I've been considering these Snapdragon laptops for a few days but you're the only person I've found testing from a dev or Linux user perspective, so thanks!
@@erwinfeser I second this. Even with only 8gb ram and 16gb swap, Yocto works great and almost as fast to compile as my 13700k. With Box64 there are little to no issues with compatibility except for a few weird things
Linux Foundation has a lot of money, of which only 2%-4% is spent on the actual Linux development. And yes, Qualcomm is a member of the Linux Foundation.
They buy board seats, to then make sure the majority of the money gets squandered... on purpose. The Linux Foundation is set up in such a way to ensure linux never becomes a real threat; the money is well spent from a business point of view. They want to keep it in a small space that they can control and use mostly for their enterprise purposes, but not so big that it actually threatens profits.
@@TwilightTrekker1 hardware company don't care what os are you running because they just sell hardware, and have to buy license from microsoft to add windows to there pc, linux is best for servers
@@wassim-akkari Cute dog whistle. You are of course lying as is to be expected of your sort. Here are the actual numbers from the 2023 annual report. Project support 64% ($171,854,065)
@ginger_toggaf The standards for boot, hardware, drivers, etc are far more widely adopted on desktop platforms, which makes it way easier to release one-size-fits-most builds. Each model of smartphone, however, requires specific tweaks to a bunch of system components to even boot, and that's before you even get to common apps and services. Even if everybody threw their efforts behind a singular project like Ubuntu Touch to avoid the fragmentation we have on desktop, it'd be a long time before we had a real contender.
@ginger_toggafAndroid uses a linux kernel and if you install a terminal emulator like termux with x11 support you can even run a full desktop environment like xfce, webservers, containers, whatever the linux world hast to offer. The big problem with running just any standard linux distro on a phone is that the vendors often don't release the necessary drivers 😢
The chip itself made with Qualcomm-Microsoft coop.. so why should they sell ever any X Elite with Microsoft competitor? Even Nike not selling shoes boxes with Adidas shoes inside...
@@racingweirdo But like the video states individual devices will still need work so it will probably take longer for all these laptops to be fully supported. Kind of crazy that they use device trees in this day and age though, phones I can somewhat understand but what a pain for Linux engineers.
My advice, wait until the supposed support is there, buy one then, hammer it and test everything you can think of and if it's not up to scratch return it. Whatever you do don't hold on to hope, if it's not working return it immediately.
Device trees will be the death of using a custom OS. We have the same problem on Android devices, which requires a lot of manual labour and hard work to even boot a custom OS. Every Android version usually requires an update to all of the trees (boot (kernel + ramdisk), device, vendor). Surprise surprise, Asus trees were easy, Samsung trees are still one of the hardest. As I always said, ARM will kill user options on Desktop/Laptop. They'll eventually enforce Secure Boot (if they didn't already) and you'll only boot whatever the company wants you to, and even if you somehow bypass Secure Boot, you won't have drivers.
@@anwarmustefa-u3y x86 is standardized so every single x86 CPU will have the same exact instructions. Meanwhile on ARM it's adaptable because a company can buy an ARM license and custom design their CPU from the ground up. That means ARM CPU 1 is going to be way different than ARM CPU 2 even though both use the ARM instruction set at their core.
@@anwarmustefa-u3y everything is more standardized because you've got only two companies producing CPU's. on the arm side everyone can build their own obscure SoC
Canonical, AKA Ubuntu people are probably gonna be next on getting it running, at least thats my guess, given that they kinda have dedicated teams for their different versions of Ubuntu and some enterprise backing $$$ behind them.
@@ASDFG856 Ubuntu actually struggle with hardware support on new machines. Fedora comparatively don't struggle as much. This is because Ubuntu use older kernels than Fedora (or Arch).
Probably, but Canonical also has a tendency not to step on anyone else' toes. I think if they do it it will because a community project (aka unofficial flavor) starts the port first then they'll pick it up after it goes mainstream. That or after another big distro like RHEL makes the jump.
I think with the work they'll contribute, it should go a long way to producing more usable merged code for everyone. Also framework is working on a similar RISC V module for their laptops. I'm not saying their the same. But I think what both contribute will help ease the amount of work needed in hardware modularity and extending the respective code bases.
@ginger_toggaf Bro, you need to calm the frick down, from your comments you really seem to have it in for Linux users. Did one of them frick your girlfriend? (And for the record Android uses linux)
Linaro is creating the drivers for those machines with ARM. They are slow. They already had all the support made for the 7c and 8c. The issue is that this X Elite chip is not from Qualcomm, they acquired this company that produced those chips...
DEVICE TREES? ON PC?! This is a joke that somebody thought it is acceptable to release laptops without real UEFI & ACPI support. By definition this is not PC anymore...
and lets not forget that there are already arm systemready certification programs that should guarantee that the system is suitable for workstation/server use and have UEFI & ACPI support. As far as I can see these new x elite laptops (but my reserach might be wrong) are not certified...
Based on the Qualcomm writeup, the SDXE does boot with UEFI, but then loads device tree DTBs. Maybe ACPI would have more flexibility, but also more complexity - PCs used to (most can still) use BIOS for boot - I don't see how the specifics of the boot process has any relevance on determining whether something is a "PC" or not...
MS created its own UEFI from scratch for Surface laptops (written in Rust) because they were tired of waiting for third-party vendors to fix security issues.
It sounds very similar to the early days of Slackware when everything had to be compiled manually and only a few components worked. Very time consuming... rewarding if you could get it to work but the process wasn't always the easiest even if you did it quite often.
@@AZisk You can, but it would still appear incoherent. Admittedly, I only clicked the thumbnail to comment about the thumbnail and title not quite lining up, so to a degree it's successful in getting clicks, but bad for getting video watch time.
