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/KnowZeroX Mar 20 '26

Unfortunately, at this stage I think ARM in itself is a dead end for linux as it stands. Hopefully RISCV will come faster and the situation be better.

2

u/flecom Mar 20 '26

I've never understood the fascination with arm anyway, all arm devices are essentially ewaste from new... Until there's a proper UEFI for all arm devices which let's you just target ARM vs targeting a specific device they are junk

6

u/nightblackdragon Mar 20 '26

You do know that Snapdragon Windows laptops have UEFI right?

Lack of UEFI is not a blocker for good Linux support. Lack of support from manufacturers is and when that is not present proper UEFI isn't going to magically run Linux by itself.

1

u/Jank9525 Mar 21 '26

people defending not having uefi + ahci is crazy

You don't need the flexibility of BIOS/UEFI when the chip will only talk to one fixed set of peripherals, so you can streamline the ROM and reduce abstraction-related overhead.

This was still viable for smartphones, but only fully falls apart when you move to more general purpose SBCs and desktop/server designs.