C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
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TL;DR
- Qualcomm shares that Snapdragon X-series laptops are getting Linux support.
- Debian compatibility should roll out sometime later in 2026.
- Ubuntu is planning support for Snapdragon X2 devices early next year.
It’s taken a couple decades, but something big has finally started happening for how we get computing done on laptops. After years of trying to be tiny desktop computers, running the same kind of chips that were never really designed for power efficiency, laptops began broadly embracing RISC computing — including models built around Qualcomm Snapdragon chips like the X series. This week at Qualcomm’s annual Snapdragon Summit, the company is sharing news of a big new upgrade for such models that power users are really going to love.
As part of today’s PC keynote, Qualcomm shares that Linux is becoming available on Snapdragon laptops. We’re getting started with Debian support, which is set to arrive before the end of the year.
Looking forward into 2027, Linux compatibility is only going to expand further, with Snapdragon X2-based devices preparing to work with Ubuntu sometime early in the year. In specific, we hear that ASUS is targeting Ubuntu availability with its own Snapdragon X2 hardware before the year’s halfway point.
Sure, Linux still feels like a platform for serious PC enthusiasts to a lot of us, but many distros have been making leaps and bounds when it comes to usability, and especially when we pair that with all this great new laptop hardware, we can see how we’re really closing in on getting to a place where there are just fewer and fewer reasons not to give Linux a try.
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