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Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops

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171–180 of 224 posts

Re: Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops

#171
post #127

I'm still waiting for the apple laptop killer (a 12h+ laptop with plain Ubuntu) but it's still brittle as fuck. I'm so frustrated by the current state of the mobile computing space. I have to have an Apple locked down device, which I hate, just because I want proper battery life. A aarch64 Ubuntu vm inside MacOS runs faster and lasts more time than a booted up Ubuntu on arm in these devices. This is how far behind th…

> I have to have an Apple locked down device, which I hate, just because I want proper battery life.

Chicken and egg. The Linux vendors don't have the power to drive ODMs nearly as much as Apple because everyone keeps buying Windows and slapping Linux on it (then complaining online when they have to be the systems integrator themselves, fixing the inevitable razor cuts)

Re: Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first link does not mention blacklisting, just resolving a license compatibility issue.

"The patches check for the gxtp7380, ite_8291, ite_8291_lb, ite_8297, ite_829x, stk8321, tuxedo_compatibility_check, tuxedo_io, tuxedo_nb02_nvidia_power_ctrl, tuxedo_nb04_keyboard, tuxedo_nb04_wmi_ab, tuxedo_nb04_wmi_bs, tuxedo_nb04_sensors, tuxedo_nb04_power_profiles, tuxedo_nb04_kbd_backlight, tuxedo_nb05_keyboard, tuxedo_nb05_kbd_backlight, tuxedo_nb05_power_profiles, tuxedo_nb05_ec, tuxedo_nb05_sensors, tuxedo_nb…

> ite_829x

Huh, so Tuxedo developed their own ITE 829x kernel driver.

I have a Clevo based laptop, similar to the ones they sell. Years ago I reverse engineered the keyboard's features and wrote a user space driver.

https://github.com/matheusmoreira/ite-829x

I interacted with Tuxedo quite a few times back then while I was figuring this stuff out. They even sent me source code for a pre-release version of their Electron app. It didn't help much in the end but they proved to be much nicer and more responsive than other manufacturers and even Clevo itself.

Wish they'd emailed me about their driver. I could have helped develop it, especially if they had given me documentation.

I briefly explored the idea of turning it into a kernel module and contributing it to the kernel. While reading Linux driver source code, some comments gave me the impression they'd prefer code remained in user space if possible. Since I already had a working user space driver, I decided not to contribute it.

I wrote the above program because Clevo's app was Windows only and so aggravating to use it defies description. Looks like Tuxedo ran into the same problem with their Electron app, if the complaints in this thread are any indication... Déjà vu.

Re: Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops

#173
post #128
post #127

I'm still waiting for the apple laptop killer (a 12h+ laptop with plain Ubuntu) but it's still brittle as fuck. I'm so frustrated by the current state of the mobile computing space. I have to have an Apple locked down device, which I hate, just because I want proper battery life. A aarch64 Ubuntu vm inside MacOS runs faster and lasts more time than a booted up Ubuntu on arm in these devices. This is how far behind th…

Pretty sure there are plenty of traditional x86 Linux laptops that have north of 12h battery life. System76 comes to mind (mandatory "System76 is just a Clevo wrapper" comment).

It's not "just a Clevo wrapper."

Clevo is their ODM. They work with Clevo to put together a laptop, and Clevo gets the right to sell a Windows variant. Their version differs, particularly in firmware but also possibly in chips.

Re: Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops

#174

If you are thinking about getting a Tuxedo, I suggest to get something else. I got one because they promised fwupd support, upstreamed drivers and maybe coreboot support. None of that is working even years afterwards. People from the kernel got so fed up with them, they considered blacklisting them [1]. That seemed like a wakeup call as they now at least started with upstreaming drivers. If you want to change some se…

Very informative, thank you. I was about to buy one of their products but this made me pause. What you think would be the alternative in Europe ?

I am running a tuxedo since 6 years and I am still happy with it. Had to use their support once to replace the cooling assembly because one of the fan bearings started to ger noisy after 5 years of 24/7 use, the replacement was 100 Euros for the whole copper+heatpipe+two fan assembly. The machine is still outperforming many other machines that exist today and the sceeen is one of the best I have seen (OLED).

Software side was smooth sailing as well.

Re: Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops

#175
post #84

Last I checked power management didn't work so they would run hot and burn through your battery. So unless there is full software support for hardware that makes laptops a portable computer, it's just not a practical solution for me. Tho, I really want this to happen. As far as I've tested on Volterra (ms dev kit 2023), linux has a lot going right for it. there is a ton of ARM64 packages, and drivers just work (e.g.…

Poor power management has always been the last bastion keeping me from using Linux in certain machines. My desktop won’t sleep or wake up at all (or it will wake but show a grey screen and glitch out) on any distro I’ve tried. Every time I use it on a laptop the battery life is terrible. Makes me sad.

