CC: @davdunc @dcavalca @marcan

The range of supported hardware in mainline Fedora is listed here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARM#Supported_Hardware_and_Devices

The most popular devices used are the Raspberry Pi devices, particularly:

• Raspberry Pi 3 series
• Raspberry Pi 4 series (including Raspberry Pi 400)

@kparal has indicated that the Fedora QA team uses Raspberry Pi 400s, so that should be sufficient as a starting point.

I expect that Raspberry Pi 5 support will come soon, so acquisition of one of those devices should be planned by someone.

If folks want to also do Fedora Asahi Remix KDE dev/testing, then any M1 or M2 series Mac except the Mac Pro would work.

Windows on Arm (WoA) devices will also be a point of focus in the near future:

• Lenovo ThinkPad X13s (Snapdragon)
• Lenovo ThinkPad T14s (Snapdragon)
• Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge
• ASUS Vivobook S15 (S5507)

The key is whether any of these ARM laptops will have KVM support, because that will allow for similar coverage that Fedora Asahi Remix permits. @mpearson may be able to give some advice about this for us for Lenovo ARM laptops.

For Fedora KDE Mobile, we should evaluate a list of mobile devices that are supported by mainline(-ish) kernels and see what we could work with. PostmarketOS has one such list to look at.

A few more ARM workstation options:

• Ampere Altra Developer Platform
• Avantek Ampere Altra Arm-based Workstation
• MIFCOM Ampere Altra Workstations

Apple refurbished MacBooks M1/M2 chips only (M3 not yet supported) are also an option.

Yes, and Fedora Asahi Remix supports AArch64 KVM on those devices, so you can run Fedora KDE for AArch64 as a VM on Fedora Asahi Remix.

Arrow Electronics will soon sell a Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows for US$899 that could be a good WoA option.

For Qualcomm WoA devices, it looks like SLBounce provides a way to boot Linux in a way that allows usage of KVM. So maybe these devices can be used in that manner.

@farchord bought the ASUS Vivobook S15 (S5507). So we now have one WoA device.

I have an Apple Silicon Mac for Fedora Asahi Remix development and testing, so there's that too.

For some overview:

QCom: The Lenovo X13s is well supported on Fedora and I've been doing more polish there and I have one, some of the older Lenovo WoA devices like the c630 and Flex 5G should work as well. The IoT platforms are being actively supported by QCom too, the RB3 Core Kit (https://www.thundercomm.com/product/qualcomm-rb3-gen-2/#versions) is $399 so could also be an option. There's quirks required in most of the WoA platforms. The newer SnapdragonX are up and coming but we don't currently have a roadmap to support here, although I am actively working with vendors, as there's still a lot of stuff heading upstream.

Rockchips: The rk3399 devices are extremely well supported in Fedora, if now getting a little long in the teeth, they are cheap and widely used in the Fedora arm community, are probably one of the more popular in terms of KDE requests, so would be worth having some for testing and they're cheap. The rk35xx series are more powerful, in particular the rk3588, and while they're not fully upstream as yet for desktop use (the main missing pieces are around HDMI output) and I'm working to have them much better supported in Fedora 41.

The key is whether any of these ARM laptops will have KVM support, because that will allow for similar coverage that Fedora Asahi Remix permits. @mpearson may be able to give some advice about this for us for Lenovo ARM laptops.

At the moment there won't be support for KVM on these platforms. Overall KVM on aarch64 is generally well tested.

The key is whether any of these ARM laptops will have KVM support, because that will allow for similar coverage that Fedora Asahi Remix permits. @mpearson may be able to give some advice about this for us for Lenovo ARM laptops.

At the moment there won't be support for KVM on these platforms. Overall KVM on aarch64 is generally well tested.

I have been informed that we do not have enough compute resources to do comprehensive OpenQA runs on AArch64, so we're trying to find workarounds for that (hence identifying ways to do AArch64 KVM).

I expect that Raspberry Pi 5 support will come soon, so acquisition of one of those devices should be planned by someone.