Hey, you've probably already gotten comments like that haha, so please don't be annoyed, I do not mean any harm, just want to correct something. You refer to the kernel as a "core of the Linux system", while to be more exact, Linux IS the kernel, and the systems are, for example, Ubuntu or Arch. So Linux (the kernel) is the core of an operating system (like Ubuntu or Arch). This is totally just nitpicking, so please, do not feel attacked, just wanted to point that out for anyone in the comment section who might be confused. Great video none the less! These machines are interesting and I am happy to see us finally having real alternatives to x86 platforms which were never ideal when it comes to laptops. Hopefully soon more progress will be made to expand the compatibility with specific machines running the Snapdragon chip.
What you guys are referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux. Thank you for taking your time to cooperate with with me, your friendly GNU+Linux neighbor, Richard Stallman.
Debian Desktop ARM is the way to go, its much more mature than Arch on ARM, imo anyway. Debian ARM works the best in my VM’s on my apple silicon mac… basically no issues whereas Arch was a buggy nightmare
Tuxedo laptops claims they'll have a snapdragon laptop with their distro ready for sale by the end of the year, and as someone who is a simple end user, I am excited for any market solution.
Thank you so much for this video 🎉🎉 On your WSL video, I left a comment requesting to install linux on bare metal X elite and share you experience. Thank you for your time and an in-depth effort to install linux on these machines 👏 👍 ❤❤ Love you man
a 1.5 year agoo I had similar problem on hp-ryzen-5625U. antix hook 90% ok. then I read in amd site, that ms, Ubuntu and Red-hat have ok on this cpu. after a mount I installed 9 nine distros. 6 mpunts later all distros were working perfectly, allowed me to learn and explore linux world 🌎🌍. btw, I use termux in a tablet, and on one phone, with snapdragon 695, and 5-6 distros installed as proot. So, under 6 monts, everything will be fine. thanks for the great 👍👍👍 video, very honestly
Thanks for going through the hoops of getting Linux to work so we can see what could be considered the state of the art outside of Asahi on older Apple Silicon. It's very interesting and I know many others are excited too.
Thank you for making this. I have a Lenovo Slim 7x with a Snapdragon X, and it is a super machine, but I've not been able to install Linux yet. Arch Linux is the best, read the wiki to learn more. I learned more installing Arch than running Ubuntu for 5 years.
No shade, I really applaud your work in installing this. But this is why I prefer Gentoo on machines still needing a lot of low level work. It takes a lot more time / effort resulting in only a little. But when you realize how much work it is to go from bare metal to kernel to basic (and I mean real basic) X or XFCE; going from LFS (Linux from Scratch or Source) and close proximates like Gentoo (Arch is a bit more user friendly in comparison) makes sense. As you can use familiar interfaces to get from source to binary. Again, not an easy process, but much more worth it when you get a basic XFCE environment running for the first time. I used to use Debian unstable with custom kernel back in the day. But Debian has become far too big and binary oriented to easily build it's sources from scratch.
Thank you Alex for reporting on this. I have been waiting for almost a decade for a decent ARM Linux laptop, and maybe just maybe I'll able to get one in a few months. Or two years at most, just a guess. Meanwhile, my Linux laptop is from the Skylake generation, and it's a pain. Fortunately it's just a second or third computer for me. I have a great Linux desktop PC and an M1 Macbook Air, a great team.
Nice, the asus is exactly the one that seemed most interesting to me, its nice to see that it is one of the early ones being able to run even some linux on it
I'm super excited for linux on these machines. Linux improves battery life and efficiency on my x86 machines so much, I'm excited to see what it can do on these arm machines.
@ginger_toggaf Except, no. Qualcomm is already actively supporting Linux on these devices, they have upstreamed a bunch of patches that will be included in the next kernel.
You have to partition it in Windows. Have over a 256GB hard drive, a wired usb mouse, a net version of the OS and disable secure boot in the bios but leave pxe on. Also, an ethernet connection makes it all go smoother. Didn't do it on one of these but a QUALCOMM laptop. Your OEM drivers drop, and I was reduced to keyboard functions until I got the wired mouse. It was slow going on the net install even on ethernet. We are talking over 3 hours. Also, have a windows media tool rescue disc just in case things go wrong. But your can F whatever keyboard functions works for your bios and turn secure boot back on and boot to Windows to fix whatever screw up is there is one.
Yo, so I got this new Asus Vivobook S 15 and decided to upgrade the SSD to a 2TB one. Turns out, it wasn't as simple as I thought. There's no straightforward way to install Windows on it. You either gotta use this cloud recovery thing called WinRE or build an image and install it using WinPE. I went with the second option since I didn't wanna open up the laptop again and didn't have an adapter to mount the SSD. Let me tell you, it was a whole new level of installing Windows. Not for the faint of heart, I tell ya. But hey, I'm thinking of giving Linux a try and maybe even writing some articles about it. Keep up the good work with those videos, man!
This is the kind of work the integrator (HP/Dell/Asus etc.) should have done BEFORE even thinking of launching these copilot laptops ... I have no idea what they were even thinking launching them before this is taken care of.
Looks like back to the late 90s and forking the HW configurations yourself in order to fet some obscure feature in it working. Those were the days. But I will not be too nostalgic and try to replicate the process atm.
ok so basically it's like android custom roms there's no such thing as universal support (ignoring gsis) you have to adapt it for each device separately to get stuff running
no, each arm soc is a new world, that is why new rom is required, specific parts neww new work, i dont like that idea but smartphones have been like this sonce day 1
A start is still a start and that’s great. As with the M1/M2/M3 SoCs it took a few years to get those Macs running Linux well enough to daily drive (for most people - limitations still apply) with a hardware accelerated desktop. Onward and upward.
I use Arch btw. The problem is consumers, instead of paying a Windows license we should pay Linux developers to do their magic so everyone can enjoy a free (as in freedom) operating system
Lets be real here: most ppl do not give a shit about free as in freedom.They will use whatever is required to have Fortnite, Netflix and MS Office running even if they had to sell all their personal data for it.
