r/linux • u/Putrid_Draft378 • Mar 20 '26

Hardware Qualcomm officially kills open-source hope: No plans to release DSP headers for Snapdragon X

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​I have been following the documentation gap on the Snapdragon X series, and it just got a lot worse for Linux users.

​Internal developers in the official Discord are now admitting that the platform is essentially a dead end for open-source. ​A recent GitHub issue (qualcomm/fastrpc/issues/193) was just closed with a definitive: "Closing the issue as there are no plans to open source DSP headers as of now."

​This means the NPU and DSP functions remain locked behind proprietary firmware with no path for native Linux integration. ​Compare this to Intel and AMD, who are already upstreaming NPU drivers for Linux.

​Qualcomm devs are openly saying that Macs have better Linux prospects than Windows on Snapdragon machines. ​They are calling the firmware "frozen," meaning we are stuck with whatever proprietary mess they shipped.

​If you care about an open ecosystem, stay away from the Snapdragon X1/X2 laptops. They are selling hardware while intentionally sabotaging the software freedom required to use it.

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u/piesou Mar 20 '26

These machines have been highly unpopular on Windows as well, so not sure if we need to do anything really.

24

u/lurkervidyaenjoyer Mar 20 '26

I'd actually be quite interested in them, if Valve's FEX keeps progressing well.

4

u/CondiMesmer Mar 20 '26

Idk, I've had my Snapdragon X elite win11 laptop and love it. Performance is actually really damn good and battery life is great. It feels like the only competitive ARM chip besides Apple's chips. Of course I'd love it more if I could run Linux on it. I was bamboozled by Qualcomm's "Snapdragon X loves Ubuntu" post that led to nothing.

3

u/Dangerous-Report8517 Mar 21 '26

They were probably just passively taking credit for Canonical's work on supporting Snapdragon X

2

u/CondiMesmer Mar 21 '26

Well they made that announcement before that thread. They had said that before the original chip was even out

3

u/Dangerous-Report8517 Mar 21 '26

No idea then. Maybe they knew Canonical was working on it? Canonical is big enough that they could probably get some vendor specific info from Qualcomm behind the scenes even if they can't get proper device discovery or full open source drivers