This Apple-genesis (Nuvia) and Microsoft-led (Pluton) Arm Oryon hardware provides rare boot standardization and optional upstream Linux on Arm EL2. With enterprise PC OEMs on board, there should be a healthy supply of used Arm Linux laptops in a few years. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40350408#40355554
The system firmware will ship with 3 boot modes selectable via the setup interface:
- Windows (this one has the Windows tcblauncher escalated to EL2 through Secure Launch)
- Linux (this one stays at EL1)
- Linux w/ KVM (which jumps to EL2 [at ExitBootServices] before kernel handover)
Mainline Linux support is underway via Linaro/Qualcomm and Dell supports Ubuntu Linux as a first class OS. Linux support won't be perfect in OryonV1, but if enough customers use these devices with Linux, it can only improve. Device trees are likely still needed for Linux.
Arm SystemReady SR/ES assumes sane ACPI tables. That's something that Snapdragon X (1st-gen) very much doesn't have. The ACPI tables present there are pretty much only usable for Windows if you want full functionality.. ESXi-Arm is bootable, but a number of patches were required.
> the upstream kernel was used during the Snapdragon X1 Elite SoC Linux bringup.. demo booting upstream kernel with a Debian/Ubuntu userspace on a Snapdragon X1 Elite QRD (Qualcomm Reference Device).. Boot to console support has already landed on kernel version v6.7 and is on track to have remaining kernel support land by the time the first commercial device with X1 Elite SoC comes out on the market.
> the upstream kernel was used during the Snapdragon X1 Elite SoC Linux bringup.. demo booting upstream kernel with a Debian/Ubuntu userspace on a Snapdragon X1 Elite QRD (Qualcomm Reference Device).. Boot to console support has already landed on kernel version v6.7 and is on track to have remaining kernel support land by the time the first commercial device with X1 Elite SoC comes out on the market.