The Ubuntu Concept ISO images that contain experimental patches — or “hacks” to make things work — to enable Ubuntu Linux on the Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 Elite powered laptops is out with a fresh spin. The new Ubuntu Concept ISOs move to using the Linux 6.16 kernel while also enabling some additional Snapdragon X laptop models.
Ubuntu Linux can run okay on many of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X laptops that out-of-the-box ship with Windows on ARM. While Ubuntu has their generic ARM64 desktop ISO now, the Ubuntu “Concept” images contain various extras and modifications to make things work. For more details see the prior Phoronix review of Snapdragon X1 Elite on Linux versus AMD Ryzen and Intel Core.
The new images out this week rebase the linux-qcom-x1e package to using a Linux 6.16 based kernel. Linux 6.16 stable should be out as soon as this Sunday if all goes well. The concept image is relying on a near-final Linux 6.16 kernel for better Snapdragon hardware support.
The updated Linux 6.16 X1E kernel image also adds Device Tree support for the Dell Latitude 7455 and Dell Inspiron 7441 laptops. For the already supported Dell XPS 13 9345 laptop, there is now fingerprint sensor support working. The ASUS Zenbook A14 laptop has also seen fixes with this new kernel.
Ubuntu’s flash-kernel package was also updated for the Dell 7455 and 7441 support plus additional ASUS Zenbook A14 updates. There have also been GRUB bootloader improvements for the Snapdragon X Elite laptops with more than 32GB of RAM plus updates to the ubuntu-x1e-settings package.
The new Ubuntu Concept X1E images can be downloaded from this directory with plucky-desktop-arm64+x1e-20250723.iso being the latest. I’ll be working on some new/updated Snapdragon X Elite benchmarks from the Acer Swift 14 AI laptop shortly.
