Been driving the ASUS ProArt 14 with the NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X on Arch Linux ARM and honestly… it's great. Everything works and it's snappy.

- Touchpad, trouchscreen, wifi, sound, Wayland/GNOME all good, ran vllm with 2b, 4b models and nvfp4 also.
- Steam works through FEX (x86 emulation, the same tech Valve uses on the Steam Frame). Took an evening of tinkering, but the client runs fine and x86 games get the real NVIDIA GPU.-Tested BG3 realy quickly wirh DLSS.

Thanks NVIDIA and ASUS now I have a dreamy laptop for both work and gaming. Now I have to get the 16" one 😅 to run my work stuff.

Here is repo with all stuff (use on your own :

https://github.com/mikivolek/archlinuxarm-proart-p14/tree/main (cudos to pfeifferj).

One catch: the laptop needs patched ACPI tables to run Linux properly. Those tables are ASUS/NVIDIA firmware and can't legally be redistributed, so nobody can hand you a ready-made fix. You have to dump the tables from your own laptop and patch them locally (the project has scripts and a guide for it). It takes about 15 minutes, once.

--- small updsate Oct 26 6:05PM

After comming home from work I fixed a build bug in FEX's Vulkan thunks, so games now talk straight to the native ARM NVIDIA driver instead of an emulated x86 one. Only the game code is emulated now, the GPU side runs native, and it shows. HDR works too, desktop and BG3. GNOME didn't detect the OLED as HDR because the panel only reports it in a newer EDID format, so I patched the library that reads it. Games then needed GE-Proton10 with Wine's Wayland driver, plus a few fixes to FEX's Wayland thunk so it could run natively. BG3 now outputs real HDR10 on the OLED.

Last spring I bought an HP OmniBook 5 (Snapdragon X Plus, 32 GB) for $650 and tried to get native Linux running on it. I was living in my 2013 Civic at the time, coding in parking lots.

I logged more than 1000 reboots. Some things came up, but every step meant fighting closed firmware and missing drivers. Eventually money ran out, and I had to sell the laptop.

What stuck with me: I wasn't fighting Linux, I was fighting hardware I couldn't see inside. So I flipped it. Now I'm building a 16" laptop around a NanoPi M6 (RK3588), where the parts are documented.

So far:

• designed my own DSI→eDP bridge board, and it drives a real 16" laptop panel
• the display and the SBC run straight off a 4S6P 21700 pack (no 12V converter anymore)
• keyboard + touchpad board is designed, next to order

Everything is open source. Question for people here: if you wanted a Linux laptop you could actually repair and understand, would you go ARM SBC like this, or stick with x86 (Framework, ThinkPad)?

Full story and board files, if anyone's curious: tagoslabs.com/story

I’ve been working on LogiOptions, an independent Linux app inspired by Logitech Options+.

It started because I wanted to use my MX Master 4 and MX Keys for Business on Linux without giving up their settings. It now has mouse DPI, scrolling and SmartShift controls, adjustable haptic feedback, keyboard function-key and backlight settings, and an experimental Actions Ring with per-app shortcuts.

The tray and background service start at login, so the Actions Ring works with the settings window closed. The project grew from studying the official macOS app and testing direct HID++ communication with my devices over Bolt.

This is an experimental release. Support currently targets these two devices on Ubuntu 26.04 (amd64), with GNOME 50. Broader device support, Flow, macros and full Options+ parity are still unfinished. New global button shortcut assignments still need an end-to-end physical mouse test.

GitHub: https://github.com/enriquemorenotent/logioptions-linux

Install with automatic updates:

curl -fsSL https://enriquemorenotent.github.io/logioptions-linux/install.sh | sudo bash

You can review the installer in the repository first. After first-time installation, log out of Ubuntu and back in to load the Actions Ring extension.

The screenshot shows example button assignments. The application code is GPLv3; the device artwork and fonts are Logitech assets with separate terms. This is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Logitech.

I’d love feedback from other MX Master 4 and MX Keys users on Linux!

Hello all,

Thanks for taking the time to check this post out. I have tried to do some digging on this, but have not been able to find a conclusive answer to get me pointed in the right direction, and wanted to get some opinions on a good laptop for my scenario.

Due to life circumstances, I will be unable to have a desktop PC for the next couple of years, and thus will be restricted to a laptop. I currently have a Lenovo ThinkPad E595, and to be entirely honest, it is not doing it for me. The trackpad and keyboard are both not great, and overall performance has not been where I am wanting it to be.

So, here is the description of the unicorn I am looking for:

- Reasonable used price (~750 but less is of course fine, and might be willing to adjust up *slightly* for a large improvement.

- Good enough performance to run a decent amount of games. Hypothetically, if it could run up to something like Starfield, that would be great.

- Small form factor and good build quality. Think something close to a MacBook (Based on my reading, I know there is not really any company with as good build quality, just wanting decent build quality, metal if possible.)

- An important thing, especially given my current laptop, is a good trackpad and keyboard. I actually really like the ones on the Dell Pro 14 (which is what we have been purchasing at my job).

- Docking capabilites if possible. Not a necessity, but would be nice if it ends up working out really well, and I want to continue using it into the future.

To sum it up, essentially looking for a high performance "linux macbook". I will say, battery life is not super important to me, given that I don't travel a whole lot, and thus don't need to run off of the battery much.