Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux laptop cancelled due to performance concerns — Linux PC maker says Qualcomm CPU is ‘less suitable for Linux than expected’

(Image credit: Shahrouz Nikpoush / Unsplash)

Linux PC maker Tuxedo Computers has ceased development of a Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 Elite-powered Linux laptop after more than 18 months of work. The company said in its announcement that the “first-generation X1E proved to be less suitable for Linux than expected.” Aside from that, the imminent arrival of the Snapdragon X2 Elite, announced last September and expected in the first half of 2026, meant the company would release an obsolete, last-generation laptop by the time it completes work on the Linux Snapdragon X1E laptop.

Tuxedo Computers states that its biggest challenge was replicating the impressive battery life that these Arm laptops achieved under Windows. Aside from this, it lacked a feasible way to install BIOS updates for Linux, support for fan control, virtualization with KVM, and high-speed USB4 transfer speeds. It’s also having issues with video decoding, which, although technically supported, are often unsupported by most applications.

These issues would make the laptop practically unusable, and the company estimated it would take several more months to fix them all. That means the newer X2E would already be well into the market when they’re ready to launch, which wouldn't make sense for the company. Still, that does not mean that the company is totally giving up on a Linux Snapdragon laptop.

It said it’s still monitoring developments with the X2E and will evaluate whether it will work well with the open-source operating system. “If it meets expectations and we can reuse a significant portion of our work on the X1E, we may resume development,” says Tuxedo Computers. “How much of our groundwork can be transferred to the X2E can only be assessed after a detailed evaluation of the chip.”

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.

TOPICS

Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.

10 Comments Comment from the forums

bit_user

The article said:
Snapdragon X1 Elite Linux laptop cancelled due to performance concerns
That's just wrong. The issues were really to do with drivers, with a side comment that Linux' battery life on this laptop was still not on par with Windows.

The only point where performance entered into the picture was just that the CPU is over a year old and soon to be superseded by the second generation Snapdragon X CPUs.
Reply
Findecanor

They should talk to Mediatek. They have ARM-based SoCs out in Chromebooks now that are about as fast (on the fastest core, at least) and people are already running Linux apps on them.
Reply
bit_user

Findecanor said:
They should talk to Mediatek. They have SoCs out in Chromebooks now that are about as fast (on the fastest core, at least) and people are already running Linux apps on them.
I have Linux running on a Snapdragon X laptop. It's not a Tuxedo and I've never tested battery life. Hardware support is a bit spotty: wifi works great, USB Ethernet adapter, too. No HDMI, though. Worse, any graphics is currently running on the CPU. So, there's a big difference between "it runs" and "runs well". I think that was the main issue for Tuxedo.

Note that it was more involved that the normal installation process. So, I wouldn't recommend anyone buy one for Linux use, without first doing their homework. However, if you want a laptop with a fast ARM CPU, then it's probably the best non-Apple option, until the Snapdragon X2 ships or someone like MediaTek has something based on ARM's C1 cores.
Reply
ekio

The Egg and the Chicken...

Many feature not properly supported because the platform is recent, but at the same time if brands are not releasing new hardware for users, how can things improve...?

I think that it was easier for them to blame Qualcomm than blaming how long it would take them to get something fully ready on time, and that now it was not a good timeline anymore.
Reply
ezst036

ekio said:
I think that it was easier for them to blame Qualcomm than blaming how long it would take them to get something fully ready on time, and that now it was not a good timeline anymore.
Realistically speaking, the blame is justified.

Qualcomm could have put more developers on the Linux platform (a growing platform, it is super important to point out) and Qualcomm singularly decided against putting more developers on the Linux platform.

Well, as such, the Linux platform while on the Qualcomm hardware is expectantly lackluster. Duh...... not enough developers! To my knowledge, Ubuntu/Canonical had to step in and do some things on their own without Qualcomm's assistance.

Did Qualcomm expect Expeliarmus? They shouldn't have, because software is not magic. Now, apparently, Qualcomm is hiring several more new developers from the ranks of those who have been in the field for a long time.

