New Linux Driver Coming To Improve ASUS Zenbook Snapdragon X2 Support

For those hopeful of running Linux well on the ASUS Zenbook A14 or A16 laptops powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 SoC, a new ASUS EC driver has been developed for enhancing the support.

Qualcomm engineers previously posted Linux patches for the X2-powered ASUS Zenbook laptops with most functionality working. With that Device Tree all the basic support is in good shape while today open-source developer Konrad Dybcio at Qualcomm posted patches for introducing the new "asus-glymur-ec" driver for improving the embedded controller (EC) functionality under Linux. The Snapdragon X2 powered Zenbooks have an EC firmware that somewhat resembles Qualcomm's reference design but different enough to warrant its own kernel driver.

With this new driver, the EC for the ASUS Zenbook A14 and A16 can now report the current fan speeds, temperature readouts from its two temperature sensors, and reading/setting the keyboard backlight brightness levels. There is also support for notifying the EC of system suspend and resume activity.

Nice as well seeing a seeming uptick in kernel contributions from Qualcomm engineers for supporting the different Snapdragon X2 laptops better under Linux. Unfortunately due to budget constraints and no vendors having offered any review samples for Linux testing, there still is not any Snapdragon X2 Linux testing planned at Phoronix.

Those interested in this new driver for X2-powered ASUS Zenbooks can find the patches out for review on the kernel mailing list.