8 ms·

Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU

163 points by wmf 1y ago

groguzt 1y ago
Linux support is still basically non-existent for the first gen, and they made all this deal about supporting Linux and the open source community. This is to say, don't trust them
- wyldfire 1y ago
  The truth is much more subtle than "nonexistent" IMO [1]. Clearly it's a priority because the support for ChromeOS/android support is a big headline this year. [1] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-24-10-concept-snapdragon-x-elite/48800 https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-24-10-concept-snapdrag... Also worth noting that not all the bits needing support are inside of the Snapdragon, so specific vendor support from Dell, Lenovo etc is required.
  - wmf 1y ago
    My (admittedly cynical) interpretation is that they are dropping support for desktop Linux completely and shipping Android drivers instead.
    - cogman10 1y ago
      That'd definitely fit the Qualcom pattern of trying to force you to update by not upstreaming their linux drivers. This is one place where windows has an advantage over linux. Window's longterm support for device drivers is generally really good. A driver written for Vista is likely to run on 11.
      - packetlost 1y ago
        A stable driver ABI will do that. And a couple billion in revenue to fund bending over backwards to make sure stuff doesn't break.
    - tomComb 1y ago
      I thought “Android drivers” were Linux drivers?
      - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
        I think the situation is: Old situation: "Android drivers" are technically Linux drivers in that they are drivers which are built for a specific, usually ancient, version of Linux with no effort to upstream, minimal effort to rebase against newer kernels, and such poor quality that there's a reason they're not upstreamed. New situation: "Android drivers" are largely moved to userspace, which does have the benefit of allowing Google to give them a stable ABI so they might work against newer kernels with little to no porting effort. But now they're not really Linux drivers. In neither case does it really help as much as you'd hope.
        justincormack 1y ago
        Old Android also had a bunch of weird kernel drivers that were not upstream; they mostly are now so Android kernel is converging on Linux finally.
      - wmf 1y ago
        Android drivers don't support Wayland etc.
- cmxch 1y ago
  They “supported Linux” by putting it in a virtual machine guarded by the hardware against the machine’s owner. No thank you.
- eigenform 1y ago
  Not surprising considering I haven't seen a programming manual or actual datasheet for these things in the first place. Usually helps if you tell the community how to interact with your hardware ..
  - wmf 1y ago
    That ended 10-20 years ago. The best you can hope for now is vendor-provided drivers.
    - eigenform 1y ago
      Not even true: Arm, Intel, AMD, and most other hardware vendors (who are actively making an effort to support Linux on their parts) actually publish useful[^1] documentation. edit: Also, not knocking the Qualcomm folks working on Linux here, just observing that the lack of hardware documentation doesn't exactly help reeling in contributors. [^1]: Maybe in some cases not as useful as it could be when bringing up some OS on hardware, but certainly better than nothing
- downrightmike 1y ago
  They expected linux devs to build it for free
  - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
    In some cases the linux devs want to build it for free, but they still need enough information to work with
- cmrdporcupine 1y ago
  How's the WSL2 support on these Aarch64 Windows systems? I'm not a huge fan of working in WSL, because I actively dislike the Windows GUI.
  - Mogzol 1y ago
    I have both Ubuntu and Docker Desktop set up in WSL2 on my X Elite laptop, they both work great, no issues (at least none that I have run into).
orthoxerox 1y ago
Not a single benchmark even against the previous generation. Just a "legendary leap in performance".
- leakycap 1y ago
  Bigly fast, trust them!
  - bityard 1y ago
    Blazingly fast, even
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- wmf 1y ago
  They showed benchmarks in the video but it's probably best to wait for independent reviews anyway.
  - cies 1y ago
    Phoronix!
jasoneckert 1y ago
As someone who has used the Snapdragon X Elite (12 core Oryon) Dev Kit as a daily driver for the past year, I find this exciting. The X Elite performance still blows my mind today - so the new X2 Elite with 18 cores is likely going to be even more impressive from a performance perspective! I can't speak to the battery life, however, since it is dismal on my Dev Kit ;-)
- typpilol 1y ago
  How's the compatibility? Are there any apps that don't work that are critical?
  - jasoneckert 1y ago
    Have I had any app compatibility issues? To quote Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, Line 87: "No." The Prism binary emulation for x86 apps that don't have an ARM equivalent has been stellar with near-native performance (better than Rosetta in macOS). And I've tried some really obscure stuff!
    - tobias3 1y ago
      For me it is too slow to run Age of Empires 2: DE multiplayer. More than ten year old Laptops with Intel chips are faster there.
      - nulld3v 1y ago
        I suspect that's due to the GPU and not due to Prism, because they basically just took a mobile GPU and stuffed it into a laptop chip. Generally performance seems to be on par with whatever a typical flagship Android devices can do. Desktop games that have mobile ports generally seem to run well, emulation is pretty solid too (e.g. Dolphin). Warcraft III runs OK-ish.
        zamadatix 1y ago
        The GPUs don't go toe-to-toe with current gen desktop GPUs but they should be significantly better than the GTX 650, a mid range desktop GPU from 2012, the game (2019) lists as recommended. It does sound like something odd is going on than just lack of hardware. https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Snapdragon+X+Elite+-+X1E78100+-+Qualcomm+Adreno+GP&id=5096 https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Snapdragon+X+... https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+650&id=2155 https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+6...
bigyabai 1y ago
Those memory bandwidth numbers are making me proud of being a LPDDR4 holdout.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
daniel_iversen 1y ago
“Multi-day” battery life sounds wild! That’s probably the biggest thing for users. It would be good for Apple to get some competition because their M-chips seemed so far away from everything else.
- otterley 1y ago
  Careful; the multi-day claims may depend on having an unrealistically huge battery, or being active only sporadically across the time period.
  - MBCook 1y ago
    Still, even if someone uses it for two hours a day and then just closes it being able to run for multiple days without charging the way Macs can is fantastic. I agree it seems incredibly unlikely that you’re doing multiple days of eight hours of work without charging. Longer is always better, so if it’s true at all great for them.
