Linux support is coming to Snapdragon X2 Series

(qualcomm.com)

275 points | by aaronday 6 hours ago

37 comments

  • hurricanepootis 1 hour ago
    I hope Qualcomm upstreams all the device tree kernel level stuff to Linux for every laptop model. One of the things I don't like about Arm Laptops is—for example—how even if a SoC is supported upstream, if the manufacturer does not upload a device tree for their device, then you're cooked.

    I read that while these Snapdragon laptops do technically have UEFI + ACPI, the information they provide is not useful for Linux and is more coupled with Qualcomm's proprietary drivers on Windows. Therefore, device trees are needed on Linux (I could be wrong about the first part).

    • mikepurvis 1 hour ago
      I believe the Orin AGX is in a similar position. It does a UEFI boot but you absolutely have to supply a correct dtb and if you don't then key peripherals like USB and ethernet can just completely not work, or in one case I experienced, subtly malfunction in a way that appears to be fine but throws off a bunch of extra radiation that fails a certification test.
    • FlowingRiver 28 minutes ago
      This is one of those situations, even if they don't want to release specific code, they could at least release the specifications so that others could build the software stack for this.
    • eliroberts 32 minutes ago
      and speed doesnt matter at all if no drivers work
  • modeless 5 hours ago
    I think a lot of people don't realize the level of performance Qualcomm has reached with these. This is the closest competition to Apple's M series that we have, for the laptop form factor at least. They are better than Intel and AMD's best. I'd love to buy an X2 laptop with Linux preinstalled and supported.
    • trombuance 2 hours ago
      I want to believe. It's just that we've seen similar announcements in the past and then nothing come of them.
      • mrpippy 2 hours ago
        This. The X1 Elite laptops came out 2+ years ago, but you still need to use a special Ubuntu remix to get everything* working, and support is very dependent on which laptop you bought. You could say it’s not Qualcomm’s job to make audio or the camera work on every Lenovo/Dell/HP, but someone needs to do it…

        *: I’m sure there’s some features that still aren’t working right.

    • MBCook 3 hours ago
      I’m glad we’re finally getting more competitors to Intel/AMD.

      Better for everyone. Apple gets lazy on top. And for those who don’t want a Mac, they should be able to have something great too. And since PC makers are far more willing to experiment with form factors, I’d like to see what they try.

      • pjmlp 2 minutes ago
        Those that dream of an ARM ecosystem don't realise what they are getting.

        Finally the end of IBM PC clones is taking shape.

      • Danox 2 hours ago
        If Apple was lazy, they wouldn’t have spent five years getting rid of Qualcomm modems, Qualcomm is also getting squeezed by the Chinese, Mediatek, Microsoft, Nvidia, Samsung and Apple worldwide.

        It will be interesting. because Qualcomm doesn’t give away anything for free, so any of those Linux Distro’s who thinks it’s going to be a free lunch? Are gonna be in for a surprise.

        • tredre3 2 hours ago
          > It will be interesting. because Qualcomm doesn’t give away anything for free, so any of those Linux Distro’s who thinks it’s going to be a free lunch? Are gonna be in for a surprise.

          Care to postulate on what those nefarious reasons/surprises could be?

          • Onavo 52 minutes ago
            Imagine NVIDIA on steroids. Think bad documentation, opaque code, and everything being locked down. The customer gets squeezed for more money (especially egregious if you don't have enough scale they won't even bother engaging).
        • MBCook 2 hours ago
          They hate being under someone else’s thumb and Qualcomm had real control over that. They couldn’t stand it and wanted out. Which is just as well, because clearly Qualcomm could’ve been doing better. Apple cut the power usage of the chip and it’s reportedly better than the Qualcomm one.
        • dosisking 2 hours ago
          If Apple cared about quality, they wouldn't have gotten rid of Qualcomm modems, and forced people to use the inferior Intel modems. I always avoided by iPhone models with Intel modems starting around the 6S era.
      • ksec 47 minutes ago
        > Apple gets lazy on top.

        A20 Pro P-Core is the largest jump in performance per watt in the past 5 years. I am not sure why Apple is lazy in their hardware front. Not the same could be said about their software though.

