Linux 5.5 Can Boot The Modem Processor On Snapdragon 835 - Needed For Cell/WiFi On Qualcomm Laptops

With the Linux 5.4 cycle we saw mainline support beginning to come together for some Qualcomm ARM Linux laptops while with Linux 5.5 another milestone is being achieved. There has been out-of-tree support in the works for getting the various consumer Snapdragon laptops working with Linux while those changes are slowly getting into the mainline kernel.

The newest milestone comes with the remoteproc updates for Linux 5.5 and that is the ability to boot the modem processor on the Qualcomm MSM8998 (Snapdragon 835).

Booting the modem processor on this Snapdragon SoC used by both smartphones and laptops isn't only important for cellular support, but is also necessary for getting WiFi to work on the hardware.

The WiFi support appears to still be a work-in-progress off the mainline kernel, but now that the modem processor is powering on with Linux 5.5 should hopefully be working shortly. Obviously having working WiFi is of much importance for a usable ARM Linux laptop. Hopefully in 2020 we begin to see some of these Qualcomm-powered consumer laptops playing well with mainline Linux distributions.