- ugh123 1y ago
  Any battery life claim needs to be aligned with the consumer-class operating system and application layer (iOS, Android, etc). Multi-day battery life on a non-Google-Pixel Android device with typical usage would be interesting.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
otterley 1y ago
Any thermal design power data? It's difficult to evaluate their efficiency claims (work per watt) without it.
cultofmetatron 1y ago
why is it so hard for these companies to do any kind of descent marketing? more importantly, when do we get descent macbook air competitors?
- dkasper 1y ago
  This is just a laptop cpu, not an end consumer product…
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  > when do we get descent macbook air competitors When laptop OEMs stop catering to the lowest common denominator corporate IT purchasers (departments which don't care about screen quality, speaker quality, or much of anything else outside of does the spec sheet on paper match our requirements and is it cheap).
  - delfinom 1y ago
    I have a Yoga Slim 7x, which has the ARM. Screen quality is fantastic along with build quality, touchpad and keyboard feel :shrug: It really depends on what Laptop line you buy. Dells have overwhelmingly become garbage, right next to HP. Speaker quality on a laptop oth? Couldn't care less, I use headphones/earbuds 99% of the time because If I'm going portable computer, I'm traveling and I don't want to be an inconsiderate arse.
    - adastra22 1y ago
      The Yoga Slim 7x is a rather unique outlier. I was on the market for a non-Mac laptop a little while ago, and the was literally the only one that met my standards.
  - varispeed 1y ago
    > departments which don't care about screen quality, speaker quality, or much of anything else outside of does the spec sheet on paper match our requirements and is it cheap) Translation: departments which don't care about worker's wellbeing.
evanjrowley 1y ago
Today Qualcomm CEO stated[0] that the combination of Android and ChromeOS, e.g. Android Computers, will be available on Snapdragon laptops. Maybe these X2 CPUs will be in those laptops. [0] https://www.techradar.com/phones/android/ive-seen-it-its-incredible-qualcomm-ceo-hypes-new-desktop-android-os-that-sounds-like-a-genuine-game-changer https://www.techradar.com/phones/android/ive-seen-it-its-inc...
- otterley 1y ago
  Does anyone buy these?
  - stusmall 1y ago
    ChromeOS is popular in schools and for extremely locked down, managed corporate devices.
  - oldpersonintx2 1y ago
    [dead]
  - makeitdouble 1y ago
    For people complaining about battery control and android emulation on linux, ChromeOS is a boon. You effectively get an actual Linux distro + most of android, with a side of Chrome. It's way closer to "a real computer" than an iPad for instance, and only loses to the Surface Pro/Z13 line in term of versatility IMHO. It really wasn't bad, my only deal breakers were keyboard remapping being non existent and the bluetooth stack being flaky.
    - rossy 1y ago
      I got a ChromeOS device a few years ago and it was great. I think they get an underserved bad reputation from being the locked-down devices you're forced to use in schools, but a personal ChromeOS device is a capable computer that can run any Android app or desktop Linux app. Though having said that, in the past year I've replaced ChromeOS with desktop Linux (postmarketOS) and I love it even more now. 4GB of RAM was a bit slim for running everything in micro-VMs for "security," which is what ChromeOS does. I've had no trouble with battery life or Android emulation (Waydroid) since switching.
ggm 1y ago
Who is likely to package this into existing lines, from the majors? Is this a future lenovo/thinkpad carbon?
- wmf 1y ago
  It's likely to be in Thinkpads (unless Lenovo lost so much money on the X Elite that they ragequit ARM). They also had a testimonial from HP.
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  I would assume it'll follow the path as the first X Elite. MS put out surface & surface laptop with it, Lenovo did do the ThinkPad X1 with it, and Dell put it in the XPS line.
- throwaway74354 1y ago
  X1 Carbon is part of the Intel Evo Platform. These are co-developed with Intel and therefore this line is exclusive to them. X13s was confirmed to be sunset, another T14s is the most likely candidate among the ThinkPads.
  - E39M5S62 1y ago
    Damn. They sunset the x13s? That's been my daily driver for a few months now. I was really hoping we'd see another one based around the Snapdragon X2.
- canucker2016 1y ago
  the OEMs who used the Snapdragon X1 Elite in windows laptops, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_devices_using_Qualcomm_Snapdragon_systems_on_chips#Snapdragon_X_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_devices_using_Qualcomm... : Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, Samsung Looking at the SOCs used, only Dell, Microsoft, and Samsung used the 2nd fastest SoC, the X1E-80-100 - the Dell and Microsoft laptops could be configured with 64GB soldered. Samsung also used the fastest SoC (the only OEM to do so), the X1E-84-100. From a search of their USA website, you're stuck with only 16GB on any of their Snapdragon laptops. :( I'd hope whichever OEM(s) uses the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme SoC (X2E-96-100) allows users to configure RAM up to 64GB or 128GB.
christopher8827 1y ago
I'm holding my breath though. I have a Samsung Edge 4 laptop and I didn't find the battery life impressive - prob got around 6 hours under coding / programming tasks. GPU performance is terrible too.
- leakycap 1y ago
  I feel like I'm constantly charger-tending all my non-Apple silicon laptops. M-series instant wake from sleep is also years ahead of the Windows wakeup roulette, so even if this new processor helps with time away from chargers... we still have the Windows sleep/hibernate experience.
potwinkle 1y ago
Why can't I scroll on this page with the trackpad? Mouse scroll and arrow scroll both work fine.
sciencesama 1y ago
how much ram can these support ?
- wmf 1y ago
  Supposedly 128 GB although I doubt vendors will ship that much.
  - canucker2016 1y ago
    the snapdragon x2 elite extreme (X2E-96-100) SoC supports "128GB+" but qualcomm hasn't specified what the max limit is. this soc also has higher memory bandwidth (228GB/s over 192-bit bus) than the x2 elite. also see https://wccftech.com/snapdragon-x2-elite-extreme-die-package-shows-sip-ram/ https://wccftech.com/snapdragon-x2-elite-extreme-die-package...
    - my123 1y ago
      128GB is what they can ship using RAM chips available today, but the SoC supports more.
      - wtallis 1y ago
        128GB can't be the current or future limit for a 192-bit bus. There's a missing factor of 3.
drewg123 1y ago
Does anybody know if the X2 supports the x86 Total store ordering (TSO) memory ordering model? That's how Apple silicon does such efficient emulation of x86. I'd think that would be even MORE important for a Windows ARM64 laptop where there is so much more legacy x86 software going back decades.