It depends on your description of soon ;-) I expect we will be able to boot the device in F-41 but the device won't be particularly useful as it'll basically be serial console/storage without any display, USB or network. I'm hoping it should be much closer to useful in the F-42 timeframe. I have mine booting Fedora and will be sending more details to arm list before too long.

I have been informed that we do not have enough compute resources to do comprehensive OpenQA runs on AArch64, so we're trying to find workarounds for that (hence identifying ways to do AArch64 KVM).

Can it be done on AWS (I'm not sure what resources OpenQA needs in a desktop env, I'm guessing it uses the emulated GPU).

Rockchips: The rk3399 devices are extremely well supported in Fedora, if now getting a little long in the teeth, they are cheap and widely used in the Fedora arm community, are probably one of the more popular in terms of KDE requests, so would be worth having some for testing and they're cheap. The rk35xx series are more powerful, in particular the rk3588, and while they're not fully upstream as yet for desktop use (the main missing pieces are around HDMI output) and I'm working to have them much better supported in Fedora 41.

Looking around on Rockchips devices, it seems these might be good ones to look into?

• Pine64 Quartz64
• Pine64 RockPro64
• Pine64 Pinebook Pro
• Pine64 PinePhone Pro

I have been informed that we do not have enough compute resources to do comprehensive OpenQA runs on AArch64, so we're trying to find workarounds for that (hence identifying ways to do AArch64 KVM).

Can it be done on AWS (I'm not sure what resources OpenQA needs in a desktop env, I'm guessing it uses the emulated GPU).

I think it could with AWS metal instances, since that will allow for virtualization and a virtio GPU, @davdunc may have answers here on that.

Looking around on Rockchips devices, it seems these might be good ones to look into?

• Pine64 Quartz64

I have one of these on my desk, it's in the group I mention about better supporting in F-41.

• Pine64 RockPro64
• Pine64 Pinebook Pro

Both of those are very well supported

• Pine64 PinePhone Pro

The support for that is getting better, I have been doing some upstream bits to get it better supported. You would not want to run VMs on it though due to heat etc.

For VMs the Rock5B would likely be a good choice (see details about rk3588 above) as you can get up to 32Gb of RAM and put a decent NVME in it. I have one with 16Gb and a 1TB NVME.
https://radxa.com/products/rock5/5b/

For some overview:

QCom: The Lenovo X13s is well supported on Fedora and I've been doing more polish there and I have one, some of the older Lenovo WoA devices like the c630 and Flex 5G should work as well. The IoT platforms are being actively supported by QCom too, the RB3 Core Kit (https://www.thundercomm.com/product/qualcomm-rb3-gen-2/#versions) is $399 so could also be an option. There's quirks required in most of the WoA platforms. The newer SnapdragonX are up and coming but we don't currently have a roadmap to support here, although I am actively working with vendors, as there's still a lot of stuff heading upstream.

Rockchips: The rk3399 devices are extremely well supported in Fedora, if now getting a little long in the teeth, they are cheap and widely used in the Fedora arm community, are probably one of the more popular in terms of KDE requests, so would be worth having some for testing and they're cheap. The rk35xx series are more powerful, in particular the rk3588, and while they're not fully upstream as yet for desktop use (the main missing pieces are around HDMI output) and I'm working to have them much better supported in Fedora 41.

Yeah I have an Asus Vivobook S (The snapdragon X elite one) on order, and I have an OrangePI 5b here. I was able to make the latter boot in Fedora Rawhide no problem, all it really needed was a dtb file. Mind you, HDMI out and several other things aren't functional right now, but it works as a small server.

Mind you, HDMI out and several other things aren't functional right now, but it works as a small server.

As I already mentioned above ;-)

• Pine64 PinePhone Pro

The support for that is getting better, I have been doing some upstream bits to get it better supported. You would not want to run VMs on it though due to heat etc.

I would definitely not expect to run VMs on a phone. :joy:

For VMs the Rock5B would likely be a good choice (see details about rk3588 above) as you can get up to 32Gb of RAM and put a decent NVME in it. I have one with 16Gb and a 1TB NVME.
https://radxa.com/products/rock5/5b/

Alas, it looks like it's not available in North America, but availability in Europe seems to be pretty decent.