@@oserodal2702 Not that aspect what I'm assumed, instead of software support, But if big companies starts to sell linux laptops, they will make their own distro, with proprietary drivers, and vendor restrictions, like apple did with bsd, then it doesn't really matter, if its linux or not.
I did it on a Samsung 2020 ARM so yes Samsung would be a piece of cake for me to get Linux Mint or OpenSuse on. Great video, I did a dual boot I forgot to say why I partitioned the hard drive in windows. GParted or anything like it was not applicable and the OS would not partition it but I did get the partition menu on one of the OSes I tried and I tried many. From July 1 to 4th I spent 3 to 4 days trying to see which distros would work. Mint a weird error message I don't remember what it was, but, Suse was working it. I have an older ARM so the hard drive could not be partitioned like I wanted. Weirdly configured, that the major obstacle. That an the semi functional keyboard. Hard to go next or input when the touchpad and keyboard are not fully functional. I enjoyed it.
I use two different Arch linux ARM devices every day and i have full confidence in theses devs to get it working in a timely manner. Linux on ARM is more mature then MACos OR Windows the issue is the device trees. On the bright side the way said trees work make over clocking really easy and stuff like RAM CPU and GPU can all be done from one place. Luckily the linux devs are among the chaddiest in all the world! Case and point there was a guy who booted linux on an iphone 6 and 7. If apple cant stop them then there is no way a device that aims to support it will.
I have been using Linux since 1992 and the .93 kernel. That's point 93. It was Slackware and I had to put it on I think six 1.44 MB floppies. I needed a unix-like system so I could do my computer science homework from home. It's always been a pain in the rump. But we like ourselves better when we're been confronted with difficult challenges and we tried and succeeded. And you have challenges over and over when you are using Linux. I used Windoze however in my work and at home. Both my employer and my wife couldn't deal with that much complexity so they demanded Windoze. Whodathunkit? Today, I'm retired. Linux is still a hobby but I prefer Mint on my Linux machine. I put Linux on all my Windoze machines when they grow too to run Windoze gracefully. Nowadays I just run Linux in a virtual machines. I like to distrohop.
Some windows developers didn't even get devices sent to them and you think they'll send them to linux developers? Developers should ave gotten these devices at least half a year before lauch but here we are with too many drivers not working, no VM manager working and they want to make a revolution happen?
Two years ago I bought an Optiplex scanner, expecting it to work under my Debian bullseye (A scanner is a glorified digital camera, right?!). Of course, it did not. So I was browsing and wrote some respective report in the SANE group. It seemed to hinge on them not having any documentation regarding USB endpoints and modus operandi etc. So, I offered I would write the driver, if they manage to get that information. At this point, the whole thing got stuck ... and I lost track of it shortly after. I gave my scanner to a friend who runs windows and forgot about it. For all I know, there is still no support for those scanners... As if there is a wall, preventing those device vendors from passing on basic information to people who could increase their customer base by a few %. So my conclusion: Never again Optiplex. Well done, dudes :)
I think this is a big missed opportunity from Qualcomm, because I think under Linux they could have shown better how good the chip really is (if I remember correctly one geekbench score they showed on slides was done on Linux. . Since there is a lot more software that already has years of experience running on Arm in datacenters and on raspberry pi's. And I have feeling that lot of were less good than they could have been because windows is not ready yet to take full potential. And also the conversion layer is not as good as it should be to impress. I think even Microsoft could have benefited from it, because if the processor got better reviews, then more people will probably want the laptops, and let's be real, most of them still would want windows on it.
Not even the Windows part working correctly, why should they do even less work on Windows just to do anything with even 100x lower market share..? If the Windows side is perfectly workig and they still have time, sure let's do that, but half of the apps are still not even able to run on Windows on ARM, so better to focus on that side where are the users..
MS makes its money from Windows OEMs via the License fee, so allowing Qualcomm to sell Linux-only devices would be economic stupidity, especially as MS has spent billions on Windows on ARM. That is why MS insisted the bootloader is locked. I assume with time, MS will: 1/ allow the bootloader to be unlocked; 2/ Allow OEMs to release Linux-only devices. But I doubt it will be in 2024.
@@TamasKiss-yk4st It's not the same people that doing the Linux support and windows support, and it is not even about money, like he mentioned in the video, it is mainly that Linux developers don´t have access to the hardware. So more Linux support would not mean less windows support. Now the processor does look worse because windows is not ready. So if some reviews show the potential of the processor, probably more people would buy it because of the potential in the future when windows is more optimized for it and it has more native running programs.
@@andyH_England I do not state that they should allow to sell Linux only devices. Only that in my eyes it would be a smart move (certainly for Qualcomm) to push/help with Linux hardware support. But I think that if they would allow it, the little money they would lose from the few people that would buy a Linux only variant, would be offset by the possible more positive view of the hardware, driving the sales up.
@@TamasKiss-yk4st Well because they already run Google's Android-Linux Kernel also known as ACK (Android Common Kernel) for which they make a lot more money from the phone market. Being I think they're doing this to diversify as they aren't the only chipset for phones anymore. It would make sense to put a little extra to boost the kernel space that serves both their consumer bases. Just an opinion though.
Honestly these chips likely will be in-dev for another 10 months or so before they are stable under any platform. MS and Qualcom are finger pointing at one another under Windows with a lot of the 'launch features' still missing at this time. It will be funny if Linux gets the full stack (including NPU) working and stable before Windows. Still waiting for my dev unit. x.x
Does KVM work on it? I know some of these Qualcomm chips have security firmware that among other things blocks access to hypervisor mode without a special driver that verifies that it's a trusted OS somehow - not secure boot but something vaguely similar I think. And of course this driver is only available in Windows (to allow Hyper V to work), so under any other OS that functionality is just plain off limits.