- londons_explore 1y ago
  For really old software, it tends not to make good use of multiple cores anyway and you can simply emulate just a single core to achieve total store ordering. Anything modern and popular and you can probably get it recompiled to ARM64
  - 0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
    Unfortunately games are the most common demanding multithread applications. Studios throw a binary over the fence and then get dissolved. Seems to be the way the entire industry operates. Maybe more ISA diversity will incentivize publishers to improve long-term software support but I have little hope.
- bri3d 1y ago
  Does anyone have benchmarks for Rosetta with TSO vs the Linux version with no-TSO? I guess it might be a bit challenging to achieve apples to apples, although you could run a test benchmark on OSX and then Asahi on the same hardware, I think? I've always been curious about just how much Rosetta magic is the implementation and how much is TSO; Prism in Windows 24H2 is also no slouch. If the recompiler is decent at tracing data dependencies it might not have to fence that much on a lot of workloads even without hardware TSO.
  - ack_complete 1y ago
    People who have worked on the Windows x64 emulator claim that TSO isn't as much of a deal as claimed, other factors like enhanced hardware flag conversion support and function call optimizations play a significant role too: http://www.emulators.com/docs/abc_exit_xta.htm http://www.emulators.com/docs/abc_exit_xta.htm
smcleod 1y ago
Their top model still only has "Up to 228 GB/s" bandwdith which places it in the low end category for anything AI related, for comparison Apple Silicon is up to 800GB/s and Nvidia cards around 1800GB/s and no word if it supports 256-512GB of memory.
- piskov 1y ago
  Most consumers don’t care about local LLMs anyway.
  - alphabettsy 1y ago
    Yet the apps top the App Store charts. Considering that these are not upgradable I think the specs are relevant. Just as I thought Apple shipping systems with 8 GB minimums was not good future proofing.
    - piskov 1y ago
      What apps with local llm top app store charts?
      - happymellon 1y ago
        They asked ChatGPT.
    - p_ing 1y ago
      Looking at the Mac App Store in the US, no they don't. There's not an LLM app in sight (local or otherwise).
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > Their top model still only has "Up to 228 GB/s" bandwdith which places it in the low end category for anything AI related, for comparison Apple Silicon is up to 800GB/s Most Apple Silicon is much less than 800 GB/s. The base M4 is only 120GB/s and the next step up M4 Pro is 273GB/s. That’s in the same range as this part. It’s not until you step up to the high end M4 Max parts that Apple’s memory bandwidth starts to diverge. For the target market with long battery life as a high priority target, this memory bandwidth is reasonable. Buying one of these as a local LLM machine isn’t a good idea.
renewiltord 1y ago
These all have nightmarish support. They're not a big deal for Qualcomm so the driver support is garbage. And you're stuck on their kernel like one of those Raspberry Pi knock offs. It's just really hard to take them seriously. Ironically M1 chip is better supported on Linux.
- adastra22 1y ago
  Yes, but the M1/M2 only…
- overfeed 1y ago
  > And you're stuck on their kernel like one of those Raspberry Pi knock offs. It's just really hard to take them seriously. Qualcomm has beem mainlining Snapdragon X drivers to the 6.x kernel tree for over a year now. There have been multiple frontpage HN posts about this in the past 12 months. Webcam/mic/speaker support may be a WIP depending on your model, but snapdragon X Elite has been booting Linux for months now, using only drivers in Linus' tree. The budget chips (Snapdragon X Plus) have far less direct support form Qualcomm, but some independent hackers have put in heroic effort to make those run Linux too.
kkaske 1y ago
If Snapdragon (or ARM players in general) wanted to challenge x86 and Apple dominance, do they need to compete in the exact same arena? Could they carve out a niche (example: ultra-efficient always-on machines) and then expand?
- mortsnort 1y ago
  Apple chips are ARM chips.
  - kkaske 1y ago
    “ARM chip” is a pretty broad umbrella. Apple’s M-series is based on the ARM ISA, the microarchitecture is Apple’s own design, and the SoCs are built with very different cache hierarchies, memory bandwidth, and custom accelerators. I was simply using Apple as an example of another big player.
    - zeusk 1y ago
      Well so is the snapdragon X elite, including the older snapdragons (anyone remember scorpion cores on QSD8x50?)
- 0x457 1y ago
  Are you aware of countless SoCs meant for use in smartphones and below? This is them expanding.
  - kkaske 1y ago
    Exactly! That makes this move all the more interesting. The smartphone SoC market is saturated, and margins are shrinking. Laptops/PCs give Qualcomm a chance to leverage its IP in a higher-ASP segment. Expanding is logical, but the competitive bar is way higher.
  - adrr 1y ago
    Also a bunch of Chromebooks with MediaTek chips.
Havoc 1y ago
Really hope they sort out Linux support on these. Seems like it would make a great travel laptop
- a96 1y ago
  It's Qualcomm. I wouldn't hope.
tangotaylor 1y ago
We’ve been using X Elite Snapdragon laptops (Thinkpad T14s and Yoga Slim running Ubuntu’s concept images) to build large amounts of ARM software without the need for cross-compiling. The hardware peripheral support isn’t 100% yet (good enough) but I’ve been impressed with the performance. ARM seems to be popular in the server space and it’s nice to see it trickling down to the PC market.
- yoavm 1y ago
  How's the battery life?
  - tangotaylor 1y ago
    Hard to say, we keep them on the chargers most of the time. I haven’t measured it. No one’s complained yet, for what it’s worth.
- robertoandred 1y ago
  Trickling? Apple’s been on ARM for five years with great results.
  - saghm 1y ago
    To be fair, they did say "PC" specifically. It's not uncommon to consider that a category that doesn't include Apple (e.g. the "I'm a Mac" "I'm a PC" ads from years ago)
    - cacarr 1y ago
      People just need to quit using the term "PC" to refer to desktop or laptop hardware that happens to be running Windows. Laptops running MacOS are "personal computers," as are desktops running Linux, or effing phones running Android, for that matter.
      - saghm 1y ago
        I think the issue is that there's clearly as need for a term for the category of "things that usually run Windows (but you can also probably put Linux on it, and like, even one of the BSDs if you're feeling adventurous)". PC isn't a great one from a linguistic perspective, but there's not an alternative I've heard that seems likely to catch on. There probably also should be a better term for "laptop/desktop", since as you mention "computer" itself is not really narrow enough if you're being pedantic, but at the end of the day, right now the only really differentiator we have is context. In the context here, it was honestly more clear clear what was meant by "PC" in the top-level comment than it was whether the person responding to it actually misunderstood or was trying to make a point.
