Lenovo Flex 5G / Qualcomm SC8180x Support Being Worked On For Mainline Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Lenovo Flex 5G / Qualcomm SC8180x Support Being Worked On For Mainline Linux

In addition to the mainline Linux kernel seeing recent support for the Arm-powered Lenovo ThinkPad X13s and Lenovo Yoga C630, among others, another Lenovo model working toward mainline kernel support is the Lenovo Flex 5G...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Lenovo-Flex-5G-Linux-Mainline

[uid313]

I would love for Dell to make a ARM-based or RISC-V-based laptop.

[scratchi]

I would love for Dell to make a ARM-based or RISC-V-based laptop.

https://fudzilla.com/news/pc-hardware/56530-dell-releases-cheap-and-cheerful-arm-laptop

[tunnelblick]

https://fudzilla.com/news/pc-hardwar...ful-arm-laptop

That looks interesting, hopefully we will see more of that.

In general, as the article mentions the x13s again, what's the current state of the linux port to that device? I know there's some kernel support but in a real world example what works and what does not?
It seems asahi linux is the best option still as there is still active and transparent porting happening, as well people actually using it.

[MastaG]

I believe the fex-emu devs all use the X13 as their main platform.

What I'm wondering is why Qualcomm didn't upstream support for their X55 modem themselves?

[tunnelblick]

This definitely shows how bad the situation is for ARM-based laptops.
Sure x86 laptops have their quirks, not everything works perfectly in the beginning, some bugs are never fixed, but it's not remotely as bad as ARM-based laptops. I am not against device trees but that you have to fiddle with *every* laptop to get it working goes beyond what "PC" meant and what paved its success - compatibility!

[billyswong]

This definitely shows how bad the situation is for ARM-based laptops.
Sure x86 laptops have their quirks, not everything works perfectly in the beginning, some bugs are never fixed, but it's not remotely as bad as ARM-based laptops. I am not against device trees but that you have to fiddle with *every* laptop to get it working goes beyond what "PC" meant and what paved its success - compatibility!

Hi, any elaboration on how come ARM-based computers can't get basic boot support out of the box?

[curfew]

Hi, any elaboration on how come ARM-based computers can't get basic boot support out of the box?

I would assume it's because these Windows-focused ARM laptops are a joke and nobody wants to waste their time in trying to make them run Linux. The chips are pretty complicated as they integrate most of the previously independent stuff spread around a motherboard directly into the "CPU chip" itself, and unless you get everything to work at once, your system just won't boot at all. And even after the initial pain of making everything "work", you would be crippled by poor power management and abysmal GPU performance.

Whereas on x86 most things are standardized to some extent, every ARM chip is black box of proprietary stuff that's different between all chips. Manufacturers won't offer any support at all so independent developers have to reverse engineer everything.

Okay, you find some hypertalented individual who has the ability to take time off and make one model of laptops work. Then what? That laptop sold maybe a few thousand units and has been discontinued after 12 months. You can't find it anywhere, and even if you could, the poor specs and performance means you won't want to use it for many years to come. Nobody will benefit of your work and your investment will never pay back in any meaningful way.

The Mac Book is different beast. You're guaranteed sales in millions and official Apple support (for the Mac platform) for 5+ years. Those devices will stick around for a long, long time and they will have a sizeable audience. Their performance is also in a different dimension compared to these Windows toys.

[tunnelblick]

Hi, any elaboration on how come ARM-based computers can't get basic boot support out of the box?

To my best knowledge there are a few things:

1. Secure Boot

This is done on ARM laptops we are seeing from Dell, Lenovo and such. Sometimes it can't even be disabled or it is hidden.

2. Devce Trees

It seems that to boot an ARM device properly you have to set the hardware bits in a file called device tree. There you set the location of the hardware and, if necessary, also the firmware file, which *also* has to be available. Sometimes this is part of the linux-firmware package, often it is not. So getting that firmware is *also* an obstacle.
Then to load the firmware you *also* have to sometimes write code around it so it can properly load on linux because these devices are not built to be run with linux in mind. They are connected via different busses for example or sometimes are completely new so you have to deal with linux maintainers when you introduce new hardware or new ways to integrate existing hardware in a different way. And dealing with linux maintainers is a pandora's box of drama, see marcan's posts and how he exposes this linux ml drama to mastodon (not that I am a fan of that, to be honest but it seems to be his shtick nowadays to complain openly which results into even more drama).

[billyswong]

Okay, so according to you guys, the stupidity comes from:

1) The integrated chips are too integrated and can't perform minimal boot up if one don't get every niche part of them ready or tamed, unlike what we usually do in x86/x64 platform, i.e. leave those not-yet-supported driver-or-firmware-lacking modules or chips uninitialized and stay disabled, just boot up the parts we understand

2) The tight vertical integration from the smartphone era make manufacturers be habited of their lack of consistent backward compatible interface across each generation of chips. They did make sure they submitted enough stuff to Microsoft so that Windows can boot up in those new ARM-based Windows laptops. But since Windows are now "pre-installed", they don't need to care boot compatibility like the older days when users might buy a computer + a box copy of Windows, and require the Windows to be able to at least boot up, then install the drivers later.