IdeaPad 5G-14Q8X05 support

Hi,
I am new here. I bought a lenovo IdeaPad 5G-14Q8X05 which has the qualcomm snapdragon 8cx gen 2 aka SC8180XP and as far as I know it is currently not supported by the linux kernel. While the snapdragon 8cx gen 3 aka SC8280 has complete support starting from linux 5.19+ and snapdragon 8cx gen 1 aka SC8180X should have it from linux 6.1+.
Once the snapdragon 8cx gen 2 has the kernel support, what about drivers? I read about this project Porting Linux to AArch64 Laptops which supports few devices.
What is the status of EOS? Are you planning to support it?
Thank you

Supporting ARM devices is a very elaborate task, every ARM processor is different and for us to support it, we have to buy every single hardware with each ARM architecture.
Perhaps, it will be picked up by an external group, so we can make it work, but for us, such a task is too large and too expensive for our small team and resources.

1 Like

Thank you for your reply. Can you explain why it is so difficult to support ARM devices compared to x86_64 devices?

Because every ARM chip is specifically designed for the hardware and software it is shipping on.
For instance, that Snapdragon chip in your machine is specifically designed for that particular IdeaPad and doesn’t work in an HP laptop with that same Snapdragon family.
Unlike X86 chips that are interchangeable.

2 Likes

Why did they make this decision? In my opinion, it is a very bad decision.

I have no idea…

2 Likes

Here is a list of the platforms supported by Archlinux ARM.

https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms

As you can see, there isn’t a single Archlinux Arm image for a Snapdragon CPU / SOC.

EndeavourOS is based on Archlinux. With no support there, as @Bryanpwo stated, it is difficult and expensive for a 2 man ARM team to independently support many platforms.

Obviously, Debian has deeper pockets and more personnel. Even they are having problems with their Debian Bookworm testing ISO.

https://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2022/10/msg00011.html

a quote from there

The aforementioned ARM Notebook ships with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx
Gen 1 aka SM8450, which was introduced in Linux Kernel 5.17. Firmware
for SM8450 is not included with firmware-qcom-soc (20210818-1) for bookworm.

Here is a link to the debian-testing-arm64-DVD-1.iso
debian-testing-arm64-DVD-1.iso

In case you want to play around with it.

Long story short. Until Lenovo is willing to offer Linux support for this product, Linux support will be a long time coming.

Pudge

4 Likes

Was this a pun???

Pudge

1 Like

It took me a little time before it dropped, but no! It could’ve been a great one though… :smiley:

1 Like

From Lenovo site Ideapad 5G-14Q8X05

1 Like

Thanks for the detailed reply. According to wikipedia the snapdragon 8cx gen 1 is SC8180X not SM8450 which is snapdragon 8 gen 1.
The nomenclature is not good at all, anyway they are two different SoCs.

Hi,
I can confirm that with linux kernel 6.1 (latest daily debian unstable) the snapdragon 8cx gen 2 aka SC8180XP is correctly recognised and this confirms that it is the same as SC8180X (except for the different CPU frequency).
Now the problem is still the drivers (keyboard and touchpad do not work).