There is much more software available for Linux on ARM, Just because of SBCs like Raspberry Pis, that run on ARMs, but also software exists as source that can be compiled for ARM.
Thanks for this video! I am wondering whether those kernel-fellas could dump out the device tree using wls2's device tree running under woa. I have configured my Surface 7 arm to use wsl2 and all my linux tools are working fine. Even most of my linux-docker builds worked using the native docker under wsl2. Tested the Docker Desktop but it was not working so I swapped it to Podman desktop on WOA, which is working nicely!
It seems like mostly due to errors from the OEM (ASUS) and the chip-designers these laptops are not Linux-ready yet, they should give the drivers (opensource of course) to the Linux-kernel team and then the kernelteam can integrate those driver into it. As a user I would prefer it to be split off though: a different kernel for different architectures. The kernel is big enough as it is and I have noticed the longer boottimes over the years, increassing from roughly 3-4 seconds in 2019 to roughly 7-7.5 seconds now. Of course it takes the kernel-development team time to check those drivers and approve it and merge it so it is up to the hardwaredevelopers to give such code at an early stage, involve the Linux kernel team (and other kernel teams) as early as possible in the process.
PengWin is supposed to be easier to use than other distros under WSL, but I still cannot connect to the Xfce desktop that was installed with the pengwin-setup wizard. 😢 And my Lenovo Slim Yoga 7x has started complaining about limited graphics performance under Windows, probably because of the graphics driver 😢😢
Did you uncheck secure boot? That should allow almost any Linux distribution to boot up. I saw an image of Bit Locker in the video. He had to disable that also, before starting. He didn't do that, which then prompted Windows to lock itself. Chances are, he did not have the Bit Locker code, which meant, he had to do a complete reinstall and THEN, disable Bit Locker, then try to install Linux. He needed to disable secure boot, before loading ANY version of Linux.
This episode isn't sponsored, but thanks to channel members for support: ua-cam.com/channels/ajiMK_CY9icRhLepS8_3ug.htmljoin
Ok now Linux is good, test the Unix os. It ain’t be that hard.
Bro said "I use Arch btw" 3 seconds into the video
Actually it was more like 12 or 13 seconds. (I use arch on ARM BTW)
@@davidmeier1004 i use nixos checkmate
@@davidmeier1004 " I use arch on Arm BTW ". 😒
I arch in real life unlike you! 🗿
@@yasirrakhurrafat1142 I use arch on my pinephone and pinetab2
I use arch linux ARM in real life.
gotta let people know asap xD
I've been considering these Snapdragon laptops for a few days but you're the only person I've found testing from a dev or Linux user perspective, so thanks!
A macbook air M1 o M2 with Fedora Asahi is your best option now, almost everything works fine.
@@erwinfeser I second this. Even with only 8gb ram and 16gb swap, Yocto works great and almost as fast to compile as my 13700k. With Box64 there are little to no issues with compatibility except for a few weird things
I count MacOs as a Linux distro 😅
@@erwinfeser How are the translation layers for everyday x86-64 programs? Or is it limited to ARM repos?
@@sakibshadman1448 It is not!
Linux Foundation has a lot of money, of which only 2%-4% is spent on the actual Linux development. And yes, Qualcomm is a member of the Linux Foundation.
Qualcom is actively working on bringing full support for the Snapdragon X SoCs with the upcoming 6.10 and 6.11 kernel versions
@@wassim-akkari 🤣🤣
They buy board seats, to then make sure the majority of the money gets squandered... on purpose. The Linux Foundation is set up in such a way to ensure linux never becomes a real threat; the money is well spent from a business point of view. They want to keep it in a small space that they can control and use mostly for their enterprise purposes, but not so big that it actually threatens profits.
@@TwilightTrekker1 hardware company don't care what os are you running because they just sell hardware, and have to buy license from microsoft to add windows to there pc, linux is best for servers
@@wassim-akkari Cute dog whistle. You are of course lying as is to be expected of your sort. Here are the actual numbers from the 2023 annual report.
Project support 64% ($171,854,065)
Thanks, please keep track of any progress towards better Linux compatibility and keep us posted. Thank you again!
Man, When linux support/development gets far enough it will be my next laptop. That battery life speaks volumes to me
Yeah, Asahi Linux for Apple Silicon went pretty far but still not news for a couple of months. Let's see who gets the farthest first
@ginger_toggaf Android is a Linux distro.
@ginger_toggaf The standards for boot, hardware, drivers, etc are far more widely adopted on desktop platforms, which makes it way easier to release one-size-fits-most builds. Each model of smartphone, however, requires specific tweaks to a bunch of system components to even boot, and that's before you even get to common apps and services. Even if everybody threw their efforts behind a singular project like Ubuntu Touch to avoid the fragmentation we have on desktop, it'd be a long time before we had a real contender.
@ginger_toggaf bro forgot about postmarketos and msmnilepkg
@ginger_toggafAndroid uses a linux kernel and if you install a terminal emulator like termux with x11 support you can even run a full desktop environment like xfce, webservers, containers, whatever the linux world hast to offer. The big problem with running just any standard linux distro on a phone is that the vendors often don't release the necessary drivers 😢
It's a shame that nobody is selling these notebooks with Linux installed!
I believe one was demoed and being worked on by Tuxedo.
The market is simply too small for major brands.
Cos it isn't ready yet
The chip itself made with Qualcomm-Microsoft coop.. so why should they sell ever any X Elite with Microsoft competitor? Even Nike not selling shoes boxes with Adidas shoes inside...
@@TamasKiss-yk4stThere is one from tuxedo
I want one of those Snapdragon laptops but I refuse to buy one until I know for certain that Linux runs on them.
Qualcomm has been pretty vocal about getting Linux working on these so it probably won't be too long.
