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

qualcomm.com

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

#181

Post by OsrsNeedsf2P »

a-dub wrote: post #172
kop316 wrote: 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…

it makes some sense for embedded stuff, linux is only continuing to gain ground there. are there any linux phone projects that are actively maintained and used in 2025? i was under the impression that android kinda subsumed them all.

Librem5 and Jolla are actively developed

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

#183

Post by ryukafalz »

a-dub wrote: post #172
kop316 wrote: 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…

it makes some sense for embedded stuff, linux is only continuing to gain ground there. are there any linux phone projects that are actively maintained and used in 2025? i was under the impression that android kinda subsumed them all.

Software-wise: Ubuntu Touch, PostmarketOS, and Mobian are all actively maintained. Ubuntu Touch uses Lomiri as its UI which is somewhat bespoke (though they're working on disentangling it from the distro for packaging elsewhere), the others use various mobile Linux UIs (and there's a surprisingly large variety of options there).

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

#184

Post by GeekyBear »

DeathArrow wrote: post #160
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #147

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?

Macs have an open bootloader that allows users to run an unsigned OS like Asahi Linux (without having it degrade security when you do boot MacOS).

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

#185

Post by mg »

fsflover wrote: post #101
mg wrote: post #7

Does that mean that one will be able to purchase tablets with this chip and replace the OS with Linux? That would be great. As far as I know, there currently are no options for lightweight tablets that support Linux. Not sure how well WSL2 on tablets work. Does anybody here have experiences with WSL2 on tablets like the new Microsoft Surface Pro that uses the Snapdragon X Elite chip?

> As far as I know, there currently are no options for lightweight tablets that support Linux. Does this count? https://puri.sm/products/librem-11

560g is fine. But I wouldn't want to work on a 11.5" device. Something between 13" and 14" is my preferred size.

And I would want to do a normal Debian stable installation. Just like I can on a Lenovo laptop. The Librem 11 comes with their own Debian based distro and I can't find any info if I can install a normal Debian on it from scratch.

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

#186

Post by eqvinox »

zozbot234 wrote: post #122
nrclark wrote: post #119

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…

> ... Also your boot-chain is still closed and proprietary, and completely different than the one used by all other ARM vendors. Being the special snowflake is not helping your business or your customers. ... Why does the boot-chain matter? Can't we just have a custom U-Boot implementation that interacts with the bespoke boot chain while providing standard UEFI support to the rest of the system? Isn't that how Asahi…

Aside from the sibling comments, it also matters that you need to be able to review it if you need to build a truly "secure" product. History is littered with broken, unfixable secure boot implementations.

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

#187

Post by eqvinox »

modeless wrote: post #156
nrclark wrote: post #119

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.

Apple, whose FOSS support is reliant on volunteers reverse engineering their shit?

This is much better than that. Not great yet, but much better than that in comparison.

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

#188

Post by modeless »

eqvinox wrote: post #187
modeless wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second best, after Apple.

Apple, whose FOSS support is reliant on volunteers reverse engineering their shit? This is much better than that. Not great yet, but much better than that in comparison.

Comparing the chips, not the software, Apple's chips are better than Qualcomm's.

I agree Qualcomm's support of open source is better, while still leaving a lot to be desired.

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

#189

Post by flto »

my123 wrote: post #173
flto wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also your boot-chain is still closed and proprietary Nowadays the entire thing until you land in EL1 needs to be signed by Qualcomm as well. This is without "Secure Boot" enabled. OEMs only get to run code under the hypervisor. And you might want to use a part of the hardware but someone decided the VM your code runs in shouldn't have access to that, too bad.

not all true. And Qualcomm taking over EL2 is optional now

What is not true?

EL2 is still locked down for the chip this post is about, AFAIK. And everything else is is staying locked.

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

#190

Post by Dylan16807 »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #73
jsheard wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the whole point of AV1 that it's royalty free, as opposed to H264/265/etc?

It started like that. But now there are at least 2 different patent pools that want rent.

Have they successfully gotten any?
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