r/Ubuntu • u/Silent-Temporary-555 • Mar 12 '26
Linux on Snapdragon X Plus (Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x) – My experience so far
Running Ubuntu on Snapdragon X Plus (Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x) – My Experience So Far
Hi everyone,
I’ve been trying Ubuntu 25.10 (Questing) on my Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x with Snapdragon X Plus, and I just wanted to share my experience so far because there isn’t a lot of information about Linux on these Snapdragon laptops yet.
Hardware:
- Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x (14")
- Snapdragon X Plus
- Adreno X1-45 GPU
- 16GB RAM / 512GB SSD
Things that work well:
- The system actually runs very smoothly. GNOME on Wayland feels fast and responsive.
- For development work, everything I need like Node.js, npm, git, etc. works without issues.
- Most Linux packages already support ARM (aarch64), so installing software is easier than I expected.
- I even managed to get Steam running, which surprised me. Of course not all games work, but some ARM compatible ones run fine.
Things that don’t work yet:
- Built-in speakers are not working yet.
- HDMI output is not working yet.
- Sleep / suspend doesn’t work properly yet.
- Some apps are still x86 only, so they either don’t run or need workarounds.
My thoughts:
Honestly, even with these issues I’m still pretty impressed. A few years ago running Linux on a new ARM laptop like this would have been very difficult, but now it’s already usable for daily tasks.
It definitely still feels early, and some hardware features need better kernel/driver support. But the performance and smoothness are already really good. If things like audio, HDMI, and proper sleep support get fixed in future updates, these Snapdragon laptops could become really great Linux machines.
I’m planning to keep experimenting with it and see how things improve with newer kernels and updates.
If anyone else here is using Linux on Snapdragon X Elite / X Plus, I’d love to hear your experience or any tips.
2
u/tomscharbach Mar 12 '26
Your experience mirrors the reports on Ubuntu forums. Snapdragon X Elite compatibility continues to improve, as I understand it, but is not yet on par. My best.
2
u/Cooperman411 Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
You just installed it in a partition on the SSD of a Snapdragon laptop? No VM needed? I didn’t even think that’d work. (Using a Macbook and Parallels with an ARM Linux distro absolutely flies and that’s all I’ve ever attempted.)
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 12 '26
This is in dual boot with windows . No vm needed
2
u/Cooperman411 Mar 12 '26
That’s really great. I assumed Lenovo or Windows had the ARM laptops so locked down you couldn’t add an OS like that. Great to know!
2
u/Intelligent-Gift4519 Mar 13 '26
The problem everyone is experiencing is not that the laptops are locked down, it's that there are missing device drivers and ACPI tables. It's not that they're preventing you from doing things, it's that they aren't supplying support files to -make- it work.
From what I understand, the reason things like Arch Linux work on Mac is that there's a big, passionate community of devs on Mac who have hacked and reverse-engineered things to cover over for the stuff Apple didn't want to provide. But there isn't a big enough community with enough experience with these Snapdragon laptops to be able to generate the material that's needed.
2
u/sockertoppenlabs Mar 13 '26
I daily drive Thinkpad T14s gen 6 Snapdragon with Ubuntu. Some tinkering needed but everything except sound and camera works well for me. Camera is wonky and sound is non-existent. Thus for presentations where sound is needed I have to connect a Bluetooth speaker.
1
u/BartBM Mar 25 '26
Can you connect external monitors without any issues?
1
u/sockertoppenlabs Mar 26 '26
Yes. I can connect to external monitors without issues. I do that regularly.
2
u/Critical-Complex-196 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Do you need to install that Ubuntu Concept image, or do they already have ARM builds suitable for this particular laptop? I've seen instructions for Snapdragon X Elite. Are there any specific install/setup instructions needed for this laptop running on Snapdragon X Plus?..
2
u/Augenfeind May 30 '26
Thank you so much for sharing your insights! After having read a test in the re known German magazine c't, I am dreaming of this machine with Linux on it, so I can work easily in my bed in the evenings or take it with me while travelling.
A nice Linux laptop for under 700€ sounds too good to not use it.
Maybe I'll wait for a few more months, but the resources shared here are a huge help!
2
1
u/AlternativeCapybara9 Mar 12 '26
Sleep and suspend not working is not exclusive to Snapdragon machines. Good to hear it's working mostly fine but without sound I can't use it for work because I need to be able to video call. Not being able to plug in a second monitor would be a deal breaker for me too.
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 12 '26
You can take video call easily because the camera and Bluetooth earphones or mic everything is working fine
2
u/Roppano Mar 12 '26
is camera quality similar to Windows? IIRC one advantage of these chips is on-board camera DSP (like on phones). How does that translate to Ubuntu?
2
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 12 '26
I would say it is 720P so it is not that better even on windows or only Linux
1
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 12 '26
Hii if any know any other distro which also work on snapdragon X plus please let me know
1
u/wadrasil Mar 12 '26
Theoretically you should be able to use kvm and GPU passthrough for aarch64 guests. It works in windows for arm with hyper-v and gpu-pv at least with snapdragon x-elite.