I expect that Raspberry Pi 5 support will come soon, so acquisition of one of those devices should be planned by someone.

It depends on your description of soon ;-) I expect we will be able to boot the device in F-41 but the device won't be particularly useful as it'll basically be serial console/storage without any display, USB or network. I'm hoping it should be much closer to useful in the F-42 timeframe. I have mine booting Fedora and will be sending more details to arm list before too long.

Yes, I am mostly mindful of the supply shortages for the Raspberry Pi, so I'm trying to be opportunistic here.

Yes, I am mostly mindful of the supply shortages for the Raspberry Pi, so I'm trying to be opportunistic here.

There's generally not supply issues currently

For those interested in Windows on Arm devices, apparently Dell also has a few models to choose from.

https://www.qualcomm.com/products/mobile/snapdragon/laptops-and-tablets/laptop-device-finder

Those are the ones (afaik) currently available.

There's around 30 devices available of the Snapdagon X series devices, but note we do not yet support them. There's still a lot of work to do. I think I'll make the X13s wiki page a generic QCom Laptops page.

Btw my Asus Vivobook is arriving today

Another option that's just come up is this kickstarter which is a QCom IoT part (qcm6490) which has decent upstream support and a number of device options out there.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/particle-iot/tachyon-powerful-5g-single-board-computer-w-ai-accelerator

That looks very interesting, indeed!

It is unclear whether that's a UEFI platform or not (I would guess not), but I backed it, since I can afford to pick that up.

Interesting note for @tdawson and @marcdeop: the Tachyon runs the same platform that's used in the Fairphone 5. It's not completely unreasonable to think we couldn't get Fedora KDE Plasma Mobile working on the Fairphone 5 if we have Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop working well on this board.

It is unclear whether that's a UEFI platform or not (I would guess not), but I backed it, since I can afford to pick that up.

QCom supports SystemReady-IR on that platform so it should absolutely be UEFI capable. I have actually just received a RB3gen2 for testing which is the QCom reference platform for that SoC so I'll know RSN what's the default.

the Fairphone 5

Already one step ahead investigating that ;-) , note I believe it's only available in Europe.

Yeah, I think that's more of a candidate for @marcdeop or @siosm to pick up than Troy or I. Fairphone pretty much exclusively operates in Europe.

So, I updated Matrix, but I got Fedora KDE to boot on my Asus Vivebook S 15, love it! Wifi is working, and it's missing some drivers yet. But according to those working on the drivers, it should be ready by 6.12 (That's the goal anyway).

The firmware bits might take longer as, according to them, that relies on the original manufacturers/OEMs to submit them for inclusion in the Linux firmware.

For the EU folks here: @marcdeop, @siosm, @jgrulich, @aleasto

@hrw is selling one of his AArch64 desktop systems for €650: https://society.oftrolls.com/@hrw/111913333687878241

If any of you want to go for that, reach out to him (he's @hrw:fedora.im in the Fedora KDE Matrix room).

An affordable ARM workstation just launched: https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-ms-r1-workstation

This might be worth people picking up to do Fedora KDE ARM things.

An affordable ARM workstation just launched: https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-ms-r1-workstation

This might be worth people picking up to do Fedora KDE ARM things.

I've been bit on this before.... is it already working OOTB on Linux? Or are "efforts on the way"?

I am not entirely sure, but it seems that there are a few patches left to upstream for "perfect" functionality, but Jeff Geerling was able to use vanilla Ubuntu on it reasonably fine.

It would be nice if they listed the patches. This is on their website, and it tends to make me nervous.

*For the best experience, please use the official OS image until the driver is merged into the main branch.

It would be nice if they listed the patches. This is on their website, and it tends to make me nervous.
*For the best experience, please use the official OS image until the driver is merged into the main branch.

And to be fair, Fedora testing requires a clean kernel, not a custom one, so yeah....