@@nadtz their drivers will be in the new kernel release, around september.
linux + good battery life is my dream for now
@@racingweirdo But like the video states individual devices will still need work so it will probably take longer for all these laptops to be fully supported. Kind of crazy that they use device trees in this day and age though, phones I can somewhat understand but what a pain for Linux engineers.
My advice, wait until the supposed support is there, buy one then, hammer it and test everything you can think of and if it's not up to scratch return it. Whatever you do don't hold on to hope, if it's not working return it immediately.
Fedora and OpenSuse have most recent kernel and driver support. Ubuntu is usually way behind.
Device trees will be the death of using a custom OS.
We have the same problem on Android devices, which requires a lot of manual labour and hard work to even boot a custom OS. Every Android version usually requires an update to all of the trees (boot (kernel + ramdisk), device, vendor). Surprise surprise, Asus trees were easy, Samsung trees are still one of the hardest.
As I always said, ARM will kill user options on Desktop/Laptop. They'll eventually enforce Secure Boot (if they didn't already) and you'll only boot whatever the company wants you to, and even if you somehow bypass Secure Boot, you won't have drivers.
just give it 12 more years, lol
why does x86 work even if the hardware is different i'm CURIOUS give me dumbed-down version
people who know this much will surely prefer the x86_64 PCs
@@anwarmustefa-u3y x86 is standardized so every single x86 CPU will have the same exact instructions. Meanwhile on ARM it's adaptable because a company can buy an ARM license and custom design their CPU from the ground up. That means ARM CPU 1 is going to be way different than ARM CPU 2 even though both use the ARM instruction set at their core.
@@anwarmustefa-u3y everything is more standardized because you've got only two companies producing CPU's. on the arm side everyone can build their own obscure SoC
Well done, this is the vid I've been waiting for...
Canonical, AKA Ubuntu people are probably gonna be next on getting it running, at least thats my guess, given that they kinda have dedicated teams for their different versions of Ubuntu and some enterprise backing $$$ behind them.
@@ASDFG856 Ubuntu actually struggle with hardware support on new machines. Fedora comparatively don't struggle as much. This is because Ubuntu use older kernels than Fedora (or Arch).
Probably, but Canonical also has a tendency not to step on anyone else' toes. I think if they do it it will because a community project (aka unofficial flavor) starts the port first then they'll pick it up after it goes mainstream. That or after another big distro like RHEL makes the jump.
Great video and thanks for all your effort to install Linux on the X Elite laptops
Tuxedo is working on a X1 Elite machine with their Linux OS preinstalled (based on Ubuntu).
@ginger_toggaf as long as we can copy their device tree and mabe mdified drivers, I dont care
I think with the work they'll contribute, it should go a long way to producing more usable merged code for everyone. Also framework is working on a similar RISC V module for their laptops. I'm not saying their the same. But I think what both contribute will help ease the amount of work needed in hardware modularity and extending the respective code bases.
@ginger_toggafEven then, their efforts would still give our community a blueprint for keeping up with evolving hardware
@ginger_toggaf Bro, you need to calm the frick down, from your comments you really seem to have it in for Linux users. Did one of them frick your girlfriend?
(And for the record Android uses linux)
Linaro is creating the drivers for those machines with ARM. They are slow. They already had all the support made for the 7c and 8c. The issue is that this X Elite chip is not from Qualcomm, they acquired this company that produced those chips...
Then who made it
Links?
DEVICE TREES? ON PC?! This is a joke that somebody thought it is acceptable to release laptops without real UEFI & ACPI support. By definition this is not PC anymore...
and lets not forget that there are already arm systemready certification programs that should guarantee that the system is suitable for workstation/server use and have UEFI & ACPI support. As far as I can see these new x elite laptops (but my reserach might be wrong) are not certified...
ARM is just jank. Also once made i like device trees sjnce they make overclocking so simple
Based on the Qualcomm writeup, the SDXE does boot with UEFI, but then loads device tree DTBs. Maybe ACPI would have more flexibility, but also more complexity - PCs used to (most can still) use BIOS for boot - I don't see how the specifics of the boot process has any relevance on determining whether something is a "PC" or not...
MS created its own UEFI from scratch for Surface laptops (written in Rust) because they were tired of waiting for third-party vendors to fix security issues.
It seems a lot of developers prefer devicetrees, but jeah sadly there is some jank in integrating them sadly
Finally! Linux 6.11 should be more supported, but AMD Ryzen AI 300 seems a safer bet for the support
This was a great video. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
It sounds very similar to the early days of Slackware when everything had to be compiled manually and only a few components worked. Very time consuming... rewarding if you could get it to work but the process wasn't always the easiest even if you did it quite often.
Thank you, I was thinking of getting Lenovo laptop but now I will wait for linux to work on these devices
@@anarcho96 just get a ThinkPad,an slightly old one,x86 support on ARM is,complicated to say the least(src:marcan from the Asahi Linux team)
@@notamusician1234 my laptop is Thinkpad t470s. So yeah I have and love thinkpad
The thumbnail should be "I can... But you might not."
how about “i can…. make it whatever the hell I want”. 🤣
@@AZisk You can, but it would still appear incoherent. Admittedly, I only clicked the thumbnail to comment about the thumbnail and title not quite lining up, so to a degree it's successful in getting clicks, but bad for getting video watch time.
I surely can..... Its eazy !!!! I use Arch btw
@shApYT I see you everywhere! 😅
*checks subscriptions to compare*
*whygena*
Ah 🙃🐀
Hey, you've probably already gotten comments like that haha, so please don't be annoyed, I do not mean any harm, just want to correct something.
You refer to the kernel as a "core of the Linux system", while to be more exact, Linux IS the kernel, and the systems are, for example, Ubuntu or Arch. So Linux (the kernel) is the core of an operating system (like Ubuntu or Arch).