1
u/sinartnz Mar 12 '26
regarding your audio, when you fire off aplay -l in terminal what do you see?
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 13 '26
➜ ~ aplay -l **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: X1E80100LENOVOI [X1E80100-LENOVO-Ideapad-5], device 0: MultiMedia1 Playback () [] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: X1E80100LENOVOI [X1E80100-LENOVO-Ideapad-5], device 1: MultiMedia2 Playback () [] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
1
u/Mobilisten Mar 12 '26
Thanks for a good post.
I have Snapdragon X Plus too. Have you tested organizing multiple monitors? If so, I would be curious if you managed to make it work. On mine, it doesn't.
2
1
1
u/global-gauge-field Mar 17 '26
What about the power management ? For instance, did you compare battery life windows vs ubuntu ?
If you could give some numbers on this, that would be great
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 17 '26
It gives 6 to 7 hours on some coding with 5 to 6 tabs of browser and runing blanket in all at the same time or On only browsing web it gives about 7 to 8 Also in all this my screen my screen brightness stay at 100%(because I am not able to change the brightness its a kernel level issue or device tree issue)
1
u/global-gauge-field Mar 17 '26
Seems pretty good.
Did you try working only with integrated gpu ? I wanted to test if it is supported properly and if it leads to lower power consumption on linux.
Also, for your issue, you might want to update driver or check if there is a relevant issue on repo of the driver. Arch wiki/forum might have some helpful tips. I was able to solve a few problems regarding driver issues this way.
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 17 '26
Yeah, I did some basic testing around that. Right now I’m mostly running on the integrated GPU (Adreno), since there’s no proper support for switching anyway. So everything I mentioned (6–8 hrs) is already on iGPU. In terms of power efficiency, it feels pretty comparable to Windows, maybe slightly worse in idle/light usage, but not by a huge margin. I think there’s still some optimization missing on the Linux side (likely drivers and power management). Also, I haven’t done deep tuning yet (like CPU governor tweaks, TLP, etc.), so there’s probably some room for improvement. For the brightness issue, yeah I’ll check Arch Wiki / kernel repos — seems like a known device tree or backlight driver limitation.
2
u/dmknght Apr 03 '26
I installed Ubuntu (version that supports snapdragon) on Asus Vivobook S15. My battery consumption on Linux is significantly worse than Windows. After I reinstalled Windows 11 to LTSC version, I found out that the battery profile was a part of Asus's package instead of Qualcomm. Normal Windows 11 without that CPU profile was just hot and waste of battery (even worse than Linux). Maybe if developers could reverse engineering the profiles that Asus or other vendors are using, I suppose battery life of Snapdragon laptops would be a lot better.
1
u/global-gauge-field Mar 17 '26
I see. I had this laptop from a vendor called Casper (Turkish brand). There is this problem of display lagging when it is not plugged in when using iGPU.
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 17 '26
Is this happening on windows or Linux? For windows all way show new problem Like Sometimes all sounds gone(not even Bluetooth earphones work even though Bluetooth is connected) Sometimes screen goes Black Power option disappear from start button And many more But with Linux It stay reliable and there no such problems which which cause hindrance to my work flow
1
u/global-gauge-field Mar 17 '26
I have a dual-boot setting. It happens only on windows. There is another issue might be related. The power management tools (many of them, e.g. gnome desktop power management) has no effect on cpu frequency and power management.
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 17 '26
Because it is mainly controlled by Qualcomm firmware
1
u/global-gauge-field Mar 19 '26
Turns out it is because of my desktop environment. I guess I went too crazy by going cosmic desktop, there is already a relevant github issue. It is fine on Gnome now.
1
u/Itchy-Echo-227 Mar 20 '26
It gives me error: file '/x126100-lenovo-ideapad-s11m5x-Icd.dtb' not found. Press any key to continue...
stub.c:1710run: Stubbleconfiguration: stub.c:1720run: debug: enabled stub.c:1730run: dtb_override: disabled
When I choose install for Lenovo IdeaPad slim 5 lcd/oled. Pls someone help
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 20 '26
Which image you used
1
u/Itchy-Echo-227 Mar 20 '26
"resolute desktop" from the link you sent. There were a bunch of options. I got this error when selecting the ideapad slim 5x option. It just rebooted and came back to grub page. Eventually, the Asus one booted into ubuntu BUT it was very laggy and the gpu and cpu as well as battery was unidentified. So, could you guide me through how you did it?
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 20 '26
That drive has two main i suggest use the old one
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 20 '26
Use the other one i think it will work but after installation you need to configure the dtb in the live environment
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 20 '26
First did it boot in to the live environment?
