With Qualcomm and Microsoft about to flood the market with devices using the new Snapdragon X Elite, those of us who don’t want to use Windows felt a bit uneasy – what’s Linux support going to look like for this new generation of ARM devices? Well, it seems Qualcomm’s been busy, and they’ve published a blog post detailing their work on Linux support for the X Elite.
It’s been our priority not only to support Linux on our premium-tier SoCs, but to support it pronto. In fact, within one or two days of publicly announcing each generation of Snapdragon 8, we’ve posted the initial patchset for Linux kernel support. Snapdragon X Elite was no exception: we announced on October 23 of last year and posted the patchset the next day. That was the result of a lot of pre-announcement work to get everything up and running on Linux and Debian.
↫ Qualcomm’s developer blog
In the blog post, the company details exactly which X Elite features have already been merged into mainline with Linux 6.8 and 6.9, as well as which features will be merged into mainline in Linux 6.10 and 6.11, and to be quite frank – it’s looking really solid, especially considering this is Qualcomm we’re talking about. Over the coming six months, they’re going to focus on getting end-to-end hardware video decoding working, including in Firefox and Chrome, as well as various CPU and GPU optimisations, adding the required firmware to the linux-firmware package, and providing access to easy installers.
All in all, it’s looking like the X Elite will be exceptionally well supported by Linux before the year’s over.
The blog post also details the boot path for Linux on the X Elite, and that, too, is looking good. It’s using a standard UEFI boot process, and supports GRUB and systemd-boot out of the box. Linux boots up using devicetrees, though, and apparently, there’s a known problem with using those that Qualcomm and the community are working on.
We’re working closely with upstream communities on an open problem with the UEFI-based BIOS while booting with devicetrees. The problem is that, when you have more than one devicetree blob (DTB) packed into the firmware package flashed on the device, there is no standard way of selecting a devicetree to pass on to the kernel. OEMs commonly put multiple DTBs into the firmware package so it will support devices with slightly different SKUs, so we’re keen to solve this problem.
↫ Qualcomm’s developer blog
I am pleasantly surprised by the openness and straightforwardness Qualcomm is showing the Linux community here, and I really hope this is a sign of how the company will keep supporting its laptop and possibly desktop-oriented SoCs from here on out. It seems like next year we will finally be getting competitive ARM laptops that can run Linux in a fully supported fashion.
Thom Holwerda,
My view is that Microsoft are very well positioned to bring desperately needed standardization to the ARM hardware market. I welcome more UEFI bootable ARM machines….my main concern for years though has been microsoft interfering with competing platforms by imposing mandatory lockouts. I don’t know what the status is today, but it used to be with windows 8 (and 10?) certification requirements on ARM mandated lockouts so that other operating systems would not be able to boot without breaking secure boot. BTW if anyone has information about these restrictions for windows going forward, please send links!
If true that qualcomm are genuinely committed to getting linux working, this is excellent news!!! We in the linux community need to send a strong message to broadcom that if they don’t follow suit they can go rot in hell now that we have official support from qualcomm.
I’ve only taken everything at face value here, hopefully I wasn’t counting eggs before they hatched. But after so many years of being ignored by the manufacturers, it would be so good if things are actually turning around for official linux support.
Windows on ARM has failed multiple times and that is because the only reason to use Windows is to run your legacy Windows applications.
If Qualcomm wants to go up against Apple, they need an application ecosystem out of the gate. If we are talking ARM,, Linux leads Microsoft for once when it comes to applications.
If you want to build a market for chips in the cloud, you also want to have a “native” environment for developers. That is OCI containers on Linux.
Beyond laptops, all this talk of MIPI makes me think they are targeting embedded and industrial use cases as well. In that space, Linux is King of the Hill.
For a new platform like this, it is developers, developers, developers. Making sure you have first class Linux support is going to be important.
I can’t for the life of me figure out why Windows ARM makers haven’t added the same x86 supporting memory modes that Apple has in their MX chips. This seems like a no-brainer, and AFAICT, it’s not patented (I didn’t look that hard). Why haven’t they added this, to make x86 at least perform acceptably on these chips? I can tell you as a developer, that I couldn’t use M1,2,3,4, if it didn’t have these memory modes or if x86 wasn’t performant enough – even just for being able to load and test things like x86 docker images, but also running all sorts of old code. (And yeah, it sucks that macOS on MX arch can’t run 32-bit macos code under x86 – there’s no hardware reason for this, it’s all policy. Admittedly, that’s mostly games, and not that important for work stuffs, but still.)