This is totally just nitpicking, so please, do not feel attacked, just wanted to point that out for anyone in the comment section who might be confused. Great video none the less! These machines are interesting and I am happy to see us finally having real alternatives to x86 platforms which were never ideal when it comes to laptops. Hopefully soon more progress will be made to expand the compatibility with specific machines running the Snapdragon chip.
Good way of putting it.
allow me to interject for a moment...
@@xviii5780 Good one, I actually considered starting my comment with that fragment of the pasta but kinda forgot when I started typing.
What you guys are referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux. Thank you for taking your time to cooperate with with me, your friendly GNU+Linux neighbor, Richard Stallman.
@@bernardoborges8598 never gets old
Debian Desktop ARM is the way to go, its much more mature than Arch on ARM, imo anyway. Debian ARM works the best in my VM’s on my apple silicon mac… basically no issues whereas Arch was a buggy nightmare
Tuxedo laptops claims they'll have a snapdragon laptop with their distro ready for sale by the end of the year, and as someone who is a simple end user, I am excited for any market solution.
They claim that they'll try to have it done by Christmas, doesn't mean that they'll succeed, sadly.
The video I've been waiting for.
Installing Arch is like assembling your own car, or building a house yourself.
Thank you so much for this video 🎉🎉
On your WSL video, I left a comment requesting to install linux on bare metal X elite and share you experience.
Thank you for your time and an in-depth effort to install linux on these machines 👏 👍
❤❤ Love you man
a 1.5 year agoo I had similar problem on hp-ryzen-5625U. antix hook 90% ok. then I read in amd site, that ms, Ubuntu and Red-hat have ok on this cpu. after a mount I installed 9 nine distros. 6 mpunts later all distros were working perfectly, allowed me to learn and explore linux world 🌎🌍. btw, I use termux in a tablet, and on one phone, with snapdragon 695, and 5-6 distros installed as proot. So, under 6 monts, everything will be fine. thanks for the great 👍👍👍 video, very honestly
I really want an X Elite notebook, but nothing will ever make me switch back to Windows. Thanks for the video!
Thanks for going through the hoops of getting Linux to work so we can see what could be considered the state of the art outside of Asahi on older Apple Silicon.
It's very interesting and I know many others are excited too.
Thanks bro, I guess asking a couple times didn't hurt! :D
Great to see where we are and interesting to see how long it takes to get full support!
You've made the video people wanted!!
Why can't ACPI be used instead of DeviceTree? These are ARM SystemReady devices, they support UEFI and ACPI.
Not working yet. Maybe in the future.
Thank you for making this. I have a Lenovo Slim 7x with a Snapdragon X, and it is a super machine, but I've not been able to install Linux yet. Arch Linux is the best, read the wiki to learn more. I learned more installing Arch than running Ubuntu for 5 years.
That was my question ❤️ thank you so much
No problem 😊
Finally someone has covered linux on Snapdragon Laptops!
The review I've been waiting.
I had zero doubts that it would be Arch. Didn't disappoint.
No shade, I really applaud your work in installing this. But this is why I prefer Gentoo on machines still needing a lot of low level work. It takes a lot more time / effort resulting in only a little. But when you realize how much work it is to go from bare metal to kernel to basic (and I mean real basic) X or XFCE; going from LFS (Linux from Scratch or Source) and close proximates like Gentoo (Arch is a bit more user friendly in comparison) makes sense. As you can use familiar interfaces to get from source to binary. Again, not an easy process, but much more worth it when you get a basic XFCE environment running for the first time. I used to use Debian unstable with custom kernel back in the day. But Debian has become far too big and binary oriented to easily build it's sources from scratch.
I was curious about the topic, thank you for explaining it.
Very rare liking a video before watching it moment. No-one else has made a video about this yet.
Thank you Alex for reporting on this. I have been waiting for almost a decade for a decent ARM Linux laptop, and maybe just maybe I'll able to get one in a few months. Or two years at most, just a guess. Meanwhile, my Linux laptop is from the Skylake generation, and it's a pain. Fortunately it's just a second or third computer for me. I have a great Linux desktop PC and an M1 Macbook Air, a great team.
Nice, the asus is exactly the one that seemed most interesting to me, its nice to see that it is one of the early ones being able to run even some linux on it
Just a matter of time and some nice distros will be on those machines.
It will get there. Fedora Linux works pretty much perfectly on my M2 Pro MacBook, and even was very easy to install.
03:03 If you put enough laptops on top of each other, you'll have... an ARCH!
I'm super excited for linux on these machines. Linux improves battery life and efficiency on my x86 machines so much, I'm excited to see what it can do on these arm machines.
Qualcomm should fund these engineers
Qualcomm is actively working on Linux support for these chips, whatever I may think of the company as a whole they are supporting Linux.
they definitely will if it benefits them
@@FentForEnt i REALLY want a snapdragon tablet that runs linux, like the surface pro
@ginger_toggaf Except, no. Qualcomm is already actively supporting Linux on these devices, they have upstreamed a bunch of patches that will be included in the next kernel.
@ginger_toggaf I don't think Qualcomm signed away their rights to make a driver
OMG THANK YOU Alex Ziskind is besically computer review jesus
You have to partition it in Windows. Have over a 256GB hard drive, a wired usb mouse, a net version of the OS and disable secure boot in the bios but leave pxe on. Also, an ethernet connection makes it all go smoother. Didn't do it on one of these but a QUALCOMM laptop. Your OEM drivers drop, and I was reduced to keyboard functions until I got the wired mouse. It was slow going on the net install even on ethernet. We are talking over 3 hours. Also, have a windows media tool rescue disc just in case things go wrong. But your can F whatever keyboard functions works for your bios and turn secure boot back on and boot to Windows to fix whatever screw up is there is one.
