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omarchy-dragon-sl7

Omarchy for the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 (Snapdragon X)

Unofficial community port. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Omarchy/Basecamp, Microsoft or Qualcomm.

The logo above is Omarchy's (MIT licensed).

This project is a thin overlay on upstream omacom/omarchy and omarchy-iso (dragon branches). It ships its own linux-sl7 kernel, a touchpad daemon, an add-on package with the device glue, and a signed package repository. Firmware is fetched at install time and never redistributed.

Status

Alpha. In daily use on a 13.8" Surface Laptop 7 with a Snapdragon X Plus (X1P-64-100, 16 GB). The X Elite models and the 15" model are untested and best-effort: the device trees and packages cover them, but nobody has booted them. Expect rough edges, and read What works before you wipe a disk. See PLAN.md for the longer plan and research notes.

Install

Use at your own risk. This is an unofficial, experimental community project with no warranty, and it is not affiliated with Microsoft, Qualcomm or Omarchy. Installing WIPES Windows and everything on the internal SSD. Before you start:

• Back up all personal data somewhere else.
• Save the BitLocker recovery key (tools/windows/Prepare-SL7.ps1 can write it to a USB stick).
• Note your Windows licence and Microsoft account details.
• Install all Windows and Surface firmware updates first: Surface firmware only updates through Windows Update, so it will not update once Windows is gone.
• Keep Microsoft's Surface driver MSI (the firmware comes from it).
• Optional: create a Surface recovery USB from Microsoft's Surface recovery image download (you enter your device's serial number there) so Windows can be restored later.
• Check how a modified OS affects your warranty or support terms.

Short version, for a 13.8" Surface Laptop 7. The installer wipes the disk you pick and does not keep Windows. Details for every step are in Fresh install from the installer ISO.

1. Download the latest ISO from the installer-latest release, rebuilt on every change. It is over GitHub's 2 GiB asset limit, so it comes in parts:

   cat NAME.iso.part-* > NAME.iso     # NAME = the ISO's file name on the release page
   sha256sum -c NAME.iso.sha256
   gpg --import omarchy-sl7.pub.asc   # from the same release
   gpg --status-fd 1 --verify NAME.iso.sha256.sig NAME.iso.sha256   # needs VALIDSIG 6387C619EF246F6F20C536B72C3331C78353BA04
   

   The .sha256 only proves the download is intact; the signature proves it came from the project. Trust the key only if its fingerprint is 6387C619EF246F6F20C536B72C3331C78353BA04 (also in SECURITY.md); the key file on the release is not trusted by itself. make-install-usb.sh (step 2) does the download, reassembly, checksum and signature check for you and refuses an ISO whose signature is missing or not from that key. The ISO contains no Microsoft or Qualcomm firmware.
2. Make the install stick on any Linux machine (16 GB or larger USB stick):

   tools/installer-kit/get-sl7-firmware.sh        # fetches Microsoft's public Surface MSI, your own copy
   tools/installer-kit/make-install-usb.sh --device /dev/sdX   # latest release ISO + SL7DATA firmware and camera staging
   

   make-install-usb.sh defaults to --from-release; use --iso FILE for a file you already have or --from-ci RUNID|latest for a CI artifact. Run it as yourself, not with sudo.
3. If Windows is still installed, optionally run tools/windows/Prepare-SL7.ps1 (read-only): it confirms the model, shows the BitLocker status and can save the recovery key to a USB stick, and reports Secure Boot. Then turn Secure Boot off in the Surface UEFI (hold Volume Up, press Power; Security > Secure Boot: None).
4. Boot from the USB-A port (Volume Down + Power, on AC power) and run the installer. Pick the internal NVMe and set a LUKS passphrase.
5. First boot. The webcam tuning is generated automatically from your own driver package. Set up face unlock from the Omarchy menu: Setup > Security > Face Unlock.
6. Updates arrive through the signed [omarchy-sl7] repository: omarchy-update carries linux-sl7, iptsd-sl7, libcamera-sl7, the face unlock packages and the add-on.

From Windows

You do not need Linux to make the install sticks. You need two USB sticks: a 16 GB or larger one for the ISO, and a small one (any size, FAT32) for the firmware.