    • diebillionaires 4 hours ago
      Couldn't agree more. I would LOVE a linux based laptop with the performance of the M series.
      • edg5000 1 hour ago
        Is the M series that much better than a modern ADM/Intel? Or is it that they barely need cooling? I have an AMD laptop and Mac Mini, the Mac never makes any noise. Or is the M series just faster?
        • AnthonyMouse 32 minutes ago
          We get to blame OpenAI et al for this one again. AMD is using their current allocation of TSMC 3nm production to make Epyc rather than Ryzen so Ryzen is jumping from 4nm to 2nm. But 2nm Ryzen is still a few months out, and the 4nm current ones are naturally at a disadvantage when Qualcomm is using 3nm.
        • Forgeties79 1 hour ago
          M series just always perform better than you expect. I don’t know how to explain it tbh. We use them for live streaming at work and they’re just never pushed to their limits (24gb mac minis) even as we run 7 or 8 independent HD sources + iso recordings of each one. They don’t break a sweat.

          I have an m1 16gb MBpro in our fleet for editing and it runs probably as fast as the day I got it (first wave of m1’s).

          The low power draw is also very impressive. Fraction of my AMD rig at home.

    • purpleidea 4 hours ago
      I'd buy one because I want a Lenovo Thinkpad with an onboard ethernet port and really good battery life for Linux.
    • limagnolia 1 hour ago
      Benchmarks?
    • dmitrygr 2 hours ago
      > closest competition to Apple's M series that we have,

      Not very close at all, not even to the two-year-old model, it appears

      https://wccftech.com/snapdragon-x2-plus-loses-to-m4-in-4-out...

      • deryilz 2 hours ago
        that's x2 plus. look for benchmarks of the x2 elite extreme, which currently is selling with 48gb ram for $1370: https://www.bestbuy.com/product/asus-zenbook-a16-16-3k-oled-...
        • jauntywundrkind 1 hour ago
          i wish that wasn't literally the only X2 EE system we could buy! (as i said a while ago in this submission, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49823752)

          nothing wrong with it! looks fine! just: there should be other products with the nice core. i could really use a 10-14" tablet. i mean, after all, ROG Flow 13 with a Strix Halo was not even that late after launch! dense is doable!

        • dmitrygr 2 hours ago
          OK, i did.

          https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/19122559

          https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/14591329

          yup... still laughably behind by nearly 20%. And that is behind the M5, not even the current M6

          • josephg 2 hours ago
            > still laughably behind by nearly 20%

            20% slower than the M5 is still a great result. I'm still using an M1 macbook pro, and it's more than fast enough for editing film, browsing the internet and writing code.

            • modeless 2 hours ago
              Especially when it is significantly faster than literally every non-Apple competitor. Including Intel and AMD's best desktop chips.
          • afroboy 49 minutes ago
            20% behind that's actually very impressive and if it will support Linux that's more impressive.
          • himata4113 2 hours ago
            better than the closest linux alternative (M3 on asahi)
      • modeless 2 hours ago
        Check this chart. Single core performance is where Apple has dominated the most. Qualcomm is above every non-Apple competitor including desktop chips, and only 5% behind the fastest M5 MacBook Air (this chip is going into Air-class laptops). Yes, M6 is coming, but X2 has been available for months already.

        https://browser.geekbench.com/processor-benchmarks

        • AnthonyMouse 48 minutes ago
          "Desktop chip" hasn't been a meaningful variable for single-thread performance in more than a decade. A single core can't use more than a given amount of power or it would melt and laptops have that much in their power budget.

          Where a desktop's TDP is actually useful is for multi-thread performance, and naturally the multi-thread chart is topped by Threadrippers.

          Moreover, Geekbench is rubbish in general. For example, it has Threadripper 9980X with a <50% higher multi-thread score than Ryzen 9 9950X even though it has twice the memory bandwidth and four times as many of the same cores and you have to look pretty hard to find a real multi-threaded workload where it's not significantly more than twice as fast:

          https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-threadripper-9970x-9980x...

