Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite prototype that runs Linux emerges | Hacker News Reader

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite prototype that runs Linux emerges

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135 pointswyldfire74 comments

Qualcomm has previously announced their desire to support Linux, and they have an upstream roadmap: https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/blog/2024/05/upstreaming-...

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40350408

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/qualcomm-goes-wh...

> Qualcomm has most of the critical functions working inside.. Linux 6.9.. critical functions include UEFI-based boot support along with all the standard bootloaders like Grub and system-d.. Functions that are being worked on for future iterations of Linux include additions to battery support, on-board display connectivity, external DisplayPort connectivity, sleep and wake-up functions on the GPU, camera support, video support, better CPU frequency support, and speaker/mic/headset enablement. These functions are expected to arrive in Linux 6.10 and 6.11.

$900 dev kit ships later this month, Mac Mini form factor, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40430579

It says explicitly "for Windows". Is it locked to MS signed operating systems (which do not include Linux for ARM)?

Qualcomm is funding Linaro for upstream Linux support, while building desktop processors and aiming for 50% of the PC market in 5 years. A dev kit that is locked to a single vendor would not encourage adoption. With Apple's refusal to let customers run VMs on iPads, ex-Apple Nuvia/Oryon/Qualcomm has a window of opportunity to provide an open, standardized platform for Arm PCs.

QC dev kit is one target device tree, but PC OEM devices will have hardware beyond the Oryon SoC, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40431467

We need to wait for shipping device to confirm if EL2 will be available to Linux, https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=my123

  The system firmware will ship with 3 boot modes selectable via the setup interface:
  
  - Windows (this one has the Windows tcblauncher escalated to EL2 through Secure Launch)
  - Linux (this one stays at EL1)
  - Linux w/ KVM (which jumps to EL2 before kernel handover)

Does that well get good benchmarks soon?

Yeah, Linux is noticeably faster than Windows.

The ex-Apple team who started Nuvia (which was acquired by Qualcomm and maker of this chip), is really giving Apple a run for their money - especially given that these chips are fab’ed on 2 gen order nodes than what Apple gets from TSMC.

Well I'm not sure they are giving Apple a run for their money. They haven't delivered anything in quantity yet, the benchmarks and reliability are unknown and the big problem as always is software and they're in bed with Microsoft who are running a shit show on windows 11.

I'd like this to work out. Objectively I'd prefer to use Windows than MacOS (there I said it!) but the hassle is not worth it any more to take on the software.

I am curious why you prefer Windows over MacOS? The only reason I see is Gaming, but thanks to Proton, now gaming is even better on Linux than windows.

>I am curious why you prefer Windows over MacOS?

Not the person you asked, but for me short version: it just works and covers 100% of my uses cases and never caused me any issues, so why should I needlessly complicate my life by using something else?

Long version: most EE tinkering and embedded tooling is almost Windows exclusive especially retro ones, plus the much better window management out of the box, plus support for all games and modding tools ever released without having to think of emulation or compatibility, plus 20 years of muscle memory and know-how on how maintain the system, plus high quality tools like Notepad++ , ClickDDC & such, plus it runs on every HW from 50$ second hand laptops to latest Intel & Ryzen machines meaning I can pick the exact laptop with the HW features that fit me, and not forced to buy exclusively Apple's expensive and restrictive HW like a screen that only opens ~130 degrees.

When I'm moving away from it it will be to Linux, not another commercial sollution that comes with extra expense, downsides and limitations.

> now gaming is even better on Linux than windows.

That's an exaggeration. There are definitely games where you might consider working better in Proton but for the most part Windows is still the far more seamless option. On Proton, ive still hit things like, really bad frametimes, game patches that break things for a bit, can't get VRR to work ever, and the lack of anti cheat support in multiplayer games.

Might be an exaggeration but can you run pre-Windows 7 games seemlessly on windows? Maybe that's not the trend, but I was surprised how easier it was to run 1990s/2000s games on Linux, from Jackrabbit to CnC. It's the nostalgia era, but still, works better on Linux than windows.

> That's an exaggeration

That's mostly only an exaggeration for games made in the last 5 years with the heavier concentrations of DRM, online-only, micro transactions.