Power mgmt has worked very well on our old Dell precision that came with Linux, and two newer Frameworks (1 Intel, 1 AMD). Basically perfect for over a decade.

Battery life could be a bit better but is decent.

Re: Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops

#176

If you are thinking about getting a Tuxedo, I suggest to get something else. I got one because they promised fwupd support, upstreamed drivers and maybe coreboot support. None of that is working even years afterwards. People from the kernel got so fed up with them, they considered blacklisting them [1]. That seemed like a wakeup call as they now at least started with upstreaming drivers. If you want to change some se…

> If you want to change some settings oft the device, you need to use their terrible Electron application.

> It's so bad, volunteers created an alternative.

Years ago I wrote my own Linux user space driver for the keyboard on my Clevo based laptop. The Clevo application was so terrible I reverse engineered it and made my own Linux free software replacement.

https://github.com/matheusmoreira/ite-829x

It seems some Tuxedo laptops have the same keyboard. Maybe Tuxedo users will find it useful.

Re: Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a Tuxedo machine. While the situation is not perfect (I had to install driver packages on Fedora), everything works perfectly - including standby. My last machine was a Thinkpad, and I never got it to work nearly as well. Standby mostly didn't work and when docking it, external screens would be arranged incorrectly unless I rebooted. USB ports also did not activate when docked, so I had a script for resettin…

I have a tuxedo 14" i7-12700H with 3050. And it is terrible. Specs are nice, price was hefty, but in the end it does not deliver. Battery is horrible, charging is disruptive, power budget is not enough. All stems from the nvidia card that I paid serious bucks to get included but it makes a decent laptop into a very bad one as the power delivery system just does not seem to be able to cope with it. Anyway I would go w…

[deleted]

Re: Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops

#178
post #157
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure there are plenty of traditional x86 Linux laptops that have north of 12h battery life. System76 comes to mind (mandatory "System76 is just a Clevo wrapper" comment).

But do they weigh 3 lbs at the same time?

Laptops with Intel Lunar Lake (i.e. 258V) CPUs get upwards of 12 hours easily, often in 15-18 hour range depending on the battery size. Just a quick search reveals for example Dell XPS 13 9350 (Core Ultra 7 258V) is Ubuntu certified [1], weighs 2.6 pounds, and has long battery life (17-18 hours video streaming on Windows).

[1] https://ubuntu.com/certified/202407-34214

Re: Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops

#179
post #127

I'm still waiting for the apple laptop killer (a 12h+ laptop with plain Ubuntu) but it's still brittle as fuck. I'm so frustrated by the current state of the mobile computing space. I have to have an Apple locked down device, which I hate, just because I want proper battery life. A aarch64 Ubuntu vm inside MacOS runs faster and lasts more time than a booted up Ubuntu on arm in these devices. This is how far behind th…

> I have to have an Apple locked down device, which I hate, just because I want proper battery life. Chicken and egg. The Linux vendors don't have the power to drive ODMs nearly as much as Apple because everyone keeps buying Windows and slapping Linux on it (then complaining online when they have to be the systems integrator themselves, fixing the inevitable razor cuts)

We learned one simple lesson, the past 10 years: if you want good ARM support, it has to come from the vendor. Nobody else can reverse-engineer devicetrees or GPU drivers with a remotely comparable release cadence. Linux has supported new x86 chipsets on day-1 since forever now; compare that to Broadcom or Apple Silicon's "best effort" community support that often takes years to boot into a graphical environment. Forget about stability or regression testing, it's a tinkertoy.

This is a shame because all the ARM licensees worth buying hardware from always have higher margins on smartphones or services. They have no commitment to supporting the PC or server market, let alone the software they use or featureset they depend on. It's no wonder that ARM adoption is stalling on the runway while Power11 gets upstream kernel support and RISC-V displaces integrated ARM ICs. Their only stakeholder is making their money off iPhone apps, not professional software.

Re: Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops

#180
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure there are plenty of traditional x86 Linux laptops that have north of 12h battery life. System76 comes to mind (mandatory "System76 is just a Clevo wrapper" comment).

My AMD Framework 13 running Fedora (an officially supported option: https://frame.work/linux ) also gets around that amount of battery life. And can run games surprisingly well.

That puts you at just over 5W average on a 61whr battery. I find that very hard to believe. 5W is achievable if you drastically limit the CPU governor, physically disable the mic/camera, using a chart-topping power-efficient SSD, all while actually doing nothing. Just a single YouTube video in a single firefox tab will bring you up to at least 10W.
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