How is TUXEDO’s ARM Notebook Coming Along? - TUXEDO Computers

Recently, we at TUXEDO have been receiving more and more inquiries on social media about the development status of our ARM notebook announced last year, based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chipset. In this update, we’d like to provide some insights into its progress.

We have not reported on the progress of the development of the ARM notebook recently, as development was somewhat slow. This was partly because our developers were needed elsewhere, but also because the preliminary work from others, on which we depend, did not make much progress.

Last week, we finally reached a significant milestone in the development of the ARM notebook. Georg Gottleuber, who is responsible for finalizing the hardware foundation of this highly anticipated device within the community, has submitted an initial version of the device tree for the notebook to the Linux Kernel Mailing List LKML. He has already received a few responses from other kernel developers. Clearly, our project has sparked great interest not only among you but also within the kernel community.

A Device Tree in Kernel Development?

A device tree is a data structure that describes the hardware components of a computer in a tree format. The operating system kernel uses this structure to manage and utilize the hardware. The device tree source code is compiled by the Device Tree Compiler (DTC) into a binary format called the Device Tree Blob (DTB), which the kernel reads at startup. While hardware on most devices is typically described using ACPI tables, the device tree is particularly crucial for embedded systems and ARM-based devices, where hardware is often not detected dynamically. Thanks to the device tree, the CPU knows which components are connected to which ports and how to communicate with them.

The Next Steps

The next step is to support additional components of the ARM notebook within the device tree. This includes all USB functionalities, including USB4, external monitor connectivity via HDMI, and audio features, such as the headset jack. Additionally, driver testing is on the agenda. Unfortunately, a planned collaboration with Qualcomm, the manufacturer of the Snapdragon X Elite, did not materialize. However, we are in contact with the ARM specialists at Linaro and have sent test devices to them. We hope to receive valuable feedback from their developers and the community in the near future.

We greatly appreciate your interest in our planned ARM notebook. At this stage, we cannot provide an estimate of when it will be market-ready. However, what we can say is that you can look forward to long battery life and excellent performance in a lightweight and quiet device.

If you understand spoken German, you can listen to Georg talk about his work on this project on the podcast Focus on Linux from December of last year.