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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

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might sound silly question, but those of you who have digits/spark machine, has anyone run Fedora on it? I kind of ran away from Ubuntu back to Fedora because reasons. Bonus question, far-fetched, steam and games with FEX?

Steam gaming with FEX is possible on the DGX Spark. The GPU is approximately a mobile 5070 with much less memory bandwidth. The CPU cores are relatively weak, especially after the instruction set translation overhead. There's a lot of stuff that's playable , but the performance is laughably bad for a $4000 machine.

FEX wouldn't affect GPU side of things though. Also, it's a machine that fits into one and a half hand. I'd call it alright for what it is actually in the context of the size.

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

#232
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to do that anyway?

Because that is how normies buy computers, duh? Go into store, get to talk with a "genie", whatever upsells to meet their KPIs, and leave with another computer that counts to the world market share in desktop units. Which for all practical purposes means Windows, macOS, Chromebooks, iPad Pro or Android tablets with keyboard for Dex, HyperOS, HarmonyOS NEXT , and zero GNU/Linux devices.

Why would normies want to buy a Linux laptop?

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

#233

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…

Interestingly, Valve hired Igalia to reverse engineer (successfully) Qualcomm's shit for their upcoming VR headset.

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

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apple doesn't actively lock and act hostile towards the reverse engineering folks. They just do their thing and sometimes do small jests to allow these folks to boot anything they want and play with the hardware. ...and while they're standing away from GPL stuff, they do have a dedicated site for Open Source software: https://opensource.apple.com/ Go to releases, and see what they do there.

Your expectations are so comically low that I hold you in direct contempt as a user of "Hacker" News.

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

#236
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that is how normies buy computers, duh? Go into store, get to talk with a "genie", whatever upsells to meet their KPIs, and leave with another computer that counts to the world market share in desktop units. Which for all practical purposes means Windows, macOS, Chromebooks, iPad Pro or Android tablets with keyboard for Dex, HyperOS, HarmonyOS NEXT , and zero GNU/Linux devices.

Why would normies want to buy a Linux laptop?

Year of Desktop Linux beyond 3% after 30 years.

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

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn't actively lock and act hostile towards the reverse engineering folks. They just do their thing and sometimes do small jests to allow these folks to boot anything they want and play with the hardware. ...and while they're standing away from GPL stuff, they do have a dedicated site for Open Source software: https://opensource.apple.com/ Go to releases, and see what they do there.

Your expectations are so comically low that I hold you in direct contempt as a user of "Hacker" News.

I would not make ad-hominem attacks to people who I don’t know anything about.

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

#238

I'm still mad about their lack of support for the 8cx gen 3. It's one of the first laptop SKUs they put out and support still isn't great.

The Lenovo x13s works pretty nicely these days, EL2 support aside. What problems have you faced?

Yeah, that's the model laptop I've got. It's only where it's at because of a small group of community members working on it, it took ages to get where it's at now and I still get random reboots when doing basic things on Linux. It doesn't inspire much hope for future snapdragon laptops.

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

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Lenovo x13s works pretty nicely these days, EL2 support aside. What problems have you faced?

Yeah, that's the model laptop I've got. It's only where it's at because of a small group of community members working on it, it took ages to get where it's at now and I still get random reboots when doing basic things on Linux. It doesn't inspire much hope for future snapdragon laptops.

Interesting. What kernel and distro are you running? It's been my stable daily driver with Linux 6.15/6.16/6.17 under Void Linux. It happily runs KDE and Vivaldi for me, with a few PWA's (Slack, Zoom) to bridge the gap of no closed-source software targeting aarch64.

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

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn't actively lock and act hostile towards the reverse engineering folks. They just do their thing and sometimes do small jests to allow these folks to boot anything they want and play with the hardware. ...and while they're standing away from GPL stuff, they do have a dedicated site for Open Source software: https://opensource.apple.com/ Go to releases, and see what they do there.

if you are in the business of buying parts, assembling them, and selling the assembly under your brand (as tuxedo and others like them are), then Apple is a indeed not an option. Their chips might be the best, but you still can only get them in Apple devices, in the specs Apple provides and with no official support for any OS beside macOS / iOS.

That's true. What I wanted to point out is the fact that the most tightly integrated and arguably the most locked down platform on the market is more open than a platform designed to be adapted by others and sold by many.

I don't expect any daily-driveable alternative operating systems on Apple systems since it's a continuously moving target, yet Apple doesn't have a such heavy-handed approach. They just do their thing and do not hinder things actively like NVIDIA and Qualcomm.

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