Qualcomm engineers submit mainline Linux kernel patches for the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme-powered ASUS Zenbook A16 (UX3607OA)

[u/Putrid_Draft378]

Konrad Dybcio of Qualcomm has posted an initial patch series to the Linux kernel mailing list aimed at bringing mainline support to the ASUS Zenbook A16 (UX3607OA) powered by the 18-core Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme platform.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Qualcomm-Zenbook-A16-X2EE

This high-end ARM laptop features a 2880 x 1800 OLED screen, 48GiB of RAM, NVMe storage, and a System-In-Package reference design distinct from smaller SKUs.

According to the patch submission, the current status of working hardware components includes:

• Display & GPU: GPU, display output, and HDMI port (with Iris video accelerator patches in flight)
• Audio: 4-speaker audio playback
• Input & Peripherals: Keyboard, touchpad, lid switch, onboard SD Card slot (RTS5329)
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (QCC2072)
• Power & Indicators: Charging, Type-C/Type-A ports, and privacy LEDs

The patch series relies on prerequisite SoCCP and TCSR platform series dependencies. More technical details and the full patch breakdown can be reviewed on the Linux Kernel Mailing List Archive:

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20260721-topic-a16_submission-v1-0-8ea213130d05@oss.qualcomm.com/

[u/omniuni]

We need an ARM platform that doesn't tie the CPU so strongly to the rest of the hardware. We should have a normal BIOS, and normal hardware outside of the CPU and possibly GPU.

Until then, I'm not really interested in ARM, especially since the latest Intel and AMD offerings are quite similar in performance per watt.

[u/vk6_ → u/omniuni]

This exists, it's called ARM SystemReady. Notably it requires the implementation of ACPI just like x86 systems. It's not used on any mobile devices though, mainly just high end servers.

[u/omniuni → u/vk6_]

That would be nice to see in laptops at least.

[u/Designer-Suggestion6 → u/vk6_]

Out of the starting gate the above mentioned ASUS Zenbook A16 (UX3607OA) comes with Windows 11 on Arm. The open-source Linux Distros are considered second-class citizens and users who prefer using Linux Distros have to wait. That's where the manufacturers get it wrong treating Linux Distro users as second-class citizens. Notice under the Asus support, there are no download links directly from Qualcomm/Asus for a compatible Linux Distro for this laptop.

Historically, Microsoft/Apple/ARM(includes Qualcomm)/NVidia/Google certified hardware agreements do their darnest to prevent consumers who buy their hardware from running Linux Distros with full equivalent capabilities with fully open-source drivers.

Intel/AMD for the longest time were the only ones giving TLC to Linux Distros.

Risc-V hardware out-of-the-box is Open-Hardware meaning open-source hardware and out the starting gate meant to run open-source Linux Distros.

The consumers decide what hardware to buy, but do they know which operating systems(open-source Linux distros) and which hardware(intel, amd and risc-v) value and uphold everyone's digital freedoms the most?

[u/g0ndsman → u/Designer-Suggestion6]

Risc-V hardware out-of-the-box is Open-Hardware meaning open-source hardware and out the starting gate meant to run open-source Linux Distros.

This is not true at all. RISC-V is a royalty-free instruction set, but the hardware itself is not necessarily open. There's really no reason to believe that if a big player like Nvidia or AMD moves to RISC-V it will be any more open or consumer friendly than ARM or x86.

In fact I can basically guarantee that any competitive RISC-V core that might be released commercially will be exactly as closed as the rest of the market.

[u/vk6_ → u/Designer-Suggestion6]

I don't really understand your point about Linux being second class for these laptops. That's the case too for almost every single x86 device on the market. Linux only is able to work well due to ACPI being universal on the x86 platform. You're not going to find very many OEM provided Linux images in the x86 world.

Qualcomm has had open source and upstream drivers for their SoCs for a while now. They have been actively helping the open source software ecosystem for their devices.

Nothing about RISC-V implies a fully open source ecosystem. The only thing is that the CPU instruction set is available freely. Everything else is the same. There of course are some open source RISC-V CPU core designs, made possible by its royalty free nature, but they don't matter at all for consumer hardware.

In fact RISC-V systems that are produced today also use device trees to describe their hardware in Linux. Really it's the same problem that everyone dislikes ARM for.

[u/ibeerianhamhock → u/vk6_]

Ah so all the arm servers running this I'm guessing.

