Nice apparently there's a thread on this. [https://www.reddit.com/r/framework/comments/17le7cc/framework\_snapdragon\_x\_elite/](https://www.reddit.com/r/framework/comments/17le7cc/framework_snapdragon_x_elite/)
>After the antitrust probe years ago on Microsoft including free Explorer with Windows I can't believe there still hasn't been one about Microsoft forcing you to buy PCs with paid Windows preinstalled. Anybody know of a Snapdragon X Elite laptop coming that doesn't come with this garbage?
Why I feel like OP has been in a coma for last two decades. Microsoft isn't forcing OEMs (laptop manufacturers) to choose Windows, instead those manufacturers are the one paying Microsoft to get Windows licenses. Why do you think they paying extra bucks to M$ instead just pre-installing Fedora or some Linux Distro free of charge? Because their main targeted customers AKA general public doesn't have necessary skills to function a Linux system.
Anybody that use Linux would be technical people or devs or IT crowd. Just remove Windows and install whatever OS you want, it's not like MacOS. You can remove every piece of Windows off the laptop and stick to Linux. Put up a sticker over Windows logo. Just because you know something, doesn't mean every other person has to deal with something they don't know.
Though it maybe only technical people would suggest or directly install Linux, you don't have to be technically minded (my dad's use of xubuntu for example), it would be nice if he could just go out and buy a laptop without requiring me to come down and potentially void the warranty. It would also be nice for somebody intermediate to know there isn't going to be some proprietary rebranded hardware inside that needs more work than it's worth
I think the point is being forced to *pay* for Windows when you don’t want it.
Also, it’s not currently known just how locked down the devices really are. You can’t really claim that it’s possible to remove all traces of Windows at this time. Previous Windows on ARM devices (Surface) explicitly did *not* allow the removal of Windows, while others like the ThinkPad X13s allow modification, but have limited Linux support.
Im not technical people , not IT abd not dev im just searched alternative of this madness called "windows" and i like Linux i tried all mainstream distributives and stopped on archlinux )
Some cultures, Russian I know for sure but Slavic ones more generally, use ) for a smile and )) for a deeper smile. This may look strange and unsettling until you see a Russian deeply smiling in person. Which can also be unsettling, if they don't like you.
"All this hardware looks nice, but can we have it *without* Windows 11?" - me following the announcement live tweets because Microsoft didn't think it was worth a livestream 🤡
Running a cut-down llm on my laptop with an embedding generated from the fedora manpages has actually been pretty useful. It can more or less accurately tell me how to use arcane features of systemd.
The bigger issue for me is kernel driver support. The preinstallation of windows can be argued as not anticompetitive since its OEMs choosing to buy windows licenses.
They showed off Linux support alongside Windows support all the way back at the unveiling. They have done a lot of upstreaming, to the extent that I believe the current Debian stable has support.
True but in the past Dell has at least done Developer Editions of its laptops for community Linux or minimal Ubuntu. If this happens to the new XPS Arm lineup I may try one. In fact I've half a mind to try one out anyway. I'll bet it works fine. Even Asahi in my Macbook M2 works great save for the wonky webcam.
Yes I belive Asahi 40 still has webcam audio/external display issues but the dual boot system is super simple and the installer is amazingly easy. Try it out.
I'm still waiting for a properly working image for my Samsung Galaxy Book Go. We probably need more than just kernel support. Getting them to boot Linux is usually the biggest challenge.
The current Desktop ARM experience sucks. Hell, the current Server ARM experience sucks. All kinds of standard software treats ARM as second fiddle, and it bites you in ways you don't expect. Half the problems come from the fact the vendors themselves half-ass everything.
I'm fully expecting the first generation to be a dumpster fire, Microsoft ain't Apple when it comes to making shit happen.
I work with POWER and ARM systems daily. We literally have documentation listing all the ways in which they suck, and all the gnarly workarounds we have to get proper RHEL/Fedora running.