These new ARM platforms do have me curious about running them for media PCs, or low power servers. I have ZERO interest in running Windows on these (but then again, I have ZERO interest in running Windows on much of anything these days.)
It occurs to me there is a second side to this Windows ARM version story. Unlike Apple, they are not ditching x86 – they simply want to also support ARM. The obvious approach would be to support the same binaries on BOTH architectures. Is there an ARM emulator for x86 in the x86 version of Windows? There should be.
The only reason to use Windows is to run your legacy Windows applications.. No, the purpose of using an operating system is to run applications, legacy or not. Windows has many features that cause large organizations to prefer it over the alternatives. If the applications people want work on windows arm, and there are additional benefits like increased battery life or reduced cost they’ll use it. They don’t really care about the architecture unless they have to. And right now, most uses of a computer are really just web apps in the browser.
I am not surprised for ARM manufacturers recognizing the key to their success is top notch Linux support. As lets face it Windows can never succeed in popularizing ARM in general consumer devices sector. It’s Linux that has already done that in the past, on where basically majority of the consumer ARM devices we use run on Linux. The same logic will apply for this new chips. If companies will use them in their devices, Linux is what will likely run them.
Geck,
I know some segments of the community like to consider android linux. Technically it is but frankly Linux is not the reason android is popular…it’s really the exact opposite. The linux kernel is virtually irrelevant to most android users and it could have been BSD or anything else; android users wouldn’t care. Those of us who specifically want linux on ARM are still a niche group. I’m very much hoping that with qualcomm’s official support, the linux experience can improve dramatically for ARM, but until it happens it’s hard to say it will because linux support has had so many stumbling blocks in the past that it’s made many of us chronic skeptics.
It’s Linux on ARM and majority of world population today uses it in some form and on a daily basis. I agree that most people don’t care, though.
Standard UEFI was something I didn’t really think about for these devices, but knowing it’s there is a very welcome comfort. Next year I’ll be in the laptop market and getting an arm device literally went from “definitely no” to “very probably yes.” That Qualcomm is being shockingly open for a large company is plain refreshing. Seems like the ARM ecosystem is finally maturing enough to compete.
Now I’ll just step back and wonder if we’ll see a Framework ARM machine in the next few years… A low-power-consumption modular beast would be the cocaine of portable laptops.
Holy crap. Standard UEFI and grub boot? Finally, some ARM maker is starting to get it. Unfortunately I don’t think this will get pushed down to lower tier SBCs, but at least it’s a start.
Maybe they’re starting to get worried about RISC-V coming in and taking over the lower end of the ARM market over the next few years, from a “ease of use/integration” standpoint? Unfortunately with Google apparently pulling the rug out from under ASOP RISC-V support, that’s less of a worry now 🙁
Linux support – to paraphase Shania Twain – don’t impress me much. The clue is in hiding in plain sight in the title: “upstreaming Linux KERNEL support…” All the other Snapdragons already run linux kernel as it is the basis of Android. As they say, Linux is a kernel not an OS, and I suggest Qualcomm are more concerned with making the product attractive to vendors of Chrome OS and its ilk that happen to use a linux kernel than they are in ushering in the age of GNU/linux desktop.
We are no longer in the 1990s and (GNU/)Linux is no longer the edgy operating system that some still seem to wish it were. We are yet to hear that the processor will be accessible to developers and users of genuinely niche OS.
So we can choose Linux instead of just Windows? OSNews audience of niche OS enthusiasts might be reminded of the bar owner in Blues Brothers who said; “we play both types of music here: country *and* western!”
Squizzler,
Most ARM hardware supports android…but that’s not enough for linux users, not by a long shot. Android manufacturers notoriously suck at support. Linux SBCs that are based on android kernels suck too. If you want real freedom to build the kernel of your choice then anything that isn’t mainline falls short every time. Official support for full linux operating systems (and not just android) is so important!!
That would just be more of the same that hasn’t been working for Linux ARM users for decades now. To the extent that chip makers are finally offering official support this could be a real game changer!