          • yxhuvud 27 minutes ago
            Yes, where desktops differ is not so much the chips but rather the cooling capability. You have the space to have proper air flow and water cooling etc. So that do give quite a bit of performance.
        • lern_too_spel 58 minutes ago
          For Geekbench in particular, expect to gain a few percent in Linux vs. Windows. Of course, you should always look at your workload. The thing that causes me to wait for my computer the most is build times, where the multi-core benchmarks are more interesting than single core benchmarks, and these look like they could make for interesting low power dev boxes when/if proper Linux support lands.
  • brynet 5 hours ago
    OpenBSD developer Tobias Heider (tobhe@) has already committed the first pieces of OpenBSD/arm64 support for these Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite laptops.

    "This gets USB, keyboard and touchpad working in ACPI mode on the HP Elitebook X G2q."

    https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-cvs&m=178891082169317&w=2

    Tobias (who also works for Canonical) recently demoed Ubuntu on mastodon and confirmed ARM EL2 works, meaning KVM support unlike previous generations.

    bsd.network/@tobhe/117122761215052773

    (I'd love to get my hands on one of these X2 Elite machines, hmu qcom.)

  • extraduder_ire 5 hours ago
    In case anyone else is wondering what they mean by linux support;

    > We're upstreaming core drivers for Snapdragon X2 Series — including the Hexagon NPU and Adreno GPU — to open the door to developers and partners.

    Glad this isn't going to be some semi-proprietary thing like support for chromebooks. Hopefully it continues.

    • Loudergood 4 hours ago
      Android is another famous example.
      • kees99 3 hours ago
        Historically speaking, between average Android device and average Chromebook, latter is far easier to get mainline kernel + "normal" Linux distro running, e.g: 8 Chromebooks vs. only 1 Android device (and even that is a dev. board) in official Arch supported hardware list:

        https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms

        Alas, new Chromebooks are no more. "Successor" Googlebooks are all Android.

        • drnick1 1 hour ago
          So Arch on ARM is basically limited to an SoC with at most 8GB of RAM? It looks like we are still very far from a mainstream ARM motherboard with a socketed CPU, upgradable RAM and support for discrete GPUs. Until then, I see no reason to move away from x86.
  • Hasz 2 hours ago
    Give me something that is 80% as efficient, 80% as good hw as the apple m-series but runs Debian (or Ubuntu) and I am happy to pay apple+ prices for pure linux experience. I say this as someone who just bought a new m5 machine. I have seen framework/sys76 but never pulled trigger.

    I don't really care about raw performance, just want long battery life, decent screen, and a *nix environment to work in. 99% of workload is going to be on a remote machine anyways.

    • ndiddy 1 hour ago
      Look into something with the Intel Core Ultra Series 3. Performance is worse than the Apple M chips but you shouldn't have a problem running Linux and the battery life is good. I have a laptop with the previous generation of Intel chip (Core Ultra 258). The battery life is great, the computer never gets hot, and the fan rarely turns on (only if I'm doing like a long C++ compile or something, never for stuff like web browsing or watching videos).
    • edg5000 1 hour ago
      I have an HP AMD laptop with a Ryzen and have nothing to complain about, other than the loud cooling solution. It's a fast non-nonsense system. Also a no-frills physical design. Ubuntu works fully without any additional steps needed from me. I'm not sure what you're hoping the market will provide, apart from quieter cooling.
  • blinkingled 3 hours ago
    > this work is focused on laptops with Snapdragon X2 Series. It does not currently cover desktop form factors, earlier Snapdragon X platforms, or other development boards. Readiness also varies by OEM design and Snapdragon X2 Series variant.

    So same ARM BS as usual - AMD and Intel x64 are still the kings when it comes to out the door Linux support.

    I'll buy a ARM PC when I can swap its motherboard CPU and GPU to a newer gen and my existing Linux install boots up without having to flash a new bootloader and custom vendor kernel with proprietary GPU blob.

    • jambalaya8 2 hours ago
      "I'll buy a ARM PC when I can swap its motherboard CPU and GPU to a newer gen and my existing Linux install boots up without having to flash a new bootloader and custom vendor kernel with proprietary GPU blob."

      add in swappable batteries like older laptops and phones, and I would as well. not now though.

  • sharktheone 4 hours ago
    I think this is huge. I thought about getting one of these chips a long time ago, but linux support was just a breaker. I ended up sticking to my current laptop and getting a macbook some years after

    The "original" X Elite was also supposed to get good linux support but it unfortunately never happened.