1. Download every file of the installer-latest release into one folder (NAME.iso.part-00, -01, ..., NAME.iso.parts.sha256, NAME.iso.sha256, and the .sig if present). Open PowerShell in that folder, and set $iso to the ISO's name from the release page:

   $iso = 'NAME.iso'
   # 1. check each part
   Get-Content "$iso.parts.sha256" | Where-Object { $_.Trim() } | ForEach-Object {
       $h, $f = $_ -split '\s+', 2; $f = $f.Trim().TrimStart('*')
       '{0}  {1}' -f $(if ((Get-FileHash $f -Algorithm SHA256).Hash -eq $h) { 'OK  ' } else { 'FAIL' }), $f }
   # 2. join the parts
   $out = [IO.File]::Create((Join-Path (Get-Location).Path $iso))
   Get-ChildItem "$iso.part-*" | Sort-Object Name | ForEach-Object {
       $in = [IO.File]::OpenRead($_.FullName); $in.CopyTo($out, 1MB); $in.Dispose() }
   $out.Dispose()
   # 3. check the ISO
   (Get-FileHash $iso -Algorithm SHA256).Hash
   Get-Content "$iso.sha256"        # the two hashes must be identical (case does not matter)

   (cmd /c copy /b NAME.iso.part-00+NAME.iso.part-01+NAME.iso.part-02 NAME.iso joins them too.) Also check the signature: install Gpg4win, then in PowerShell gpg --import omarchy-sl7.pub.asc and gpg --status-fd 1 --verify "$iso.sha256.sig" "$iso.sha256". It must print VALIDSIG followed by 6387C619EF246F6F20C536B72C3331C78353BA04 (the key's fingerprint, also in SECURITY.md); do not use the ISO otherwise.
2. Write the ISO to the large stick with Rufus or balenaEtcher. In Rufus choose the ISO, then DD Image mode when it asks (not ISO Image mode: the ISO is a hybrid image and must be copied as is). Etcher needs no options (Flash from file). Afterwards Windows may say the stick needs formatting or cannot be read: do not format it; eject it.
3. Make the firmware stick (the second one). Format it in File Explorer (right-click the drive, Format) as FAT32 with the volume label SL7DATA. Then download Make-SL7DATA.ps1 (repository page, Raw, save as) and run:

   Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process Bypass
   .\Make-SL7DATA.ps1 -Drive E        # E = the SL7DATA stick; add -Msi FILE if you have the MSI

   It downloads Microsoft's public Surface Laptop 7 driver MSI (about 1 GB, known sha256; the previous package is the fallback, and -Msi FILE takes one you downloaded by hand), unpacks it without installing, checks the firmware files, and copies firmware and camera tuning to the stick. It refuses any drive that is not FAT32 labelled SL7DATA, never formats, and verifies what it wrote. The live installer finds SL7DATA on any USB stick, so the firmware can be on the second stick.
4. Optionally, still in Windows, run tools\windows\Prepare-SL7.ps1 on the Surface (BitLocker recovery key, Secure Boot state), then turn Secure Boot off in the Surface UEFI.
5. Boot: plug both sticks into the Surface (the ISO stick in the USB-A port; a USB hub is fine) and continue with step 4 of the short version above.

This path has not been tested on Windows yet; please report problems.

What works

Measured on the 13.8" X1P. "Works" means used daily without known problems; "Partial" means it runs with a documented gap or has not been checked as thoroughly.

