jim Keller) has a design they expect to release in 2024 with performance competitive with projected Zen5 (also 2024), but using less power. That's Ascalon, a design led by the same person who was M1's chief architect at Apple.
We also know SiFive, MIPS, Rivos, Ventana are each working on their own very high performance designs, and have teams full of extremely capable people who have a history of success in high performance chips. That's a lot, and that's just what we know of. There's necessarily more efforts beyond the surface, which we don't yet know about.
Ventana's Veyron might be the first to market, with server chips expected 2023H2.
What matters is seeing AWS, Azure and GCP adopting them at a scale that surpaces ARM, likewise Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung et al for their OSes.
Yes.
Microsoft and Google, their RISC-V efforts we already know about.
Android RISC-V port, already merged upstream, was an effort funded by by Chinese SoC vendors. Capable chips and smartphones will follow, this is an inevitability.
As for AWS, GCP and Azure (sorted them in actual order of relevance), they will definitely start offering RISC-V support at some point and then we can see whether it picks up.
But high performance server hardware is a prerequisite for this to be possible, thus my parent post.
Microsoft and Google, their RISC-V efforts we already know about.
Android RISC-V port, already merged upstream, was an effort funded by by Chinese SoC vendors. Capable chips and smartphones will follow, this is an inevitability.
As for AWS, GCP and Azure (sorted them in actual order of relevance), they will definitely start offering RISC-V support at some point and then we can see whether it picks up.
But high performance server hardware is a prerequisite for this to be possible, thus my parent post.
> RISC-V is taking over the world
Citation needed.
Apple is the most successful ARM platform as of now. Everything else is minor compare to them. I would really like to see that we have RISC-V as an alternative platform but right now it is a nice toy to play with and even for the toy usecases the selection is very limited.
Citation needed.
Apple is the most successful ARM platform as of now. Everything else is minor compare to them. I would really like to see that we have RISC-V as an alternative platform but right now it is a nice toy to play with and even for the toy usecases the selection is very limited.
Feel free to poke me once Microsoft decides to support Apple's hardware on Windows for ARM.
I honestly do not see it happening.
Until then, whatever hardware Apple has is irrelevant to the Windows discussion.
I honestly do not see it happening.
Until then, whatever hardware Apple has is irrelevant to the Windows discussion.
Microsoft is already having issues to move Windows development community into ARM for the last decade, it is a pipe dream they will ever care with RISC-V.
>it is a pipe dream they will ever care with RISC-V.
They already care about RISC-V as I explained in other posts in this discussion, and there's not even hardware yet.
Hardware is finally about to show up, also explained, to you specifically, in another post in this discussion.
RISC-V is inevitable.
They already care about RISC-V as I explained in other posts in this discussion, and there's not even hardware yet.
Hardware is finally about to show up, also explained, to you specifically, in another post in this discussion.
RISC-V is inevitable.
> RISC-V is inevitable.
While it does seem pretty likely, "inevitable" is perhaps overstating things.
If RISC-V does make solid inroads into servers and supercomputers, then (perhaps ironically?) the US gov may start doing funky things to suppress it. They don't want China successfully countering the recent chip-making suppression efforts, which RISC-V could enable.
Probably not something we'll see in 2023 though, so that's totally wild guessing. ;)
While it does seem pretty likely, "inevitable" is perhaps overstating things.
If RISC-V does make solid inroads into servers and supercomputers, then (perhaps ironically?) the US gov may start doing funky things to suppress it. They don't want China successfully countering the recent chip-making suppression efforts, which RISC-V could enable.
Probably not something we'll see in 2023 though, so that's totally wild guessing. ;)
>"inevitable" is perhaps overstating things.
The momentum has grown far beyond the point of no return.
As we can see it already happening, it is far more likely for me to be struck by lightning than RISC-V not take over the world.
>If RISC-V does make solid inroads into servers and supercomputers
See recent talk from BSC's Mateo Valero[0]. EU's supercomputer roadmap already is RISC-V centric, and their researchers already have a few generations of finished RISC-V designs.