    So hopefully the X2 will actually happen!

    • cogman10 4 hours ago
      Every single one of the "X" series had this identical announcement.

      It's not huge because Qualcomm has proven that they'll continue to half-ass support until the next product is announced and then they'll disappear into the ether.

      • Postosuchus 2 hours ago
        This!

        I've had a Snapdragon X Elite laptop for 2 years, constantly trying to get Linux off the ground on it. Didn't happen (well, technically, toward the end of that period, there was an unsupported port of Ubuntu but it lacked half the drivers). And yes, when I bought it there was a very similar announcement from Qualcomm promising first-class Linux support. So I wouldn't gamble on it (especially considering that prices are crazy) until there indeed is a supported distro.

        • cogman10 2 hours ago
          Yeah, I've really wanted an ARM Linux laptop. But I've known ARM is a crapshoot because of my dealing with other devices. So I held off on the initial X release. Then I saw the X1P (or whatever it was) and Qualcomm put out the exact same "someday Linux up streamed!" Promise.

          A competent FTC would be fining them for these false and misleading statements. Until that happens, nobody should buy these thinking Linux will ever be supported.

        • sharktheone 2 hours ago
          Yeah, this just sucks imo. I mean I think for the copilot button there was something upstreamed, but the useful stuff wasn't
      • Danox 2 hours ago
        It potentially can be a good thing, but anyone who is jumping up and down celebrating better wait and see, Qualcomm is more of a lawyer/finance company than a tech company in short a patent troll at heart, so it will be interesting to see what type of fee they want to have the privilege of being on their hardware. In the telecom area historically, they like double dipping.
      • edg5000 1 hour ago
        But they support Android right? Won't that mean kernel support is public already? It would have to be merged into mainline. Or is this about something else?
      • sharktheone 4 hours ago
        I mean it technically can run linux. But I think non one actually got any desktop or graphics working. I hope it just happens but you are sadly correct here.
        • nulld3v 3 hours ago
          Nah, on many community-supported laptops, basically everything (including graphics) works fine with the exception of a few small issues and unoptimized power management. E.g. https://github.com/jglathe/linux_ms_dev_kit/discussions/36#d...

          But it can be annoying to use day-to-day since a lot of stuff is not upstreamed or not integrated into the major distros.

          • sharktheone 2 hours ago
            interesting. I mean day-to-day usage is a requirement if you want to buy some of these machines for real. But good to know that graphics works now. Last time I checked it wasn't and that was significantly after launch
  • nr378 5 hours ago
    This is great news - the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme X2E-96-100 isn't too far off the Apple M5 Pro.

    [1] https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/snapdragon-x2-elite...

    [2] https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-pro-14-inch-2026-...

  • hsnewman 5 hours ago
    Yeah, heard that 2 years ago for the Snapdragon X Elite
    • sharktheone 4 hours ago
      yeah everyone was hyped and it was said to be getting linux support. Some things were upstreamed into the kernel, but it never really got there
  • d2kx 5 hours ago
  • baby_souffle 5 hours ago
    Didn't they say something similar about the first ones?

    Consider me cautiously optimistic.

    • jordand 5 hours ago
      Qualcomm has been upstreaming Linux kernel support for the Snapdragon X for the past 2 years or so, but the community is still having issues with drivers and firmware on devices. I bought a surprisingly capable Lenovo mini PC with a Snapdragon X at a massive discount and it's stuck on Windows 11 for now.
      • baby_souffle 4 hours ago
        > Qualcomm has been upstreaming Linux kernel support for the Snapdragon X for the past 2 years or so, but the community is still having issues with drivers and firmware on devices.

        Is QCM slow to upstream or are they doing things in an incomplete manner or is there some other reason?

        I'm trying to imagine a world where intel or amd releases a new platform/chip and it takes _two years_ to get linux booting on it

    • kayson 5 hours ago
      Yeah there was a blog post about it but seems not much came from the effort
      • baby_souffle 4 hours ago
        > but seems not much came from the effort

        That's been my experience dealing with QCM based devices running linux in the past. Some OEM buys a batch of chips, gets a reference design and an old version of the linux kernel with a zillion out-of-tree hacks and patches that make updates impossible.