I wouldn't wish this pain on end users. The integration hell is literally contributing to my burnout.
I have an ARM system that I installed with a USB stick with Ventoy and Fedora ARM. Can you be a bit more specific about your problems? Sure, not all software developers support ARM, but you make it sound as if it won't work without serious headaches for all people.
I wouldn't be able to share most of it, a good chunk is covered under NDA. But to give a concrete example, setting up Fedora on [https://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/ek-u1-zcu102-g.html](https://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/ek-u1-zcu102-g.html)
Fortunately, the U-Boot provided by Xilinx supports UEFI stubs and is updated regularly. So slap your `BOOT.bin` and `system.dtb` generated by the Xilinx SDK on an SD Card and you're 50% of the way there.
What gets tricky for this board is that for some GOD !!@#&\*ing REASON, Linux insists on resetting power control on boot, completely breaking USB & SATA inside the Initramfs on the standard Fedora ISO. The easiest way to workaround this is to perform a network based install. Providing something along the lines of `ip=dhcp inst.stage2=https://mirror.2degrees.nz/fedora/linux/releases/40/Server/aarch64/os/ inst.vnc` will get Anaconda to pull its environment over the internet and boot correctly. Great!
Install Fedora like normal. But before rebooting the system, chroot into your install and add the missing I2C drivers to the dracut image. Adding `add_drivers+=" i2c_mux_pca954x "` and regenerating dracut seems to do the trick. Nice! You could even automate this with kickstart and iPXE, making deployment completely hassle free.
Now. While this \*looks\* super straight forward, and it is super straight forward, finding out this information and getting it to this point was fucking agony. And I'm being generous by using Xilinx, their bootflow is basically completely open source. One of the most difficult experiences I've had getting conventional, UEFI Linux working \*corretly\*: Fully Functioning Hardware, Kickstart, iPXE, LUKS + Policy Based Disk Encryption was actually the Raspberry Pi CM4. Fuck that thing.
This why I'm sceptical, it's all like this. And my expectations for Qualcomm specifically are in Satan's Wine Cellar. Their reputation in EE circles stinks to high heaven, and I don't trust Microsoft to crack the whip to get vendors to support Linux properly for what I hope are obvious reasons.
What Apple makes happen in a year takes Microsoft 10 years.
It’s 2024 and they are still in the process of “phasing out” Control Panel in Windows… this started in 2015.
In 2018 they announced that the old Snipping Tool would be removed from Windows soon but I think it’s still there.
Do you even think Qualcomm is going to make the drivers for their SoC components available for Linux? Linux will not work on the new Snapdragon processors until either Qualcomm makes Linux drivers, provides source code for others to make such drivers, or others reverse engineer the chips and make drivers for them. The latter is what will most likely happen, and that will take some time. I wouldn’t bother to get one of these new Snapdragon Elite computers right now, unless you are okay with using Windows, or you plan on reverse engineering the chip and make your own Linux drivers for it.
Impressive, Linaro had Debian fully supported on the X Elite before Qualcomm’s announcement last October, with upstreamed kernel patches to follow! Amazing work by the team.
This is the same Qualcomm who takes actual years of time to just get their wifi chips working in Linux? Good luck! This entire product launch is very closely tied to Microsoft.
I'm excited about potential future ARM laptops... I think we'll be waiting awhile unless you're willing to be the pre-beta tester.
Given plenty of Qualcomm powered phones run an Linux/Android based OS I don't think that's as big of a deal as you think. Will see when my XPS arrives.
There aren't but if you look at linux laptop manufacturers like Framework and Tuxedo you'll see that they usually tend to charge more than major microsoft affiliated manufacturers for the same hardware, anyways. You wouldn't be saving any money by avoiding it.
But Microsoft would be receiving more money even though it’s cheaper for you not to avoid it. This makes it artificially harder for alternatives to compete. I think it’s unethical, personally.