Yo, so I got this new Asus Vivobook S 15 and decided to upgrade the SSD to a 2TB one. Turns out, it wasn't as simple as I thought. There's no straightforward way to install Windows on it. You either gotta use this cloud recovery thing called WinRE or build an image and install it using WinPE. I went with the second option since I didn't wanna open up the laptop again and didn't have an adapter to mount the SSD. Let me tell you, it was a whole new level of installing Windows. Not for the faint of heart, I tell ya. But hey, I'm thinking of giving Linux a try and maybe even writing some articles about it. Keep up the good work with those videos, man!
bro, the lack of videos on the subject is sad. why do i feel like i am the only one who wants to see this happening?!!!
Thank you for this video. And thank you for talking to the real problem: the manufacturer. Let's hope we see some more development here quickly..
We got Linux on x elite before gta 6
This is the kind of work the integrator (HP/Dell/Asus etc.) should have done BEFORE even thinking of launching these copilot laptops ... I have no idea what they were even thinking launching them before this is taken care of.
Thx for this test. I will wait until arm ready for linux.
thanks for investigating :)
Thx for this great content Alex.
i like how he grabs my attention with the camera switching 😃
Looks like back to the late 90s and forking the HW configurations yourself in order to fet some obscure feature in it working. Those were the days. But I will not be too nostalgic and try to replicate the process atm.
Once you get old that passion of fing around and finding out rans out. But the young still has it.
Great,finally. Let's goooooo🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
ok so basically it's like android custom roms
there's no such thing as universal support (ignoring gsis)
you have to adapt it for each device separately to get stuff running
That's the issue with Arm, but unlike mobiles we can see device tree for all released laptops [Looking at you Vivo,Oppo]
no, each arm soc is a new world, that is why new rom is required, specific parts neww new work, i dont like that idea but smartphones have been like this sonce day 1
A start is still a start and that’s great. As with the M1/M2/M3 SoCs it took a few years to get those Macs running Linux well enough to daily drive (for most people - limitations still apply) with a hardware accelerated desktop. Onward and upward.
I use Arch btw. The problem is consumers, instead of paying a Windows license we should pay Linux developers to do their magic so everyone can enjoy a free (as in freedom) operating system
Nah that is not true, android is also foss, but somehow big companies doesn't forget it like linux
Lets be real here:
most ppl do not give a shit about free as in freedom.They will use whatever is required to have Fortnite, Netflix and MS Office running even if they had to sell all their personal data for it.
@@fybrkSimple answer, no big manufacturer sells Linux laptops.
@@oserodal2702 Not that aspect what I'm assumed, instead of software support, But if big companies starts to sell linux laptops, they will make their own distro, with proprietary drivers, and vendor restrictions, like apple did with bsd, then it doesn't really matter, if its linux or not.
Great! Thanks was waiting on that
I did it on a Samsung 2020 ARM so yes Samsung would be a piece of cake for me to get Linux Mint or OpenSuse on. Great video, I did a dual boot I forgot to say why I partitioned the hard drive in windows. GParted or anything like it was not applicable and the OS would not partition it but I did get the partition menu on one of the OSes I tried and I tried many. From July 1 to 4th I spent 3 to 4 days trying to see which distros would work. Mint a weird error message I don't remember what it was, but, Suse was working it. I have an older ARM so the hard drive could not be partitioned like I wanted. Weirdly configured, that the major obstacle. That an the semi functional keyboard. Hard to go next or input when the touchpad and keyboard are not fully functional. I enjoyed it.
You are doing Gods work, great video!
Explained beautifully ❤️✨
You gained one more sub. 😉
I use two different Arch linux ARM devices every day and i have full confidence in theses devs to get it working in a timely manner.
Linux on ARM is more mature then MACos OR Windows the issue is the device trees. On the bright side the way said trees work make over clocking really easy and stuff like RAM CPU and GPU can all be done from one place.
Luckily the linux devs are among the chaddiest in all the world!
Case and point there was a guy who booted linux on an iphone 6 and 7. If apple cant stop them then there is no way a device that aims to support it will.
With aarch64 linux is simply a superior.
Looking at some screen shots...always worth turning off Bitlocker before playing with Linux @Alex 😃
I have been using Linux since 1992 and the .93 kernel. That's point 93. It was Slackware and I had to put it on I think six 1.44 MB floppies. I needed a unix-like system so I could do my computer science homework from home. It's always been a pain in the rump. But we like ourselves better when we're been confronted with difficult challenges and we tried and succeeded. And you have challenges over and over when you are using Linux. I used Windoze however in my work and at home. Both my employer and my wife couldn't deal with that much complexity so they demanded Windoze. Whodathunkit? Today, I'm retired. Linux is still a hobby but I prefer Mint on my Linux machine. I put Linux on all my Windoze machines when they grow too to run Windoze gracefully. Nowadays I just run Linux in a virtual machines. I like to distrohop.
next level is Gentoo linux! I have been using Gentoo Linux last 20 years.
Some windows developers didn't even get devices sent to them and you think they'll send them to linux developers? Developers should ave gotten these devices at least half a year before lauch but here we are with too many drivers not working, no VM manager working and they want to make a revolution happen?
I was waiting for this video!!! Watching now.
Two years ago I bought an Optiplex scanner, expecting it to work under my Debian bullseye (A scanner is a glorified digital camera, right?!). Of course, it did not.
So I was browsing and wrote some respective report in the SANE group. It seemed to hinge on them not having any documentation regarding USB endpoints and modus operandi etc. So, I offered I would write the driver, if they manage to get that information. At this point, the whole thing got stuck ... and I lost track of it shortly after. I gave my scanner to a friend who runs windows and forgot about it. For all I know, there is still no support for those scanners...
