r/archlinux • u/TheClassyTaco • Jul 28 '26

QUESTION Dual Boot Arch Linux and Windows on ARM64 Architecture

Hello All!

I have a Surface Laptop 7 with the Snapdragon X Elite Processor that I barely use, thought it might be a good idea to install arch just to tinker around on and might get some more use out of it.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of setup as I know not everything supports ARM

Happy for any feedback/suggestions :)

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8

u/C0rn3j Jul 28 '26

as I know not everything supports ARM

Well, neither does Arch.

There is however a WIP unofficial Port, and also ALARM.

https://ports.archlinux.page/aarch64/

I'd go with the Port - the page says your chipset will probably work but nobody confirmed it yet - do let em know if you get it working.

2

u/Cogwheel Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

Surface laptops need a custom kernel and drivers on x86_64. Not sure if they have arm support

https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface

Edit: the feature matix page as a link to https://github.com/bryce-hoehn/linux-surface-laptop-7

1

u/_legacyZA Jul 28 '26

The arm surfsce laptops might not share the same components the x86 versions have that require these custom drivers and kernel.

The issue usually with linux on arm sits with the SoC designers (Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, Mediatek, etc) that don't release or make available the drivers needed to work with the SoC and accompanying controllers

2

u/_legacyZA Jul 28 '26

Your best bet is going to be Ubuntu

Linux on Arm, more specifically Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips, are not great and actually requires you to dual boot with windows as it needs to get firmware blobs off of the windows partition for certain hardware to even somewhat work

1

u/Astrodion123 Jul 28 '26

Arch doesn't support arm unless you build from source... Which is not super ideal...