Make ARM64 Windows and Linux runner images available for free

[itpropro]

Description

Many OSS projects can only use free images, it would therefore be great to add the ARM64 Linux and Windows runner images to the free tier. Especially with Windows on ARM getting more and more adoption, this would help a lot.

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions - Standard Runners
• GitHub Actions - Larger Runners

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 20.04
• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• macOS 12
• macOS 13
• macOS 13 Arm64
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022

Image version and build link

Is it regression?

No

Expected behavior

ARM64 Linux and Windows runners be available on free tier

Actual behavior

ARM64 Linux and Windows runners are not available for most OSS projects

Repro steps

Try to use ARM64 Linux and Windows runners in free tier

[hemanthmanga]

Hi @itpropro, Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We are looking into this issue and will update you on this issue after investigating.

[mayeut]

It was announced in https://github.blog/changelog/2024-06-03-actions-arm-based-linux-and-windows-runners-are-now-in-public-beta/ that the expectation was that it would be available before the end of the year for OSS project:

Arm runners are available to customers on our Team and Enterprise Cloud plans. We expect to begin offering Arm runners for open source and personal accounts by the end of the year.

However, it's not planned as such in the roadmap (just "Future" rather than "Q4 2024 – Oct-Dec"): github/roadmap#970

A clarification of what to expect would be nice, thanks.

[agracio]

Looking at table https://github.com/orgs/github/projects/4247/views/2 item 157 has a title "GitHub Actions: Arm based hosted runners for OSS" however status says 'future' not included even in 'Q1 2025 - Jan-Mar' roadmap.

[Kichura]

This pretty much seems to matter nowadays given that ARM64 has started to increase in popularity, and given that AMD64 images are currently the only available variant to the free tier - i very much agree that this should be considered at some point.

[bryan-bar]

This issue was closed as complete #5631 but no updates were made to the build scripts and there were no related documentation changes to help us create self-hosted arm64 runners. It took some trial and error to get it going but it should have been a much easier process.

Preferably the Ubuntu build scripts would be updated to handle both architectures and at a minimum there should be a list of tools we are expected to have on a Ubuntu runner per architecture so self-hosted runners can be easily updated to match GitHub's runners.

[agracio]

ARM runners are deployed for Teams and Enterprise tier customers and this post https://github.blog/changelog/2024-06-03-actions-arm-based-linux-and-windows-runners-are-now-in-public-beta/ promised ARM runner for OSS project 'by the end of the year'.
github/roadmap#970 was initially on the roadmap for November 2024 but is now marked as 'future' falling below Q1 2025 planned items.

@bryan-bar do you know of a way to create Windows/Ubuntu ARM Github hosted runners for OSS projects?

[bryan-bar]

ARM runners are deployed for Teams and Enterprise tier customers and this post https://github.blog/changelog/2024-06-03-actions-arm-based-linux-and-windows-runners-are-now-in-public-beta/ promised ARM runner for OSS project 'by the end of the year'. github/roadmap#970 was initially on the roadmap for November 2024 but is now marked as 'future' falling below Q1 2025 planned items.

@bryan-bar do you know of a way to create Windows/Ubuntu ARM Github hosted runners for OSS projects?

Not for Github-hosted, my use case is with self-hosted runners.

If you decide to go with self-hosted, you will need to use an arm64 base image and update all the build scripts to arm64. Some tools will reference arm64 as aarch or aarch64, some tools support apple arm only and arm64 is left for community or support may lag behind amd64 releases.
The runner service added arm64 support last year, actions/runner#2606, so the important part is to update the following script to fetch the arm64 assets instead of amd64.
https://github.com/actions/runner-images/blob/main/images/ubuntu/scripts/build/install-runner-package.sh
Updated line:

download_url=$(resolve_github_release_asset_url "actions/runner" 'test("actions-runner-linux-arm64-[0-9]+\\.[0-9]{3}\\.[0-9]+\\.tar\\.gz$")' "latest")

[anisse]

Github announced that it's now in public preview: https://github.blog/changelog/2025-01-16-linux-arm64-hosted-runners-now-available-for-free-in-public-repositories-public-preview/

[agracio]

Still missing Windows runners but it's a start. github/roadmap#970 is now in Q1 roadmap

[matthuisman]

swapped one my jobs from buildjet-2vcpu-ubuntu-2204-arm to ubuntu-24.04-arm and went from 1h37m to 28m!!! NICE 💯

[saschanaz]

(For anyone who want to try ubuntu-latest-arm instead of giving explicit version: it hangs forever so don't try 😄)

[junaruga]

(For anyone who want to try ubuntu-latest-arm instead of giving explicit version: it hangs forever so don't try 😄)

For your information, I am asking the runner name ubuntu-latest-arm below.
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/149392

[agracio]

github/roadmap#970 is now marked as closed but still no mention of Windows ARM runners available for OSS.

[junaruga]

github/roadmap#970 is now marked as closed but still no mention of Windows ARM runners available for OSS.

GitHub is working on supporting Windows ARM runners.
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/148648#discussioncomment-11920058

[hemanthmanga]

Hi @itpropro, For ARM related issues, We requesting you please raise them in partner-runner-images, We are closing this issue for now, Thanks.

[CodeDoctorDE]

Hello, why closing the issue?
For my understanding, there aren't windows arm runner currently

[saschanaz]

(FWIW, there's github/roadmap#1098 now for Windows)