ksec 1y ago
It doesn't say which generation of core is it. Are they the same as the one in Elite Gen 5? Has Microsoft actually pushed for the ARM changes? Because I don't believe Qualcomm can do it alone.
- wmf 1y ago
  Yes, it's the same Oryon V3. AFAIK Windows on ARM is completely pushed by Microsoft (obviously they're limited by their own competence) and Qualcomm has been kind of phoning it in.
  - MBCook 1y ago
    I trust MS in this. NT has been multi-arch since day one. x86 wasn’t even the original lead architecture. They also know the score. Intel is not in a good place, and Apple has been showing them up in lower power segments like laptops, which happen to be the #1 non-server segment by far. They don’t want to risk getting stuck the way Apple did three times (68k, POC, Intel) where someone else was limiting their sales. So they’re laying groundwork. If it’s a backup plan, they’re ready. If ARM takes off and x86 keeps going well, they’re even better off.
- dudeinjapan 1y ago
  FOSS support for Windows ARM has been hampered by Github (owned by MS) not supporting free Windows ARM runners. They may be finally getting their act together but are years late to the game.
a-dub 1y ago
i wonder if intel and nvidia will catch up before they manage to deliver decent linux support...
ashvardanian 1y ago
Seems to be the first Arm CPU to hit 5 GHz. I couldn’t find the ISA details, and curious if they will support SME, like the M-series Apple chips?
- wmf 1y ago
  It does have SME.
- menaerus 1y ago
  Single core only @turbo-boost.
hmottestad 1y ago
18 cores = 12 Prime and 6 Performance Cores Not sure what a prime core is. For comparison the M4 Pro can go as high as 10 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores.
- hmottestad 1y ago
  Looks like some benchmarks have started leaking: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Snapdragon-8-Elite-Gen-5-performs-on-par-with-Apple-A19-Pro-in-official-benchmarks.1123261.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Snapdragon-8-Elite-Gen-5-perfo... Mind you, Geekerwan managed to push the A19 Pro to 4019 in Geekbench 6 by using active cooling. https://youtu.be/Y9SwluJ9qPI https://youtu.be/Y9SwluJ9qPI
  - NaomiLehman 1y ago
    Today I learned that people are overclocking phone CPUs/SoCs
    - GeekyBear 1y ago
      Active cooling just means adding a fan.
- STKFLT 1y ago
  You can probably pretty easily just say Prime==Performance and Performance==Efficiency, but I think the "Prime" branding is kind of a carry over from Snapdragon mobile chips where they commonly use three tiers of core designs rather than the two. They still want to advertise the tier 2 cores as fast so T3 is efficiency, T2 is performance, T1 is Prime. As an example, the Snapdragon 700-series had Prime, Gold, and Silver branding on it's cores.
lazzurs 1y ago
Framework wen?
- wiether 1y ago
  yes plz
- rcoder 1y ago
  I’m a huge Framework fan: preordered the 13 and Desktop, have done mainboard + LCD upgrades on personal and work machines, etc. Likewise, I’ve used ARM machines as general-purpose Linux workstations, starting with the PineBook Pro up to my current Radxa Orion. It seems like a great combo! Unfortunately, firmware and OS support are hard for any vendor, especially one as small (compared to, say, Lenovo or HP) and fast-moving as Framework. Spreading that to yet another ISA and driver ecosystem seems like it would drag down quality and pace of updates on every other system, which IMHO would be a bad trade.
bfrog 1y ago
Did qualcomm ever get its act together with firmware/drivers and linux? It's a dead end to me if they aren't at an Intel/AMD level of openness on this front.
MisterTea 1y ago
Here's my big question: are there datasheets/programmers manuals available or is this yet another proprietary mess of a SoC that ships undocumented Linux drivers with binary blobs? No thanks. I will not spend money on hardware no one can reliably patch or write drivers for. I also want other operating system maintainers to be able to write drivers and get booting.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  I haven't dug deep, but it looks like Qualcomm has been working on merging code into the Linux kernel: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Qualcomm-X2-Elite-Linux-8EG5 https://www.phoronix.com/news/Qualcomm-X2-Elite-Linux-8EG5 With them only merging upstream now, it'll be a while before you can actually use Linux on these devices. You can build your own kernel from upstream, but it's probably a better idea to wait until Arch or Gentoo package the necessary pre-configured kernels. From what I can tell, the Elite SoCs are a lot less outdated-semi-proprietary-Linux-fork-y than many other Qualcomm chips.
  - rkangel 1y ago
    Or Fedora, which tracks kernels pretty closely (e.g. this Fedora, running the normal update channel is on 6.16)
    - KTibow 1y ago
      Last time I checked the Fedora ISOs didn't include the device trees necessary to even begin installation.
      - intothemild 1y ago
        Correct, you kind of have to do a bit of work to it to get it to boot. Now, I haven't tried the latest beta of Fedora 43, but my guess is this won't change.
  - MisterTea 1y ago
    That means nothing for the community who may need or want to fix and patch issues on their own. Instead we're beholden to Qualcomm to fix major issues on an OS it may or may not care about supporting. It also excludes other open source operating systems such as the BSD's who have to then reverse engineer the undocumented Linux drivers. A better question: can a small company like Framework or even MNT Research build and support an open laptop around this chip?
TheCondor 1y ago
It looks like Lenovo and others are starting to get NUCs/MiniPCs out with these. I'd love to have one of these for Proxmox.
ed_blackburn 1y ago
I just want an ARM Linux MiniMac equivalent. At a reasonable price.
- simjnd 1y ago
  I you're willing to go back a few generations, Asahi Linux supports the Mac Mini (M1, M2 and M2 Pro). Support is missing for USB-C displays (it has HDMI) and Thunderbolt, but other than that you can have an awesome experience on these (and probably get yourself a good deal these days)
- sagarm 1y ago
  Why do you want an ARM mini PC?
boguscoder 1y ago
I wonder how much intended audience for these chips cares about “elite” and “ultra-premium” buzz wording. I’m sure it’s a good chip but cmon, it’s not for TikTok watching..
brynet 1y ago
> "The platform is capable of booting kernel at EL2 with kvm-unit tests performed on it for sanity." https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250925-v3_glymur_introduction-v2-0-8e1533a58d2d@oss.qualcomm.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250925-v3_glymur_introduction... EL2 support is huge, means virtualization will work on non-Windows OSes (e.g: Linux KVM), unlike with previous gen.
subscribed 1y ago
Yum. If it had a decent hardware security maybe we could get GrapheneOS on it

