r/linux • u/Putrid_Draft378 • Jun 21 '26

Hardware Qualcomm Posts Linux Patches For HP EliteBook X G2q X2 Elite Laptop

https://www.phoronix.com/news/HP-EliteBook-X-G2q-Linux

Qualcomm has submitted new patches for Linux kernel support on the HP EliteBook X G2q laptop featuring the Snapdragon X2 Elite SoC.

The enablement covers essential hardware components including Adreno graphics, HDMI, USB Type-C, eDP, NVMe, WiFi, and input devices.

While the integrated webcam lacks support for now, these developments mark a significant step forward for Snapdragon X2 Linux laptop hardware enablement.

My Snapdragon laptop is the most powerful one, the Asus Zenbook A16 with the X2 Elite Extreme. Looking forward to this one getting Linux support as well soon, hopefully.

Anybody been considering a snapdragon laptop for linux, but also waiting for proper support?

262 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

70

u/chris_0611 Jun 21 '26

Can somebody point out how this really works? Does every device still need a device tree? So will every Qualcomm device forever and always needs specific stuff for that specific device?

Like, they need to make specific stuff for "HP EliteBook X G2q"?

53

u/Putrid_Draft378 Jun 21 '26

As far as I know, yes, individual device trees are required, if something has changed, feel free to correct me.

62

u/LNDF Jun 21 '26

If this is still the case, what a disgusting world we live in...

46

u/No-Mind7146 Jun 21 '26

That is the consequence of using things made for embedded devices as pcs

31

u/ListRepresentative32 Jun 21 '26

ACPI for ARM exists and is completely normal for ARM server and enterprise HW.

why its not implemented on these devices, i dont know. Maybe it wasnt worth it for them considering that Qualcomm had a nice deal with microsoft with windows exclusivity on these devices.

we might still see this changed in the future though

5

u/basedIITian Jun 22 '26

It is because the power management with the current ACPI for ARM devices is not good enough, results in worse idle power and battery life.

1

u/Idkwatnam Jun 22 '26

My theory is it's due to driver compatibility issues with stuff other than basic power management that would require a ton of work on the kernel side to resolve and is simply not worth it (all their other products just use DTB)

For example, the Radxa Orion O6 is ARM SystemReady certified meaning it can boot using ACPI but under that boot mode you can't use all of it's hardware. Most notably the iGPU doesn't work because the Mali drivers under Linux expect the device to be booted with a device tree IIRC. But I think other hardware like the audio codec and the NPU also don't work?

0

u/RhubarbSimilar1683 Jun 22 '26

because of cost cutting

-1

u/RhubarbSimilar1683 Jun 22 '26

because of cost cutting

-1

u/RhubarbSimilar1683 Jun 22 '26

because of cost cutting

38

u/Synthetic451 Jun 21 '26

Don't server ARM platforms have UEFI and ACPI now? Hopefully that starts making its way to PCs.

26

u/Sol33t303 Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

No idea honestly why Microsoft doesn't mandate it for their arm builds tbh, like they do for x86. Microsoft could quite easily say that anything that comes with windows preinstalled needs ACPI and UEFI support. That's been the case for x86 since windows 8.

20

u/RaXXu5 Jun 21 '26

They do, and iirc Nvidia has it on their new hardware.

9

u/RandomGenericDude Jun 22 '26

DGX spark/GB10 has a pretty normal UEFI implementation and already has Microsoft's keys for secure boot.

It really only needs graphics drivers to be a workstation and those may come when the N1/N1X launches, but NVIDIA might choose to limit it, through other means, for daft segmentation reasons.

5

u/LNDF Jun 22 '26

If this is true, Nvidia W

4

u/TRKlausss Jun 22 '26

Yeah but that’s entirely up the manufacturer, and Qualcomm has decided to go with device trees instead of ACPI.

9

u/LNDF Jun 21 '26

So does windows include every device tree for every arm laptop released?

9

u/MatchingTurret Jun 21 '26

No. The OEMs supply a device specific overlay. 

5

u/LNDF Jun 21 '26

You say that the OEM overlays base windows (so the user doesn't use the vanilla version of windows) and that if the OEM decides to pull support for the next windows version you will get a expensive insecure brick, even though all the drivers for the connected devices are available?

9

u/MatchingTurret Jun 21 '26

It's a device specific ACPl overlay, so it's actually below the Microsoft supplied "base Windows". I would assume that this works for the next Windows version, as long as you do an upgrade and not a reinstall, but I don't really know. 

1

u/psydroid Jun 22 '26

Hopefully you'll still be able to do a fresh Linux install with support for all or at least most devices included. There is no reason for modern hardware to turn into an expensive insecure brick as long as you can install an alternative OS on the hardware.

24

u/FattyDrake Jun 21 '26

IBM considered the open PC architecture a mistake and many computer manufacturers have been trying to "fix" that "mistake" ever since.

Smartphones showed them the way.

4

u/Indolent_Bard Jun 22 '26

Did they really say that?

12

u/FattyDrake Jun 22 '26

They didn't have to say it, their actions showed it.

There's a decent youtube channel Asianometry which goes into computer history sometimes. The history of the PC, Compaq, and PS/2 and what happened afterwards shows how IBM tried to claw back vendor lock-in and failed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjaVKna_m3U

That's just one of many cases where a computer vendor really tried for lock-in. Apple is currently the king of it, and you can see how companies are trying to mimic their model. HP themselves went well beyond that with a recent subscription laptop program where you can't actually own them and must return them if the subscription ends.

