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Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops
- flkenosad 1y agoIs there something like Rosetta for linux?
- ankurdhama 1y agobox64: https://github.com/ptitSeb/box64 https://github.com/ptitSeb/box64
- politelemon 1y agoLooking forward to this, thanks.
- shenki0 1y agoThe Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 machines have no touchpad or touchscreen support. Listing them as "supported" requires a creative interpretation of the term.
- dvtkrlbs 1y agoThey don't say everything works they say kernel works on those laptops.
- thanatos519 1y agoWorks for me - those are the first things I turn off!
- teo_zero 1y ago> the current Linux Kernel 6.15 already supports many commercial laptops: Lenovo Yoga 7x, Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6, Dell XPS 13, Asus Vivobook S15, HP Omnibook x14, Microsoft Surface 13/15 Has anybody had any first-hand experience with Linux on such laptops?
- intothemild 1y agoAs someone with a Yoga 7x .. I'm still waiting. It's not fully supported. The issue is drivers for peripherals and wifi. I think the GPU is now supported. It's been a long wait, mostly due to Qualcomm as I understand.
- TechDebtDevin 1y agoYou can however, put Ubunutu no problem on the Ryzen versions. https://github.com/jrandiny/yoga-slim7-ubuntu https://github.com/jrandiny/yoga-slim7-ubuntu
- betaby 1y agoI was down-voted by saying back then (snapdragon x elite release date) that Qualcomm has no priority in making Linux a first class platform. Qualcomm does what Qualcomm does. I won't purchase a laptop which has no known Linux support.
- E39M5S62 1y agoI run Linux on a Thinkpad T13s, with the previous generation of Snapdragon CPUs. It runs great - quick, excellent battery life and very stable. Installation is a bit obnoxious, but nothing a modestly seasoned Linux veteran can't handle.
- pentamassiv 1y agoIf you are thinking about getting a Tuxedo, I suggest to get something else. I got one because they promised fwupd support, upstreamed drivers and maybe coreboot support. None of that is working even years afterwards. People from the kernel got so fed up with them, they considered blacklisting them [1]. That seemed like a wakeup call as they now at least started with upstreaming drivers. If you want to change some settings oft the device, you need to use their terrible Electron application. It's so bad, volunteers created an alternative. Even they are getting tired of Tuxedo though [2] The device is also not repairable at all. I had an issue with my screen and they gave me a quote of ~200€+ to repair it. I'm sure I could fix it myself for a lot less, but no parts are available and no instructions. I hope they improve, but for now I'm disillusioned and would not buy it again. [1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/TUXEDO-Drivers-Taint-Patches https://www.phoronix.com/news/TUXEDO-Drivers-Taint-Patches [2] https://aaronerhardt.github.io/blog/posts/tuxedo_rs_update/ https://aaronerhardt.github.io/blog/posts/tuxedo_rs_update/
- timeon 1y ago> If you want to change some settings oft the device, you need to use their terrible Electron application. That is unfortunate. I hoped they were more like System76.
- juliangmp 1y agoHaving to use their specific drivers is a bit annoying, but I honestly prefer that over drivers that dont work or dont exist at all. I really hope they can bring their stuff upstream at one point, but I can't deny that using their laptops hasn't been good experiences.
- TheJCDenton 1y agoVery informative, thank you. I was about to buy one of their products but this made me pause. What you think would be the alternative in Europe ?
- homebrewer 1y ago
- TheJCDenton 1y agoA little more context : in june 2024 at Computex, Tuxedo announced a possible christmas 2024 release [1]. A Qualcomm/Tuxedo collaboration was expected but did not materialize [2]. [1] https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/TUXEDO-on-ARM-is-coming.tuxedo https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/TUXEDO-on-ARM-is-coming.t... [2] https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/How-is-TUXEDOCOes-ARM-Notebook-Coming-Along.tuxedo https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/How-is-TUXEDOCOes-ARM-Not...
- ZiiS 1y agoBeen daily driving an M1 for two years at this point; no complaints.
- aaviator42 1y agoWith a Linux distro on it?
- HeuristicsCG 1y agoA Unix. With applications. And working webcam light and audio.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- whitehexagon 1y agoAsahi Fedora here, works good.
- ZiiS 1y agoYes, with Asahi (Now a Fedora was Arch initially). Think the fingerprint reader still didn't work but not really tried. Also only one external monitor (or DisplayLink) but the screen, sound, battery life, performace all best any x86 I have used.
- tom89999 1y agoI am fed up with the linux world. I run Ubuntu on a randomly selected Thinkpad, everything works, outta the box. Why should i buy a new laptop because it holds another cpu doing the exact workload? I cant code faster, cant talk faster with people and being productive 8hrs strait is just a lie. Since almost 10years i read about pre-installed devices, but i dont see them anywhere. Most companies dont have business linux apps and they wont be available, an armada of developers is busy bringing the light of the webcam functioning. Why not specialize in something else like software the entire world runs on like SAP or whatever? Its nice to spend a rainy day to compile your kernel...but the outcome?
