this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2025
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ARM is great, ARM is terrible (and so is RISC-V) (changelog.complete.org)
submitted 3 days ago by onewithoutaname@k.fe.derate.me to c/linux@programming.dev
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[–] ExtremeDullard@piefed.social 17 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I use an ARM laptop as my daily driver (RK3588 CPU).

Is ARM great? No. It's slower than similarly-priced AMD64 machine, and for some reason, whatever power-saving algorithm my particular compute module is running makes everything CPU-intensive that interacts with the users choppy and annoying.

But it's more than usable, and I have no doubt it'll get better over time.

Here's the most important thing about ARM for me though:

  • It's not Intel: I refuse to fund the American fascist regime through its stake in Intel.
  • It's not American: I refuse to fund the American fascist regime through sales taxes.
  • It's not Russian: even if Elbrus processors were obtainable, I refuse to fund the Russian fascist regime through sales taxes.

The ARM stuff I currently rock is made in China. Not great, but if you need a computer, it's sadly the least terrible option at the moment.

[–] Lukstru@fedia.io 20 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I‘d argue that an autocratic regime that has been exploiting and putting minorities into work camps for decades is worse than one that just started to recently and still has a chance to revert course

[–] ExtremeDullard@piefed.social 10 points 3 days ago

You're not wrong. But I have another argument: the Trump regime is not yet fully entrenched, and now is the time to vote with your wallet and boycott the collaborators that bankroll the regime in an effort to smother it before it's too late. There's still a tiny chance and every little bit helps.

China on the other hand... It's been around for so damn long, no matter how much you try to boycott China-made product - if that's even possible - it not going to make a dent in the regime's grip.

One does what one can where one can.

[–] ExtremeDullard@piefed.social 8 points 3 days ago

Well, there's another reason why I run this ARM laptop: it's fully open-source. Well, mostly: there's one binary blob left. But that's as close to open-source as I was able to find.

Like I said, there's no good option if you need a computer - or indeed any product - that wasn't made by some company in some country that runs against the values you believe in. Only the least bad option. This laptop is the one that ticked the most boxes for me.

[–] stuner@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago

Yeah, I looked into ARM or RISC-V options for a NAS, but ended up going with x86. Upstream Linux support is just a hard requirement for me. As the author points out, the support that you get from the SBC manufacturers is lacking at best.