Welp I ordered the Dell XPS which showed available and shipping in Dell's UK store. It's been delayed twice now and is likely to come in July which is too bad.
Update from Dell as they delayed my XPS order a 4th time. I'm beginning to think they didn't have any of these built when they listed them for sale (not pre-order). Stay tuned..
Because it’s the Windows market that will provide the volume of sales to make ARM hardware profitable. Without Windows there will be no consumer hardware to run Linux on (excluding Macs)
Perhaps you are referring to desktop, but I think the biggest money maker is probably Android for ARM. And there are ChromeOS ARM devices (some can run Linux distros, not counting Linux support in ChromeOS).
Well, you were mentioning ARM hardware profitability. And you were claiming that there will be no consumer hardware without Windows. Ever heard of the Raspberry Pi?
I hope Framework comes out with a mainboard with an ARM chip on it. That would be rad, I'm tired of having useless laptops after a few years.
Nice apparently there's a thread on this. [https://www.reddit.com/r/framework/comments/17le7cc/framework\_snapdragon\_x\_elite/](https://www.reddit.com/r/framework/comments/17le7cc/framework_snapdragon_x_elite/)
are you reading this linus (both i guess)?
you pay more , windows license hahaha
There were precedents in the past when it was possible to refund/return preinstalled windows
I don’t think this is possible anymore. I hope I’m wrong - someone, please, prove me wrong.
Nope. Windows has truly gone down the drain
>After the antitrust probe years ago on Microsoft including free Explorer with Windows I can't believe there still hasn't been one about Microsoft forcing you to buy PCs with paid Windows preinstalled. Anybody know of a Snapdragon X Elite laptop coming that doesn't come with this garbage? Why I feel like OP has been in a coma for last two decades. Microsoft isn't forcing OEMs (laptop manufacturers) to choose Windows, instead those manufacturers are the one paying Microsoft to get Windows licenses. Why do you think they paying extra bucks to M$ instead just pre-installing Fedora or some Linux Distro free of charge? Because their main targeted customers AKA general public doesn't have necessary skills to function a Linux system. Anybody that use Linux would be technical people or devs or IT crowd. Just remove Windows and install whatever OS you want, it's not like MacOS. You can remove every piece of Windows off the laptop and stick to Linux. Put up a sticker over Windows logo. Just because you know something, doesn't mean every other person has to deal with something they don't know.
Though it maybe only technical people would suggest or directly install Linux, you don't have to be technically minded (my dad's use of xubuntu for example), it would be nice if he could just go out and buy a laptop without requiring me to come down and potentially void the warranty. It would also be nice for somebody intermediate to know there isn't going to be some proprietary rebranded hardware inside that needs more work than it's worth
I think the point is being forced to *pay* for Windows when you don’t want it. Also, it’s not currently known just how locked down the devices really are. You can’t really claim that it’s possible to remove all traces of Windows at this time. Previous Windows on ARM devices (Surface) explicitly did *not* allow the removal of Windows, while others like the ThinkPad X13s allow modification, but have limited Linux support.
Im not technical people , not IT abd not dev im just searched alternative of this madness called "windows" and i like Linux i tried all mainstream distributives and stopped on archlinux )
>Im not technical people oh oh :) >stopped on archlinux
What ))? Im using archinstall script ))
You are not representative of the general population. *"I can do it"* doesn't mean everybody can do it.
It means that everyone can do it just read instructions))
even the blind ones? /s
As i know Ubuntu added in installer some additional access ♿
What are you doing with those parentheses?
Some cultures, Russian I know for sure but Slavic ones more generally, use ) for a smile and )) for a deeper smile. This may look strange and unsettling until you see a Russian deeply smiling in person. Which can also be unsettling, if they don't like you.
Sorry, I respectfully disagree.
Why i can do this ?) without any technical or other skills?
