Char/Misc Updates For Linux 5.6 Bring New Qualcomm Drivers, Intel Code Updates

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Char/Misc Updates For Linux 5.6 Bring New Qualcomm Drivers, Intel Code Updates

While not as exciting as the USB4 support and staging code lightening for these areas managed by Linux's second in command Greg Kroah-Hartman, he also sent out the char/misc updates this week with other hardware support improvements...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-5.6-Char-Misc

[andrei_me]

Michael robclark is there any roadmap or checklist for Linux support on this new arm laptops?

We see more and more commits around MSM and qualcomm related tech, which is primary used on this always on always connect ARM laptops.

Is there anything missing for an easy to use/install linux on them? Like any other x86 laptop?

[robclark]

Michael robclark is there any roadmap or checklist for Linux support on this new arm laptops?

We see more and more commits around MSM and qualcomm related tech, which is primary used on this always on always connect ARM laptops.

Is there anything missing for an easy to use/install linux on them? Like any other x86 laptop?

You should be able to boot out of the box w/ acpi+efifb (but no gpu/cpufreq/etc), at least w/ the yoga c630, and probably at least some of the others.

For getting all the acceleration turned on, you need to use devicetree boot instead of ACPI. I think at this point it's mostly a matter of getting the rest of kernel patches upstream, and sort out a sane scheme to deal with dtb's (like DtbLoader). It does look like the two panel drivers for the yoga c630 (the arm laptop that I have) are landing this merge window. There has been some progress in getting other stuff landed, but I'm not completely sure what all is still missing. We do need some clk patches to handle display handover from bootloader.

[andrei_me]

Awesome, thanks for the reply

[robclark]

Awesome, thanks for the reply

jfyi, #aarch64-laptops on freenode is a useful place to check-in (if you do the irc thing).. there is a lot of work that others are doing (and not really sure if they follow phoronix to chime in here) beyond just the display/gpu part of things.. and to be fair getting the gpu working relies a lot on a bunch of lower level parts (so the gpu is really the tip of the iceberg in more complex SoCs)