ARM build?

[jlinton]

Bumping the arm64/aarch64 build request.

Many of the problems with fragmentation in the 32-bit arm world have been solved with the 64-bit ports. Given a standard arm machine, running a uefi firmware, these machines are capable of acting like normal PCs and installing a wide variety of OS’s which in turn provide the same developer experience as one gets with x86 machines. Mostly gone are the requirements to hack build processes/etc as these machines are now available as cloud instances at AWS/Packet/etc capable of CI loops/etc rather than one-off hacked raspbian/whatever builds. Put another way, Arm has been working hard to create a consistent and functional ecosystem so that small developers don’t have to.

http://www.worksonarm.com is a good place to start if your looking for developer support (although its oriented towards open source, the people behind it are willing to help port anything).

(Just be warned that many of the small SBC’s aren’t yet SBSA/SBBR complaint so they have many of the traditional arm problems (AKA I don’t imagine a software company like sublime wants to build their own firmware in order to develop their products)).

[manawyrm]

I would really like to have ARM64 support in Sublime Text.

I’m already a licensed user, but would be willing to buy another license just for this feature.
I’d also be willing to sponsor some development ARM64 hardware if needed.

We have done quite a lot of work on the Pinebook Pro (a new ARM64 / rk3399-based Linux laptop) which is still missing a great text editor. Sublime Text would be perfect, lightweight and stable.

[mDfRg]

I have the same problem, just bought Pinebook Pro and there is not much to write with - apart from terminal there is pluma, mousepad and probably VSCode. What do you use?

[axelthegerman]

My company is even willing to pay for my Sublime Text license. But without ARM support I can’t use it on my Pinebook Pro - I don’t feel like using two different editors every day.

I know VS code doesn’t have an official build yet either but due to being open source https://code.headmelted.com so far works great on my PBP

8 years and counting… 25k views - still doesn’t seem important enough?

I even email ST sales email and they kindly pointed me here to “add your voice to the dedicated feature request page” which doesn’t seem to make a difference

[basics]

I ave been using Sublime Text forever, I would love to be able to use it on my Pinebook Pro as well.

[impala454]

Adding more fuel for the fire here. Have been a Sublime Text license holder for for nearly ten years and love the fact that I can use it on every system I’ve been developing on, windows, linux, mac. I’ve recently added a Jetson Nano to my toolbox and found that I can no longer use Sublime Text. As a paying customer, it would be great to at least see some response in the form of a development roadmap or simply a “not doing” statement. My Sublime Text 4 license purchase (along with many other license purchases at my company) hinges on this issue.

[ianhd]

I run emacs in termux on my phone. I wish i could switch to sublime! I would buy an extra license just for that.

I would happily help port sublime to run on android, volunteering my time, and still pay for an aditional license.

[axelthegerman]

Let’s see how long until there will be an ARM build for Mac - https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/22/21295475/apple-mac-processors-arm-silicon-chips-wwdc-2020

[anon9689070]

+1 for an ARM build of Sublime Text, Macs are confirmed transitioning to Apple ARM-based silicon over the next couple years.

[clci]

Guys, let’s wait at least Apple starts selling the ARM based Macs. I’m pretty sure ST’s developers are fully aware of what Apple announced yesterday.

[anon9689070]

The whole point of Apple providing ARM development kits to developers is to empower them to start the work now so when customers get their hands on them apps like Sublime Text are already ready to go. This work isn’t going to go away.

[ThomSmith]

A Mac OS ARM build is not the same as a Linux ARM build. I would guess that at some point in the not-too-distant future, the Mac build will be a fat binary. But this thread is requesting a Linux ARM build, which is another thing entirely.

There are two costs to a new Linux ARM build. The obvious cost is the work required to port the existing Linux release to ARM. This may be little work, or it may be a great deal. I doubt that the existence of a Mac ARM port would make it much easier, because if there’s ARM-incompatible code in the code base, then it’s probably concentrated in the platform-specific parts anyway.

The second and much larger cost is that of maintaining, building, and testing a new build from now until forever. Only the Sublime team knows (or can guess) what the added workload would be, and only they can determine whether it’s worth it. Any work spent on a new build type — present or future — must inevitably come out of work spent on other features.

[axelthegerman]

Let me clarify that statement: Given we only have a finite amount of time, any time spent maintaining an ARM build would take away time from other areas. At this stage, I believe this would result in a net negative to Sublime Text’s users.

that was 2013 and I totally agree that maintaining an ARM build is going to take away elsewhere.

And thank you @ThomSmith for your explanation about the irrelevance of ARM on Mac.

However, no update in 7 years on a popular (or maybe not?) feature request, that’s what upsets me. How about “we have decided it is still not worth it and we might reassess this next year”?

[bschaaf]

We currently have a private beta for experimental arm64 linux support (no 32bit). If you have a valid Sublime Text 3 license and are willing and able to test on your arm64 device(s) please send me a direct message.

[appelgriebsch]

was trying, but the forum says it’s not allowed

[bschaaf]

Odd, I have personal messages enabled. Maybe the first action for a user can’t be a direct message to stop spam. I’ve sent you a message.

[dan3264]

@bschaaf I have a valid ST3 licence too and would like to test the arm build, may I join the beta too?

[manawyrm]

@bschaaf:
Hi Benjamin,

(unfortunately the forum doesn’t let me send DMs, probably because my account has too few posts, so I’ll post this here)

I’d like to test the experimental arm64 build as well. I have a valid ST3 license and I’m part of the Manjaro ARM developer team.
Do you need any additional info?

[ozzzzysh]

I can’t DM, but I’d like to test the ARM build. I have a Pi 4. I’ve gotten ST3 working in QEMU, but native would be sooo much better. I have a license to ST3 and I’m a software dev.

[wbond]

Join the Discord server from the link in the pinned topic to get access to the ARM build.