You guys think RISC will ever get there?
Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux laptop cancelled due to performance concerns — Linux PC maker says Qualcomm CPU is ‘less suitable for Linux than expected’
Submitted 2 weeks ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
the_q@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
lengau@midwest.social 2 weeks ago
As someone who owns several RISC-V devices the primary thing preventing usable (low end) RISC-V laptops is the GPUs. Most RISC-V silicon has Imagination GPUs, and the current state of the drivers there is “proprietary drivers stuck on an old LTS kernel.”
If someone makes an RVA23 compliant chip with open mainstreamable drivers and a BXS-4-64 GPU (or, better yet, somehow manages to license a GPU from Intel or AMD for it), that’ll be a cash cow.
Auli@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
And should make a chip. Risc V with their GPU.
BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Other than battery optimizations pretty much all of the issues don’t exist on something like a Raspberry Pi which is RISC architecture (Broadcom chips). Sounds like Qualcomm just doesn’t have their shit together.
kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
I think they mean RISC-V, not RISC in general.
jodanlime@midwest.social 2 weeks ago
ARM = Acorn Risc Machine
squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Mainly a question of money.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
isnt it inferior to qualcomm, the china doesnt exactly have access to the latest tech
BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The headline doesn’t quite reflect the situation, but it is difficult to capture in a headline.
Essentially add “for now”. Many of the issues are fixable but not necessarily by one laptop maker. As the article said by the time the issues were likely resolved the laptop would be obsolete as the version 2 of the chip would release.
Having said that, it’s not clear how fast the issues will resolve as without any devices there won’t be impetus to put fixes in to different parts of the ecosystem to get the full potential of the chipset.
The GPU sounds like the most serious problem and without manufacturer engagement may be the longest to get fixed.
mustbe3to20signs@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Well the Steam Frame could improve the GPU part since Valve and their partners put quiet some work to create proper Vulkan support for the used chip.
HyperfocusSurfer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
“Less suitable […] than expected” is kinda terrifying given expectations must’ve been pretty low in the 1st place knowing their history with linux…
thejml@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Treczoks@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Who the heck designs a laptop with an ARM core? Nothing against ARM, they are my bread and butter on the job. But whatever you do, choose the right tools for the right job.
IMALlama@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m not an Apple fanboy, but arm based processors seem to be working out fairly well for them.
I own an Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, which was one of the OG snapdragon x laptops released a (two?) and a half ago. It took a while for folks to get Linux to run on them and there’s enough of a barrier to entry that it’s still not very common. Most of the initial hurdles were due to Qualcomm bootloader shenanigans.
tempest@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
People stopped needing more processing power in their laptops years ago. For the majority of users a computer has long been a thin client for Chrome.
Since a lot of arm design has been around efficiency and performance per watt they would be a natural choice for laptops.
nyan@lemmy.cafe 2 weeks ago
There’s nothing wrong with ARM. Qualcomm, on the other hand . . .
goatinspace@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
The X1 elite is perfectly fine for most people performance wise and as much as I hate Qualcomm, we need the competition.
But yea, support for this is arriving to the market too late to matter.
DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf 2 weeks ago
Can’t say I’m surprised given how much Qualcomm has prioritized Windows over Linux support for years now.
potatoguy@lemmy.eco.br 2 weeks ago
Their drivers are SHIT, for wifi there is CNSS, ICNSS, then QMI, all do the same thing, but differently, but NO, it’s the same thing, but what does this do??? Is this really a different event or is this just rewritten in that event? Idk still, no one knows.
orclev@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
So it makes me wonder how much Valve is paying them for support since the upcoming Steam Frame uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 CPU and is also running Steam OS which is just a fork of Arch.
mormund@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Valve is paying for FOSS support www.igalia.com/2025/11/helpingvalve.html
ziggurat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is about Snapdragon X1 Elite, not Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. These two are completely different from each other on a support perspektiv, even if they share a lot of architecture.
The 8 Elite Gen 5, I don’t know the status on Linux, but Qualcomm has a few day old blog post talking about what they have upstreamed for day 1 support into the Linux kernel qualcomm.com/…/same-day-snapdragon-8-elite-gen-5-…
dorumon@lemmy.cafe 2 weeks ago
As someone who used to have a Windows on Arm device. It was Hell. Basically anything that isn’t Lenovo or from Microsoft will mean it’ll eventually brick itself unless you steal drivers from other laptops. You also cannot reinstall the operating system because most of these nuggets have no device tree files in the firmware of the machine minus a few lenovo thinkpads. So that means when you try to reinstall windows there is a high likelihood your touchpad and keyboard and USB ports don’t work. I literally snapped the motherboard on my poor Samsung Galaxy Book Go in half over it suddenly bricking itself.
Anyway if you want a decent windows on arm laptop buy lenovo and replace the storage. They have replacable nvmes usually. Also don’t get the 8 gigabytes of ram versions you literally will have programs just refuse or just force close themselves out of existence. You will literally have to debloat windows upto even removing Windows Defender and stopping most background services and disabling sysmain because it’s broken. You’d also have to disable certain things in Windows defender like memory protection if you want things to work right.
pycorax@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Having worked with OpenGL ES on Android, it’s laughable how awful the drivers are. When GPUs from the same manufacturer have completely different behaviour, it really calls into question if they even care.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
You snapped a motherboard in half? That’s quite a feature, those things are quite tough and with a lot of places to cut yourself open
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
And when you see how bad their windows support is it’s a miracle anyone buys this garbage.
It’s a neat concept. But at the moment only Apple has pulled it off well. And that’s only if you stick with Mac OS.
DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf 2 weeks ago
RPis have been pulling off Linux on ARM pretty well in terms of software support for a while now, but they’re also tinkering boards and not necessarily good for a daily driver.