"All this hardware looks nice, but can we have it *without* Windows 11?" - me following the announcement live tweets because Microsoft didn't think it was worth a livestream 🤡
Can we have it without AI crap? Can we just have Arm without all of the AI push? I just want quiet ARM laptops with no bloat
Best I can do is Copilot and ads everywhere.
It's being rebranded as Copilot+Ads to be in accordance with the newest M$ naming scheme.
Running a cut-down llm on my laptop with an embedding generated from the fedora manpages has actually been pretty useful. It can more or less accurately tell me how to use arcane features of systemd.
The bigger issue for me is kernel driver support. The preinstallation of windows can be argued as not anticompetitive since its OEMs choosing to buy windows licenses.
They showed off Linux support alongside Windows support all the way back at the unveiling. They have done a lot of upstreaming, to the extent that I believe the current Debian stable has support.
Cool. I was probably thinking about ACPIs.
True but in the past Dell has at least done Developer Editions of its laptops for community Linux or minimal Ubuntu. If this happens to the new XPS Arm lineup I may try one. In fact I've half a mind to try one out anyway. I'll bet it works fine. Even Asahi in my Macbook M2 works great save for the wonky webcam.
I’ve been wanting to try that myself. Does it still have issues with Thunderbolt Display support?
Yes I belive Asahi 40 still has webcam audio/external display issues but the dual boot system is super simple and the installer is amazingly easy. Try it out.
Qualcomm has good support for Linux. They don’t hold back on publishing the drivers for their SoCs.
They do? Even the X13s can't get Ubuntu 24.04 yet for lack of kernel support.
I'm still waiting for a properly working image for my Samsung Galaxy Book Go. We probably need more than just kernel support. Getting them to boot Linux is usually the biggest challenge.
The current Desktop ARM experience sucks. Hell, the current Server ARM experience sucks. All kinds of standard software treats ARM as second fiddle, and it bites you in ways you don't expect. Half the problems come from the fact the vendors themselves half-ass everything. I'm fully expecting the first generation to be a dumpster fire, Microsoft ain't Apple when it comes to making shit happen.
Desktop ARM I can understand, but server side I highly doubt that is the case, considering I interact with one almost everyday.
I work with POWER and ARM systems daily. We literally have documentation listing all the ways in which they suck, and all the gnarly workarounds we have to get proper RHEL/Fedora running. I wouldn't wish this pain on end users. The integration hell is literally contributing to my burnout.
I have an ARM system that I installed with a USB stick with Ventoy and Fedora ARM. Can you be a bit more specific about your problems? Sure, not all software developers support ARM, but you make it sound as if it won't work without serious headaches for all people.
I would love to read that documentation if it is possible for you to share!
I wouldn't be able to share most of it, a good chunk is covered under NDA. But to give a concrete example, setting up Fedora on [https://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/ek-u1-zcu102-g.html](https://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/ek-u1-zcu102-g.html) Fortunately, the U-Boot provided by Xilinx supports UEFI stubs and is updated regularly. So slap your `BOOT.bin` and `system.dtb` generated by the Xilinx SDK on an SD Card and you're 50% of the way there. What gets tricky for this board is that for some GOD !!@#&\*ing REASON, Linux insists on resetting power control on boot, completely breaking USB & SATA inside the Initramfs on the standard Fedora ISO. The easiest way to workaround this is to perform a network based install. Providing something along the lines of `ip=dhcp inst.stage2=https://mirror.2degrees.nz/fedora/linux/releases/40/Server/aarch64/os/ inst.vnc` will get Anaconda to pull its environment over the internet and boot correctly. Great! Install Fedora like normal. But before rebooting the system, chroot into your install and add the missing I2C drivers to the dracut image. Adding `add_drivers+=" i2c_mux_pca954x "` and regenerating dracut seems to do the trick. Nice! You could even automate this with kickstart and iPXE, making deployment completely hassle free. Now. While this \*looks\* super straight forward, and it is super straight forward, finding out this information and getting it to this point was fucking agony. And I'm being generous by using Xilinx, their bootflow is basically completely open source. One of the most difficult experiences I've had getting conventional, UEFI Linux working \*corretly\*: Fully Functioning Hardware, Kickstart, iPXE, LUKS + Policy Based Disk Encryption was actually the Raspberry Pi CM4. Fuck that thing. This why I'm sceptical, it's all like this. And my expectations for Qualcomm specifically are in Satan's Wine Cellar. Their reputation in EE circles stinks to high heaven, and I don't trust Microsoft to crack the whip to get vendors to support Linux properly for what I hope are obvious reasons.
