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Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

qualcomm.com

161–170 of 249 posts

Re: Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

#161
post #140

While we are at Snapdragon processors ... Does anyone know what (not so technical-)user friendly distro runs without too many issues on a Snapdragon 850? I found Mobian listing Snapdragon 845, but I don't know at all, if that is almost the same or not compatible at all.

Tried postmarketOS yet?

I explored their site, but they only list supported devices, not supported CPUs, which leaves me guessing, whether their OS even works on this CPU. And since I don't really know that, it seems to be a lot of effort needed to use their tooling for non-supported devices, to make an installation image. Though I have not tried that yet. It only made me doubt, whether I could succeed that way.

Re: Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Please don't engage in political battle on HN. As moderators we make an effort to protect people in all countries from being attacked for the actions of their government, no matter which country they're in. We think it's important for HN to be a place where people can be respected as an individual and not treated as an avatar for national stereotypes or the actions of their government. With that in mind, please don't initiate these kinds of battles here. We wouldn't tolerate others initiating this kind of thing against you, and we equally can't allow you to initiate it against others.

Re: Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

#163
post #2

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Please don't perpetuate political battle or make personal attacks on people on HN, no matter how right you are or feel you are. The topic of this thread is "Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 mobile platform". Let's keep comments on that topic, and definitely not pollute it with personal attacks on individuals over the actions of their government. In case there's any perception that I'm "taking sides", I've replied to the commenter who initiated this subthread too, but it's not OK to reply to a bad comment with another bad one.

Re: Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentives trump feelings for publicly traded companies 99 times out of 100. People constantly anthropomorphize them, but they aren't people (regardless of similarities in the law), and they definitely don't act like people, at least normal ones. At best, you can view them as something like a sociopath. I wouldn't look at a sociopath acting nicer and think "oh, they turned over a new leaf" because they aren't just go…

I like to call them slow-AI. They are paperclip optimizing AIs. No single component wants the larger outcomes, yet they happen. These slow-AIs are terraforming our planet into a less habitable one in order to make GDP number go up, at any cost.

The slow AIs are driven by consumer behavior. Paperclip optimizers die pretty quickly without demand for paperclips.

The inputs and the outputs of the AI are always human-facing, so the goals vaguely resemble human values (even if the values are greed).

Re: Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

#165

If anybody in Qualcomm leadership is reading this thread: this is a good start, and I applaud you for it. There is also a lot more to do if you're serious about growing your market penetration beyond phones. The drivers might be up on LKML, but they're not mainlined yet. And this is just gen5. It would be great if you could fix your gen4 and 4.5 drivers, so that people building products with your chips weren't stuck…

Second best, after Apple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualcomm#2015–2024:_NXP,_Broad...

Re: Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

#166
post #18

As someone who uses Mobile Linux, I am pretty excited to see this, but I can't help but wonder if this is only a "Business decision" and not necessarily Qualcomm turning over a new leaf for being FOSS friendly: - Their Snapdragon X laptop didn't do very well, and they likely realize an ARM Windows laptop will always be a second class citizen: https://www.techpowerup.com/329255/snapdragon-x-failed-qualc... . - Likewis…

> Microsoft leads the adoption of the Snapdragon X, having integrated the platform across much of its Surface lineup

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-lapt...

Re: Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

#167

Qualcomm did this in 2024. They pushed some patches to LKML, and issued a press release to brag about it. ( https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/blog/2024/05/upstreaming-... ) Yet 2 days ago, Tuxedo Computers announced they were abandoning Qualcomm due to crap support. ( https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/26/tuxedo_axes_arm_lapto... ). In particular, the long battery runtimes – usually one of the strong arguments for…

>Yet 2 days ago, Tuxedo Computers announced they were abandoning Qualcomm due to crap support. ( Does Apple offer better support? Qualcomm offers commercial support. I guess Tuuxedo Computers didn't pay for the support?

Apple is a non-sequitur. Tuuxedo is giving up on Qualcomm in favor of AMD and Intel.

Do AMD and Intel require Tuuxedo to pay for premium support in order to get working Linux drivers? No, of course not.

Qualcomm's support for Linux is embarrassing when you compare it to pretty much any processor manufacturer except Apple.

Re: Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

#168
Snapdragon X Elite laptops have been out for the last two years, if not more. How much has Qualcomm did over this time to make Linux work on those devices - almost nothing. As of 2 months ago, the best you could do was a special cut of Ubuntu that kinda sorta booted on those machines and required Windows to be present in order to pull some drivers.

So how about you give me a fucking break, Qualcomm? Call back when Snapdragon has first class support in major distros and you are serious about Linux.

Re: Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentives trump feelings for publicly traded companies 99 times out of 100. People constantly anthropomorphize them, but they aren't people (regardless of similarities in the law), and they definitely don't act like people, at least normal ones. At best, you can view them as something like a sociopath. I wouldn't look at a sociopath acting nicer and think "oh, they turned over a new leaf" because they aren't just go…

I like to call them slow-AI. They are paperclip optimizing AIs. No single component wants the larger outcomes, yet they happen. These slow-AIs are terraforming our planet into a less habitable one in order to make GDP number go up, at any cost.

I've said for years that the market itself is the best real-world parallel to skynet, not some AGI or superintelligent machine.

Re: Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

#170
post #18

As someone who uses Mobile Linux, I am pretty excited to see this, but I can't help but wonder if this is only a "Business decision" and not necessarily Qualcomm turning over a new leaf for being FOSS friendly: - Their Snapdragon X laptop didn't do very well, and they likely realize an ARM Windows laptop will always be a second class citizen: https://www.techpowerup.com/329255/snapdragon-x-failed-qualc... . - Likewis…

Their problem was that they had the performance claims and marketing of Apple but the implementation of Microsoft Teams. Apple M1 was shaky but all the groundwork was there and it took off. Qualcomm was highly questionable at best.
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