_laughs with Apple AirBuds in ears_

Considering they just turned iPadOS into macOS--I doubt they're trying to turn macOS into iOS. They're just being their typical, stuck-up, stingy asshole selves. Use Metal, or die. I was like "hey, Apple Silicon looks like a great turnaround!" and indeed it was--I love my M1 Max MacBook. Now, they're going backwards _again_. Frustratingly, they're also going forward with the launch of their OSes this year. It's a sidestep. Again. I, and others, are only playing this game so many times, so I have no idea what the strategy is.

Apple not keeping legacy cruft is why they were able to move to ARM so quickly. For all the grumbling about cutting 32-bit support couple of years ago, this is what allowed them to do that (among other things). And, as demonstrated, developers like Valve take action only when they are forced to. Windows and Linux on ARM are stuck in the mud with no end in sight while Apple is almost done with the transition.

Linux on ARM is stuck in the mud? Huh? Everything works fine on ARM, including the desktop. There are like a billion ARM devices running Linux right now. Or did you mean Linux on Apple hardware? Because that's by design.

Since we’re talking about Steam here for example, Valve have not even bothered to release a _64-bit x86 client_, let alone Arm client, except for Mac.

Right, I'm not talking about Steam, I don't think misk was either, the context is Apple transitioning to ARM silicon. Also Steam definitely runs native 64 bit on x64 systems. It's intended to run in either environment, and so will have 32 bit deps, but if you start Steam, the actual executables you're running (e.g. ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steamwebhelper) are 64 bit ELFs when needed. And, of course, games run in 64 bits and link to a 64 bit steam client library.

Oh really? Nice, that's news to me. Last I checked (admittedly not recently) it needed a bunch of 32-bit libraries installed to even start the client.

Why would they prioritize resources into something with low demand..?

No hate but what is this even supposed to mean?

Because they are selling games on this platform today and the reasonable expectation would be that they properly support it. If they deem it too much of a cost then they can exit the market.

No, I meant that by setting the same bar for both platforms or by using same evaluation metrics. Supporting native software is trivial and everyone can do it obviously. How well does Linux on ARM support proprietary x86 software? Is it anywhere near as fast as Rosetta?

Steam for Linux is mixed 32/64, unfortunately the main executable (~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam) and its associated steamclient library continues to be 32-bit only and runs with a couple of horribly dated libraries in the mix. That process does pretty much everything aside from the UI.

There wasn't a reason to before but now they are doing it now because there's enough of a market to justify it...I'm not sure what you think they did so wrong

Oh, you were still talking about emulating an x86 binary? That's kind of a weird comparison because if you're running Linux and want to run x86 software you can just do it on x86. No corporation is forcing you off of the game's native architecture.

Have you used Steam on ARM Macs? Rosetta 2 is a dynamic recompiler which does badly when emulating things that recompile dynamically themselves, like web browsers, which Steam is essentially. Scrolling was choppy, power efficiency was bad.

Yes, I’m talking real life use, where there is pre-existing software like video games that I own. Apple accommodated their customers properly by developing ARM SoC that is specifically designed to be performant at emulating x86-64 and compatibility layer with very good compatibility and performance. Not perfect by any means and there are no miracles but nobody comes close. Nobody is forcing anyone off x86 and so it looks like Windows and Linux users will keep using it indefinitely while Apple users enjoy that sweet low power draw and instant wake from sleep that’s just not possible with x86.

I mean, yeah, that's what happens when you still want to be 32 bit compatible. It's also why I said they were ELF64 when needed. My only point was that it's not like Valve just shipped a bunch of 32 bit binaries and called it a day or x64 support was some kind of after thought that needs future support.

They really did you a favor by breaking your existing, paid for software and then designing a chip to emulate another processor to fix the problem they made. Anyway, enjoy your low power draw. I'll be over here running my whole Steam library on a handheld device that costs less than your RAM upgrade.

I’ve used Linux on desktop for 15 years and keep using it for servers. I guess you haven’t seen Linux break ABI yet. You’ll get there.

I believe ARM will be the future, developers should not ignore it. Qualcomm has been doing the Snapdragon Elite processors in Windows laptops for a bit now, and they are quite snappy - there is definitely something there. LTT had mostly positive reactions to the Snapdragon laptops they tested, and Apple silicone Macs are just so insanely powerful. I told my help desk manager at work that I would like to be the pilot user when we start getting Surface laptops with the Snapdragon Elite processors. My past 3 work-issued HP Elitebooks (860 G6/G8/G11) on Intel have all been so disappointing.