163 points by wmf 1y ago

Linux support is still basically non-existent for the first gen, and they made all this deal about supporting Linux and the open source community. This is to say, don't trust them

wyldfire 1y ago
The truth is much more subtle than "nonexistent" IMO [1]. Clearly it's a priority because the support for ChromeOS/android support is a big headline this year. [1] https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-24-10-concept-snapdragon-x-elite/48800 https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-24-10-concept-snapdrag... Also worth noting that not all the bits needing support are inside of the Snapdragon, so specific vendor support from Dell, Lenovo etc is required.
- wmf 1y ago
  My (admittedly cynical) interpretation is that they are dropping support for desktop Linux completely and shipping Android drivers instead.
  - cogman10 1y ago
    That'd definitely fit the Qualcom pattern of trying to force you to update by not upstreaming their linux drivers. This is one place where windows has an advantage over linux. Window's longterm support for device drivers is generally really good. A driver written for Vista is likely to run on 11.
    - packetlost 1y ago
      A stable driver ABI will do that. And a couple billion in revenue to fund bending over backwards to make sure stuff doesn't break.
  - tomComb 1y ago
    I thought “Android drivers” were Linux drivers?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
      I think the situation is: Old situation: "Android drivers" are technically Linux drivers in that they are drivers which are built for a specific, usually ancient, version of Linux with no effort to upstream, minimal effort to rebase against newer kernels, and such poor quality that there's a reason they're not upstreamed. New situation: "Android drivers" are largely moved to userspace, which does have the benefit of allowing Google to give them a stable ABI so they might work against newer kernels with little to no porting effort. But now they're not really Linux drivers. In neither case does it really help as much as you'd hope.
      - justincormack 1y ago
        Old Android also had a bunch of weird kernel drivers that were not upstream; they mostly are now so Android kernel is converging on Linux finally.
    - wmf 1y ago
      Android drivers don't support Wayland etc.
cmxch 1y ago
They “supported Linux” by putting it in a virtual machine guarded by the hardware against the machine’s owner. No thank you.
eigenform 1y ago
Not surprising considering I haven't seen a programming manual or actual datasheet for these things in the first place. Usually helps if you tell the community how to interact with your hardware ..
- wmf 1y ago
  That ended 10-20 years ago. The best you can hope for now is vendor-provided drivers.
  - eigenform 1y ago
    Not even true: Arm, Intel, AMD, and most other hardware vendors (who are actively making an effort to support Linux on their parts) actually publish useful[^1] documentation. edit: Also, not knocking the Qualcomm folks working on Linux here, just observing that the lack of hardware documentation doesn't exactly help reeling in contributors. [^1]: Maybe in some cases not as useful as it could be when bringing up some OS on hardware, but certainly better than nothing
downrightmike 1y ago
They expected linux devs to build it for free
- yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
  In some cases the linux devs want to build it for free, but they still need enough information to work with
cmrdporcupine 1y ago
How's the WSL2 support on these Aarch64 Windows systems? I'm not a huge fan of working in WSL, because I actively dislike the Windows GUI.
- Mogzol 1y ago
  I have both Ubuntu and Docker Desktop set up in WSL2 on my X Elite laptop, they both work great, no issues (at least none that I have run into).

orthoxerox 1y ago

Not a single benchmark even against the previous generation. Just a "legendary leap in performance".

leakycap 1y ago
Bigly fast, trust them!
- bityard 1y ago
  Blazingly fast, even
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
wmf 1y ago
They showed benchmarks in the video but it's probably best to wait for independent reviews anyway.
- cies 1y ago
  Phoronix!

jasoneckert 1y ago

As someone who has used the Snapdragon X Elite (12 core Oryon) Dev Kit as a daily driver for the past year, I find this exciting. The X Elite performance still blows my mind today - so the new X2 Elite with 18 cores is likely going to be even more impressive from a performance perspective! I can't speak to the battery life, however, since it is dismal on my Dev Kit ;-)

typpilol 1y ago
How's the compatibility? Are there any apps that don't work that are critical?
- jasoneckert 1y ago
  Have I had any app compatibility issues? To quote Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, Line 87: "No." The Prism binary emulation for x86 apps that don't have an ARM equivalent has been stellar with near-native performance (better than Rosetta in macOS). And I've tried some really obscure stuff!
  - tobias3 1y ago
    For me it is too slow to run Age of Empires 2: DE multiplayer. More than ten year old Laptops with Intel chips are faster there.
    - nulld3v 1y ago
      I suspect that's due to the GPU and not due to Prism, because they basically just took a mobile GPU and stuffed it into a laptop chip. Generally performance seems to be on par with whatever a typical flagship Android devices can do. Desktop games that have mobile ports generally seem to run well, emulation is pretty solid too (e.g. Dolphin). Warcraft III runs OK-ish.
      - zamadatix 1y ago
        The GPUs don't go toe-to-toe with current gen desktop GPUs but they should be significantly better than the GTX 650, a mid range desktop GPU from 2012, the game (2019) lists as recommended. It does sound like something odd is going on than just lack of hardware. https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Snapdragon+X+Elite+-+X1E78100+-+Qualcomm+Adreno+GP&id=5096 https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Snapdragon+X+... https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+650&id=2155 https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+6...

bigyabai 1y ago

Those memory bandwidth numbers are making me proud of being a LPDDR4 holdout.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

daniel_iversen 1y ago

“Multi-day” battery life sounds wild! That’s probably the biggest thing for users. It would be good for Apple to get some competition because their M-chips seemed so far away from everything else.

otterley 1y ago
Careful; the multi-day claims may depend on having an unrealistically huge battery, or being active only sporadically across the time period.
- MBCook 1y ago
  Still, even if someone uses it for two hours a day and then just closes it being able to run for multiple days without charging the way Macs can is fantastic. I agree it seems incredibly unlikely that you’re doing multiple days of eight hours of work without charging. Longer is always better, so if it’s true at all great for them.
ugh123 1y ago
Any battery life claim needs to be aligned with the consumer-class operating system and application layer (iOS, Android, etc). Multi-day battery life on a non-Google-Pixel Android device with typical usage would be interesting.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

otterley 1y ago

Any thermal design power data? It's difficult to evaluate their efficiency claims (work per watt) without it.