I agree that there are still a few issues, except VRR works just fine on my Wayland session with an amdgpu card. HDR, on the other hand...

I spent 1990->2010 using windows. Certain things get stuck in your mind.

What I'd like is the windows user experience but not broken as fuck and with the breadth of default high quality applications you get on macOS and the hardware flexibility of a PC.

Decent window management out of the box? Better customizability? Less weird edge case paper cuts (e.g, adjusting HDMI audio, MST, external monitor support)?

> but thanks to Proton

I am curious how well proton works under ARM, both for apple silicon and whatever alternatives.

Not supported yet. The only workaround is using an emulator like Box64. Although, proton support is very buggy, yet you can technically play some games. I saw some demo on Snapdragon SoC (Android phone) a while back. But it is slowly building uo.

not for online games with anti cheat. game trainers also don't work

If there were an almost FOSS personal electronics company that made quality, durable, and repairable devices with clean UX, usability, and long term OS-app compatibility, these would have a wider audience than simply infinitely-upgradeable laptops or laptops that are designed to be vintaged every 7 years. Call me a socialist, but designed to break just after the warranty and planned obsolescence are scourges resulting in higher profits, but suck for the customer, lose goodwill, and are fundamentally uncool for what they do to the planet. It is more ethical and respectable to craft excellent things that are "too durable" that people will treasure for many years because it's better than creating overpriced, pretty, fragile, incompatible e-waste.

Similarly, an "Apple for datacenters" like Oxide but larger scale (by the rack as a demo and intermodal container-scale customarily) with integrated, observable, resilient, multi-tenant {bare metal, I, k8s, P, GPU, network, storage}aaS.

Right now Framework (and System76 if I got the name right) are the best options available.

Absolutely no argument for people who can/will tinker and want a more extreme approximation of a beige box DIY PC in a laptop form-factor. I'm saying for the wider non-tinker market there's an opportunity for a better way for people who want what sort-of what Apple was under SJ but more like old-school Japanese products that are absolutely better without optimizing for money extraction and are instead optimizing for better products without compromise. I can't even get Apple TV 4K to work as an external display half the time and most of their apps are barely functional, and Apple keeps churning framework APIs over and over again like their product managers all came from US defense contractors.

Don't need to be a tinkerer for a Framework Laptop. You can order it prebuilt with Windows 10. It does cost a fair bit more compared to the unmaintainable Laptops though. But so do Apple products.

Costing a lot reduces demand. Framework isn't at all what I'm talking about, so you can stop trying to sell me on it. ;)

>Call me a socialist, but designed to break just after the warranty and planned obsolescence are scourges resulting in higher profits, but suck for the customer, lose goodwill, and are fundamentally uncool for what they do to the planet.

Do most computers "break" just after the warranty or people just desire something newer or faster because of the shifting landscape of software and the web?

>It is more ethical and respectable to craft excellent things that are "too durable" that people will treasure for many years because it's better than creating overpriced, pretty, fragile, incompatible e-waste.

How do you care to make this paradigm compatible with the ever changing nature of software? Software which is made by others who dont share the same values as you do? Because without that, these "excellently crafted" items will just take up space and provide little to no value.

I restore "vintage computers" for fun and I am finding it to be a waste of time because the value proposition for most old computers tends towards 0 for most people. The purpose of a computer is to run software period. Without software, the computer is an ornament made of various metals.

The only hold outs are computers that have a specific characteristic to them that provides value. Things such as the ability to run software new computers struggle with(pre Win XP machines with ISA sound cards, SUN SPARC machines), a visual component(SGI Computers), or just a specific historic nature(NEXT Cube, a lot of the 90s, early 00s Apple computers).

The majority of computers from the last 10-15 years don't add any of that value, and thus will eventually only have scrap value.

This is different from old well crafted furniture. Those items in a way can still run modern "software". (Humans born in 2024 can sit in them and enjoy them the same way humans born in 1960). This thinking applies to many other well crafted items. Their value proposition is different.