        I generally advise clients to use rockchip as they have _very_ good mainline support and put any QCM modem at the end of a USB connection so it doesn't hold the product back.

    • dansquizsoft 4 hours ago
      > Consider me cautiously optimistic.

      Consider me dangerously pessimistic

  • cromka 5 hours ago
    Qualcomm hired some developers back from Linaria and they have been providing support for a bunch of X2 laptops these past two, three months directly via Linux ARM MSM mailing list. I'm surprised it took them this long to announce this publicly.

    Hopefully this means Framework releases an X2 mainboard as it would be a match made in heaven.

    • modeless 1 hour ago
      Ooh, an X2 Elite Extreme Framework laptop with Linux supported would be very tempting.
    • dansquizsoft 4 hours ago
      > Hopefully this means Framework releases an X2 mainboard as it would be a match made in heaven.

      My friend showed me his brand new Framework the other day, but I couldn't hear his spiel about its features over the noise of its fan!

  • flakiness 5 hours ago
    If the upstream is properly done (that is a big if), this can be a go-to choice for the Linux laptop because it has much smaller config variations compared to Intel-based laptops: Everything from wifi (and even modem?), to audio, to camera ISP is included in the single SoC. If it works it works.
    • jordand 5 hours ago
      People have had a lot of issues with drivers and locked-down firmware on Snapdragon devices, so even with official Linux support for the chipset, the devices themselves could still be a nightmare to get working.
      • pixl97 4 hours ago
        I wonder how long someone can spend a pile of tokens and start shredding these firmwares down to their actual instructions/code.
      • martinald 5 hours ago
        I don't think so. Every device has locked down firmware really these days, it's not an issue (most peoples BIOS/UEFI/etc is very much not open source).

        If the drivers are upstreamed and good, it should work well.

    • imglorp 5 hours ago
      Aren't all the Android Snapdragon phones already mostly there?
      • preg_match 1 hour ago
        Yes, with proprietary blobs. Oh, and also running a version of the Linux kernel that’s been out of support for years (on some devices, not all).

        This is the danger when you don’t upstream your shit. Now you’re stuck on kernel 3 or 4 because your chip vendor is lazy. And Qualcomm has got to be one of the laziest.

      • flakiness 5 hours ago
        Android phones don't need (and often don't have) upstreamed "drivers". They use qualcomm's closed-source code. Also, Android user land driver (HAL) isn't useful for non-Android Linux distros.
  • drnick1 6 hours ago
    Sounds good, as long as a standard Linux distro can replace whatever operating system ships with these machines.
  • 999900000999 5 hours ago
    When can I buy one ?

    I want the stuff to work, I want Qualcomm to provide an easy process to grab a X2 Elite Windows Laptop and install Linux.

    No magical binary blob extraction. I want everything tested.

    With SteamFrame out we might even get decent gaming !

  • nahid-fahh 1 hour ago
    Linux evry where haha washing_machine to trafic light evry single sector
  • Danox 2 hours ago
    Finally, the dumb company woke up. On one hand, it’s good. On the other hand, bad Qualcomm is known as a patent troll. We shall see if they can mend their ways…

    Part of this is probably motivated by the fact that Microsoft and Nvidia have teamed up.

  • nrclark 3 hours ago
    How open will the boot stack be for this chip? Qualcomm has historically been pretty bad about this: mandatory closed-source bootloaders, mandatory closed-source hypervisors, mandatory closed-source TEEs, forked UEFI, etc.

    An open Linux is hobbled without the rest of the stack.

    • wmf 3 hours ago
      KVM works this time. For the rest you need to calibrate your expectations against mainstream laptops not RMStops.
  • himata4113 2 hours ago
    I always imagined a world where the steam frame used an ARM chip as an ultimate f you for not only microsoft, but intel and amd.
  • Manuel_D 4 hours ago
    Getting linux on the Surface laptop series would be amazing. Good battery life on a small laptop running linux is my ideal device.
    • noisy_boy 4 hours ago
      The build quality of Surface seems quite good, seems like unibody aluminum.
  • timpera 5 hours ago
    The Snapdragon X chips are already wonderful with Windows 11 ARM64, so I'm pretty excited to see how much Linux will be able to squeeze out of those!
  • dansquizsoft 4 hours ago
    Omg, words can't describe how completely botched the Snapdragon X series chip launches have been.