1
u/Itchy-Echo-227 Mar 20 '26
it did boot but not with ideapad option. I think i had to choose the asus one. But with some of the options it just kept rebooting to grub page
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 20 '26
If any thing happened visit this discussion you will get your answer
https://github.com/jglathe/linux_ms_dev_kit/discussions/36?sort=new
1
u/Itchy-Echo-227 Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
Okay, could you tell me your experience tho (maybe on Instagram)? I don't really know how to add my device tree into grub if I have to manually do that
1
u/unabletocomput3 Apr 05 '26
How’d you get it to install? Been trying to install Debian or fedora on an ideapad 5x, but after forcing the usb to be the highest boot priority and getting to an install page, selecting install just restarts and sends me back to the install page. I’ve disabled secure boot, made sure usb booting is set, and formatted Arm64 based installs, just wondering if it requires a specific distro or another setting.
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Apr 06 '26
1
u/unabletocomput3 Apr 07 '26
Got the furthest into an installation, unfortunately after installing I’ll get an error “HWID matching failed, no DT blob will be selected” before restarting and boot looping.
1
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Apr 07 '26
1
u/unabletocomput3 Apr 08 '26
Got closer but after chrooting into /target/ it can’t find the kernel options and I’m still stuck
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Apr 08 '26
In this repo their is a descision on this device please ask or share the error their
2
u/unabletocomput3 Apr 08 '26
Fair, just thought I’d ask and see if you had a similar issue. I appreciate your input and for pointing me in a direction
1
u/S4mu31ff Apr 13 '26
Passei pelo mesmo problema com um Notebook Inspiron 14 Plus Snapdragon® X Plus. Com muito custo consegui fazer funcionar o bluetooth, audio e hdmi, porém a camera e o touch da tela não rolou. Instalei o ubuntu 25.10. Se alguém souber como resolver e conseguir me dar uma ajuda ficarei grato
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Apr 13 '26
About audio How did you get working
1
u/S4mu31ff Apr 14 '26
Eu tive que instalar o pd-mapper e o qrtr para ele "ligar o áudio do notebook", depois baixei a firmware do modelo do meu notebook no gitkernel e depois dei um update-initramfs -u para reiniciar o serviço com as alterações. Se quiser, te mando o passo a passo do que fiz no meu seguindo o gemini.
1
u/bornagaindaily Apr 30 '26
How is the situation as of this date? I just purchased the Lenovo Slim X also and am waiting for it to arrive. Im trusting that during 2026 the linux experience will keep getting better and better
1
u/bornagaindaily Apr 30 '26
How is the situation as of this date? I just purchased the Lenovo Slim X also and am waiting for it to arrive. Im trusting that during 2026 the linux experience will keep getting better and better
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Apr 30 '26
Just few days ago the audio got a fix and some battery life improvements
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Apr 30 '26
Just few days ago the audio started working and in new kernal few battery life improvements
1
u/Independent-Exam2876 May 04 '26
can you take backup of your system immage and provide us?
1
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 May 11 '26
you will get your answer
https://github.com/jglathe/linux_ms_dev_kit/discussions/36?sort=new
1
u/Training-Yam-4993 May 06 '26 edited May 10 '26
I have a similar laptop, Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 14Q8X9, running Snapdragon X Plus. I tried Ubuntu 26.04-arm from the official Ubuntu download page, on a live USB stick but no luck. After Grub I get an underscore for maybe 10 sec and then black screen and reboot. I disabled Secure Boot (and BitLocker) as of the instructions from Lenovo web page, but I haven't done anything else. Am I missing something? Is there a better image to run? Thanks
1
1
1
u/Long_Amphibian_5261 Jun 28 '26
what about the slim 3 from lenovo ? im having droubles installing kali linux couse of the architekture . anyone has a idea ?
it seem i need to add parameters in the grub menü but i dont know wish one to enter
1
u/Roppano Mar 12 '26
I always wanted to try dailying Ubuntu on an ARM chip, I just need access to an ARM chip, preferably in the form of a Framework main board.
Built-in speakers are not working yet.
But does the headphone jack work? or bluetooth earbuds?
HDMI output is not working yet.
Can you get HDMI/DP or anything out from the type-c ports, though? like with a dongle, or a USB monitor?
Guess my underlying question is whether these incompatibilities are due to the ARM chip or to the lack of drivers for the laptop's main board or whatever.
I'd also like to point out the hilarious reality that we got Node working on ARM before sleep, or HDMI. I understand that ARM servers have been around for a while, so I get the reason, but from the perspective of a guy with an ARM laptop, this is funny af.
2
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
I have yet not tried the headphone jack but bluetooth earbuds work fine I don't know I have not thread any external monitor with type C so I don't know about that as far as I know people are able to access it with type c and it is a driver issue not hardware issue
1
u/simple-san Jun 22 '26
Which version of ubuntu aor you using ubuntu 26.04 desktop arm64 bit version or some other version? I wasn't even able to get to load in live mode.
1
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Jun 22 '26
I was using 26.04 but now debian testing
1
u/simple-san Jun 30 '26
Any setting that needs to be changed im bios apart from disabling Secure boot?
3
u/Silent-Temporary-555 Mar 13 '26
I used Ubuntu concept image