>then (perhaps ironically?) the US gov may start doing funky things to suppress it
They cannot. RISC-V Foundation is based in Switzerland.
0. https://www.youtube.com/@tenstorrentinc (it's somewhere in the recent "Nerds Talking to Nerds About RISC V", which has a load of good talks)
The momentum has grown far beyond the point of no return.
As we can see it already happening, it is far more likely for me to be struck by lightning than RISC-V not take over the world.
>If RISC-V does make solid inroads into servers and supercomputers
See recent talk from BSC's Mateo Valero[0]. EU's supercomputer roadmap already is RISC-V centric, and their researchers already have a few generations of finished RISC-V designs.
>then (perhaps ironically?) the US gov may start doing funky things to suppress it
They cannot. RISC-V Foundation is based in Switzerland.
0. https://www.youtube.com/@tenstorrentinc (it's somewhere in the recent "Nerds Talking to Nerds About RISC V", which has a load of good talks)
> They cannot. RISC-V Foundation is based in Switzerland.
You're not taking into account the difference between theory and reality.
"In theory" the US government "cannot" due to technical aspects like the RISC-V Foundation being based in Switzerland.
"In reality" though, the US government could (for example) introduce targetted sanctions on companies having anything further to do with RISC-V.
The vast majority of those companies would terminate their RISC-V involvement on the spot, as they have substantial US involvement with their businesses.
The remaining ones could indeed keep on pursing RISC-V, but the whole "take over the world" thing would be either dead or have its timeframe pushed out by many years.
Note - I'm trying to illustrate that "inevitable" isn't correct when powerful players are involved. So the above example is just the first one to spring to mind.
You're not taking into account the difference between theory and reality.
"In theory" the US government "cannot" due to technical aspects like the RISC-V Foundation being based in Switzerland.
"In reality" though, the US government could (for example) introduce targetted sanctions on companies having anything further to do with RISC-V.
The vast majority of those companies would terminate their RISC-V involvement on the spot, as they have substantial US involvement with their businesses.
The remaining ones could indeed keep on pursing RISC-V, but the whole "take over the world" thing would be either dead or have its timeframe pushed out by many years.
Note - I'm trying to illustrate that "inevitable" isn't correct when powerful players are involved. So the above example is just the first one to spring to mind.
I'll just reiterate: It is far more likely for me to be struck by lightning than RISC-V not take over the world.
RISC-V is inevitable.
RISC-V is inevitable.
I would be interested in this but I recall a video comparing it to the m1 Mac mini and it's just not even close. I've enjoyed using visual studio for c/c++/c# but for usescases outside of that, I feel like the developer experience on Linux or Mac is better
This box was interesting when first released, but Linux still is not in a usable state on it after six months.
If this could be a solid docker host, it would be a really interesting home server. It still cannot six months later and instead I am building a home K8s cluster with Dell Micro 3060s with i5-8500t CPUs. My per unit cost with 64GB RAM, 1TB NVME, and 2.5Gbe is under $310.
If this could be a solid docker host, it would be a really interesting home server. It still cannot six months later and instead I am building a home K8s cluster with Dell Micro 3060s with i5-8500t CPUs. My per unit cost with 64GB RAM, 1TB NVME, and 2.5Gbe is under $310.
It's wild that decades latter ARM still is so incredibly fantastically far behind x86 in building generic systems one can install a mainline Linux on.
99% of their uses are for appliances/phones, so it makes sense that they're still totally immature at being a computer. But weighed against how much time arm has had to try to improve their world, looking at how plodding progress has been, how broadly chaotic & grossly inconsistent the ecosystem is, it's still a stunning testament.
Computing in general could have been this bad. It's such a miracle we got the PC. The Gang of Nine just wanted to sell hardware but they launched a major Democratizing phase change, one we still have yet to see reproduced.
99% of their uses are for appliances/phones, so it makes sense that they're still totally immature at being a computer. But weighed against how much time arm has had to try to improve their world, looking at how plodding progress has been, how broadly chaotic & grossly inconsistent the ecosystem is, it's still a stunning testament.
