If they do something like a NUC form factor, I might buy it. I think it would make a decent NAS, but not a great laptop/desktop due to missing software. If it has solid USB-C, I can get a HDD enclosure and be good to go with RISC-V.
Most FLOSS stuff will compile without issue. Practically all the portability issues got sorted out when x86_64 became a thing, stuff gets regularly build for arm32 and arm64, and basically all inline assembly has alternative generic code paths which actually won’t be that bad because it’s way easier for compilers to output good vector code than it is to output good SIMD code, less room for hand-optimisation.
Once the kernel and drivers are up and running you’re good to go because the vast, vast, vast majority of code doesn’t care a bit about what CPU it is running on.
If they do something like a NUC form factor, I might buy it. I think it would make a decent NAS, but not a great laptop/desktop due to missing software. If it has solid USB-C, I can get a HDD enclosure and be good to go with RISC-V.
It performs worse than Raspberry Pi 3.
What if you compile the missing software from source?
A lot of software people use on desktop is proprietary and not source available. There is also no guarantee open source stuff is portable.
Most FLOSS stuff will compile without issue. Practically all the portability issues got sorted out when x86_64 became a thing, stuff gets regularly build for arm32 and arm64, and basically all inline assembly has alternative generic code paths which actually won’t be that bad because it’s way easier for compilers to output good vector code than it is to output good SIMD code, less room for hand-optimisation.
Once the kernel and drivers are up and running you’re good to go because the vast, vast, vast majority of code doesn’t care a bit about what CPU it is running on.