Feature	Status	Notes
Keyboard	Works	Surface Aggregator modules in the initramfs, so it also works at the LUKS prompt. The prompt can be blank for the first boots: type blind.
Touchpad	Works	iptsd-sl7 (a fork with Surface Laptop 7 fixes). Tap-to-click is off by default (it caused false clicks while scrolling; set tap_to_click = true in ~/.config/hypr/input.lua to bring it back). Drag latch keeps click-and-drag held, and lift-and-continue works: the drag stays while the physical click is held (iptsd-sl7 patch 0008, verified on the SL7). Disable-while-typing is active. A watchdog re-enables multitouch if the pad falls back to mouse mode. Haptic strength and click force follow Windows' settings (see Touchpad settings). Gestures are your own Hyprland (Lua) config.
Touchscreen	Partial	SPI touch modules only (the 13.8" unit here). Units with the I2C module are not covered. Pen is untested.
Display	Works	Native 2304x1536 at 120 Hz.
Variable refresh (VRR)	Works	24-120 Hz, on by default (msm.vrr_enabled=1; Hyprland misc.vrr set by the power mode service). Panel measured at 24 Hz idle, about 116 Hz under motion, no flicker. No chip-rail power change; battery power not measurable yet. Off: remove the msm.vrr_enabled=1 line from /etc/limine-entry-tool.d/omarchy-surface-sl7.conf, sudo limine-mkinitcpio, reboot.
Panel self refresh (PSR)	Not yet	Known broken: the panel goes black when idle. Keep it off.
GPU acceleration	Works	Adreno via msm; the zap shader comes from the Microsoft MSI.
Hardware video (Iris)	Works	Enabled in the device tree with the Microsoft signed firmware from the MSI (omarchy-surface-sl7-firmware). Verified on the SL7: decode in mpv (--hwdec=v4l2m2m-copy), and H.264 encode with ffmpeg (-pix_fmt nv12 -c:v h264_v4l2m2m; 1080p30 at 19x real time). V4L2 decode (H.264, HEVC, VP9, AV1) and encode (H.264, HEVC) for mpv, ffmpeg and GStreamer; the encoder takes NV12 input only. Firefox-based browsers (Zen 157) try V4L2 decode and fall back to software.
Wi-Fi	Works	WCN7850 with a board-file fix and the factory MAC restored.
Bluetooth	Partial	Works with the factory address restored (it does not work at all without it); less tested than Wi-Fi.
Audio	Partial	Speakers and microphones work with the kernel volume caps. The Pro Audio profile is deliberately blocked to protect the speakers. Headphone jack quality is unverified.
Battery percentage and charging	Works	qcom_battmgr patch for capacity; Omarchy's battery scripts are patched to see the Qualcomm gauge.
USB-C charging and USB 3	Works	Both ports charge and run USB 3 (10 Gb/s), in either plug orientation (SuperSpeed on the reversed orientation fixed by ps883x patch 0090, on by default since linux-sl7 7.2.8-18), with DisplayPort alt mode and docks. USB4 and Thunderbolt bandwidth is not available yet.
Suspend and resume	Works	Deep suspend (deep), touch restarted after resume, about 0.35 W overnight. See power results for the drain.
Front webcam	Works	OV02C10 through libcamera's GPU software ISP (Adreno, EGL); the hardware ISP is not used, because CAMSS delivers raw frames only. Our libcamera-sl7 build (0.7.2-4.3) adds the sensor helper, a fast auto-exposure start, a fix for GPU-mode 720p metering, Adjust defaults read from the tuning file, and hides the IR camera from libcamera so PipeWire and cam can no longer hold the face unlock sensor. Colour tuning is generated at install from your own Surface driver package and never redistributed; defaults chosen on the SL7: set 1, blend 0.6, contrast 1.2, saturation 1.05 (sl7-camera-tuning adjusts them, sl7-camera-check collects diagnostics). Verified on the SL7: much better colour, no grey start. The sensor runs from a 12 MHz clock; linux-sl7 7.2.8-23 (patches 0099/0100) fixes the frame rate from 18.8 to 30 fps and the exposure timing (verified on the SL7: 30 fps on linux-sl7 7.2.8-23). See the webcam section for browser setup.
IR camera	Works	ST VD55G0, 644x604 greyscale, through sl7-ir-bridge, lit by the built-in IR emitter (verified 2026-10-07: self-test frames brighter than unlit, no black frames). Known issue: libcamera/PipeWire can grab the IR camera and block face unlock; workaround systemctl --user restart pipewire wireplumber && sudo systemctl restart sl7-ir-bridge. A package update that hides the IR camera from libcamera and PipeWire is in progress (not yet published).
Face unlock	Works	Verified on the SL7 (2026-10-07), on the normal boot (there is no IR test boot entry): face registered in the setup app, lock screen and sudo unlocked by face, no external IR source needed. howdy-next plus a setup app (Omarchy menu: Setup > Security > Face Unlock). The built-in IR emitter is driven by the sensor's own strobe (stage C found that GPIO 1 lights it), held by the kernel (linux-sl7 7.2.8-22) to Windows Hello's 100-line exposure and frame time, whatever user space asks: on the SL7 sensor clock that is 0.8 ms of light per 27.8 ms frame (2.9 % duty, Windows 5.7 %). sl7-ir-bridge lights it only while a scan streams, 10 s at most per session, with analog gain 24 as the default; howdy-next 2 silences a harmless OpenCV warning; IR_EMITTER=off in /etc/sl7-ir-bridge.conf keeps it dark.
CPU frequency scaling	Works	All three clusters, schedutil, with the SCMI sustained-frequency fix.
Power mode on AC/battery	Works	Caps CPU and GPU frequency and enables Wi-Fi power save on battery; restores everything on AC. 60 Hz switching on battery is opt-in.
Battery app	Works (verified on the SL7)	omarchy-sl7-battery: a Quickshell popup that replaces Omarchy's Power bar widget. Charge, time left with a dot-chart projection, hours since the last full charge, history (6h to 30d), sleep drain, power profiles and an auto power saver (switches to Power saver at 30%). Data from sl7-batteryd, a small Rust user daemon.
Firmware	Works	Fetched from Microsoft's Surface Laptop 7 driver MSI, never shipped here.
Hibernation	Not yet	The image write hangs, and the RTC alarm is owned by the ADSP.

