And each of these SoCs requires people, ideally the manufacturer, to actually put in the work to make the hardware work on Linux. So many SBCs with severely outdated kernels …
This is why I gave up on a really amazing ARM device that I wanted to use as a router. I ended up having to buy a mini PC simply because I didn’t have the time to invest more time in burning random disk images to SD cards and USB flash drives.
Those SoCs usually have one distro with a patched out of date kernel and overall lacking support of upstream drivers to install an off the shelf distro.
Arm devices are notoriously closed. Apple silicon is an extreme example, where it only works thanks to reverse engineering the HW.
If the SOC makers want their hardware to be popular for longer, they really need to add mainline kernel support.
I looked at them as a tinkering platform. But I don’t want to buy something which is probably abandoned in a few months.
Never mind the absolute ocean of ARM SoCs, not to mention Apple’s silicon
And each of these SoCs requires people, ideally the manufacturer, to actually put in the work to make the hardware work on Linux. So many SBCs with severely outdated kernels …
I suppose ARM.really missed the mark by not establishing a universal power framework.
What we need are more ARM PCs with UEFI and mainline Linux drivers. That way they would run a generic OS image just like an x86 PC.
Most ARM PCs require an image built specifically for that system. That makes them a real pain the ass to work with.
This is why I gave up on a really amazing ARM device that I wanted to use as a router. I ended up having to buy a mini PC simply because I didn’t have the time to invest more time in burning random disk images to SD cards and USB flash drives.
Those SoCs usually have one distro with a patched out of date kernel and overall lacking support of upstream drivers to install an off the shelf distro.
Arm devices are notoriously closed. Apple silicon is an extreme example, where it only works thanks to reverse engineering the HW.
If the SOC makers want their hardware to be popular for longer, they really need to add mainline kernel support.
I looked at them as a tinkering platform. But I don’t want to buy something which is probably abandoned in a few months.