News: 0001501603

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

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

([Arm] 3 Hours Ago Snapdragon X1 Elite)


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.

Qualcomm canceled the Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit, refunded outstanding pre-orders, and noted that software support for it would be cancelled.. At least pertaining to the Microsoft Windows support. On the Linux kernel mailing list this week the matter was raised among developers whether the upstreaming work for the Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit support for Linux should continue given Qualcomm's official posture and only a limited number of these mini PC dev kits having shipped. Developers though feel it still a worthwhile endeavor since some Linux developers do have the hardware in hand.

As a result out today is the [1]v3 patches for this X1E001DE Snapdragon Devkit for Windows. The work amounts to just over 800 lines of DeviceTree bits for getting the Snapdragon X Elite working with the DSPs, Ethernet, NVMe, WiFi, USB-C, and other functionality. Various updates were made in this latest patch revision. It's looking like this Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit support for Linux could be upstreamed within the next kernel cycle or two, providing life to these X1 Elite mini PCs past the short lifespan of the device on Windows.



[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20241025123227.3527720-1-quic_sibis@quicinc.com/


stormcrow

Is Windows Antique?

SILICON VALLEY -- The first ever antique mall devoted to computers has
opened its doors deep in the heart of Silicon Valley. Named "Stacks
of Antiqueues", the new mall features obsolete hardware, old software,
and other curiosities that only a nerd would want to buy. The mall
also features a whole collection of Microsoft software, which, as can
be expected, has the Redmond giant up in arms.

The mall, founded by a group of Linux, FreeBSD, and BeOS users, has a whole
section devoted to Microsoft "antiques". Offerings range from a rare
(and expensive) copy of Windows 1.0 all the way up to Windows 98. All
versions of DOS from 1.0 up are available, in addition to such Microsoft
products as Bob, Profit, and Multiplan.

Bob Hinesdorf, one of the mall's founders, defends the decision to
include Microsoft products in its selection of antique computer stuff.
"Windows 98 is surely antique; it's based on 16 bit Windows 3.x code,
which was based on 16 bit DOS code, which was based loosely on 8 bit
CP/M."