Most features are present, but many important parts are still under development.
Qualcomm has made good progress in adjusting its new Snapdragon X Elite laptop CPU for use with Linux. The mobile SoC manufacturer has revealed that it has laid much of the groundwork for running the Linux operating system on the Snapdragon X Elite. However, Qualcomm is far from done, as significant development work is still required to have the X Elite fully operational in Linux. The upcoming Linux kernel is expected to fully support all the chip's features.
Qualcomm takes pride in its Linux support efforts and has prioritized Linux support for all its previous Snapdragon laptop CPUs, typically announcing Linux support within a day or two of release. The Snapdragon X Elite continues this pattern, with Linux support announced the day after its debut on October 23, 2023.
This contrasts sharply with Apple, which, so far, has not provided much official support for Linux—Asahi Linux continues to work on supporting M1 and M2 processors, as well as M3 and Apple M4 chips, but most of the work seems to come from the community rather than Apple itself.
Advertisement
So far, most of Qualcomm's key features are operational within Linux, particularly with the recently released Linux 6.9 version. These key features include UEFI-based boot support and all standard bootloaders, such as Grub and systemd. Dual boot is also possible for users who wish to run both Windows and Linux installations on their X Elite-powered computers.
Other key features that have been implemented include the DWC3 audio driver, reference board support, ADSP/CDSP support, multimedia clocking, PCIe/eDP/USB PHY, and system caching via PCIe on NVMe SSD.
Functionalities being developed for future iterations of Linux include battery support, onboard display connections, external DisplayPort connections, sleep and wake functions on the GPU, camera support, video support, better CPU frequency support, and speaker/microphone/headphone support. These functions are expected to appear in Linux 6.10 and 6.11.
Qualcomm is also working on resolving issues related to the UEFI boot process concerning device trees. There is currently a problem where there is no standard method to select which device tree to pass to the Linux kernel if multiple device tree blobs are packaged into the firmware package that flashes to the X Elite laptop.Additionally, Qualcomm has provided a 6-month functional roadmap that is still under development. These features include end-to-end hardware video decoding in Firefox and Chrome, GPU and CPU performance optimizations, power optimizations (suspend/DCVS), and easier and more accessible Ubuntu and Debian installations for Qualcomm X Elite users.
For die-hard Linux enthusiasts, Qualcomm has offered an experimental raw disk image for the Debian installer, which you can use at your own risk. Technically, Linux can now run on the Snapdragon X Elite processor, but Qualcomm's implementation is far from complete, which means you may encounter errors and many non-functional features.
**Qualcomm Challenges X86 Again**
Following the launch of the flagship Windows PC processor Snapdragon X Elite at last year's Snapdragon Tech Summit, Qualcomm has recently introduced a new product aimed at the high-end PC market — the Snapdragon X Plus processor.
According to information released by Qualcomm, the Snapdragon X Plus is a high-end ARM PC processor. Its CPU section features a 10-core design with a maximum clock speed of 3.4GHz, and it is manufactured using the leading 4nm process technology.
The Qualcomm Adreno GPU delivers 3.8 TFLOPS, and the Qualcomm Hexagon NPU offers 45 TOPS, making it the fastest NPU among known laptop processors.
It is noteworthy that in multiple public benchmark tests, the Snapdragon X Plus has outperformed Intel's current mainstay in mobile PCs — the Core Ultra 7 155H.

In comparison, the Snapdragon X Plus provides higher single-thread and multi-thread processing capabilities in the CPU cores, and stronger GPU graphics computing performance, at the same power consumption. This leads to the inference that laptops equipped with the Snapdragon X Plus can offer longer battery life, higher processing efficiency, and a smarter user experience. However, it is regrettable that Qualcomm did not showcase more details of practical applications as they did with the introduction of the Snapdragon X Elite.
The launch of the Snapdragon X Plus can be seen as another strong challenge from ARM to the traditional x86 processor + Windows camp, following the X Elite.Although Qualcomm has not yet disclosed its long-term plans in the PC processor sector in detail, the release of two consecutive products clearly indicates that Qualcomm is accelerating its entry into the PC processor market and actively positioning itself within the ARM Windows ecosystem. The rise of artificial intelligence technology is also rapidly reshaping the traditional PC landscape, with AI PCs presenting a historic opportunity for Qualcomm to enter the PC field.
The advent of the AI era is overturning this traditional structure. The high demand for AI computing's ability to process large-scale data in parallel has made the standalone CPU architecture unsustainable. Dedicated AI accelerators such as GPUs, TPUs, and NPUs are integrated into heterogeneous chip designs to compensate for the CPU's shortcomings in AI computing power.
Among them, the NPU, as a chip specifically designed for AI training and inference, plays a pivotal role in the AI era. The CPU is no longer the sole indicator of chip performance; AI computing power is the new trump card. This transformation has won opportunities for the ARM camp in the PC sector.
The ARM architecture itself has a more mature support for AI accelerators, and ARM chip manufacturers like Qualcomm have long been working in the fields of mobile AI and edge AI. Especially Qualcomm, as early as 2015, the Snapdragon 820 mobile chip was equipped with the first-generation AI Engine.
By 2018, the Hexagon NPU in the Snapdragon 855 added a Hexagon Tensor Accelerator, further enhancing AI performance. In 2020, Qualcomm's Hexagon NPU underwent a revolutionary architectural update, integrating vector, tensor, and scalar accelerators to achieve better performance and power efficiency.
These accumulations have allowed Qualcomm to accumulate rich experience in AI chip design for mobile devices, and have also laid the foundation for its subsequent expansion of AI accelerator chips to PCs and other broader fields.
Comment