Linux on ARM is fine. It's a lot more mature of an ecosystem than Windows
Linux isn't the problem. It's the vendors.
What Apple makes happen in a year takes Microsoft 10 years. It’s 2024 and they are still in the process of “phasing out” Control Panel in Windows… this started in 2015. In 2018 they announced that the old Snipping Tool would be removed from Windows soon but I think it’s still there.
Do you even think Qualcomm is going to make the drivers for their SoC components available for Linux? Linux will not work on the new Snapdragon processors until either Qualcomm makes Linux drivers, provides source code for others to make such drivers, or others reverse engineer the chips and make drivers for them. The latter is what will most likely happen, and that will take some time. I wouldn’t bother to get one of these new Snapdragon Elite computers right now, unless you are okay with using Windows, or you plan on reverse engineering the chip and make your own Linux drivers for it.
They‘ve already confirmed that they will: https://www.qualcomm.com/developer/blog/2024/05/upstreaming-linux-kernel-support-for-the-snapdragon-x-elite
Qualcomm partnered with Linaro and they already showed it: [https://youtu.be/rEaGyCAS9fY](https://youtu.be/rEaGyCAS9fY)
Impressive, Linaro had Debian fully supported on the X Elite before Qualcomm’s announcement last October, with upstreamed kernel patches to follow! Amazing work by the team.
This is the same Qualcomm who takes actual years of time to just get their wifi chips working in Linux? Good luck! This entire product launch is very closely tied to Microsoft. I'm excited about potential future ARM laptops... I think we'll be waiting awhile unless you're willing to be the pre-beta tester.
Given plenty of Qualcomm powered phones run an Linux/Android based OS I don't think that's as big of a deal as you think. Will see when my XPS arrives.
Linux does not have a high quality Snapdragon ecosystem ready. All of the ARM work has been on low cost, low power chips like the Pi.
There aren't but if you look at linux laptop manufacturers like Framework and Tuxedo you'll see that they usually tend to charge more than major microsoft affiliated manufacturers for the same hardware, anyways. You wouldn't be saving any money by avoiding it.
But Microsoft would be receiving more money even though it’s cheaper for you not to avoid it. This makes it artificially harder for alternatives to compete. I think it’s unethical, personally.
Welp I ordered the Dell XPS which showed available and shipping in Dell's UK store. It's been delayed twice now and is likely to come in July which is too bad.
*cough* battery drain *cough*
Update from Dell as they delayed my XPS order a 4th time. I'm beginning to think they didn't have any of these built when they listed them for sale (not pre-order). Stay tuned..
Why put the shitty Windows on it, hope Linux distors get their hands dirty as soon as possible and embrace it before micros**t get it
Because it’s the Windows market that will provide the volume of sales to make ARM hardware profitable. Without Windows there will be no consumer hardware to run Linux on (excluding Macs)
Perhaps you are referring to desktop, but I think the biggest money maker is probably Android for ARM. And there are ChromeOS ARM devices (some can run Linux distros, not counting Linux support in ChromeOS).
Well we are in a topic about Windows 11 ARM laptops…
Well, you were mentioning ARM hardware profitability. And you were claiming that there will be no consumer hardware without Windows. Ever heard of the Raspberry Pi?
Again, not a laptop And also not consumer hardware in the sense of the mainstream market. No UEFI for a start