Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops
28 comments
·July 27, 2025pentamassiv
tom89999
There are parts in the industry that are not meant for end users. I service copiers and printers. The fixing unit is not meant to be installed by a handyman, thats why you dont get to buy it. You can cook yourself, it works with 230V.... Toner and drum unit are sold to customers.
simonjgreen
Respectfully, nothing about that applies to a laptop. This has been well proven over the years, that with good forethought and making parts available laptops can be highly repairable.
pjmlp
Two of the reasons I eventually gave up on Desktop Linux, were virtualization getting good enough for just keep using Windows instead, back in the day with VMware Workstation and Virtual Box, nowadays with WSL (macOS is anyway UNIX enough for me to care otherwise).
And exactly the same experience with OEM vendors that were supposed to be Linux friendly, on my case the whole netbooks effort, where graphics, video decoding and wlan never worked as well on Windows, even though they were supposed to.
Dell XPS also had their issues for something that was supposed to be Canonical certified as running GNU/Linux properly.
It seems Android, ChromeOS and WebOS are the only ones where OEMs actually care to make it work properly, naturally the cloud and IoT vendors with their custom distros as well.
pimeys
I've been running Linux on my laptop and on my workstation since the 90's. Still using it as my main driver. Fedora Kinoite is my distro of choice, and Lenovo an AMD Thinkpad T14s the laptop. Everything works flawless, and it's still pretty fast even though it's two years old already.
And I do not miss at all the Microsoft bullsh*t on tracking and advertising. Or the general sluggishness of Windows.
bornfreddy
Can attest - Thinkpads and Linux go great together. Used for 2 years, then was forced into Windows crap by corporate policy. No, WSL is not the same.
sofixa
I ran a Dell XPS (not even the Canonical certified version) for a few years at a past job, and everything worked pretty well under Ubuntu. But it's always a matter of which exact hardware combination has mainstream support, and if the version you get doesn't e.g. have a shitty WiFi chip with bad support.
npodbielski
Yes. This is why I rather check Linux support od chips in a machine that I am planning to buy. Not that much work but you will not get unpleasant surprise when Wi-Fi do not work.
TheJCDenton
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 ?
kfl
There is StarLab https://starlabs.systems although they don’t make ARM laptops if that’s what you are asking for.
mariusor
Basically the same things happened to my tuxedo also. With the addition of having to change batteries once a year, because it would drop to half it's factory charge, which wasn't really sufficient. I also gave up on them when they wanted so much money for a screen change (which died after about 3-4 years).
I've replaced it with the new framework 13 inch, which so far works well, but I've only had it for 4-5 months. ( well, but not perfect, because the new AMD AI CPU has issues with suspend on linux)
pentamassiv
Unfortunately I don't know about a good alternative from Europe. I'd probably get a Framework if my device stops working. They seem to work hard at upstreaming things and use Linux standards. They also connected with the GNOME foundation, so there might be some collaboration in the future
timeon
> If you want to change some settings oft the device, you need to use their terrible Electron application.
That is unfortunate. I hoped they were more like System76.
juliangmp
Having to use their specific drivers is a bit annoying, but I honestly prefer that over drivers that dont work or dont exist at all. I really hope they can bring their stuff upstream at one point, but I can't deny that using their laptops hasn't been good experiences.
OptionX
Any word on a compibily layer project for x86/64 like Rosetta? Seems like an important thing to have imo.
The article mentions an emulator, but it seemed to be for running games.
I also heard MS had something similar in their arm dev kit, but haven't looked much into it.
tom89999
I am fed up with the linux world. I run Ubuntu on a randomly selected Thinkpad, everything works, outta the box. Why should i buy a new laptop because it holds another cpu doing the exact workload? I cant code faster, cant talk faster with people and being productive 8hrs strait is just a lie. Since almost 10years i read about pre-installed devices, but i dont see them anywhere. Most companies dont have business linux apps and they wont be available, an armada of developers is busy bringing the light of the webcam functioning. Why not specialize in something else like software the entire world runs on like SAP or whatever? Its nice to spend a rainy day to compile your kernel...but the outcome?
resonious
> Why should i buy a new laptop because it holds another cpu doing the exact workload?
Long battery is pretty nice. And you don't have to be productive for 8 hours straight to feel the niceness.
shenki0
The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 machines have no touchpad or touchscreen support. Listing them as "supported" requires a creative interpretation of the term.
teo_zero
> the current Linux Kernel 6.15 already supports many commercial laptops: Lenovo Yoga 7x, Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6, Dell XPS 13, Asus Vivobook S15, HP Omnibook x14, Microsoft Surface 13/15
Has anybody had any first-hand experience with Linux on such laptops?
intothemild
As someone with a Yoga 7x .. I'm still waiting. It's not fully supported.
The issue is drivers for peripherals and wifi.
I think the GPU is now supported.
It's been a long wait, mostly due to Qualcomm as I understand.
TheJCDenton
A little more context : in june 2024 at Computex, Tuxedo announced a possible christmas 2024 release [1]. A Qualcomm/Tuxedo collaboration was expected but did not materialize [2].
[1] https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/TUXEDO-on-ARM-is-coming.t... [2] https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/How-is-TUXEDOCOes-ARM-Not...
politelemon
Looking forward to this, thanks.
ZiiS
Been daily driving an M1 for two years at this point; no complaints.
aaviator42
With a Linux distro on it?
HeuristicsCG
A Unix.
With applications.
And working webcam light and audio.
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 settings oft the device, you need to use their terrible Electron application. It's so bad, volunteers created an alternative. Even they are getting tired of Tuxedo though [2]
The device is also not repairable at all. I had an issue with my screen and they gave me a quote of ~200€+ to repair it. I'm sure I could fix it myself for a lot less, but no parts are available and no instructions.
I hope they improve, but for now I'm disillusioned and would not buy it again.
[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/TUXEDO-Drivers-Taint-Patches
[2] https://aaronerhardt.github.io/blog/posts/tuxedo_rs_update/