When will other major Linux distros start to adapt arm64?

I am a big fan of PopOS but they, as far as I am concerned, show no sign to hop on the arm64 train in the near future. When do you folks from asahi think, will arm64 linux get to mainstream?

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I’m not a part of Asahi and the only ARM hardware I have are a few RPis, but I’d like to share my opinion.


I imagine there has to be more appeal for it. I play x86 games and that would be my immediate concern before buying ARM64 hardware. Box86 looks like I could make it work, but that ARM64 hardware better be much more appealing than x86 :stuck_out_tongue:

I see ARM64 popular with RPis and related distros but I imagine mostly their use is less towards desktop. But the interest there is with RPis being useful and cheap, and it being ARM64 makes the development for ARM64 relevant. It being somewhat niche has the dev focus towards what makes a RPi good or could be better at doing, vs a good general desktop experience (aside from RaspberryPi OS).

I also don’t imagine most non-mainstream distros focusing on it until ARM64 support with Linux at the core is basically boot plug-and-play (like popping in a SD card with a generic ARM64 image and rolling with it; not specialized RPi3, RP4, Mac, etc). PopOS afaik is for their(?) x86 machines.


I was interested in running Fedora on my OnePlus 6 and it seems they have plans on producing mobile images: Mobility - Fedora Project Wiki

I messed with Windows on ARM on that phone and my x86 stuff worked fine. Even played some World of Warcraft native ARM64. From that experience I’d be willing to try out a ARM64 computer, but I have concerns about how the x86 translation would work for VR (if at all) or other high-performance hardware requiring scenarios. I was already surprised with WoW having native ARM64, but I’m not aware of any other popular game or MMORPG supporting it.

ARM Macs seem to be popular, but I think bringing it to phones for more widespread testing and discussions may make ARM computers more appealing intentional purchases. At the very least, I’m not aware of any other modern ARM computers to buy today aside from Macs and Raspberry Pis, and those choices are pretty limited if I happen to not like Apple and think RPis aren’t speedy-enough to replace a proper computer.

x86 gaming currently works on Asahi Linux and even today it’s relatively easy to set up in about 10 minutes on Fedora. If you would prefer to not build it yourself you could tell me what games you wish to try. If by x86 you’re not talking about 32 bit and just amd64 architecture in general then…anything that requires Vulkan will not work. Linux games that have openGL (most earlier linux games) have a pretty good chance of working. I’ve had more success with x86 (32 bit games) versus amd64 games…I’m not sure why that is. I posted an example video of the speed of krun with fex-emu on the subreddit.

Does that mean no DXVK or VKD3D?