Linaro, Arm and Qualcomm Technologies have been working together to advance Windows on Arm by building an ecosystem which supports native development, in response to user demand. In April last year, the companies made available the Windows 10 on Arm bot support and binary as part of the LLVM 12.0.0 release. LLVM is one of the main tools the open-source community uses to compile their code. At the end of September, Qt 6.2 was released, with Windows on Arm hardware being available as a Technology preview.
The current plan is to be able to provide full support for Windows 11 in a Qt 6.2 patch-level release. Qt is a GUI toolkit that provides cross-platform support for many open source and commercial packages across the major operating systems. Both the LLVM 12.0.0 release and the Qt 6.2 release will enable developers to recompile applications faster as there is now native Windows on Arm support.
While supportive of all these efforts, Microsoft is now officially joining the Windows on Arm Project to help accelerate growth of the ecosystem.
“We are pleased to be joining Linaro alongside Arm and Qualcomm to help advance the Windows on Arm ecosystem,” said Kevin Gallo, CVP Windows Developer, Microsoft. “Native development for Windows on Arm requires an end-to-end toolchain with a strong ecosystem. This makes it easier for developers to create and unlock delightful experiences for their customers.”
“Enabling developers around the world to innovate quickly and seamlessly on Arm technology is critical, and Microsoft joining this Linaro project is a significant step forward for the Windows on Arm ecosystem,” said Geraint North, senior director of ecosystems and engineering partnerships, Client Line of Business, Arm. “Working together with Microsoft, Qualcomm and Linaro will help to further enable the open-source developer community and drive broader adoption of Windows on Arm platforms.”
Having started with LLVM and Qt, the Windows on Arm project is now planning to focus its attention on Python, looking at the ecosystem of support packages and libraries. Some of the work already underway has resulted in acceptance upstream and Windows on Arm will be part of the next release.