The ARM ecosystem is way more open that the PC ecosystem. Think about it, instead of having a single (AMD barely counted till recently) CPU manufacturer designing and manufacturing the chips, you now have a company that publishes reference designs and several other companies build an array of interesting implementations.
The only reason why ARM seems more closed is that you primarily interact with ARM chips on highly restrictive platforms. The M1 chip will go along way to changing that perception as consumers will now be able to use an ARM based platform as they normally would a regular computer. But, that's not the only way, you can buy a wide array of ARM based devices with recent-generation ARM designs and very flexible IO.
Is there anyone shipping an ARM motherboard and ARM chip? I think the "openness" is also defined by what the market offers. All I see are non-extendable notebooks.
Also until you can run non-linux "desktop software" on one, it will always feel like a "tablet"
> Is there anyone shipping an ARM motherboard and ARM chip? I think the "openness" is also defined by what the market offers. All I see are non-extendable notebooks.
Pretty much all ARM application processors use soldered BGA packages over sockets, and there also isn't the same tradition of defining a standard pinout for a generation or two (or five) of chips like there has been for x86 (e.g. LGA1151, AM4, etc.).
You can't really design a motherboard without this, so each design tends to have a custom breakout board or carrier card that's designed to be used in relatively specific installations.
> Is there anyone shipping an ARM motherboard and ARM chip? I think the "openness" is also defined by what the market offers. All I see are non-extendable notebooks.
The closest analogue to what you described in the ARM world would be plugging either a Computer-on-Module or System-on-Chip into a carrier board. Today's ARM deployments are presently largely focused on energy efficiency, so they make heavier use of integration than typical x86 deployments.
> Also until you can run non-linux "desktop software" on one, it will always feel like a "tablet"
There are millions of linux users around the world that would challenge your assertion that desktop linux doesn't qualify as anything beyond a tablet. In any event, Windows already runs on ARM and some rapscallions have already got it up and running on a Raspberry Pi despite Microsoft's present prohibition on doing so. I'm sure Microsoft will free up the licensing in due time as market demand presents itself (if only to allow interoperability with M1 Mac VMs).
That’s the issue. Linux runs everywhere and is not a consumer product, that’s why I exclude it.
Until you can build your own general-purpose PC and can decide to make it ARM, it will not be considered an equivalent option, it will just be another tablet, “chromebook” or “board for hackers”
I honestly don't follow you at all. We're now at a point where every major consumer operating system now has an ARM version available.
You can build your own general purpose PC with ARM today. It's not done regularly because ARM chips historically tended to be less powerful, so the type of person that went out and built their own PC wouldn't want to build an ARM PC. This is now rapidly changing given chips like Apple's M1 and the upcoming Arm Cortex-X1 are surpassing their x86 competitors in performance orientated benchmarks.
Once Microsoft gets their act together with their own version of Rosetta 2 and we reach the X2 generation, you'll start to see a rapid shift towards ARM desktops with X1 chips in the mid-tier segment. Eventually the premium "gamer" tier will follow as M1 has proven that it's possible create an ARM SoC that surpasses top tier x86 single threaded performance at a fraction of the power budget and mountains of thermal headroom. This will be accelerated by the fact Nvidia is purchasing ARM and now has massive incentive to get Nvidia discrete graphics cards paired up with ARM SoCs.
Most ARM SoCs are the opposite of open - they're proprietary to the max and don't even support an open boot process.
> The M1 chip will go along way to changing that perception as consumers
The M1-chip will change nothing w.r.t. to perception of "openness" - consumers don't care about the CPU inside their devices.
What consumers see is a machine that'll last longer on battery, is much quieter and performs outstandingly well.
Openness is important to developers and enthusiasts who want to use the hardware as more than just a commodity.
Apple Silicon will kill the ability to upgrade your Apple device - no more RAM expansion slots, no more external GPU support, no more upgrading of internal storage, no more 3rd party repairs.
Apple Silicon turns laptops and Macs into consoles: closed ecosystems in terms of software and hardware. I wouldn't call that "openness" at all.
The RK3399 inside the Pinebook Pro is also not exactly "open" from a hardware point of view: still no open source drivers for the GPU for example (other than reverse-engineered volunteer efforts).
The only reason why ARM seems more closed is that you primarily interact with ARM chips on highly restrictive platforms. The M1 chip will go along way to changing that perception as consumers will now be able to use an ARM based platform as they normally would a regular computer. But, that's not the only way, you can buy a wide array of ARM based devices with recent-generation ARM designs and very flexible IO.
e.g. https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/