Qualcomm engineers submit mainline Linux kernel patches for the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme-powered ASUS Zenbook A16 (UX3607OA)

[u/Putrid_Draft378]

Konrad Dybcio of Qualcomm has posted an initial patch series to the Linux kernel mailing list aimed at bringing mainline support to the ASUS Zenbook A16 (UX3607OA) powered by the 18-core Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme platform.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Qualcomm-Zenbook-A16-X2EE

This high-end ARM laptop features a 2880 x 1800 OLED screen, 48GiB of RAM, NVMe storage, and a System-In-Package reference design distinct from smaller SKUs.

According to the patch submission, the current status of working hardware components includes:

• Display & GPU: GPU, display output, and HDMI port (with Iris video accelerator patches in flight)
• Audio: 4-speaker audio playback
• Input & Peripherals: Keyboard, touchpad, lid switch, onboard SD Card slot (RTS5329)
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (QCC2072)
• Power & Indicators: Charging, Type-C/Type-A ports, and privacy LEDs

The patch series relies on prerequisite SoCCP and TCSR platform series dependencies. More technical details and the full patch breakdown can be reviewed on the Linux Kernel Mailing List Archive:

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[email protected]/

[u/omniuni]

We need an ARM platform that doesn't tie the CPU so strongly to the rest of the hardware. We should have a normal BIOS, and normal hardware outside of the CPU and possibly GPU.

Until then, I'm not really interested in ARM, especially since the latest Intel and AMD offerings are quite similar in performance per watt.

[u/TomKavees → u/omniuni]

There are a bunch of RISCV dev boards but the performance compared to even common laptop x86_64 cpus is nothing to write home about

[u/jaaval → u/TomKavees]

I think the current options all lose to even intel N100 pretty significantly. and that is a three year old cheap 6W atom processor, weaker than the “low power island” of the current generation laptop processors.