{"id":4751,"date":"2020-07-27T14:32:16","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T13:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/?p=4751"},"modified":"2026-02-20T09:49:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:49:23","slug":"i-love-arm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/i-love-arm\/","title":{"rendered":"I \u2764\ufe0f ARM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A 20i Platform Developer gives his personal opinion on his latest hardware purchase and the future of ARM.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re all shopping a little bit more online during lockdown. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve recently replaced my trusty old Google\/Samsung Chromebook Pixel 2. After well over 5 years of use, my old faithful finally died. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chromebook
Old faithful<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I was sad to see it go – but I\u2019m not too sentimental about machines. So I replaced it with a much cheaper model, and I hate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The device is actually perfect for the Chromebook part of its replacement – indeed I am using it right now (Google Docs, obvs). But it\u2019s the hardware that\u2019s letting it down. The Pixel 2 was a developer device, and as such it was easy to boot from the USB and whatnot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But before this post becomes a Chromebook-off: it’s not. It\u2019s more that my new device\u2019s developer failings got me searching the internet for something new to play with, and I came across this: PINE64<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Open source hardware<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Simply put, it\u2019s an open source hardware\/software combination of various flavours of Linux, SBCs (single board computers) and other smaller bits of hardware (eg, cameras).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"PINEA64+
The PINEA64+’s Single Board<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

They can be assembled together for whatever purpose you have – much like the Raspberry Pi. Their focus is the ARM64 architecture<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After reading reviews – https:\/\/www.jeremymorgan.com\/blog\/linux\/pine64-pro-laptop-review\/<\/a> being the clincher – I decided to buy myself that laptop (it\u2019s on its way, UK edition). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After playing around a little bit with qemu-system-aarch64 (ARM64 in qemu<\/a>), I\u2019m now just patiently waiting for my laptop to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"PInebook
Pinebook Pro laptop<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cupertino bombshell<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

And then all of a sudden I am reminded of my purchase again! Only a couple of weeks after finding PINE64, Apple announces<\/a> it is going to ditch Intel for ARM (more precisely, Apple Silicon – licenced ARM). Just like it did PowerPC for Intel back in 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now this is where I got excited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not an Apple fanboy (they produce very nice hardware and software, and it\u2019s UNIX under the hood, what\u2019s not to like?), but I like a more open source world (ChromeOS and Linux at home). But when a company the size of Apple decides to drop Intel for ARM, you know they\u2019ve done the math, and it makes sense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intel\u2019s x86 architecture is old (well, they both are: 1968 vs 1978) but because x86 never got subject to the low power, high efficiency life that ARM did (plus other bloat<\/a>), x86 got ‘fat’ and ARM got lean. ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why am I so excited?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think Apple moving towards entirely ARM compatible Macs and Macbooks will drive the ARM SBC market forward for developers (it\u2019s difficult to develop on architecture X for architecture Y). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopefully that will be in a way that will lead to there being releases\/hybrids\/OS projects of Apple\u2019s collections of OSes finding themselves running on boards like the RockPro64 (inside the Pinebook Pro). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demand for these boards will go up, prices will come down (even more), components will become cheaper, and the whole ARM ecosystem benefits from having a giant player suddenly on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you\u2019re a Linux guy (like most people here at 20i), we\u2019re very, very well catered-for when it comes to ARM64 Desktop OSes: Debian and Fedora both have lovely graphical desktops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, don\u2019t forget the world\u2019s fastest computer<\/a> – is ARM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fugaku
The Fugaku Supercomputer (copyright: Riken)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Servers next?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

And that brings us on to servers. We love our current server setup that makes use of x86 Intel processors – they allow us to provide the lightning-fast web hosting<\/a> we’re known for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I’m looking forward to more competition in the market. Who knows what the future brings for ARM?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 20i Platform Developer gives his personal opinion on his latest hardware purchase and the future of ARM.…","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":17368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"ub_ctt_via":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[49,51],"tags":[94],"class_list":["post-4751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business-tips","category-technology","tag-open-source","cs-entry"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/I-heart-Arm-no-title.png","author_info":{"display_name":"rh20i","author_link":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/author\/rh20i\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4751"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6949,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751\/revisions\/6949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.20i.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}