Apple has been using ARM-based Apple Silicon chips in its Macs for a few years now, and ARM Windows laptops are becoming common, but we haven't seen many Linux laptops move away from the x86 architecture. Thankfully, there's at least one option coming soon.
Tuxedo Computers, a company that already sells laptops and desktops built for Linux, confirmed that it is working on an ARM-based Linux laptop using Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite chipset. This appears to be the first Linux laptop with Qualcomm's high-end laptop chip—the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, new Surface Pro, Snapdragon Dev Kit, and other models are all running Windows 11. ARM Linux laptops aren't entirely new, though, as Pine64 has released a few 2-in-1 devices and laptops with ARM chips.
Qualcomm claims the Snapdragon X Elite is able to outperform Apple's M2 chip with higher efficiency, so it should be promising in a Linux laptop. The prototype is codenamed "Drako," and it was shown off during Computex. Tuxedo says that there are still some things to work on, including drivers, before this can see an actual commercial release, but it's making progress in the right direction and expects to have a finished product available to purchase by the end of 2024.
Currently, trying to get Linux running on either a Windows ARM laptop or an Apple silicon-powered MacBook can be a bit of a hit or miss experience. Support varies from computer to computer, and while you might see a Windows laptop booting a Linux build, you might not be able to do it with other models. Being ARM-powered, these laptops suffer from the same problems and limitations smartphones have suffered for years, where you need a tailor-made "custom ROM" for your specific model of phone if you want to boot a different operating system on it.
The prospect of a proper Linux-compatible laptop running ARM sounds exciting, but we'd have to see how "open" it actually is. Qualcomm has been working with Linaro to bring the Snapdragon X Elite SoC to Linux, incorporating relevant functions into recent mainline kernels, so it might be a breeze, but we'll have to see how easy, or hard, it is to get different Linux distros running on it.
Source: Tuxedo
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