I'm trying to replace Windows 11 Home on an Asus Zenbook A14 with Linux Mint 22.3 Cinnamon. The laptop has a Snapdragon X Plus processor, and I prepared a 60 GB SanDisk USB drive by verifying the Mint ISO and flashing it with Balena Etcher and Rufus. I disabled Fast Boot and Secure Boot in the firmware settings, selected the USB drive from the boot menu, and received an error saying it could not load. Before trying Ubuntu or another flash drive, I'd like to know whether I'm missing something in the installation process. It has been about fifteen years since I last used Linux.
3 Answers
The problem is the processor architecture. Snapdragon X Plus is an ARM64 processor, while the Linux Mint image you downloaded is built for x86-64 Intel and AMD systems, so it cannot boot on this laptop. Mint currently does not provide an ARM64 release.
Changing USB tools or using another flash drive probably won’t fix this particular error. The image architecture has to match the ARM processor first. If broad Linux compatibility is important, an Intel- or AMD-based laptop will generally be much easier to use than a current Snapdragon model.
You’ll need an ARM64-compatible distribution, such as Ubuntu, Fedora, or openSUSE. Snapdragon laptops can be difficult because hardware support is still developing; some models need a special Snapdragon-specific image, and Wi-Fi or other components may require firmware copied from Windows. Ubuntu’s custom Snapdragon image may be worth trying if its standard ARM64 image does not boot. Even after installation, some x86-64 applications may require additional emulation and won’t necessarily work out of the box.
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