For those interested in the Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 powered laptops, there’s another option to consider for Linux use soon with pending patches: the ASUS Zenbook A14.
The ASUS Zenbook A14 (UX3407) is an ultralight laptop powered by the Snapdragon X1 26 or X1P Plus 42 SoCs and the laptop features a 1920 x 1200 14-inch OLED display, 16GB or 32GB of LPDDR5X memory, 512GB or 1TB of NVMe SSD storage, and the other basics like other Snapdragon X1 laptops while weighing just about one kilogram. The Zenbook A14 is manufactured using a US MIL-STD 810H military-grade standard Ceraluminum chassis. The ASUS Zenbook A14 pricing starts out at around $1,199 USD.
Open-source developer Aleksandrs Vinarskis posted a set of patches for enabling the ASUS UX3407QA and UX3407RA. Compared to other Snapdragon X1 laptops supported by the Linux kernel, these patches needed some differences around its used WiFi/Bluetooth, different USB Type-C retimers, and the GPIO being protected. There are also some firmware challenges to deal with.
As for the expected support state with these current Linux patches, the Zenbook A14 Linux support is summed up as:
Mostly similar to other X1-based laptops. Notable differences are:
* Wifi/Bluetooth combo being Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 on UX3407QA and Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 on UX3407RA
* USB Type-C retimers are Parade PS8833, appear to behave identical to Parade PS8830
* gpio90 is TZ protectedWorking:
* Keyboard
* Touchpad
* NVME
* Lid switch
* Camera LED
* eDP (FHD OLED, SDC420D) with brightness control
* Bluetooth, WiFi (WCN6855)
* USB Type-A port
* USB Type-C ports in USB2/USB3/DP (both orientations)
* aDSP/cDPS firmware loading, battery info
* Sleep/suspend, nothing visibly broken on resumeOut of scope of this series:
* Audio (Speakers/microphones/headphone jack)
* Camera (OmniVision OV02C10)
* HDMI (Parade PS185HDM)
* EC
Most Linux users will remain best off with a modern Intel Core Ultra or AMD Ryzen laptop compared to the Snapdragon X1 or Apple MacBook laptops with limited Linux support… Unless you don’t care about audio, web camera, and other support caveats.
Those interested in Linux support for the ASUS Zenbook A14 laptops can see this patch series for the code / Device Tree additions currently under review but will hopefully be mainlined in an upcoming kernel cycle.
