7 ms·

Now we just need a decent ARM Linux laptop.

by nullbyte808 10mo ago

overfeed 10mo ago
Snapdragon Elite X laptops are plenty decent.
- ben-schaaf 10mo ago
  Not for Linux they're not. IIRC Audio and camera don't work, and firmware is non-redistributable and so you need to mooch it off a Windows partition. On top of that the performance on Linux hasn't been great either.
  - LeFantome 10mo ago
    Highly depends on which laptop
- donkeylazy456 10mo ago
  Qualcomm's linux support is not.
  - overfeed 10mo ago
    That's true Qualcomm in general, but is fortunately outdated for the Snapdragon Elite X (and only the X). Qualcomm has been upstreaming patches to Linus' tree[1] - but only for the Elite X - the Elite P processors get the classic Qualcomm treatment. 1. https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/blog/2024/05/upstreaming-linux-kernel-support-for-the-snapdragon-x-elite https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/blog/2024/05/upstreaming-...
    - wtallis 10mo ago
      You're mangling Qualcomm's branding to the point that it's impossible to be sure what you're trying to say. Qualcomm's current laptop SoCs are called "Snapdragon X Elite" or "Snapdragon X Plus" or "Snapdragon X", all derived from various bins of two SoC designs, and all pretty much in the same boat for driver support purposes. "Snapdragon X2 Elite" and lesser siblings are due in the first half of next year, so a respectable degree of Linux support would mean having driver support for those chips in an upstream kernel release now so that there might be a mainstream distro supporting the hardware at some point in the quarter after the hardware ships.
      - overfeed 10mo ago
        My apologies to you and the entire Qualcomm marketing team for my brand-guideline violations - I was going off the top of my head. What I meant in my inscrutable comment was: "Elite X" => "X Elite", "Elite P" => "X Plus", I really should not have mangled the products using such an elegant and intuitive naming convention.
        wtallis 10mo ago
        Ok, so having clarified the naming, it still looks like you're wrong about which chips are getting driver support upstreamed, because the Snapdragon X Plus parts are (with maybe one exception, IIRC) literally the same chip as the Snapdragon X Elite parts. Do you really believe that the upstream Linux kernel would accept patches that are specifically crafted to only work on certain bins of the chip, or to fail to enable a peripheral if not enough of the CPU cores are enabled?
        overfeed 10mo ago
        Don't take my word for it - go to the Ubuntu Concept Snapdragon thread[1] and search for "plus" or "x1p". > Do you really believe that the upstream Linux kernel would accept patches that are specifically crafted to only work on certain bins of the chip, or to fail to enable a peripheral if not enough of the CPU cores are enabled? It takes more than a kernel patch to boot a laptop. Qualcomm has been neglecting to release the dtbs for Plus laptops. If you want good peripheral support, don't buy a "plus" variant. Getting back to your question, the answer is "Yes, Linux has always accepted patches that only work on some configurations" with no requirement to support all h/w configuration variants. Infact, some configurations are so obscure only the submitter can test - the maintainer/subsystem chief/Linus may not even know what the potential variants are. 1. https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-concept-snapdragon-x-elite/48800 https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-concept-snapdragon-x-e...
        wtallis 10mo ago
        I don't think your link contains the evidence you think it does. I'm not seeing anything that looks like Qualcomm contributing device trees on behalf of system OEMs, for any of the Snapdragon X products, so I don't see how you can claim that they're being selective. It looks like the device trees are mostly being reverse-engineered by the community, adding new system support derived from device trees for systems that already have some support. Do you have any clear instances of Qualcomm contributing something that's specific to Snapdragon X Elite parts and does not work for Snapdragon X Plus bins of the same silicon? Or even for the more general issue: have you ever seen a Linux driver include arbitrary restrictions that make it refuse to work on identical hardware just because the marketing name for that bin of the same silicon was different?
thehias 10mo ago
Get a MacBook with Asahi Linux
- thehamkercat 10mo ago
  Asahi Linux doesn't support M3/M4/M5
  - sitkack 10mo ago
    And? Get an M1/M2 off of ebay or craigslist.
rollcat 10mo ago
Anyone can recommend something viable for simple tasks? I don't need 32GB of VRAM, just a reliable machine for everyday tasks that's decent, lightweight, has a good battery. (I know I'm describing an M2 Air, but I'd like to explore alternatives.)
- myndpage 10mo ago
  I have the azus ZenBook a14 with X Elite, 32GB ram, 1TB SSD. Overall it works great on Ubuntu concept. Only speakers and camera do not work (I heard speakers can work with some risk). I just use usb headphones instead and my webcam. The laptop itself is very light with long battery life. I expect it to be better supported at some point hopefully, but it's getting there.
- LeFantome 10mo ago
  I would wait for X2 Elite laptops at this point. Qualcomm is already upstreaming support into Linux.
- danans 10mo ago
  Lenovo Chromebook Plus 12 or Acer - Chromebook Plus Spin 514. Both have an M2 equivalent MediaTek Kompanio ARM CPU/GPU, and comes with native Debian VM built in (Crostini) that runs standard Linux desktop apps. Battery life and performance are great. You can even get it pretty loaded up with RAM to run smaller LLMs if that's your jam. As you can tell from my past comments about Chromebooks as Linux workstations here, I'm a daily user and very happy with them.
LeFantome 10mo ago
I would wait for X2 Elite laptops at this point. Qualcomm is already upstreaming support into Linux. Take this with a grain of salt but since we are one the topic of games…. https://www.techpowerup.com/343081/qualcomm-says-90-of-games-run-on-snapdragon-x2-elite-outperforming-intel-and-amd?amp https://www.techpowerup.com/343081/qualcomm-says-90-of-games...
willis936 10mo ago
Alternatively: we need fex-emu to run on macos.

