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Linux on the Arm-Based ThinkPad X13S: Getting There (theregister.com)
64 points by rcarmo on Sept 8, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 52 comments



Surprising to see this taking so long to evolve. One would think that Qualcomm would benefit from dedicating a few heads to proper Linux support of the Snapdragon, or offer bounties for community development of features. Asahi is doing much better with Apple hardware even though it is comparatively much more exotic and closed up than PC architecture. I wonder how much Microsoft / Windows 11 ties are interfering (on purpose or accidentally) with the progress of native ARM PC Linux.


If you take a moment to research you'll see that Qualcomm absolutely does not give two craps about software support for their SoC/SoMs. Like, none. They throw out a binary turd and that's that. Androids history of (lacking) updates is littered with them refusing to do anything but release a binary blob that works on a few kernels.

There's no need to make up some wild conspiracy theories with Windows here, spend a single Google search before going into this direction next time.


Qualcomm employee here - I agree that we have fallen short of expectations but I don't think it's fair to say "none". I know several folks whose job is kernel development and upstreaming is part of that. It would be great if we could shift from a focus on Android to a focus on Linux instead, though.

I have seen significant changes in the policies established only just weeks ago that should enable Qualcomm to better participate in developer communities. There's a clear message from the CEO and several VPs that these changes are necessary.


> I have seen significant changes in the policies established only just weeks ago that should enable Qualcomm to better participate in developer communities. There's a clear message from the CEO and several VPs that these changes are necessary.

Forgive me the snark, but I'll believe it when I see it. The last years didn't inspire me with confidence.

The problem is, at the core, that this sort of behavior used to be the norm in the industry. Working with embedded systems is pure and utter hell. The open documentation and standardized interfaces one got with Intel/AMD is the complete exception.


> Forgive me the snark, but I'll believe it when I see it. The last years didn't inspire me with confidence.

Indeed, it will be hard to change the minds of all the folks at Qualcomm who have operated here for years under the status quo. I see new leverage for those who have lobbied for change in the past.

I'm cautiously optimistic.


You need to provide an alternative to M1/M2, for desktops.

Qualcomm let Apple steal it.


That news is very nice to hear! Good to know that CEO is onboard with it.


AFAIK Android updates are not as fast as they could be due to need for mobile operators to re-certify every update as the OS blob contains modem firmware. Apple is able to update iOS faster because modem firmware is separate from the rest of iOS. Hence having open source drivers in the kernel will not improve the situation much.


That is completely tangential from Qualcomms SoM/SoC support cycle.


Or maybe, I'm just creating opportunities so you can come and shit on Qualcomm like they deserve. I think it's funnier than if we're both taking that dump at the same time.


> Surprising to see this taking so long to evolve.

Qualcomm's competition isn't Apple. It's Intel and AMD. Intel and AMD offer chips that run Windows much better than whatever Qualcomm can make. Apple managed to do that because they control the whole stack - they made macOS run well on ARM, something Microsoft has little incentive to do because chicken and egg.

For Windows, binary compatibility with 3rd party apps is extremely important, at least for the apps that aren't browsers running JavaScript, so, what Qualcomm could aim to do is to optimize the heck of their ARM offerings for x86 emulation/JITing, and efficient JavaScript execution, more or less what Apple did.


> For Windows, binary compatibility with 3rd party apps is extremely important, at least for the apps that aren't browsers running JavaScript, so, what Qualcomm could aim to do is to optimize the heck of their ARM offerings for x86 emulation/JITing, and efficient JavaScript execution, more or less what Apple did.

I found this remark by HN user dwaite very informative: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37327938

TL;DR emulated x86-32 performance on ARM is poor, and is going to stay poor because of the memory model. Whether this strategy is going to be successful largely depends on how important/prevalent legacy 32bit apps are.


Qualcomm is a bunch of shortsighted incompetence disguised as a company.


This is a 2022 laptop with a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, which doesn't compare too well with contemporary Intel and Apple processors for lightweight laptops: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4774vs5317vs4104/Snapdr...

So not very exciting, unless Qualcomm and Lenovo are planning to release refreshed hardware soon.


Fast enough for most ultrabook users. Being fastest this year is really not a big deal. If you're doing heavy media, gaming, or compiling you'll be on a different form factor.


Yeah, but there's no reason for it - if you've ever used an ARM laptop system you'll see that you're just trading usable performance (they tend to be very laggy) for not much benefit. Modern AMD/Intel mobile Ultrabook chips aren't that much more power hungry.


I think it has been shown that whith ligt usage, the main power sink is the rest of the laptop (ports, display, sensors,... )

This is why Linux laptop experience improved significantly a few years back when they started disabling unused HDMI ports etc


> if you've ever used an ARM laptop system

Erm... A non-Apple ARM laptop you mean.

