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0 pointskrasin1y ago0 comments

Until ARM has a proper UEFI support, it's not a practical desktop/server with a few notable exceptions (Mac, Raspberry Pi) and only because there's so much support from the respective vendors.

I know that there's some work happening about UEFI+ARM (https://developer.arm.com/Architectures/Unified%20Extensible...), but its support is very rare. The only example I can recall is Ampere Altra: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/ampere-altra-max-wind...

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walterbell1y ago

Thanks to ex-Apple Nuvia/Oryon ("Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite"), Arm laptops will launch in the next few months from Microsoft, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus and other OEMs, with UEFI support for Windows and in-progress support for Linux, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40422286

bitwize1y ago

It's like I keep saying: the first Chinese manufacturer to churn out cheap SBCs with ServerReady support will make a killing as a true Pi killer. Anyone? Anyone? Pine64? Pine64?

esskay1y ago

We dont really need a Pi killer anymore. They've done a fine job of killing it themselves. Their community has shrunk massively due to low cost mini pc's being leaps and bounds better value than a Pi now. Their two fingers being put up at the hacker/tinkerer hobbyist market over the last few years combined with the IPO and shift to B2B has made it very clear where their priorities lie.

Unless you need the GPIO theres zero reason to overpay for a Pi 5 for example when you can pick up decent second hand mini pc's on ebay for a lower price.

Case in point, a couple of months ago I was able to nab two brand new still in box Dell Optiplex 3050's (Core i7 6700T 4 Cores, 2.8Ghz, 16GB RAM Win 10 hardware license, 256gb ssd, with mouse & keyboard) for £55 each delivered. The base 4gb model Pi 5 comes in at £80-£100 once you add power, storage and a case.

Sure, its not ARM but you're not likely to be doing anything that _needs_ ARM.

viraptor1y ago

> Unless you need the GPIO theres zero reason to overpay for a Pi 5

Even then, both usb-to-gpio and mini PCs with gpio exist. Unless you want something really small, then there's still pi zero and Arduino

ZiiS1y ago

Try matching the size, power draw, and price of the Zero.

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craftkiller1y ago

ARM needs more than just proper UEFI support: Microsoft needs to lift the secureboot restrictions on ARM.

x86: Microsoft requires that end-users are allowed to disable secure boot and control which keys are used.

arm: Microsoft requires that end-users are not allowed to disable secure boot

This isn't a hardware issue, but simply a policy issue that Microsoft could solve with a stroke of a pen, but since Microsoft is such a behemoth in the laptop space, their policies control the non-apple market.

source: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/23817.html

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