Will AArch64 architecture become commonplace on desktops and laptops?

[Wirtualny]

Some people predict or just wish to see AArch64 as a true challenger to AMD64. There are wishes of 50% of the market share by the end of the decade.

I would not be against buying for example small, power efficient future version of RPI or something like that with AArch64 and maybe 64 GB of RAM to run local LLM models to work internally with my documents. Another thing is porting software to AArch64, but it's about the future (maybe the MX 27 times).

What do you think? Will x86-64 defend its position on the non-apple market, or we will see the process of migration?

[Stevo]

Are you aware that we have many packages built for arm64 already in the MX 23 repos, as well as Jerry's Pi5 version of MX? Pi5 is arm64, which is Debian's term for that architecture.

[Wirtualny]

Yes..., but user base, and number of well-tested applications are a bit different now than in x86. I have asked how you see perspectives.

[j2mcgreg]

Possibly, if the AArch64 chips are substantially cheaper than the AMD and Intel offerings while offering equal or better performance.

[Stevo]

Apple's devices run on a type of arm64 CPU, so they are certainly fast enough.

Maybe riscv64, since it's open, will be successful, and Debian already supports it.

[mxer]

I've been using RPi SBC's for several years now, ever since they got 1GB ram, & can say that they are definitely cheaper to purchase & run, plus they take up very little space - I would love to see ARM & RiscV computers on the desktop - but, unfortunately, most new computers are tablet or 'phone these days - no idea if they will be superseded by anything else, not even 'wearables'.

[Stevo]

@timkb4cq has an inexpensive arm64 laptop, built in the mysterious Orient, that he has used on occasion to build native deb packages for arm64, when I can't do those in emulation. I think it might be running Debian-arm64, though.

[Stevo]

I've been using RPi SBC's for several years now, ever since they got 1GB ram, & can say that they are definitely cheaper to purchase & run, plus they take up very little space - I would love to see ARM & RiscV computers on the desktop - but, unfortunately, most new computers are tablet or 'phone these days - no idea if they will be superseded by anything else, not even 'wearables'.

Those benefit from the vast amount of the work done on ARM cellphones, so not really surprising, IMO.

[timkb4cq]

That was a 32bit arm Samsung Chromebook, running debian via Crouton - but the Crouton system stopped working when Bookworm came out.
Now I use an Orange Pi 5 (with a 1TB nvme drive - having the onboard nvme slot made me decide Orange Pi 5 instead of RPi5) for armhf & arm64 builds using debian schroots. The host OS is Orange Pi's debian release.