Why didn't they do that 4 years ago and get ahead of the curve?
Reply
bit_user

ezst036 said:
Qualcomm could have put more developers on the Linux platform
Yeah, but Linux on AMD laptops wasn't well-supported for several years after Zen-based APUs came onto the scene. It's something that does take time to mature.

ezst036 said:
To my knowledge, Ubuntu/Canonical had to step in and do some things on their own without Qualcomm's assistance.
The first thing I tried was installing Ubuntu 25.10. Didn't work. And their release notes didn't clearly said this, either, nor what hardware they actually do support it on. So, let's not give Canonical too much credit, here.

ezst036 said:
Now, apparently, Qualcomm is hiring several more new developers from the ranks of those who have been in the field for a long time.

Why didn't they do that 4 years ago and get ahead of the curve?
They have been working on Linux support for a while. For instance, on their Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 platform. Just not hard enough, I suppose.

The Adreno driver is actually in good shape. It's too bad that it's not working on my laptop. I've heard that others have gotten it working, but I really don't care enough to bother with it, for now.
Reply
LordVile

bit_user said:
That's just wrong. The issues were really to do with drivers, with a side comment that Linux' battery life on this laptop was still not on par with Windows.

The only point where performance entered into the picture was just that the CPU is over a year old and soon to be superseded by the second generation Snapdragon X CPUs.
I mean performance isn’t exactly great in snapdragon SoCs. It’d be my 4th choice for a thin and light
Reply
bit_user

LordVile said:
I mean performance isn’t exactly great in snapdragon SoCs. It’d be my 4th choice for a thin and light
The article falsely claims the effort was dropped for performance reasons. It was not. Simple as that.

As for how its performance stacks up against other laptops, let's look at what else Tuxedo offers, in the 10" - 14" range:
https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Notebooks/Alle.tuxedo#1271,1292;1271,1294;1271,1298;1271,2078;1271,12889;1271,12890;1275,1319
That list includes Zen 4, Meteor Lake, and Alder Lake. The only option they offer that's arguably better than Snapdragon X1E is Strix Point (Ryzen AI HX 370). So, it's clear that performance wasn't even a hypothetical deal-breaker for them.

And some people have reasons for wanting an ARM-based machine, other than absolute performance or efficiency. I don't even use mine on battery power, so that's how much I care about efficiency.
Reply
LordVile

bit_user said:
The article falsely claims the effort was dropped for performance reasons. It was not. Simple as that.

As for how its performance stacks up against other laptops, let's look at what else Tuxedo offers, in the 10" - 14" range:
https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Notebooks/Alle.tuxedo#1271,1292;1271,1294;1271,1298;1271,2078;1271,12889;1271,12890;1275,1319
That list includes Zen 4, Meteor Lake, and Alder Lake. The only option they offer that's arguably better than Snapdragon X1E is Strix Point (Ryzen AI HX 370). So, it's clear that performance wasn't even a hypothetical deal-breaker for them.

And some people have reasons for wanting an ARM-based machine, other than absolute performance or efficiency. I don't even use mine on battery power, so that's how much I care about efficiency.
Price wise you could shove a much better processor in that what the currently have for the X elite. The Qualcomm chips are prohibitively expensive for what they are. The performance you get wouldn’t be much better than the 8845HS

What other reasons could there be exactly? That’s the selling point of ARM. Performance per watt. x86 is still king in terms of compatibility. Even the best ARM chips just don’t scale to the x86 equivalent once you allow them to suck up as much power as they want.
Reply
zaxthealien

Don't forget that currently, there's no mainstream Ryzen "AI" driver for Linux. Yes, those 8000 series and Strix Point have NPUs, which are based on XDNA, that can't be used on Linux almost 2 years after the release date. This is AMD which have been making XDNA drivers for Linux since they got Xilinx under their armpits. Heck, even on Windows, only some applications made by MS+AMD themselves are running on the NPU.
Reply

Show more comments