cultofmetatron 1y ago

why is it so hard for these companies to do any kind of descent marketing? more importantly, when do we get descent macbook air competitors?

dkasper 1y ago
This is just a laptop cpu, not an end consumer product…
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
thewebguyd 1y ago
> when do we get descent macbook air competitors When laptop OEMs stop catering to the lowest common denominator corporate IT purchasers (departments which don't care about screen quality, speaker quality, or much of anything else outside of does the spec sheet on paper match our requirements and is it cheap).
- delfinom 1y ago
  I have a Yoga Slim 7x, which has the ARM. Screen quality is fantastic along with build quality, touchpad and keyboard feel :shrug: It really depends on what Laptop line you buy. Dells have overwhelmingly become garbage, right next to HP. Speaker quality on a laptop oth? Couldn't care less, I use headphones/earbuds 99% of the time because If I'm going portable computer, I'm traveling and I don't want to be an inconsiderate arse.
  - adastra22 1y ago
    The Yoga Slim 7x is a rather unique outlier. I was on the market for a non-Mac laptop a little while ago, and the was literally the only one that met my standards.
- varispeed 1y ago
  > departments which don't care about screen quality, speaker quality, or much of anything else outside of does the spec sheet on paper match our requirements and is it cheap) Translation: departments which don't care about worker's wellbeing.

evanjrowley 1y ago

Today Qualcomm CEO stated[0] that the combination of Android and ChromeOS, e.g. Android Computers, will be available on Snapdragon laptops. Maybe these X2 CPUs will be in those laptops. [0] https://www.techradar.com/phones/android/ive-seen-it-its-incredible-qualcomm-ceo-hypes-new-desktop-android-os-that-sounds-like-a-genuine-game-changer https://www.techradar.com/phones/android/ive-seen-it-its-inc...

otterley 1y ago
Does anyone buy these?
- stusmall 1y ago
  ChromeOS is popular in schools and for extremely locked down, managed corporate devices.
- oldpersonintx2 1y ago
  [dead]
- makeitdouble 1y ago
  For people complaining about battery control and android emulation on linux, ChromeOS is a boon. You effectively get an actual Linux distro + most of android, with a side of Chrome. It's way closer to "a real computer" than an iPad for instance, and only loses to the Surface Pro/Z13 line in term of versatility IMHO. It really wasn't bad, my only deal breakers were keyboard remapping being non existent and the bluetooth stack being flaky.
  - rossy 1y ago
    I got a ChromeOS device a few years ago and it was great. I think they get an underserved bad reputation from being the locked-down devices you're forced to use in schools, but a personal ChromeOS device is a capable computer that can run any Android app or desktop Linux app. Though having said that, in the past year I've replaced ChromeOS with desktop Linux (postmarketOS) and I love it even more now. 4GB of RAM was a bit slim for running everything in micro-VMs for "security," which is what ChromeOS does. I've had no trouble with battery life or Android emulation (Waydroid) since switching.

ggm 1y ago

Who is likely to package this into existing lines, from the majors? Is this a future lenovo/thinkpad carbon?

wmf 1y ago
It's likely to be in Thinkpads (unless Lenovo lost so much money on the X Elite that they ragequit ARM). They also had a testimonial from HP.
thewebguyd 1y ago
I would assume it'll follow the path as the first X Elite. MS put out surface & surface laptop with it, Lenovo did do the ThinkPad X1 with it, and Dell put it in the XPS line.
throwaway74354 1y ago
X1 Carbon is part of the Intel Evo Platform. These are co-developed with Intel and therefore this line is exclusive to them. X13s was confirmed to be sunset, another T14s is the most likely candidate among the ThinkPads.
- E39M5S62 1y ago
  Damn. They sunset the x13s? That's been my daily driver for a few months now. I was really hoping we'd see another one based around the Snapdragon X2.
canucker2016 1y ago
the OEMs who used the Snapdragon X1 Elite in windows laptops, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_devices_using_Qualcomm_Snapdragon_systems_on_chips#Snapdragon_X_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_devices_using_Qualcomm... : Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, Samsung Looking at the SOCs used, only Dell, Microsoft, and Samsung used the 2nd fastest SoC, the X1E-80-100 - the Dell and Microsoft laptops could be configured with 64GB soldered. Samsung also used the fastest SoC (the only OEM to do so), the X1E-84-100. From a search of their USA website, you're stuck with only 16GB on any of their Snapdragon laptops. :( I'd hope whichever OEM(s) uses the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme SoC (X2E-96-100) allows users to configure RAM up to 64GB or 128GB.

christopher8827 1y ago

I'm holding my breath though. I have a Samsung Edge 4 laptop and I didn't find the battery life impressive - prob got around 6 hours under coding / programming tasks. GPU performance is terrible too.

leakycap 1y ago
I feel like I'm constantly charger-tending all my non-Apple silicon laptops. M-series instant wake from sleep is also years ahead of the Windows wakeup roulette, so even if this new processor helps with time away from chargers... we still have the Windows sleep/hibernate experience.

potwinkle 1y ago

Why can't I scroll on this page with the trackpad? Mouse scroll and arrow scroll both work fine.

sciencesama 1y ago

how much ram can these support ?

wmf 1y ago
Supposedly 128 GB although I doubt vendors will ship that much.
- canucker2016 1y ago
  the snapdragon x2 elite extreme (X2E-96-100) SoC supports "128GB+" but qualcomm hasn't specified what the max limit is. this soc also has higher memory bandwidth (228GB/s over 192-bit bus) than the x2 elite. also see https://wccftech.com/snapdragon-x2-elite-extreme-die-package-shows-sip-ram/ https://wccftech.com/snapdragon-x2-elite-extreme-die-package...
  - my123 1y ago
    128GB is what they can ship using RAM chips available today, but the SoC supports more.
    - wtallis 1y ago
      128GB can't be the current or future limit for a 192-bit bus. There's a missing factor of 3.

drewg123 1y ago

Does anybody know if the X2 supports the x86 Total store ordering (TSO) memory ordering model? That's how Apple silicon does such efficient emulation of x86. I'd think that would be even MORE important for a Windows ARM64 laptop where there is so much more legacy x86 software going back decades.

