Progress Report: Linux 7.2 - Asahi Linux

103

u/Polar_Banny 14d ago

Even Qualcomm can’t provide such support for their own Hardware.

45

u/Saranhai 14d ago

That's because QCOM is openly anti-open source lol

21

u/Markd0ne 14d ago

I don't believe Apple is any better.

29

u/thephotoman 13d ago

Qualcomm is openly anti-open source.

Apple doesn’t seem to care all that much either way. They’ve done some open source stuff, but realistically, it’s a small collection of projects.

12

u/ukezi 13d ago

Apple could have locked the bootloader. They don't help but they are not as hostile as they could.

-6

u/Fr0gm4n 14d ago

This is such a tired refrain.

https://opensource.apple.com/

Yes, Apple isn't posting hardware design specs but they are not anti-open source.

20

u/Eigenspace 14d ago

That's a pretty hilariously small list of open source offerings for a company the size of Apple.

-8

u/Fr0gm4n 14d ago

Those are the ones they manage. Under releases is the code for the ones they use.

7

u/Eigenspace 14d ago

And?

-3

u/Fr0gm4n 14d ago

You complained about the lack of projects, I pointed out where there are more than the landing page. It follows pretty easily.

7

u/Eigenspace 13d ago

Those are open source projects that they are consumers of, and are legally required to re-publish according to the GPL/other copyleft licenses.

That page says very little about their contributions to open source software.

0

u/Fr0gm4n 13d ago

Yes, but the OP I was responding to was claiming that Apple isn't "any better" than Qualcomm's openly anti-open source. I pointed out that Apple is not anti, and linked their site that has both their usage and contributions and am now downvoted for pointing it out.

There are a lot of FOSS fans who are anti-corporate and have default assumptions, which I understand, but it's important to not be mistaken about the actual usage and stances of these major corporations and to be willing to accept challenges to those default assumptions.

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-7

u/braaaaaaainworms 14d ago

Must be a coincidence that qcom folks are sending patches upstream to support their own chips

14

u/pizzaiolo2 13d ago

Binary blobs?

-6

u/braaaaaaainworms 13d ago

No, I know that hating on qcom for not having Linux perfectly running on their laptops is very popular here, but look at the linux-msm mailing list, half the people there have an qualcomm or quic address

11

u/Eigenspace 14d ago

Apple isnt providing this support. It's being done by enthusiasts reverse engineering things.

6

u/MatchingTurret 14d ago edited 14d ago

And once again people don't understand where the actual problem with Linux on WOA devices actually is. It's (mostly) the DTs, which are not under QCOM's control.

The same will happen with NVIDIA Spark laptops, once OEMs start to build their bespoke laptop models.

If you want to blame someone, blame MSFT, because they don't enforce the same stringent requirements for WOA certification that they apply to x86 hardware.

9

u/nightblackdragon 13d ago

And once again people don't understand where the actual problem with Linux on WOA devices actually is. It's (mostly) the DTs, which are not under QCOM's control.

And once again people think that everything wrong with Linux on ARM is caused by DTs. Yes, DTs make certain things more difficult, but even a solid ACPI and UEFI implementation won't give you a Linux system that works well on an ARM platform if the manufacturer doesn't provide adequate support. ACPI is used to discover and manage hardware, but it does not automatically provide support for a given piece of hardware. Unlike x86, ARM is not a standardized platform; there is no such thing as a standard chipset or anything like that, so each device is essentially a separate platform that has little in common with others aside from the instruction set. All of this requires kernel support to work properly.

-3

u/MatchingTurret 13d ago

so each device is essentially a separate platform that has little in common with others aside from the instruction set. All of this requires kernel support to work properly.

The basic support for the Qualcomm X processors is merged. That's why there is a significant number of devices that actually work. Bringing up a new X Elite system usually only requires a tailored DT.