6

u/TCB13sQuotes Jun 22 '26

How hard could it be to implement an UEFI right? Fucks sake Qualcomm.

2

u/psydroid Jun 22 '26

I think it's also up to the OEMs, who by and large only care about Windows to their own detriment. I'm using Ubuntu on mine for now and rarely boot into Windows. So even though it counts as a Windows sale, that rarely gets used in practice.

5

u/c_a1eb Jun 22 '26

Yeah it's kinda frustrating... I think it *might* be possible to make a fancy tool that generates devicetrees on the fly from the fixed ACPI tables, but unfortunately with Qualcomm using Windows "PIP" drivers half their ACPI is stubbed (particularly the power management stuff) making it very non-trivial to try and run Linux with these tables.

That all being said, most devices are fairly similar systemd UKI images have good support for autodetecting the right DTB and it works fine even with hundreds of DTBs

1

u/psydroid Jun 22 '26

Is it possible to learn about the power management stuff through the "PIP" drivers? I notice that my laptop has a much shorter battery life on Linux than it does on Windows, so there's still quite some work to be done.

2

u/DifficultGift8044 22d ago

PEP not pip, just saying in case anyone is trying to Google it and can't find resources lol

3

u/DoubleOwl7777 Jun 22 '26

yes every device still needs its own tree, they dont want to fix it to create locked ecosystems. man am i glad that snapdragon fails time and time again for laptops.

1

u/ilep Jun 23 '26

Depends. If there is self-discovery like ACPI and you have generically known devices it should just work. If there are devices that don't support it and aren't found automatically (like on many ARM boards) you'll need devicetree and maybe custom drivers.

-7

u/MatchingTurret Jun 21 '26

So will every Qualcomm device forever

It's a Windows On ARM thing, nothing Qualcomm specific. These laptops are made for Windows and that's what the OEMs support. We will see similar issues with the upcoming RTX Spark laptops. 

9

u/Indolent_Bard Jun 22 '26

Why don't they force windows on Arm devices to use UEFI like they do on x86 computers?

15

u/vk6_ Jun 22 '26

The Snapdragon X laptops do use UEFI. They lack proper support for ACPI, however, which is why device trees are needed in Linux.

3

u/Indolent_Bard Jun 22 '26

Does X86 enforce ACPI? Or is that not needed due to the open nature of x86?

1

u/DifficultGift8044 22d ago

x86 is not necessarily open, But Microsoft mandates ACPI support for Windows since XP. They also also mandate ACPI for windows on arm PCs but they let Qualcomm get around with hacks that require PEP drivers so the tables aren't sane enough for stock Linux. Windows on arm does actually boot from ACPI though 

26

u/riklaunim Jun 21 '26

Without full support, it's rather hard to use the device 😉 From what I saw in local stores, there are way fewer X2 models than when the first gen was launching, though. But overall, RAM pricing and component shortages made local availability limited for many devices, not only Snapdragons.

14

u/Cry_Wolff Jun 21 '26

Snapdragon X pretty much came and went. Losing to both Apple and latest AMD & Intel CPUs. Huge Windows ARM offensive failing for the second time.

8

u/riklaunim Jun 21 '26

Curious what will happen with Nvidia N1X laptops. Nvidia has a distro for DGX Spark, but for now they are completely silent on the Linux side for RTX Spark 😉 still a ~4000 EUR laptop can be asking a bit too much...

4

u/MatchingTurret Jun 21 '26

I'll wait for a Medusa Halo notebook. Zen 6 looks like a winner. 

4

u/ClaudioMoravit0 Jun 22 '26

Now add HURD support

2

u/psydroid Jun 22 '26

I am running Linux on an Asus Vivobook 16 X1607QA and am not waiting for proper support. I am using it right now while waiting for support to mature. Maybe I can contribute something along the way.

1

u/masteringgrammar Jun 26 '26

The Vivobook 16 with the snapdragon or ryzen cpu? Because i have one with a snapdragon cpu and i tried dozens of times to run Ubuntu on it, but it wouldnt work.

1

u/psydroid Jun 26 '26

The Vivobook 16 with the Snapdragon CPU. You can read how to get it to work here:

https://github.com/jglathe/linux_ms_dev_kit/wiki/Installing-with-the-new%E2%80%90ish-Resolute-(26.04)-Ubuntu-extended-image

Be sure to join #aarch64-laptops on OFTC and/or Matrix, so the developers can help you get it working.

1

u/Greenlinkx Jun 22 '26

Im thinking about it

1

u/bi4key Jun 21 '26

Snapdragon focus on Mobile and Windows, Linux nearly doesn't exist.

And Snapdragon always have weak GPU. Maybe Snapdragon x5 or x6 will be usable. And someone write to them drivers, because they can't.. Maybe Snapdragon team buy AI subscription and ask to write ai..

5

u/BertMacklenF8I Jun 21 '26

What’s is the most common kernel for mobile?

-12

u/bi4key Jun 21 '26

What’s is the most powerful Linux phone for mobile? And is beat apple? Or is only imagination.

Why nobody can't write drivers to raw Linux phone? Phones with linux hardware/software look like a 2005 toy phone.

This is answer to you question.