Linux support is coming to Snapdragon X2 Series

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 and confirmed ARM EL2 works, meaning KVM support unlike previous generations.

https://bsd.network/@tobhe/117122761215052773

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 !

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.

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.

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-...

Sounds good, as long as a standard Linux distro can replace whatever operating system ships with these machines.

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.

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.

Didn't they say something similar about the first ones?

Consider me cautiously optimistic.

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!

Yeah, heard that 2 years ago for the Snapdragon X Elite

yeah, heard that before...2 years 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.

Looks like they're learning!

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

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.

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).

Three cookie banners. I bet the announcement is slop that doesn't even answer relevant questions.