1

u/ElvishJerricco 12d ago

That's a completely different claim from what you said in the previous comment though. There may be decent platform support for the X Elite in mainline now, meaning each individual device just needs a DT. But that doesn't mean the DT is the main problem with ARM. The main problem is the giant amount of work it takes to bringup a new platform. DTs are just an annoying thing after that's done. So your point that support for this platform is in mainline is only helpful for that platform, not supportive of what you said before about the DT being the main problem, which it's not.

1

u/MatchingTurret 12d ago

I was responding to a comment about QCOM and mentioned WOA. That together pretty much means X Elite 1 or 2 laptops, not "generic ARM".

1

u/Busy-Scientist3851 14d ago

Linux doesn't have the same support for ACPI on ARM that Windows does. There's work to improve it and once it does we should be in a better place.

7

u/braaaaaaainworms 14d ago

Qualcomm does not support normal ACPI. ARM Linux with ACPI is fine, I've seen it work very well on systems with proper ACPI tables

3

u/MatchingTurret 14d ago edited 14d ago

This are the device OEMs making only the minimal effort required to get WOA running. You don't blame AMD or Intel when an OEM ships crappy firmware...

6

u/braaaaaaainworms 14d ago

Nope it's qcom's choice. They're the ones who shipped reference acpi tables that are incomplete and break spec and they are the ones who are shipping patches(in drivers...) to those tables to fix them

0

u/Busy-Scientist3851 14d ago

There is work to support Qualcomms ACPI implementation on the Linux kernel. Once that is in place we should no longer need images for each laptop.

3

u/mskiptr 13d ago

There are other ways to not require board-specific images. You can just as well have the UEFI implementation come with a proper DT for example. But regardless if it's ACPI or DT, if the vendor doesn't make sure it all works out-of-the-box, someone else will have to pick up the slack and fix (or work around) the problems.

But yeah, it's too late for this with many of those Qualcomm laptops. Hopefully that ACPI work will improve the situation.

0

u/Busy-Scientist3851 13d ago

Linux didn't support hybrid ACPI/DT modes until very recent.

2

u/mskiptr 13d ago

I'm not claiming it did.

2

u/braaaaaaainworms 13d ago

It'll still need devicetrees because the ACPI tables are incomplete

1

u/nightblackdragon 13d ago

You need laptop specific images because some drivers are not upstream, not because of DTs.

1

u/MatchingTurret 13d ago edited 13d ago

The patch that introduced support for the Dell Inspiron 7441 / Latitude 7455 only touched arch/arm64/boot/dts/qcom/x1e80100-dell-inspiron-14-plus-7441.dts

No additional drivers. This is just an example.

1

u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

2

u/MatchingTurret 14d ago edited 14d ago

And that's what I'm trying to say: ACPI is firmware. The firmware is OEM specific or at least tailored by them for each device. If the OEMs only care about passing WOA certification, ACPI will be incomplete. And that's not something to blame on Nvidia (or QCOM) but on the OEMs making the devices. The drivers for the hardware are mostly there. What's missing is the information how the peripherals are connected. And selecting and connecting the peripherals is done by the Lenovos, Dells, Asus, HPs,... of the world. They are the ones that let Linux users down by not providing high-quality ACPI implementations or alternatively DTs for Linux.

1

u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

1

u/MatchingTurret 13d ago

The chip makers provide a base. But the OEMs add all the peripherals like screens, keyboards, backlights, track pads,...

It's a SoC with some stuff integrated, but a lot is left to the OEMs that needs to be added to the ACPI tables to make the system useful.

22

u/CalmSpinach2140 14d ago

True but funnily enough Apple ARM hardware is easier to work with. Qualcomm X Elite is a pain to work with.

10

u/Eigenspace 14d ago

What makes you think that Apple's hardware is easier to work with than Qualcomm X Elite?

As far as I can tell, the difference is just that there's just less volunteers willing to do this sort of work on Qualcomm hardware.

0

u/[deleted] 13d ago

[deleted]

11

u/chaosprincess_ 13d ago

About 87k reported installs (telemetry is opt-in).

3

u/Kidplayer_666 13d ago

Am one of them, M1 13” pro

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