    You hold them up to the Apple M series rollout and its just hilarious how far "the competition" is behind when it comes to laptop low power CPUs

  • bfrog 3 hours ago
    Is it all upstream? Is there a newer part coming with upstream support on day 1 like every Intel laptop I’ve had for the last decade+?
  • yesbut 6 hours ago
  • hsnewman 5 hours ago
    yeah, heard that before...2 years ago.
  • jeffyaw 2 hours ago
    i've been using a snapdragon x elite and loving it, albeit on Windows. 32GB ram
    • hsnewman 2 hours ago
      I have a 64gb ram one, love it.
  • Havoc 6 hours ago
    Looks like they're learning!
  • tw1984 2 hours ago
    I'd buy one on its public release date if it is linux ready.

    A x2 based workstation will also be very cool.

  • nsonha 4 hours ago
    6 years since M series and arm PC still hasn't picked up
  • AtlasBarfed 5 hours ago
    This really is about business strategy than any technical effort these days. Porting code should be among the easiest things for the llms to do these days
  • zb3 5 hours ago
    Why only for these "desktop" socs? Why couldn't Qualcomm partner with Debian/Ubuntu to bring support to their mobile chipsets? Why can't Qualcomm partner with PostmarketOS to help recycle old devices and avoid e-waste?

    Well, in case anyone else is wondering, I have the answer. That's because Google is maintaining a cartel, the "GMS" cartel in short. Due to intense lobbying and incredibly weak antitrust enforcement, this cartel still continues to operate globally, keeping soc makers like Qualcomm, Mediatek and Unisoc in chokehold. We won't see any real competition in the smartphone space unless it's destroyed, but market forces alone can't do that.

    • tredre3 5 hours ago
      Tell us more about how it's Google who is preventing Qualcomm and Mediatek from upstreaming all their drivers?
      • zb3 4 hours ago
        Google controls the Android ecosystem (restricts what OEMs can do) and employs various practices to ensure there's no alternative besides Apple (this duopoly suits both of them). Chipmakers essentially focus on ensuring they can sell access to BSPs which meet Google requirements, as there's no real alternative for smartphones. If you're not Apple, these chips are meant to be used with GMS Android, that's the expectation.

        If there were alternatives (like on the desktop and for some parts of IoT) it would be more cost-efficient to upstream everything, but with the current situation it's fully up to Google.

        When Google wanted them to move all their chip-specific code to modules (GKI), they had to do that. And if someone at Google randomly decided "hey, now you'll upstream this stuff", then guess what? They'd have to follow, it's how this monopoly works.

  • wslh 6 hours ago
    Funny how Qualcomm is juggling three OSes to sell these chips while Apple just stuck a phone chip in the Neo and called it a day. Controlling the chip, the OS, and the actual computer is a huge advantage. Apple is more than one study case on competitive analysis.
    • cherryteastain 5 hours ago
      This is entirely Qualcomm's doing. If they supported Arm SBSA/UEFI+ACPI like some other Arm chip companies (e.g. Ampere) you could boot a generic Linux (or indeed BSD) Arm distro on their chips no problem. Controlling the entire platform is not necessary, just follow the standards.
      • rjsw 4 hours ago
        I don't think that would help with GPU or NPU, which another comment states are the drivers that Qualcomm are upstreaming.
      • Danox 2 hours ago
        Qualcomm expects to be paid. a toll/fee by each one of the Linux Distro’s for the privilege of being on the hardware with their chips in the device that is their history and one of the reasons why Apple spent five years kicking them out, they very definitely don’t act as a charity, so in the end, it will be interesting because someone is gonna pay their fee. the end user maybe?
      • cromka 5 hours ago
        AFAIk this has nothing to do with Qualcomm but with vendors and Microsoft.
    • MrDrMcCoy 6 hours ago
      All they have to do is support Windows and get their stuff upstreamed in the Linux kernel, no need for specific distro support. I'll never understand why SoC manufactures insist on bespoke kernel/distro pairings.
      • aidenn0 4 hours ago
        > I'll never understand why SoC manufactures insist on bespoke kernel/distro pairings.

