Linux support is coming to Snapdragon X2 Series(www.qualcomm.com)
97 pointsby aaronday2 hours ago23 comments
  • brynetan hour 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 on mastodon Ubuntu and confirmed ARM EL2 works, meaning KVM support unlike previous generations.

    bsd.network/@tobhe/117122761215052773

    • an hour ago
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  • modeless34 minutes 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.
  • extraduder_irean hour 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.

  • nr37842 minutes 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-...

  • 99990000099929 minutes 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 !

  • drnick1an hour ago
    Sounds good, as long as a standard Linux distro can replace whatever operating system ships with these machines.
  • baby_soufflean hour ago
    Didn't they say something similar about the first ones?

    Consider me cautiously optimistic.

    • jordandan hour 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.
    • kayson24 minutes ago
      Yeah there was a blog post about it but seems not much came from the effort
  • hsnewmanan hour ago
    Yeah, heard that 2 years ago for the Snapdragon X Elite
  • flakinessan hour 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.
    • jordandan hour 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.
      • martinald15 minutes 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.

    • imglorpan hour ago
      Aren't all the Android Snapdragon phones already mostly there?
      • flakiness20 minutes 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.
  • cromkaan hour 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.

  • timperaan hour 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!
  • hsnewmanan hour ago
    yeah, heard that before...2 years ago.
  • yesbut2 hours ago
    https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/blog/2026/09/announcing-l...
  • Havoc2 hours ago
    Looks like they're learning!
  • AtlasBarfed40 minutes 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
  • zb3an hour 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.

    • tredre315 minutes ago
      Tell us more about how it's Google who is preventing Qualcomm and Mediatek from upstreaming all their drivers?
  • 2OEH8eoCRo018 minutes ago
    aarch64 driver situation is still an unsolved mess. How far behind is thunderbolt support?
  • wslh2 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.
    • cherryteastainan hour 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.
      • cromkaan hour ago
        AFAIk this has nothing to do with Qualcomm but with vendors and Microsoft.
    • MrDrMcCoyan hour 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.
      • PorciiVorbescan hour 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.

    • bigyabaian hour 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.

      • wmfan hour ago
        Is it more work to support a completely proprietary boot path or three different "standard" boot paths?
        • bigyabai24 minutes ago
          Hint: you would know the answer if you are familiar with the Windows, Linux and OSX boot process.
  • jauntywundrkind2 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).

    • FlowingRiver2 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.

      • wmfan hour ago
        Ironically that's being fixed by Microsoft forcing UEFI.
        • MomsAVoxellan hour ago
          Unironically, the serious reason I don't want to embrace Snapdragon, is because: Qualcomm.
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    • jojobas38 minutes ago
      Lenovo has one (it's a Yoga, not a Thinkpad though).
  • dsr_2 hours ago
    Three cookie banners. I bet the announcement is slop that doesn't even answer relevant questions.
    • thehamkercat2 hours ago
      Weird, I only see one, even with ublock origin disabled.
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  • Preston67an hour ago
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