In a way the tech industry has really pulled the wool over peoples eyes. Convincing people that this tech is "essential" to modern day life because of "efficiency" or the faster moving nature of the world or whatever else has locked in this disposable reality. The only move if you wish to follow your ideology is to not play and accept the consequences.

Have you bought a (Samsung) refrigerator lately?

I own a Kelvinator and a Kenmore refrigerator that supposedly runs on simple electronic relays. Whats your point?

Wasn’t ARM suing because of this, what ever happened with that?

The lawsuit is still outstanding.

Presumably the claimants would not seek to enjoin distribution of the new design, that would be suicide. They probably just want royalties that Qualcomm would ordinarily have negotiated on their own as an architectural licensee. Or perhaps, what they previously paid as an architectural licensee.

It would be fantastic to have a well performing laptop with Linux that lasts a full day of work and then some. My recent laptops have had so much battery degradation in just a year. I hope the battery management is fantastic. 1.4 Kgs is pretty good weight. It can be higher for a larger screen.

On the other hand, I really want to see cheap laptops that can be useful for small businesses. Linux powered POS and other business segments for mom and pop shops would be amazing. Most work is web based anyway, and Linux update cycles are so smooth that I recommend it to even mainstream users.

Even if most work is web based anyway, windows and linux laptops are quite similar in price, and there's always some usefull windows app, and people know how to use and maintain windows.

So why would a small business buy linux?

In Windows RT (Win8 for Arm) times, the "Designed for Windows" label specification had a requirement for locked down UEFI firmware, that only booted Microsoft signed kernels. That made Surface RTs Windows-only. I wonder if this is still required, or can you boot Linux on these machines. I'm sure there's a hardware exploit possibility to make this a reality, but it's not going to be a mainstream thing to do.

This has nothing to do with Windows RT. Every Windows on ARM64 desktop/laptop device has an unlockable bootloader.

Windows on ARM is a direct descendant of Windows RT, so I wouldn't say it has nothing to do with the latter. But it's a good to hear that the bootloader lock is no longer mandated.

At the time, it was part of the Windows Hardware Certification requirements.

SFLC has details here: https://softwarefreedom.org/blog/2012/jan/12/microsoft-confi...

I hope stuff like this makes AMD more likely to invest in RISC-V.

An AMD high-performance RISC-V cpu that is affordable would be awesome.

AMD can offer distinguishing features, such as x86-64 acceleration.

That'd ensure they're the ones picked, for a few years as the world transitions away from the legacy, unclean, proprietary ISAs.

Isn't the Qualcomm chip just an ARM design? Seeing as Linux can run on ARM, is this new? I always just expected to be able to run an ARM based linux on these devices.

Sure, the CPU is ARM but you need drivers for everything else. Fortunately Qualcomm is providing those drivers.

Not quite, Oryon is a custom design implementing AArch64 Instruction Set Architecture by Nuvia, a Qualcomm acquisition.

This distinction is important for the sake of performance but not (or only barely) about compatibility. This thread focuses on functionality and the linux support referred to in the title is devices and not the CPU, which -- as you've indicated -- should Just Work because it's implementing the ISA standard.

For the laptop to work, it means that the audio, display, camera, storage, external buses will work. As noted in other threads, this is interesting because of Qualcomm's re-invigorated engagement with kernel development.

It matters a whole heck of a lot if Arm is able to destroy the Oryon, which they're trying to do in court.

It matters, because computer processors generally don't interchange. It's extremely "PC Platform" specific phenomenon that every PC runs the same OS just fine sans for eyecandy peripherals. Booting from a wrong image usually crashes the CPU seconds after power-up for most other platforms. It's not rare that replacing a "HN123X456" processor with "HN123X765" chip involves minor code changes.

ARM had supposedly fixed that problem with SystemReady certification program, personally I will believe it when I see it. Are there even two different iPhone models that runs the same recovery image?

Are these the chips n Microsoft recent Surface arm launch?

EDIT: to answer my own question, yes - it appears so.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/20/24160498/microsoft-arm-su...

It's not so much a recent launch as an ongoing launch, that has had a remarkably drawn-out timeline: Qualcomm announced the specs of the top-tier processors in October, then announced the lower-tier processors in April, then OEMs announced systems in May, but retail availability and delivery of pre-orders are still a week away (and presumably the embargo on the real product reviews expires sometime between now and the 18th).