        Because getting your stuff upstreamed in Linux is more work than releasing a custom kernel.

      • PorciiVorbesc 5 hours ago
        >I'll never understand why SoC manufactures insist on bespoke kernel/distro pairings

        So that if you want to use the next distro release you will be forced to buy their next-gen chip because that's the only supported one on that distro. D'uh.

    • bigyabai 5 hours ago
      What advantage? I'm always a bit shocked to see people say this without qualifying it at all.

      On the contrary, Apple has to do a lot of greenfield work by refusing standards like UEFI, Vulkan and normal filesystems. They end up reinventing the wheel just to support the same featureset that Qualcomm, Nvidia, AMD and Intel all generally planned for.

      • Danox 2 hours ago
        Apple’s advantage is being the last vertical computer company from the 1980s speaks for itself. having control of the hardware and the operating system software with the ability to create new ecosystems is their advantage in comparison to hardware or software only companies, Note: the tech world would be a better place if Sun, SGI, Digital, Acorn, Motorola of Schaumburg, Illinois had been able to survive the Microsoft/Intel onslaught.
      • wmf 5 hours ago
        Is it more work to support a completely proprietary boot path or three different "standard" boot paths?
        • bigyabai 5 hours ago
          Hint: you would know the answer if you are familiar with the Windows, Linux and OSX boot process.
      • lunar_rover 4 hours ago
        Advantage of commitment and integration. Apple doesn't need to worry about critical vendors not cooperating because sticking with x86 is less risky.
        • bigyabai 4 hours ago
          Apple didn't have to worry about that when they supported cross-industry standardization efforts. The only reason dGPUs are broken on macOS is because of Apple's software choices.
          • Danox 2 hours ago
            You sound very ridiculous. Why is Apple obligated? to follow Nvidia? or AMD? or Microsoft for that matter?

            Intel said no to designing iPhone chips, IBM and Motorola couldn’t see a future of faster/better chips to meet the demands of future tech devices, Apple with that crazy CEO, Steve Jobs? Had to go it alone and the rest is history.

            The Apple Silicon design group appears to be on a roll. What next? Bringing memory in house? I think they will. Because that will be the only way they can build the devices they want to build at a reasonable price going forward.

            Before you yell no what is it about the last 28 years have you missed? They seem to be able to execute long-range projects when it comes to hardware and software in comparison to their tech peers, looking forward to the M7 ultra, in-house memory and the C3 modem.

  • jauntywundrkind 6 hours ago
    Yay!

    Please sell >1 model of computer with X2 EE (elite extreme) please please please. Not that #1 was bad at all but more please! https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-Zenbook-A16-Laptop-Review...

    I really hope it's like 2031 and we're swimming in way too many of these. Running great Linux. How sick would that be. (And X4 is running mainline great too).

    • FlowingRiver 6 hours ago
      While I am somewhat negative on ARM/RISCV systems due to there being like 50 different boot systems and ASIC setups, I am cautiously optimistic that something like the A16 will end up unintentionally becoming sort of a standard via a large amount being sold.

      I suspect in the next 5 years something like this will come up.

      • wmf 6 hours ago
        Ironically that's being fixed by Microsoft forcing UEFI.
        • MomsAVoxell 5 hours ago
          Unironically, the serious reason I don't want to embrace Snapdragon, is because: Qualcomm.
          • Danox 2 hours ago
            If Microsoft and Nvidia team up work out, you won’t have to.
    • jojobas 5 hours ago
      Lenovo has one (it's a Yoga, not a Thinkpad though).
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 5 hours ago
    aarch64 driver situation is still an unsolved mess. How far behind is thunderbolt support?
  • Preston67 5 hours ago
    [dead]
  • dsr_ 6 hours ago
    Three cookie banners. I bet the announcement is slop that doesn't even answer relevant questions.
    • cebert 2 hours ago
      Is your computer compromised? I see no banners.
    • thehamkercat 6 hours ago
      Weird, I only see one, even with ublock origin disabled.