Loongson Preparing Linux For LoongArch Laptops

Chinese hardware vendor Loongson Technology continues working on the LoongArch code for the Linux kernel for their in-house CPU ISA derived from MIPS64. Now that the initial code has been mainlined since 5.19 and some of the necessary other critical bits of code are getting squared away, recently they have been working on other missing functionality for supporting their initial LoongArch-based Loongson 3A5000 series SoCs.

One of the recent patch series their engineers have been working on is an ACPI-based generic laptop driver for LoongArch. Sent out this morning was the latest code for this "loongson-laptop" driver for various ACPI functionality on forthcoming LoongArch laptops.

Back when Loongson was MIPS64-based they had several laptop designs and in their LoongArch world it looks like this will be continuing.

At least one Chinese YouTuber, Lander Tee, has reportedly handled a LoongArch laptop while there isn't much other English information available yet on LoongArch laptops. Similar to prior Loongson laptops, likely slim chances of finding them in western markets. But even so, the Loongson 3A5000 performance is very slow against several generation old Intel/AMD CPUs and even Arm. It may be an interesting comparison to forthcoming RISC-V laptops but more than likely will just be for Chinese customers wanting domestic hardware. At least there is open-source Linux support on the way.