- resonious 1y ago> Why should i buy a new laptop because it holds another cpu doing the exact workload? Long battery is pretty nice. And you don't have to be productive for 8 hours straight to feel the niceness.
- irusensei 1y agoNobody is telling you to buy a new laptop. Same goes for software. If it's not for you then don't use it. It's all about choice. And the entire Linux ecosystem is not a single entity to "specialize on SAP or whatever". I suspect a large portion of SAP systems already run Linux anyway.
- homebrewer 1y agoWhy not switch to Windows then? You'll of course have to chuck that perfectly finely working laptop when Windows 12 declares it obsolete, but such is life there.
- efdee 1y agoI think you're confusing Microsoft and Apple. :-)
- jamesnorden 1y agoYou don't "have to" do anything, you can stay with the setup you're using right now just fine, I don't get the point of this post, you're fighting ghosts.
- OptionX 1y agoAny word on a compibily layer project for x86/64 like Rosetta? Seems like an important thing to have imo. The article mentions an emulator, but it seemed to be for running games. I also heard MS had something similar in their arm dev kit, but haven't looked much into it.
- ThatPlayer 1y agoThere is Box86/box64/box32. A bit confusing but it's box86 for x86 > ARM32. Box64 for x86_64 > ARM64. And Box32 for x86 > ARM64. I think they mention games because a lot of other software for Linux is generally open source. So a lot of times it's pretty easy to get an ARM build. It also does a neat performance trick where it intercepts library calls and redirects them to native versions of the same library. http://github.com/ptitSeb/box64 http://github.com/ptitSeb/box64
- goosedragons 1y agoIt's not just for games. FEX-EMU is used here alongside Wine/Proton to run games but it'll also run the x64 version of other things. There's other layers like Box64 that do the same thing. For Linux, a lot of the software traditionally found in repos already has an ARM version and it's not as necessary. On Windows on ARM sometimes the only way to get an ARM native version is to run the Linux version under WSL. Windows on ARM has allowed running x86 code from launch with Windows 10 and x64 code since Windows 11.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 1y agoThere's lots of responses but they miss the point. Rosetta let you run x86/64 apps without even knowing they were x86/64. Back when I ran Asahi, I searched far and wide, but Linux doesn't support that level of transparent integration. You always had to fuddle with the launch params.
- yjftsjthsd-h 1y agoqemu user mode does that https://wiki.debian.org/QemuUserEmulation https://wiki.debian.org/QemuUserEmulation
- 1y ago
- jzellis 1y agoIt's not precisely a laptop, but I have an augmented reality cyberdeck using XReal AR glasses running into a battery powered Raspberry Pi 5 that I built, which runs pretty well. I feel like the Pis have long been a canary in the coalmine for Linux and ARM (first ARMHF and now ARM64) support.
- 0x000xca0xfe 1y agoDo the Snapdragons implement TSO/Total Store Order like the Apple chips to allow Rosetta 2 like x86 compatibility?
- goosedragons 1y agoNo. But what x86/x64 support that is available on Windows/Linux isn't as slow as you might think.
- 0x000xca0xfe 1y agoDo you have any data or reviews to link for that? I'd really like to replace my old Thinkpad with a long-running, lightweight Linux laptop that can also do some gaming on the side (think Witcher 3 on good settings) but Snapdragon has not lived up to the hype AFAIK. But big thumbs up to all the Linux devs that are working on improving the situation!
- adastra22 1y agoNot having the special hardware you are referring to means that the transpiled binaries have more fences than might be strictly necessary, which maybe gives a 5-10% performance hit depending on the use case?
- mehdibl 1y agoThis sound nice but I don't like the incompatibility with x86. Docker and many other things. Yeah we need some trade off's. But for dev's & a lot of ops stuff I enjoy more x86 as it's de facto standard.
- bradfa 1y agoDocker works fine on arm. Docker has multi-arch image support and it works seamlessly if implemented correctly. Tons of docker images already support multi-arch. https://www.docker.com/blog/multi-arch-build-and-images-the-simple-way/ https://www.docker.com/blog/multi-arch-build-and-images-the-...
- bornfreddy 1y agoBut tons of them also don't. And for those that don't, there are usually alternatives available, but they are just that tiny bit different. So while Docker works, there is extra effort needed to use it.
- seba_dos1 1y agoYou can always use amd64 images with qemu-user if necessary.
- davidgerard 1y agoDoes Linux arm64 run Windows x86 applications in Wine? I mean, I'd be surprised if it did, but I need that. Otherwise an arm64 Linux laptop is super tempting.
- ekianjo 1y agoYes, with Box86 and Box64 along with Wine.
- mrheosuper 1y agowell, Wine is not an emulator.
