Ubuntu Developers Begin Working On Snapdragon X1 Elite Support
With the Snapdragon X1 series laptops so far it's still far from an enjoyable Linux experience with relying on DeviceTree rather than the likes of generic ACPI + UEFI support and the like. Currently with Linux there are various limitations for different models from lack of web camera support to ports not working to in some cases the keyboard not even working. For these laptops that have been shipping for months now with Windows 11 on ARM, the Linux experience for these Snapdragon X1 powered laptops is far from enjoyable at this point.
In this week's Ubuntu Foundations Team updates it was shared that Ubuntu ARM developer Tobias Heider at Canonical has "started initial bringup work" pertaining to the X1 Elite SoC.
Though given we're one month out from the Ubuntu 24.10 release, we're unlikely to see any official support for the initial Snapdragon X1 laptops in Ubuntu 24.10. We may see some unofficial spins or guides for setting up Ubuntu Linux manually on such hardware. More than likely this work will materialize more for Ubuntu 25.04 with by then hopefully seeing nice installer support for these laptops that will be nearing one year old in the marketplace come next April.
Similarly, it's Ubuntu 24.10 when the generic Ubuntu ARM64 installer finally supports the Snapdragon-powered Lenovo ThinkPad X13s for what's now a two year old laptop powered by the Snapdragon 8cx Gen3 SoC. Hopefully with time we'll see more punctual upstream support and by major Linux distributions for these new ARM laptops as right now it's far from ideal and thus leaving Intel Core and AMD Ryzen laptops as the main options for those wanting a full-functioning Linux laptop around launch time without jumping through serious hoops.
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