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Before diving into drivers, we must understand the hardware’s ARM64 implementation.
If you have tinkered with mid-range Xiaomi (Redmi Note 4/4X, Mi A1), Motorola (Moto G5S Plus), or ASUS devices from the 2016–2019 era, you have met the Qualcomm MSM8953 (codenamed sdm450/sdm625). This 64-bit Octa-core Cortex-A53 SoC has been the workhorse of the Android world. msm8953 for arm64 driver
But here lies the rub: While the chip is natively ARM64, official Linux mainline support remains a patchwork quilt. In this post, we’ll unpack what it takes to get an ARM64 Linux distribution (or a custom Android GKI kernel) running on MSM8953, focusing on the driver stack, missing pieces, and community solutions. Before diving into drivers, we must understand the
Although the MSM8953’s Cortex-A53 cores support both AArch32 and AArch64, most stock and custom ROMs run in 64-bit mode (AArch64) for the kernel and critical system services. This means: ⚠️ Some OEMs shipped MSM8953 devices with a
⚠️ Some OEMs shipped MSM8953 devices with a 32-bit kernel and userspace (e.g., early Android 7 builds). Always verify your boot image:
file /proc/config.gzoruname -m.