- bilgi42 1y agoIf it's not fully supported and has major roadbumps, which it has, it is not supported. I don't know why companies take linux users as fools that'll accept anything thrown at them. Until lenovo can get their shit together and make a respectable laptop with 12h+ battery life, good build quality and a decent enough screen even on the worst configs, im not getting it
- arend321 1y agoI'm waiting for Android Virtualization Framework to run a full Linux distro on my smartphone with portable monitor (glasses). Already using Termux but AVF is hopefully much more performant. Maybe the Samsung S26 Ultra will have full support. I might ditch my miniPC if this works out.
- fsflover 1y agoFull Linux distro already works fine on my Librem 5, without unnecessary, costly virtualization.
- arend321 1y agoIt's a very interesting project, but I don't think I'm ready to let go of all my Android apps.
- seba_dos1 1y agoOn those rare occasions that I need to launch an Android app (such as my banking app), I run it in Waydroid.
- djrj477dhsnv 1y agoThat won't work with apps that require Play Store Integrity, right?
- boomskats 1y ago
- diabllicseagull 1y agoLast I checked power management didn't work so they would run hot and burn through your battery. So unless there is full software support for hardware that makes laptops a portable computer, it's just not a practical solution for me. Tho, I really want this to happen. As far as I've tested on Volterra (ms dev kit 2023), linux has a lot going right for it. there is a ton of ARM64 packages, and drivers just work (e.g. I had to wait so long for Wacom to release WoA drivers while it worked out the box with ARM64 linux builds). the potential is there and it's great. On a last note, not being able to ship necessary firmware and relying on a WoA boot drive still sucks.
- jama211 1y agoPoor power management has always been the last bastion keeping me from using Linux in certain machines. My desktop won’t sleep or wake up at all (or it will wake but show a grey screen and glitch out) on any distro I’ve tried. Every time I use it on a laptop the battery life is terrible. Makes me sad.
- mixmastamyk 1y agoPower mgmt has worked very well on our old Dell precision that came with Linux, and two newer Frameworks (1 Intel, 1 AMD). Basically perfect for over a decade. Battery life could be a bit better but is decent.
- rr808 1y agoI'm waiting for this. I like low powered laptops as more of a terminal. I dont want the apple ecosystem, but I'm getting really tired of windows, high end chromebooks kinda disappeared, I have Linux servers at home. Do I have to wait much longer?
- ozgrakkurt 1y agoA laptop with a recent ryzen processor and a large battery goes a long way already. It is not as good as my m1 macbook but it is really good
- WD-42 1y agoI have a think pad I use this way. Super light, battery lasts forever but it’s super low powered. However, I use Tailscale to connect to my beefy desktop at home with ssh/tmux and Zed remote editing. It’s perfect.
- vinkelhake 1y agoAn alternative that is available right now is to get an M1/M2 MacBook Air and run Asahi Linux on it. The older models are pretty cheap, but still quite fast. There are some missing features, but it runs really well. I've been using it as my home driver for over a year and it's really solid.
- txdv 1y agoI am so tempted. Is battery life good with Asahi?
- vinkelhake 1y agoIt's unfortunately not (yet) as good as in MacOS, but acceptable.
- kllrnohj 1y agoIf you can avoid eye rolling at the stupid name, the new Ryzen AI lineup (codename strix point) is really, really good. Very efficient.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mg 1y agoWill this enable plain Debian on tablets like the the Microsoft Surface? That would be awesome!
- fb03 1y agoI'm still waiting for the apple laptop killer (a 12h+ laptop with plain Ubuntu) but it's still brittle as fuck. I'm so frustrated by the current state of the mobile computing space. I have to have an Apple locked down device, which I hate, just because I want proper battery life. A aarch64 Ubuntu vm inside MacOS runs faster and lasts more time than a booted up Ubuntu on arm in these devices. This is how far behind these things are. and what bums me the most is that it's all about software. The hardware is great, but software on Snapdragon is taking a lot of time to catch up and it screams M$ lobby to me
- pjmlp 1y agoLast time I was at FOSDEM was about a decade ago, it was kind of ironic to see so much Apple gear around, given the conference tone.
- lbrito 1y agoPretty sure there are plenty of traditional x86 Linux laptops that have north of 12h battery life. System76 comes to mind (mandatory "System76 is just a Clevo wrapper" comment).
- kllrnohj 1y agoMy AMD Framework 13 running Fedora (an officially supported option: https://frame.work/linux https://frame.work/linux ) also gets around that amount of battery life. And can run games surprisingly well.
- umbra07 1y agoThat puts you at just over 5W average on a 61whr battery. I find that very hard to believe. 5W is achievable if you drastically limit the CPU governor, physically disable the mic/camera, using a chart-topping power-efficient SSD, all while actually doing nothing. Just a single YouTube video in a single firefox tab will bring you up to at least 10W.
- 1y ago
- john61 1y agoSince 2019 there is also the ARM64 MNT Reform Laptop https://mntre.com/reform.html https://mntre.com/reform.html