Omarchy runs on the ASUS Zenbook A16 with Snapdragon X2, and its speakers are coming in the next version
DHH showed Omarchy on ASUS’s 16-inch Snapdragon X2 laptop, then merged the work that gives it working speakers and microphones with ASUS’s own tuning. The webcam and Bluetooth are still missing.
Image: DHH (X)
Another Snapdragon laptop is joining the Omarchy family. DHH posted on X on October 29, 2026 a photo of “Omarchy running on the Asus Zenbook A16 with the @Snapdragon X2 Extreme chip.” The chip is what Qualcomm and ASUS sell as the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, while Omarchy’s pull requests refer to the platform as Snapdragon X2 Elite, codename Glymur.
DHH clearly likes the hardware: “Very enticing package for $1,899 with 48GB RAM / 512GB storage and that crazy chip plus a 3K OLED in a chassis weighing just 1.2kg.” In a follow-up, he added that “the performance is very good too!”
It’s not done yet. “There’s still more work to do before this is fully usable,” DHH wrote in the same thread. “No webcam or bluetooth yet, for example. With a little help from @Qualcomm and @ASUSUSA, I’m sure we can get everything fixed quickly, though.” Earlier in the thread he explained what that help is: the drivers needed are “currently being extracted from the Windows install and are under license,” and Omarchy needs Qualcomm and ASUS on board to bundle them. He asked anyone with good contacts, especially at ASUS, to email him at david@omarchy.org.
Sound is the first piece to land. Pull request #17039, “Support the ASUS Zenbook A16’s speakers, with ASUS’s voicing,” was opened and merged by DHH into the quattro branch late on October 29, 2026. It’s coming in the next version. According to the pull request, the Zenbook A16 (model UX3607OA) has no sound at all under Omarchy today. The change makes its speakers and microphones work, and gives the speakers ASUS’s own Windows voicing.
The groundwork sits in omarchy-pkgs #1841, a new asus-zenbook-a16-audio package that applies only to this laptop. Its description explains that the kernel looks for an audio topology file that linux-firmware doesn’t ship, so the sound card never comes up and PipeWire only offers a dummy output. The package points it at the existing topology file for Glymur’s CRD reference design, adds a UCM profile, keeps the two SoundWire speaker buses awake so half the speakers don’t go silent after idle, and switches the card to software volume, because the amplifiers’ hardware volume control doesn’t change the output on this board. A companion kernel change, omarchy-pkgs #1842, fixes the speaker resume bug at the driver level and raises the digital volume ceiling by 3 dB. The Omarchy pull request says it makes things better but isn’t required.
On the Omarchy side, a setup script installs the package on Qualcomm machines whose DMI product name contains UX3607OA, and a migration does the same for existing installs before turning the speaker tuning on. The laptop has four speakers, each with its own amplifier: woofers on the front channels and tweeters on the rear. The new tuning applies ASUS’s Dolby speaker voicing for this model, ASUS’s 3 kHz crossover between woofers and tweeters, and a 100 Hz high-pass filter that ASUS’s curve doesn’t have. The pull request explains that the woofers produce almost nothing below about 250 Hz, and that the Windows speaker protection guarding them there has no Linux counterpart.
The verdict in the pull request is honest: “By ear on this laptop it’s clearly better than the raw speakers. It still falls short of Windows, where Dolby’s dialog enhancer, intelligent EQ and virtualizer clean up vocals adaptively.” It points to the ProArt P14 tuning, which closed that gap with by-ear low-mid voicing, as a natural follow-up.
It’s a busy week for Omarchy on Snapdragon: board support for the Surface Pro 11 OLED was merged on October 28, 2026. For the Zenbook A16, the speakers and mics are next, and DHH is counting on a little help from ASUS and Qualcomm to get the webcam and Bluetooth fixed quickly.