But yes - these things feel like Celeron laptops for Xeon prices.


No, I wrote what I meant. I own both an M2 Mac, ARM Chromebook and Zen4 AMD laptop and the MacBook and AMD laptop are quite comparable these days, it's not like I run out of battery on any of them regularly.

The Qualcomm powered Chromebook is the outlier with noticeably worse performance.


> it's not like I run out of battery on any of them regularly.

It all depends on how and where your power adapters are scattered in your office. I definitely like not worrying about that with the Apples while, with the Dell, I'm constantly mindful about where the adaptor is (and carry one in my backpack).


Yeah, I could confidently take my MacBook on a day trip sans charger, but I have yet to own a contemporary x86 laptop that could I could do the same with. That said, my newest x86 laptop is Intel Tiger Lake which wasn’t ever really good in that department.


The range of use cases including media, gaming and compiling on similar form factor MacBook Air Mx is enormous compared to this similarly priced laptop.


>So not very exciting, unless Qualcomm and Lenovo are planning to release refreshed hardware soon.

Chicken and egg problem. Qualcomm won't invest massive resources to make a world beating laptop chip if there's no userbase for it.


The interest for Asahi Linux should prove that there is a sizeable market for Linux on ARM. Admittedly the Asahi team are out of this world, but ARM is well understood and having a small Linux team of "ordinarily good" developers would be a drop in the bucket for Qualcomm.

I think there should be clear incentive there for a CPU manufacturer to establish itself as the reference ARM PC platform provider like Intel is on the x86 side.


>The interest for Asahi Linux should prove that there is a sizeable market for Linux on ARM

Interest for Asahi only proves there's interest for Linux on Apple devices, because they're already so popular and numerous, bought by millions of users first and foremost to run MacOS, not Linux.

There's zero interest for non-Apple ARM laptops because, unlike Macbooks, they have no market share. Nobody's gonna spend hundreds of hours reverse engineering GPU drivers for an ARM laptop that only 20 people on the planet bought, and in half of those cases it's sitting gathering dust.

Like I said, chicken and egg problem. There's not gonna be a massive upsell of ARM laptops if the equivalent SW ecosystem of Apple isn't there to move the HW off the shelves.


I still contend that a significant portion of the interest for Asahi converts to a desire for a good ARM linux laptop, Apple branded or not.


Yes, but Macbooks are currently the most best selling mainstream ARM laptops any average consumer has heard about and can easily get thei had on, for MacOS.

Apple and MacOS ecosystem guarantee amazing sales and mainstream popularization of these devices, giving them a numbers advantage, meaning it's by far the best choice platform to target with the biggest RoI for your reverse engineering effort versus some more obscure ARM laptops which could be better on paper but nobody bought.


The "market size" argument (or rather "installed base") implies that Linux can only exist as a parasitic PC operating system riding the coattails of established vendors, which I believe is no longer true in 2023. Big distros like Ubuntu and Fedora offer first class experience that rivals and surpasses MacOS and Windows in many ways, especially for technical (dev) markets and are worthy of their own ecosystem.


Nitpick: there are 2-3B Linux devices out there are 64bit ARM.

Not many are laptops thought


>Nitpick: there are 2-3B Linux devices out there are 64bit ARM.

The context of this thread was about ARM laptop devices, not generic ARM widgets. Please use the strongest interpretation of an argument when responding, not the weaker one for the sake of nitpicks, as per HN rules:

>Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.


Is it really that far fetched??

The software stack is 90% identical and we are seeing smartphones & tables getting closer to laptops both in terms of functionality and form factor

See for example Samsung Dex, "pro" and foldable tablets, chromebook Linux and android subsystem, ...


Android uses the Linux kernel, but, above that, there is very little in common with a Linux laptop or workstation.


> it's sitting gathering dust.

If it survived an impact with the wall


> Qualcomm won't invest massive resources to make a world beating laptop

There is a tablet market waiting for such chip. Apple is making a killing with their iPads. I am sure other tablet makers would like a slice of that sweet apple pie.


>Apple is making a killing with their iPads.

You're missing the point.

The fact that Android and Windows ARM tablets aren't "making a killing" and not selling even remotely as good as iPads dealing with an abysmal market share, is not because they don't have M1 chips, but it's their shit SW ecosystem that's been a clusterfuck from day one, angering consumers who expected more than just stretched phone apps and 2 years of SW updates, and the indifference and lack of commitment Google has shown to Android tablet ecosystem over the years.

iPads were outselling every other tablets even before they got the M1 chips. In this tablet space it's the available SW ecosystem that sells the HW, not the other way aground. Android tablets could get fictional M3 chips from the future and they still wouldn't outsell iPads because both developers and consumers already got burned by the Android/non-Apple tablet SW experience and decided to stick with Apple.


