definitely. Qualcomm provides the SoC and drivers for what comes on that package, but you’ll want to add a battery controller, power controls, and other embedded systems onto the motherboard to make it act like a real system. it’s also a way different boot process in my experience than a normal x86 platform. the difference between ARM and x86 isn’t just the instruction set. plus at this level nothing is ever plug and play.

as for how Valve was able to ship an ARM device, they stuck to the normal kinds of IO a mobile device with a SD8gen3 would have and already have a great OS for fast iteration that they have tight controls over.

i’m excited for this XElite line, but i can see how it’s not in Qualcomm’s best interest to spend their engineering labor on porting to desktop Linux, not with Microsoft and Dell etc already having bids on that time. as long as Qualcomm is upstreaming and not actively blocking open source development, i don’t understand the kind of resentment i see for them. because they work with Google? i see them becoming more open as they become more prolific outside of embedded systems and Android. i see it as an exposure problem.