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Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU

qualcomm.com

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Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU

#191

Post by ewoodrich »

rossy wrote: post #143
pjmlp wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without hardware acceleration and sound issues depending on the model, that is why I linked the page, as I was expecting such reply.

It worked on my device. The page you linked looks very outdated and doesn't have my device's board or any device made in the past 5 years. The lists of unsupported devices also look pretty reasonable - old kernels, CPUs that don't support virtualisation and 32-bit ARM. Since modern ChromeOS uses the same virtualisation to run Android apps, I doubt there's a modern device where it doesn't work.

Yes, looking at the FAQ, for example, it claims that USB is flat out unsupported on Linux which hasn't been true for 4+ years so it's very outdated.

Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU

#192

Post by hollandheese »

electroly wrote: post #30
typpilol wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's the compatibility? Are there any apps that don't work that are critical?

Surface Pro 11 owner here. SQL Server won't install on ARM without hacks. Hyper-V does not support nested virtualization on ARM. Most games are broken with unplayable graphical glitches with Qualcomm video drivers, but fortunately not all. Most Windows recovery tools do not support ARM: no Media Creation Tool, no Installation Assistant, and recovery drives created on x64 machines aren't compatible [EDIT: see reply, I…

>Creation of a recovery drive for a Snapdragon-based Surface (which you have to do from a working Snapdragon-based Surface) requires typing your serial code into a Microsoft website, then downloading a .zip of drivers that you manually overwrite onto the recovery media that Windows 11 creates for you.

That's just creation of a recovery drive for anything that Microsoft itself makes. It's the same process for the Intel Surface devices too.

>no Media Creation Tool

Why would anyone care about that? Most actively avoid Microsoft's media creation tool and use Rufus instead.

Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU

#193

Post by MisterTea »

jeroenhd wrote: post #171
MisterTea wrote: post #168

Here's my big question: are there datasheets/programmers manuals available or is this yet another proprietary mess of a SoC that ships undocumented Linux drivers with binary blobs? No thanks. I will not spend money on hardware no one can reliably patch or write drivers for. I also want other operating system maintainers to be able to write drivers and get booting.

I haven't dug deep, but it looks like Qualcomm has been working on merging code into the Linux kernel: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Qualcomm-X2-Elite-Linux-8EG5 With them only merging upstream now, it'll be a while before you can actually use Linux on these devices. You can build your own kernel from upstream, but it's probably a better idea to wait until Arch or Gentoo package the necessary pre-configured kernels.…

That means nothing for the community who may need or want to fix and patch issues on their own. Instead we're beholden to Qualcomm to fix major issues on an OS it may or may not care about supporting. It also excludes other open source operating systems such as the BSD's who have to then reverse engineer the undocumented Linux drivers.

A better question: can a small company like Framework or even MNT Research build and support an open laptop around this chip?

Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU

#194

Post by electroly »

goosedragons wrote: post #56
electroly wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, thank you, that's good to know. Did you just apply the Snapdragon driver zip over the x64 recovery drive? It didn't work for me when my OS killed itself but I could easily have done something wrong in my panic over the machine not working. Since I only have the one Snapdragon device, I was making the assumption that it would have worked if I had a second one, but I didn't actually know that.

Yes, just copy the zip over like the instructions say.

Thanks again for this. Honestly, it may sway my choice on returning to x64 vs. sticking with ARM64 next time. The other issues are relatively minor and can be dealt with, but I didn't like thinking that I was one OS failure away from a bricked machine that I couldn't recover.

Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU

#195

Post by timschmidt »

menaerus wrote: post #158
timschmidt wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple also implemented x86 memory semantics for aarch64 to allow for simpler translation and faster execution.

In HW?

Yup! See here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138376212...

Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU

#196

Post by okanat »

andsoitis wrote: post #116
okanat wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a narrow product line helped Apple a lot. Similarly being able to deprecate things faster than business-oriented Microsoft. Apple also controls silicon implementation. So they could design hardware features that enabled low to zero overhead x86 emulation. All in all Rosetta 2 was a pretty good implementation. Microsoft is trying to retain binary compatibility across architectures with ARM64EC stuff which is in…

> Apple also controls silicon implementation. People sometimes say that as if came without foresight or cost or other complexities in their business. No, in the end they are hyper strategic and it pays off.

I didn't say otherwise. They probably realized they can pull a complete desktop CPU design off at the latest with iPad, probably earlier. They were probably not happy using Intel chips and their business strategy has always been controlling and limiting HW capabilities as much as possible.

Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU

#197

Post by KTibow »

rkangel wrote: post #189
jeroenhd wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't dug deep, but it looks like Qualcomm has been working on merging code into the Linux kernel: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Qualcomm-X2-Elite-Linux-8EG5 With them only merging upstream now, it'll be a while before you can actually use Linux on these devices. You can build your own kernel from upstream, but it's probably a better idea to wait until Arch or Gentoo package the necessary pre-configured kernels.…

Or Fedora, which tracks kernels pretty closely (e.g. this Fedora, running the normal update channel is on 6.16)

Last time I checked the Fedora ISOs didn't include the device trees necessary to even begin installation.

Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU

#198

Post by wmf »

MisterTea wrote: post #193
jeroenhd wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't dug deep, but it looks like Qualcomm has been working on merging code into the Linux kernel: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Qualcomm-X2-Elite-Linux-8EG5 With them only merging upstream now, it'll be a while before you can actually use Linux on these devices. You can build your own kernel from upstream, but it's probably a better idea to wait until Arch or Gentoo package the necessary pre-configured kernels.…

That means nothing for the community who may need or want to fix and patch issues on their own. Instead we're beholden to Qualcomm to fix major issues on an OS it may or may not care about supporting. It also excludes other open source operating systems such as the BSD's who have to then reverse engineer the undocumented Linux drivers. A better question: can a small company like Framework or even MNT Research build a…

Framework doesn't even develop their own firmware; most of the engineering in PCs is done by Intel/AMD/ODMs/IBVs. The whole ecosystem is based on vendor support not datasheets.

Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU

#199

Post by wmf »

adrr wrote: post #138
jasoneckert wrote: post #8

As someone who has used the Snapdragon X Elite (12 core Oryon) Dev Kit as a daily driver for the past year, I find this exciting. The X Elite performance still blows my mind today - so the new X2 Elite with 18 cores is likely going to be even more impressive from a performance perspective! I can't speak to the battery life, however, since it is dismal on my Dev Kit ;-)

Unless they added low power cores to it, its probably isn't great. Chip design was for originally for datacenters.

They did add E-cores in X2.

Re: Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM Laptop CPU

#200

Post by MisterTea »

wmf wrote: post #198
MisterTea wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That means nothing for the community who may need or want to fix and patch issues on their own. Instead we're beholden to Qualcomm to fix major issues on an OS it may or may not care about supporting. It also excludes other open source operating systems such as the BSD's who have to then reverse engineer the undocumented Linux drivers. A better question: can a small company like Framework or even MNT Research build a…

Framework doesn't even develop their own firmware; most of the engineering in PCs is done by Intel/AMD/ODMs/IBVs. The whole ecosystem is based on vendor support not datasheets.

Firmware is not preventing Framework or anyone from offering a repairable laptop. Firmware also doesn't matter once the kernel is loaded. We need the datasheets.
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