> The fact that Android and Windows ARM tablets aren't "making a killing" and not selling even remotely as good as iPads

The whole stack is objectively worse - slower, with inferior software. They are cheaper though, but it doesn't help much when everyone competes in price for what is, essentially, variations of the same product.

There is a good reason why there aren't many Windows ARM tablets and laptops - they perform worse than the low-end Intel stuff. The tooling to make software for them is not great, and the channels through which one distributes the software is also a limitation. In laptops, Windows on ARM needs to compete against Windows on x86 and, unless Qualcomm and Microsoft pull a miracle, those machines will remain uncompetitive.

And yes: apple made a killing from day one. They always had an excellent software stack and a thriving high-quality, ruthlessly curated app ecosystem, something not even Microsoft can't offer with their own products (Hi, Teams team. I'd like to discuss a couple things).


No, it's first and foremost the SW ecosystem that makes the difference between iPad experience and Android tablet experience.

Unlike with PCs, nobody cares how fast their tablet CPUs are when making a purchasing decision as most flagship mobile chips in the last 3-5 years from both Apple and Qualcomm, are more than fast enough to provide a smooth experience for what most people do on a tablet: browse the web, watch Netflix, shop on Amazon, read books, emails and social media.

But consumers and developers gave up on the Android tablets a long time ago because the ecosystem was an abandoned mess, app quality and variety is meh at best, and the SW update support period is far too short, regardless of how powerful the CPUS in those tablets might be, it's the SW that dictated the purchasing decision and what earned the iPad the monopoly market share.


The two years of support is probably a QC business decision on windows, the same as its been on android phones and tablets. Why put effort into standardized interfaces when you can force the users to buy new hardware every two years?

This has a name, "planned obsolescence".


With 7 Watts, the Snapdragon has less than half the Intel's and Apple's TDP, though. Also, the i7-1355U only became available in 2023.

The confirmed upgrades to 8 performance cores (from 4), ARMv9, PCIe 4, DDR5 RAM and possibly a higher TDP will bring significant performance gains with Gen 4.

But in principle I agree to you, I wouldn't use it yet.

Edit: Also, why leave AMD out :) https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4774vs4104vs4794vs4102/...


The reports say 8cx gen 4 is due out in 2024 and IIRC that's the new Nuvia-designed CPU which should ideally be more competitive than the reference designs from ARM.


I'm sure this didn't sell well in the terms of Lenovo's usual customers who need x86 processors.


The reviewed machine has more RAM than a Pinebook Pro but the user experience doesn't sound to be nearly as good.

I recently went on a work trip with my Pinebook Pro as my only computer, everything worked fine.


It is really an extraordinarily nice machine for an uncanny price point.

I wonder if they plan on making a motherboard replacement with a connector compatible with a Pi CM4 (so I could plug their fine Pine64 SOQuartz, or the Banana Pi CM if I need more CPU, or an 8GB CM4 for the extra memory).


I think a better upgrade would be a 16GB RK3588 board in the same case.


Looks sweet. The closest to that idea is the Clockwork DevTerm, which has a CM4-compatible carrier.

I’d appreciate, however, a bigger screen.


Who wouldn't want a laptop that's more expensive, heavier, and slower than a similarly configured Macbook?


"The X13S is not yet ready for prime time with any FOSS OS"

Not a glowing review.

This seems to describe every arm device that isn't a server, or a Raspberry Pi. The mac is in the same situation. It works with a long list of exceptions, given an Asahi image, and pretty much not at all otherwise.

These community projects are great, but by the time Linux gets full support the HW is usually obsolete, replaced with a newer version, or no longer for sale, and there remains a laundry list of won't fix bugs because the hackers have moved on to the next shiny.

I don't understand why this has been going on for > 10 years and arm hasn't bothered to step in and mandate some HW or firmware guidelines like they did in the server space. All these half baked and abandoned devices can't be good for their brand, and its pretty obvious Qualcomm is happy with the current model of milking a string of failures.


Qualcomm?

No Thanks. (It's the company which knows nothing but planned obsolescence)


I just wish they would drop those hardware mouse buttons and the nipple.


To each their own, but I do not. Lenovo remains my "goto" if I have to buy a laptop (though Framework has more or less replaced them) and the main reason for that was the Trackpoint and mouse buttons.


i love the hardware mouse buttons, especially left and middle click. makes it much easier to drag and drop + middle click is just nice for opening tabs


Is there a specific reason why? Do they get in your way when using it?

For me and I think a lot of others that's one of their main features over the competition.




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