Linux Support Continues For The Now-Canceled Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit For Windows

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux Support Continues For The Now-Canceled Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit For Windows

While last week Qualcomm canceled their Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit as a $899 USD mini PC built for Windows 11 on ARM and powered by the X1 Elite SoC, the upstreaming Linux support for it is continuing...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Snapdragon-X-Elite-Dev-Kit-Goes

[stormcrow]

For those unaware, there were only about 200 of these shipped (or as high as 500 in some estimates). No one knows for sure why QC canceled the product. But unlike what I've seen in in some erroneous reporting, Qualcomm did NOT build these complete systems. They contracted them out with Arrow as the contractor and distributor. Arrow probably subcontracted the main board.

Long and short of it is that the board that went into the dev kit had issues with the FCC certification process that resulted in the HDMI port being physically removed and a Thunderbolt 4-to-HDMI dongle being included with the shipped product. The final product has a label on the bottom that explicitly states the device is not FCC certified and can't be sold. It's only legal to use it as an experimental device (and any RFI it causes your neighbors makes it illegal to operate at all). Most of the speculation around the cancellation says this is the reason for it. But, there's probably a lot more behind the scenes as there's undoubtedly a chain of screwups that resulted in the final FCC cert mess. That's all speculation, however. If there's more to it, the tech savvy will eventually hear through the grapevine about component failures in time from those still using them.

It's interesting to note that the new SiFive RISC-V dev board is also being produced by Arrow with a ESWIN RISC-V based CPU and an Imagination Tech GPU. We'll see what happens there. If you were hoping RISC-V would be a silver bullet for proprietary systems, you're smoking something from Colorado. That Imagination Tech GPU only has proprietary blobs for drivers on Linux as nearly everything Imagination produces. Yup, here's your splash of water to the face. RISC-V is going into the same proprietary solutions as Arm did with proprietary GPUs and vendor specific extensions. Only ones seeing benefit are board producers not having to pay Arm Ltd's licensing fees. Users won't see much practical benefit, even on the price as those fees were negligible in the final sale.

[ayumu]

Imagination Tech

Has ongoing open source driver work supporting its hardware in mesa3d. It is taking longer than I'd like, but part of the work is already upstream.

See the powervr vulkan driver in: https://mesamatrix.net/

As well as commit log in: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/...ain?search=pvr

[avis]

Michael

Harald Welte, a well known Linux developer, who among all things founded the website gpl violations, laments the removal of Russian maintainers and how it's all being done and what the consequences are for the Linux kernel:

https://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20241025-linux-maintainers-russian/

[xhustler]

Michael

Harald Welte, a well known Linux developer, who among all things founded the website gpl violations, laments the removal of Russian maintainers and how it's all being done and what the consequences are for the Linux kernel:

https://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20...iners-russian/

You are flogging a dead horse mate.

[NateHubbard]

You are flogging a dead horse mate.

And it will amount to nothing. It is literally against the law for anyone in the US to work with those developers.

[NateHubbard]

Yup, here's your splash of water to the face. RISC-V is going into the same proprietary solutions as Arm did with proprietary GPUs and vendor specific extensions. Only ones seeing benefit are board producers not having to pay Arm Ltd's licensing fees. Users won't see much practical benefit, even on the price as those fees were negligible in the final sale.

Then they will continue to not be able to sell anything in any decent quantity. That's their problem.

[sophisticles]

In case anyone has not heard, ARM cancelled Qualcomm's license to build ARM processors:

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/report-arm-is-sensationally-canceling-qualcomms-chip-license-oct-2024

That's why the kit was cancelled and why Linux support for this thing is a complete waste of time.

I feel sorry for anyone that bought a Snapdragon, not to mention all of us that use phones with Qualcomm chips in them.

[robclark]

In case anyone has not heard, ARM cancelled Qualcomm's license to build ARM processors:

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/report-arm-is-sensationally-canceling-qualcomms-chip-license-oct-2024

That's why the kit was cancelled and why Linux support for this thing is a complete waste of time.

I feel sorry for anyone that bought a Snapdragon, not to mention all of us that use phones with Qualcomm chips in them.

lolz

the two things are completely unrelated, the dev kit situation is entirely about arrow not being able to deliver. And the arm vs qc thing is only about $$ (arm thinks they can get more from qc, and qc thinks their lawyers are good enough to prove arm wrong so the two are playing hardball.. at the end of the day, maybe some $$ will change hands, or maybe not)

[Eumaios]

arm thinks they can get more from qc, and qc thinks their lawyers are good enough to prove arm wrong so the two are playing hardball.. at the end of the day, maybe some $$ will change hands, or maybe not)

Money is certainly changing hands . . . dropping right into the pockets of the law firms fortunate enough to represent each party.