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Snapdragon X Elite/Plus Overview

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus are ARM64 chips designed for Windows laptops, shipping since mid-2024. Ubuntu 26.04 support for these devices is being actively developed.

Current Support Status

Supported Features

FeatureStatusNotes
Basic bootAvailableVia UEFI boot
Display outputAvailableBasic framebuffer driver
NVMe storageAvailable—
USB portsAvailable—
Wi-FiPartialRequires ath12k firmware
BluetoothPartialDepends on model
GPU accelerationIn developmentAdreno GPU Mesa driver under active development
AudioPartialRequires additional configuration
WebcamLimited support—
Battery managementBasicBattery life needs optimization

Tested Devices

  • Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 (Snapdragon)
  • Dell Inspiron 14 (Snapdragon)
  • Microsoft Surface Laptop 7
  • ASUS Vivobook S15 (Snapdragon)
  • HP EliteBook Ultra G1q

Installation Guide

Preparation

  1. Disable Secure Boot in BIOS/UEFI (required on some devices)
  2. Download the Ubuntu 26.04 ARM64 desktop ISO
  3. Create a bootable USB drive using an 8GB+ USB stick

Installation Steps

# Create a bootable USB drive on another Linux computer
sudo dd if=ubuntu-26.04-desktop-arm64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress
sync

Boot from the USB drive and follow the standard Ubuntu installation procedure.

Post-Installation Configuration

Wi-Fi Firmware

Some Snapdragon devices require manual wireless network card firmware installation:

# Check wireless network card
lspci | grep -i network
 
# For QCA6490/WCN785x chipsets
# Firmware files are usually located at
ls /lib/firmware/ath12k/

If firmware files are missing, get the latest version from the linux-firmware repository:

sudo apt install linux-firmware
sudo reboot

GPU Acceleration

Adreno GPU is supported through Mesa’s freedreno driver:

# Check GPU
sudo lspci | grep -i vga
 
# Confirm Mesa version
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"

Known Issues

  1. Suspend/Hibernate: Some devices cannot wake properly after suspend; this is an issue being fixed in the upstream kernel
  2. Audio: Speakers may not work on some devices; external headphones usually work
  3. Fingerprint reader: Fingerprint sensors are not yet supported on most devices
  4. External displays: USB-C/DP output may require additional configuration

Kernel Update Recommendations

Snapdragon support is rapidly improving in newer kernels. It is recommended to use the HWE kernel:

sudo apt install linux-generic-hwe-26.04

Or follow the Ubuntu on Snapdragon  forum for the latest developments.

x86 Application Compatibility

Running x86_64 applications on an ARM64 system:

# Install QEMU user-mode emulation (transparently run x86_64 binaries)
sudo apt install qemu-user-static binfmt-support

Once installed, binfmt lets you execute x86_64 ELF binaries directly with no further configuration.

Caution

Do not run sudo dpkg --add-architecture amd64. Ubuntu’s amd64 packages live only on archive.ubuntu.com (x86); arm64 systems use ports.ubuntu.com, which has no amd64 packages. Adding that architecture leaves apt unable to find any amd64 software and only pollutes your source lists with errors. If you need a full x86_64 userspace, use a container (e.g. docker run --platform linux/amd64) or an x86_64 chroot together with qemu-user-static.

Note: x86 emulation incurs a performance penalty. It is recommended to use native ARM64 versions of software whenever possible.

Community Resources

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