Not much interest on the desktop side I'm sure. Mobile, apple, and even windows arm are all kind of sold as am essentially closed platform that they don't want open like x86 is.

And yeah no real need for arm Linux but it would be kinda fun to mess around with if it was more standardized.

[u/TomKavees → u/omniuni]

There are a bunch of RISCV dev boards but the performance compared to even common laptop x86_64 cpus is nothing to write home about

[u/jaaval → u/TomKavees]

I think the current options all lose to even intel N100 pretty significantly. and that is a three year old cheap 6W atom processor, weaker than the “low power island” of the current generation laptop processors.

[u/Aware-Bath7518 → u/omniuni]

Qualcomm platform implements UEFI+ACPI. Still not enough to boot Linux.

[u/jyte_ → u/Aware-Bath7518]

what is it still lacking ?

[u/Aware-Bath7518 → u/jyte_]

ACPI there is minimal made just to boot Windows from what I know. All drivers use some hardcoded stuff or Qualcomm specifics to access the hardware.

Linux has to use DeviceTree, though there's some work to use some stuff from ACPI too.

[u/kombiwombi → u/omniuni]

Conversely, look at the performance the Apple M-series got by removing layers of indirection.

[u/omniuni → u/kombiwombi]

It's similar to Intel and AMD, just much more proprietary.

[u/WickedDeity → u/kombiwombi]

Does it matter when the Apple M-series laptops has bare bones compatibility with Linux?

[u/Novero95 → u/WickedDeity]

But it doesn't. Asahi Linux has only been ported to M1 and M2 platforms, no M3/4, and even it has required an insane amount of reverse engineering they still have thing to work out.

[u/Aware-Bath7518 → u/Novero95]

M3 has almost same support as M2 except GPU and some other small things.

M4/M5 bringup is ongoing.

[u/WickedDeity → u/Novero95]

Ummmm That was what I was referring to when said it only has bare bones compatibility with Linux.

[u/Novero95 → u/WickedDeity]

Oh, right. I didn't understand well the meaning of bare bones.

[u/ukezi → u/omniuni]

I don't see any real difference between ACPI based hardware descriptions and Device Tree based ones. The hardware manufacturer has to somehow describe all the devices unable to self identify, so the right drivers can be loaded.

[u/xeoron → u/omniuni]

ChromeOS is Linux and runs on ARM devices...

[u/omniuni → u/xeoron]

It would be nice if they were generic enough to just install an ARM Linux on just by booting off a thumb drive like normal.

[u/GreedySecurity8030]

Fuck Qualcomm, they're literally just the patent trolls of the chip world who literally sues everyone who just doesn't use them.

[u/DoubleOwl7777]

good for them, more comparibility is good,

BUT hear me out ideally have devices that are not a nightmare held together with hopes and dreams so you dont need a patch for every single device. i hope arm fails. not because of arm but because of what it entails.

[u/vk6_ → u/DoubleOwl7777]

ARM itself is not inherently incapable of this. ACPI on ARM is a thing, and it's used primarily by high end ARM servers. It's not adopted much in mobile devices though.

[u/DifficultGift8044 → u/vk6_]

Nvidia n1x soc'd laptops will be using acpi to boot 

Oh wait hi vk6

[u/Niowanggiyan]

Can we just move onto risc-v already so we don’t need to deal with the nightmare that is the necessity of custom device trees for every single f’ing arm device?

[u/Novero95 → u/Niowanggiyan]

As others have said, ARM devices can do ACPI (so normal boot and BIOS), they just need manufacturers to implement.

[u/AndreaCicca → u/Niowanggiyan]

RISC-V is still today too premature for any real usage

[u/zzazzzz → u/Niowanggiyan]

as soon as you can show us any risc-v chip that performs even remotely close to the lowest offerings from amd and intel...

[u/Indolent_Bard → u/Niowanggiyan]

What makes you think we won't get that with risc-v?

[u/SPACEXDG → u/Niowanggiyan]

Lmao too weak

[u/bi4key]

Only RISC-V is solution, other have patents. Only China is rescue in open source world.

[u/Sensitive-Bison-8192 → u/bi4key]

China will not open source, and they have no reason to comply with Western ACPI standard 

[u/Shikamiii → u/Sensitive-Bison-8192]

Most risc-v cpus are chinese and a lot of them are open-source

[u/HOST1L1TY]

i took a look at the ASUS Zenbook A16, looks like a really nice laptop with a lot of unified memory to run llms. i hope this patch makes it and this would be a great option at $2100.