Now we just need a decent ARM Linux laptop.

overfeed 10mo ago

Snapdragon Elite X laptops are plenty decent.

ben-schaaf 10mo ago
Not for Linux they're not. IIRC Audio and camera don't work, and firmware is non-redistributable and so you need to mooch it off a Windows partition. On top of that the performance on Linux hasn't been great either.
- LeFantome 10mo ago
  Highly depends on which laptop
donkeylazy456 10mo ago
Qualcomm's linux support is not.
- overfeed 10mo ago
  That's true Qualcomm in general, but is fortunately outdated for the Snapdragon Elite X (and only the X). Qualcomm has been upstreaming patches to Linus' tree[1] - but only for the Elite X - the Elite P processors get the classic Qualcomm treatment. 1. https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/blog/2024/05/upstreaming-linux-kernel-support-for-the-snapdragon-x-elite https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/blog/2024/05/upstreaming-...
  - wtallis 10mo ago
    You're mangling Qualcomm's branding to the point that it's impossible to be sure what you're trying to say. Qualcomm's current laptop SoCs are called "Snapdragon X Elite" or "Snapdragon X Plus" or "Snapdragon X", all derived from various bins of two SoC designs, and all pretty much in the same boat for driver support purposes. "Snapdragon X2 Elite" and lesser siblings are due in the first half of next year, so a respectable degree of Linux support would mean having driver support for those chips in an upstream kernel release now so that there might be a mainstream distro supporting the hardware at some point in the quarter after the hardware ships.
    - overfeed 10mo ago
      My apologies to you and the entire Qualcomm marketing team for my brand-guideline violations - I was going off the top of my head. What I meant in my inscrutable comment was: "Elite X" => "X Elite", "Elite P" => "X Plus", I really should not have mangled the products using such an elegant and intuitive naming convention.
      - wtallis 10mo ago
        Ok, so having clarified the naming, it still looks like you're wrong about which chips are getting driver support upstreamed, because the Snapdragon X Plus parts are (with maybe one exception, IIRC) literally the same chip as the Snapdragon X Elite parts. Do you really believe that the upstream Linux kernel would accept patches that are specifically crafted to only work on certain bins of the chip, or to fail to enable a peripheral if not enough of the CPU cores are enabled?
        overfeed 10mo ago
        Don't take my word for it - go to the Ubuntu Concept Snapdragon thread[1] and search for "plus" or "x1p". > Do you really believe that the upstream Linux kernel would accept patches that are specifically crafted to only work on certain bins of the chip, or to fail to enable a peripheral if not enough of the CPU cores are enabled? It takes more than a kernel patch to boot a laptop. Qualcomm has been neglecting to release the dtbs for Plus laptops. If you want good peripheral support, don't buy a "plus" variant. Getting back to your question, the answer is "Yes, Linux has always accepted patches that only work on some configurations" with no requirement to support all h/w configuration variants. Infact, some configurations are so obscure only the submitter can test - the maintainer/subsystem chief/Linus may not even know what the potential variants are. 1. https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-concept-snapdragon-x-elite/48800 https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-concept-snapdragon-x-e...
        wtallis 10mo ago
        I don't think your link contains the evidence you think it does. I'm not seeing anything that looks like Qualcomm contributing device trees on behalf of system OEMs, for any of the Snapdragon X products, so I don't see how you can claim that they're being selective. It looks like the device trees are mostly being reverse-engineered by the community, adding new system support derived from device trees for systems that already have some support. Do you have any clear instances of Qualcomm contributing something that's specific to Snapdragon X Elite parts and does not work for Snapdragon X Plus bins of the same silicon? Or even for the more general issue: have you ever seen a Linux driver include arbitrary restrictions that make it refuse to work on identical hardware just because the marketing name for that bin of the same silicon was different?

thehias 10mo ago

Get a MacBook with Asahi Linux

thehamkercat 10mo ago
Asahi Linux doesn't support M3/M4/M5
- sitkack 10mo ago
  And? Get an M1/M2 off of ebay or craigslist.

rollcat 10mo ago

Anyone can recommend something viable for simple tasks? I don't need 32GB of VRAM, just a reliable machine for everyday tasks that's decent, lightweight, has a good battery. (I know I'm describing an M2 Air, but I'd like to explore alternatives.)

myndpage 10mo ago
I have the azus ZenBook a14 with X Elite, 32GB ram, 1TB SSD. Overall it works great on Ubuntu concept. Only speakers and camera do not work (I heard speakers can work with some risk). I just use usb headphones instead and my webcam. The laptop itself is very light with long battery life. I expect it to be better supported at some point hopefully, but it's getting there.
LeFantome 10mo ago
I would wait for X2 Elite laptops at this point. Qualcomm is already upstreaming support into Linux.
danans 10mo ago
Lenovo Chromebook Plus 12 or Acer - Chromebook Plus Spin 514. Both have an M2 equivalent MediaTek Kompanio ARM CPU/GPU, and comes with native Debian VM built in (Crostini) that runs standard Linux desktop apps. Battery life and performance are great. You can even get it pretty loaded up with RAM to run smaller LLMs if that's your jam. As you can tell from my past comments about Chromebooks as Linux workstations here, I'm a daily user and very happy with them.

LeFantome 10mo ago

I would wait for X2 Elite laptops at this point. Qualcomm is already upstreaming support into Linux. Take this with a grain of salt but since we are one the topic of games…. https://www.techpowerup.com/343081/qualcomm-says-90-of-games-run-on-snapdragon-x2-elite-outperforming-intel-and-amd?amp https://www.techpowerup.com/343081/qualcomm-says-90-of-games...

willis936 10mo ago

Alternatively: we need fex-emu to run on macos.