As if there is a wall, preventing those device vendors from passing on basic information to people who could increase their customer base by a few %. So my conclusion: Never again Optiplex. Well done, dudes :)
Tuxedo :) (High End Linux Laptops) imo fair prices
Omg, one banger after another! 😮❤
looking forward for an Raspberry type SBC with that Processor - that could enable great home server builds
Great honest video
It's good to see you moving out of your comfort zone and messing with the edge of Linux development.
Just the video i wanted ❤ thanks 🙏
Thank you sir...I was confused in this topic...
You'd think there would be some universal device tree with all the basic features, plug and play, no?
I think this is a big missed opportunity from Qualcomm, because I think under Linux they could have shown better how good the chip really is (if I remember correctly one geekbench score they showed on slides was done on Linux. . Since there is a lot more software that already has years of experience running on Arm in datacenters and on raspberry pi's. And I have feeling that lot of were less good than they could have been because windows is not ready yet to take full potential. And also the conversion layer is not as good as it should be to impress.
I think even Microsoft could have benefited from it, because if the processor got better reviews, then more people will probably want the laptops, and let's be real, most of them still would want windows on it.
Not even the Windows part working correctly, why should they do even less work on Windows just to do anything with even 100x lower market share..? If the Windows side is perfectly workig and they still have time, sure let's do that, but half of the apps are still not even able to run on Windows on ARM, so better to focus on that side where are the users..
MS makes its money from Windows OEMs via the License fee, so allowing Qualcomm to sell Linux-only devices would be economic stupidity, especially as MS has spent billions on Windows on ARM. That is why MS insisted the bootloader is locked. I assume with time, MS will: 1/ allow the bootloader to be unlocked; 2/ Allow OEMs to release Linux-only devices. But I doubt it will be in 2024.
@@TamasKiss-yk4st It's not the same people that doing the Linux support and windows support, and it is not even about money, like he mentioned in the video, it is mainly that Linux developers don´t have access to the hardware. So more Linux support would not mean less windows support.
Now the processor does look worse because windows is not ready. So if some reviews show the potential of the processor, probably more people would buy it because of the potential in the future when windows is more optimized for it and it has more native running programs.
@@andyH_England I do not state that they should allow to sell Linux only devices. Only that in my eyes it would be a smart move (certainly for Qualcomm) to push/help with Linux hardware support. But I think that if they would allow it, the little money they would lose from the few people that would buy a Linux only variant, would be offset by the possible more positive view of the hardware, driving the sales up.
@@TamasKiss-yk4st Well because they already run Google's Android-Linux Kernel also known as ACK (Android Common Kernel) for which they make a lot more money from the phone market. Being I think they're doing this to diversify as they aren't the only chipset for phones anymore. It would make sense to put a little extra to boost the kernel space that serves both their consumer bases. Just an opinion though.
Honestly these chips likely will be in-dev for another 10 months or so before they are stable under any platform. MS and Qualcom are finger pointing at one another under Windows with a lot of the 'launch features' still missing at this time. It will be funny if Linux gets the full stack (including NPU) working and stable before Windows. Still waiting for my dev unit. x.x
Does KVM work on it? I know some of these Qualcomm chips have security firmware that among other things blocks access to hypervisor mode without a special driver that verifies that it's a trusted OS somehow - not secure boot but something vaguely similar I think. And of course this driver is only available in Windows (to allow Hyper V to work), so under any other OS that functionality is just plain off limits.
Finally a video about it !! Thank you.
There is much more software available for Linux on ARM, Just because of SBCs like Raspberry Pis, that run on ARMs, but also software exists as source that can be compiled for ARM.
I've been waiting for this video since the day XElite was announced
if os == "Ubuntu": print("Booting success") elif os == "Arch": print("Trying Arch...") else os == "Fedora": print("Finally trying fedora...") 🙂
Thanks for this video! I am wondering whether those kernel-fellas could dump out the device tree using wls2's device tree running under woa. I have configured my Surface 7 arm to use wsl2 and all my linux tools are working fine. Even most of my linux-docker builds worked using the native docker under wsl2. Tested the Docker Desktop but it was not working so I swapped it to Podman desktop on WOA, which is working nicely!
@@dhacloudtech1199 wsl is just running in a vm, so you'd get a generic vm device tree
Ive been waiting for a video about linux on that new SOC ❤
THANKS FOR TESTING I WAS GONNA BUY THIS
I really do wish more people knew that the arch installer now has arch-install to graphically install arch easily
It seems like mostly due to errors from the OEM (ASUS) and the chip-designers these laptops are not Linux-ready yet, they should give the drivers (opensource of course) to the Linux-kernel team and then the kernelteam can integrate those driver into it. As a user I would prefer it to be split off though: a different kernel for different architectures. The kernel is big enough as it is and I have noticed the longer boottimes over the years, increassing from roughly 3-4 seconds in 2019 to roughly 7-7.5 seconds now. Of course it takes the kernel-development team time to check those drivers and approve it and merge it so it is up to the hardwaredevelopers to give such code at an early stage, involve the Linux kernel team (and other kernel teams) as early as possible in the process.
I am waiting for this video.
Love this video.
PengWin is supposed to be easier to use than other distros under WSL, but I still cannot connect to the Xfce desktop that was installed with the pengwin-setup wizard. 😢 And my Lenovo Slim Yoga 7x has started complaining about limited graphics performance under Windows, probably because of the graphics driver 😢😢
I can't wait for linux to be properly supported to buy an arm laptop
Did you uncheck secure boot? That should allow almost any Linux distribution to boot up. I saw an image of Bit Locker in the video. He had to disable that also, before starting. He didn't do that, which then prompted Windows to lock itself. Chances are, he did not have the Bit Locker code, which meant, he had to do a complete reinstall and THEN, disable Bit Locker, then try to install Linux. He needed to disable secure boot, before loading ANY version of Linux.
i got linux on the machine
The video I've been waiting for! Thanks and please post updates when there are major changes to show us how well it's working!