Qualcomm has clearly put careful planning into maximizing the publicity opportunities they can get out of a single product generation, and with an impressive degree of cooperation from OEMs, but it's really starting to look absurd considering that Apple has launched (announced and shipped) two processor generations in the same time frame (albeit the M4 is only in an iPad so far).

Yes, it's a custom design originally made by Nuvia, but it's still based on ARM64 (=AArch64).

Also known as the ARM instruction set.

If Arm had its way, Oryon would be destroyed at customs.

I presume the actual remarkable thing everyone wants, not mentioned anywhere in this article, is a Qualcomm CPU booting into BIOS/UEFI and subsequently into Windows and Linux, aka the x86-ification of ARM and thus the Personal Computerization (IBM-ification?) of ARM.

Qualcomm SDXE Arm UEFI for Linux is a work in progress, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40422286

Not quite, Oryon is a custom design implementing AArch64 Instruction Set Architecture by Nuvia, a Qualcomm acquisition.

Is it possible to get a Snapdragon X device that runs both Android & Windows on ARM?

Imagine a Surface that you undock and becomes an Android tablet

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid does this feature in a two-separate systems in one kind of way.

Arguably you can just run linux and waydroid which already runs fine for many scenarios on x86.

That would probably be a terrible experience.

Something similar already existed a while ago. Look up the Asus Transformer Book Trio.

A Linux laptop that lasts long, with a hidpi display, decent CPU, and 5G connectivity would be a great deal. I hope this pans out.

What about arch? I use arch, btw. I just want everyone to know that.

Lol is this a trend or meme now? I am seeing similar comments pop up. I do not think settled-in users of Arch post these anywhere but maybe I am wrong.

It's been a meme for a few years already: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/btw-i-use-arch

And obviously, I use arch btw.

Honestly. Arch is my favorite distro. I've been using arch for years even before it went mainstream.

fair assessment about the drivers, but at application level, most developers would be at home if they manage to set up an arm laptop on linux.

at least for this niche, there should be enough native support that can show as a better alternative than windows. i'd like to believe that raspberry pi users have helped with adoption of open-source apps on arm64.

> most developers would be at home if they manage to set up an arm laptop on linux.

What has an ARM laptop that an x86 laptop does not have ?

cpu-only workloads sure no problems. i was referring to the manufacturers providing a working platform, like the prototype.

Way better battery life?

to be fair, Qualcomm runs on Linux (Android) all the time

Yes, but usually they run on very old kernels, with many of the drivers patched out of tree instead of being upstreamed. Because of that many system components(firmware, bootloader, etc) are either old, unmaintained, buggy, or affected by lots of CVEs.

This new SOC, has Qualcomm's commitment to be using the latest kernel - 6.9 and to have better support. We'll see what this means for the future, but it looks better already.

yeah we'll see... the historical evidence is entirely contrary to this

Yeah, you are right. Android is a variant of Linux.

Just like MacOS and iPadOS, both run Darwin kernel, but they are very different. Even though iPads have very capable hardware, there are a lot you cannot do on iPadOS.

The same applies to Linux. People want a real desktop operating system.

All that iPadOS needs to do is to be able to run macOS apps.

Found the fervent GNU worshipper.

Jokes aside, yes: Android is a Linux.

Just like how Xbox is Windows NT, and MacOS (and iOS?) is(/are?) BSD.

Delineating along kernels is one useful and objective way of describing OS families.

Unfortunately, when people call their os Linux, they typically are referring to its kernel. I wish there was a better term to distinguish Linux distros from the kernel.

Qualcomm has some work to do to build trust. Step one make the docs as easy to get as say the Intel x86 references without a bunch of horseshit lawyer shite.

Step 2, actually document the part well enough for third party implementers.

Step 3 don’t threaten to sue everyone and anything that glances at it.

Are we getting x86 emulation, or is that stuck being windows only?

There are two or three x86 emulators for ARM Linux. The Asahi community has a bunch of Windows/x86 games working on Linux/ARM.

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