londons_explore 1y ago
For really old software, it tends not to make good use of multiple cores anyway and you can simply emulate just a single core to achieve total store ordering. Anything modern and popular and you can probably get it recompiled to ARM64
- 0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
  Unfortunately games are the most common demanding multithread applications. Studios throw a binary over the fence and then get dissolved. Seems to be the way the entire industry operates. Maybe more ISA diversity will incentivize publishers to improve long-term software support but I have little hope.
bri3d 1y ago
Does anyone have benchmarks for Rosetta with TSO vs the Linux version with no-TSO? I guess it might be a bit challenging to achieve apples to apples, although you could run a test benchmark on OSX and then Asahi on the same hardware, I think? I've always been curious about just how much Rosetta magic is the implementation and how much is TSO; Prism in Windows 24H2 is also no slouch. If the recompiler is decent at tracing data dependencies it might not have to fence that much on a lot of workloads even without hardware TSO.
- ack_complete 1y ago
  People who have worked on the Windows x64 emulator claim that TSO isn't as much of a deal as claimed, other factors like enhanced hardware flag conversion support and function call optimizations play a significant role too: http://www.emulators.com/docs/abc_exit_xta.htm http://www.emulators.com/docs/abc_exit_xta.htm

smcleod 1y ago

Their top model still only has "Up to 228 GB/s" bandwdith which places it in the low end category for anything AI related, for comparison Apple Silicon is up to 800GB/s and Nvidia cards around 1800GB/s and no word if it supports 256-512GB of memory.

piskov 1y ago
Most consumers don’t care about local LLMs anyway.
- alphabettsy 1y ago
  Yet the apps top the App Store charts. Considering that these are not upgradable I think the specs are relevant. Just as I thought Apple shipping systems with 8 GB minimums was not good future proofing.
  - piskov 1y ago
    What apps with local llm top app store charts?
    - happymellon 1y ago
      They asked ChatGPT.
  - p_ing 1y ago
    Looking at the Mac App Store in the US, no they don't. There's not an LLM app in sight (local or otherwise).
Aurornis 1y ago
> Their top model still only has "Up to 228 GB/s" bandwdith which places it in the low end category for anything AI related, for comparison Apple Silicon is up to 800GB/s Most Apple Silicon is much less than 800 GB/s. The base M4 is only 120GB/s and the next step up M4 Pro is 273GB/s. That’s in the same range as this part. It’s not until you step up to the high end M4 Max parts that Apple’s memory bandwidth starts to diverge. For the target market with long battery life as a high priority target, this memory bandwidth is reasonable. Buying one of these as a local LLM machine isn’t a good idea.

renewiltord 1y ago

These all have nightmarish support. They're not a big deal for Qualcomm so the driver support is garbage. And you're stuck on their kernel like one of those Raspberry Pi knock offs. It's just really hard to take them seriously. Ironically M1 chip is better supported on Linux.

adastra22 1y ago
Yes, but the M1/M2 only…
overfeed 1y ago
> And you're stuck on their kernel like one of those Raspberry Pi knock offs. It's just really hard to take them seriously. Qualcomm has beem mainlining Snapdragon X drivers to the 6.x kernel tree for over a year now. There have been multiple frontpage HN posts about this in the past 12 months. Webcam/mic/speaker support may be a WIP depending on your model, but snapdragon X Elite has been booting Linux for months now, using only drivers in Linus' tree. The budget chips (Snapdragon X Plus) have far less direct support form Qualcomm, but some independent hackers have put in heroic effort to make those run Linux too.

kkaske 1y ago

If Snapdragon (or ARM players in general) wanted to challenge x86 and Apple dominance, do they need to compete in the exact same arena? Could they carve out a niche (example: ultra-efficient always-on machines) and then expand?

mortsnort 1y ago
Apple chips are ARM chips.
- kkaske 1y ago
  “ARM chip” is a pretty broad umbrella. Apple’s M-series is based on the ARM ISA, the microarchitecture is Apple’s own design, and the SoCs are built with very different cache hierarchies, memory bandwidth, and custom accelerators. I was simply using Apple as an example of another big player.
  - zeusk 1y ago
    Well so is the snapdragon X elite, including the older snapdragons (anyone remember scorpion cores on QSD8x50?)
0x457 1y ago
Are you aware of countless SoCs meant for use in smartphones and below? This is them expanding.
- kkaske 1y ago
  Exactly! That makes this move all the more interesting. The smartphone SoC market is saturated, and margins are shrinking. Laptops/PCs give Qualcomm a chance to leverage its IP in a higher-ASP segment. Expanding is logical, but the competitive bar is way higher.
- adrr 1y ago
  Also a bunch of Chromebooks with MediaTek chips.

Havoc 1y ago

Really hope they sort out Linux support on these. Seems like it would make a great travel laptop

a96 1y ago
It's Qualcomm. I wouldn't hope.

tangotaylor 1y ago

We’ve been using X Elite Snapdragon laptops (Thinkpad T14s and Yoga Slim running Ubuntu’s concept images) to build large amounts of ARM software without the need for cross-compiling. The hardware peripheral support isn’t 100% yet (good enough) but I’ve been impressed with the performance. ARM seems to be popular in the server space and it’s nice to see it trickling down to the PC market.

yoavm 1y ago
How's the battery life?
- tangotaylor 1y ago
  Hard to say, we keep them on the chargers most of the time. I haven’t measured it. No one’s complained yet, for what it’s worth.
robertoandred 1y ago
Trickling? Apple’s been on ARM for five years with great results.
- saghm 1y ago
  To be fair, they did say "PC" specifically. It's not uncommon to consider that a category that doesn't include Apple (e.g. the "I'm a Mac" "I'm a PC" ads from years ago)
  - cacarr 1y ago
    People just need to quit using the term "PC" to refer to desktop or laptop hardware that happens to be running Windows. Laptops running MacOS are "personal computers," as are desktops running Linux, or effing phones running Android, for that matter.
    - saghm 1y ago
      I think the issue is that there's clearly as need for a term for the category of "things that usually run Windows (but you can also probably put Linux on it, and like, even one of the BSDs if you're feeling adventurous)". PC isn't a great one from a linguistic perspective, but there's not an alternative I've heard that seems likely to catch on. There probably also should be a better term for "laptop/desktop", since as you mention "computer" itself is not really narrow enough if you're being pedantic, but at the end of the day, right now the only really differentiator we have is context. In the context here, it was honestly more clear clear what was meant by "PC" in the top-level comment than it was whether the person responding to it actually misunderstood or was trying to make a point.

ksec 1y ago

It doesn't say which generation of core is it. Are they the same as the one in Elite Gen 5? Has Microsoft actually pushed for the ARM changes? Because I don't believe Qualcomm can do it alone.