Computing in general could have been this bad. It's such a miracle we got the PC. The Gang of Nine just wanted to sell hardware but they launched a major Democratizing phase change, one we still have yet to see reproduced.
Yeah. MS basically forced PC hardware configuration standardization through popularity. Everyone wanted DOS, then Windows. So if the computer didn’t follow the standard spec for hardware design/discovery no one would buy it.
That hasn’t existed in ARM land. Seems to be the wild west in comparison. So every board requires custom bring-up.
That hasn’t existed in ARM land. Seems to be the wild west in comparison. So every board requires custom bring-up.
I'm not sure how willing I am to peg the PC platform to Microsoft.
Just looking at the 1980's there were tons of operating systems being created & getting used. That there could be so many OSes was part & parcel to it suddenly being possible to create so much hardware.
I see this as a time of diversification & enablement, a great opportunity, that yes, latter Microsoft did emerge top of the heap on. But they were more incidental a player than anything else, in my mind; they rode the wave that was happening. And they contributed very little. DOS with TSR driver stuff wasn't exactly a place for cooperation; it too was wild west.
Just looking at the 1980's there were tons of operating systems being created & getting used. That there could be so many OSes was part & parcel to it suddenly being possible to create so much hardware.
I see this as a time of diversification & enablement, a great opportunity, that yes, latter Microsoft did emerge top of the heap on. But they were more incidental a player than anything else, in my mind; they rode the wave that was happening. And they contributed very little. DOS with TSR driver stuff wasn't exactly a place for cooperation; it too was wild west.
They walked into the right place at the right time, and knew how to play that advantage.
They didn’t cause it initially, but they sure took advantage of being the thing IBM chose.
They didn’t cause it initially, but they sure took advantage of being the thing IBM chose.
Won't help you with Docker containers, but OpenBSD/arm64 will run OOTB on the MS Dev Kit, NVMe works, USB-3 works, 2.5Gbe Realtek NIC is supported by the ure(4) driver. The ath11k wireless is not supported though, so you'll need a USB adapter for that unfortunately.
If you're looking for a free Unix-y environment to play with, with >11000 binaries packages available.
You need to use the mini-DisplayPort for video output, not Type-C. This is a UEFI limitation on the machine.
If you're looking for a free Unix-y environment to play with, with >11000 binaries packages available.
You need to use the mini-DisplayPort for video output, not Type-C. This is a UEFI limitation on the machine.
You can run WSL on it, and auto-start it (and containers) upon boot, plus Remote Desktop to it for interactive maintenance (and yes, you can also go out and grab a new Intel N100 miniPC and kit it out to similar specs and have much less power draw than your i5 config, which I think will be cheaper in the long run and actually faster…).
Assuming an average draw of 30 watts for the i5-8500t system (it will be mostly idle, so way less). With my $0.11/kWh electricity, I'm looking at $2.37/month in costs to run a node. Even assuming the electricity was free for the Arm box, that's 10 years to make up the difference. I highly doubt these machines will be in use in 10 years.
The N100 is interesting, but it's capped at 16GB RAM by Intel.
The N100 is interesting, but it's capped at 16GB RAM by Intel.
Previously on HN (542 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33319535
I'm not sure of the significance of this; is this an updated version of the project Volterra box from before?
No this is still the same one that came out in 2023. Not sure why this is posted either.
Sadly, not available in my country (again).
If you don’t care about Windows software, Chromebooks are popular and cheap. They don’t have much in the way of security issues, don’t need much management, and store your setup in the cloud.
If you care about the software you probably don’t want ARM. The translation layer is supposed to be quite noticeable unlike Rosetta 1 & 2 on Macs.
And PCs no longer start at $750 so ARM can’t undercut by much. I’ve seen sub-$200 PC laptops. Sure they’re garbage but PCs are at basically every price point now.
Apple had it easy. “Our processors are way better than our old ones, we’re doing this, enjoy or leave.”
MS doesn’t have the kind of position to force this. So why would the market move?