wmf 1y ago
Yes, it's the same Oryon V3. AFAIK Windows on ARM is completely pushed by Microsoft (obviously they're limited by their own competence) and Qualcomm has been kind of phoning it in.
- MBCook 1y ago
  I trust MS in this. NT has been multi-arch since day one. x86 wasn’t even the original lead architecture. They also know the score. Intel is not in a good place, and Apple has been showing them up in lower power segments like laptops, which happen to be the #1 non-server segment by far. They don’t want to risk getting stuck the way Apple did three times (68k, POC, Intel) where someone else was limiting their sales. So they’re laying groundwork. If it’s a backup plan, they’re ready. If ARM takes off and x86 keeps going well, they’re even better off.
dudeinjapan 1y ago
FOSS support for Windows ARM has been hampered by Github (owned by MS) not supporting free Windows ARM runners. They may be finally getting their act together but are years late to the game.

a-dub 1y ago

i wonder if intel and nvidia will catch up before they manage to deliver decent linux support...

ashvardanian 1y ago

Seems to be the first Arm CPU to hit 5 GHz. I couldn’t find the ISA details, and curious if they will support SME, like the M-series Apple chips?

wmf 1y ago
It does have SME.
menaerus 1y ago
Single core only @turbo-boost.

hmottestad 1y ago

18 cores = 12 Prime and 6 Performance Cores Not sure what a prime core is. For comparison the M4 Pro can go as high as 10 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores.

hmottestad 1y ago
Looks like some benchmarks have started leaking: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Snapdragon-8-Elite-Gen-5-performs-on-par-with-Apple-A19-Pro-in-official-benchmarks.1123261.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Snapdragon-8-Elite-Gen-5-perfo... Mind you, Geekerwan managed to push the A19 Pro to 4019 in Geekbench 6 by using active cooling. https://youtu.be/Y9SwluJ9qPI https://youtu.be/Y9SwluJ9qPI
- NaomiLehman 1y ago
  Today I learned that people are overclocking phone CPUs/SoCs
  - GeekyBear 1y ago
    Active cooling just means adding a fan.
STKFLT 1y ago
You can probably pretty easily just say Prime==Performance and Performance==Efficiency, but I think the "Prime" branding is kind of a carry over from Snapdragon mobile chips where they commonly use three tiers of core designs rather than the two. They still want to advertise the tier 2 cores as fast so T3 is efficiency, T2 is performance, T1 is Prime. As an example, the Snapdragon 700-series had Prime, Gold, and Silver branding on it's cores.

lazzurs 1y ago

Framework wen?

wiether 1y ago
yes plz
rcoder 1y ago
I’m a huge Framework fan: preordered the 13 and Desktop, have done mainboard + LCD upgrades on personal and work machines, etc. Likewise, I’ve used ARM machines as general-purpose Linux workstations, starting with the PineBook Pro up to my current Radxa Orion. It seems like a great combo! Unfortunately, firmware and OS support are hard for any vendor, especially one as small (compared to, say, Lenovo or HP) and fast-moving as Framework. Spreading that to yet another ISA and driver ecosystem seems like it would drag down quality and pace of updates on every other system, which IMHO would be a bad trade.

bfrog 1y ago

Did qualcomm ever get its act together with firmware/drivers and linux? It's a dead end to me if they aren't at an Intel/AMD level of openness on this front.

MisterTea 1y ago

Here's my big question: are there datasheets/programmers manuals available or is this yet another proprietary mess of a SoC that ships undocumented Linux drivers with binary blobs? No thanks. I will not spend money on hardware no one can reliably patch or write drivers for. I also want other operating system maintainers to be able to write drivers and get booting.

jeroenhd 1y ago
I haven't dug deep, but it looks like Qualcomm has been working on merging code into the Linux kernel: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Qualcomm-X2-Elite-Linux-8EG5 https://www.phoronix.com/news/Qualcomm-X2-Elite-Linux-8EG5 With them only merging upstream now, it'll be a while before you can actually use Linux on these devices. You can build your own kernel from upstream, but it's probably a better idea to wait until Arch or Gentoo package the necessary pre-configured kernels. From what I can tell, the Elite SoCs are a lot less outdated-semi-proprietary-Linux-fork-y than many other Qualcomm chips.
- rkangel 1y ago
  Or Fedora, which tracks kernels pretty closely (e.g. this Fedora, running the normal update channel is on 6.16)
  - KTibow 1y ago
    Last time I checked the Fedora ISOs didn't include the device trees necessary to even begin installation.
    - intothemild 1y ago
      Correct, you kind of have to do a bit of work to it to get it to boot. Now, I haven't tried the latest beta of Fedora 43, but my guess is this won't change.
- MisterTea 1y ago
  That means nothing for the community who may need or want to fix and patch issues on their own. Instead we're beholden to Qualcomm to fix major issues on an OS it may or may not care about supporting. It also excludes other open source operating systems such as the BSD's who have to then reverse engineer the undocumented Linux drivers. A better question: can a small company like Framework or even MNT Research build and support an open laptop around this chip?

TheCondor 1y ago

It looks like Lenovo and others are starting to get NUCs/MiniPCs out with these. I'd love to have one of these for Proxmox.

ed_blackburn 1y ago

I just want an ARM Linux MiniMac equivalent. At a reasonable price.

simjnd 1y ago
I you're willing to go back a few generations, Asahi Linux supports the Mac Mini (M1, M2 and M2 Pro). Support is missing for USB-C displays (it has HDMI) and Thunderbolt, but other than that you can have an awesome experience on these (and probably get yourself a good deal these days)
sagarm 1y ago
Why do you want an ARM mini PC?

boguscoder 1y ago

I wonder how much intended audience for these chips cares about “elite” and “ultra-premium” buzz wording. I’m sure it’s a good chip but cmon, it’s not for TikTok watching..

brynet 1y ago

> "The platform is capable of booting kernel at EL2 with kvm-unit tests performed on it for sanity." https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250925-v3_glymur_introduction-v2-0-8e1533a58d2d@oss.qualcomm.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250925-v3_glymur_introduction... EL2 support is huge, means virtualization will work on non-Windows OSes (e.g: Linux KVM), unlike with previous gen.

subscribed 1y ago

Yum. If it had a decent hardware security maybe we could get GrapheneOS on it