Touchpad settings

Set in /etc/iptsd.d/94-local.conf (restart iptsd after editing). Full list in the iptsd-sl7 README.

Setting	Values	Status
[Touchpad] HapticIntensity	0 to 100 (Windows semantics)	Applied on the SL7 (patch 0009, iptsd-sl7 16)
[Touchpad] ClickForce	low, medium, high (Windows semantics)	Applied on the SL7 (patch 0009, iptsd-sl7 16)
[Touchpad] PalmMode	windows (default), freeze	Verified on the SL7: palm rejection works as expected (patch 0010, iptsd-sl7 17)

PalmMode = windows ignores a resting palm while the other fingers and the click keep working; freeze is the older behaviour. Verified on the SL7: palm rejection works as expected.

Install

Before you start (if Windows is still installed)

Nothing needs to be captured from Windows. The firmware comes from Microsoft's public driver MSI (step 2 below) and the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth MAC addresses are read from the UEFI at every boot. tools/windows/Prepare-SL7.ps1 is an optional read-only check: it confirms the model and CPU, shows the BitLocker status (and can save the recovery key to a USB stick), and reports the UEFI version and Secure Boot state. It uploads nothing and changes no setting. Read the script first, then in an administrator PowerShell:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process Bypass; .\Prepare-SL7.ps1          # add -WhatIf for a dry run

Fresh install from the installer ISO

(Windows users: see From Windows above for the equivalent of steps 1 to 3.)

The ISO is the least-tested path. The kit's own README records a full ISO build and a boot on the SL7 as not yet verified. If you already run Omarchy on the machine, update in place instead.

The installer wipes the disk you pick and does not keep Windows.

1. Get the ISO. Download it from the installer-latest release (built by the installer-iso workflow on every change to main; parts of 1900 MiB because of GitHub's 2 GiB asset limit, with a .sha256 and, when signing is configured, a signature). make-install-usb.sh fetches and checks it itself. The build takes the newest signed packages from the repo-aarch64 release, so nothing needs re-pinning. To build your own ISO instead, fork the repository and run gh workflow run installer-iso.yml.
2. Get the firmware. On any Linux machine (x86 or arm) or macOS, run tools/installer-kit/get-sl7-firmware.sh. It downloads Microsoft's Surface Laptop 7 driver MSI, checks its sha256 against the known packages (the newest, with the previous one as fallback; if Microsoft has replaced both, pass the MSI you downloaded by hand with --msi FILE), extracts it with msiextract (msitools) and writes ./sl7-msi (or $SL7_MSI) in the layout the kit reads (extracted/ProgramFiles64Folder/SurfaceUpdate and SHA256SUMS.extracted). Pass --msi FILE to use an MSI you already have. The stick carries firmware for your own device: do not share it. Skip this step with --no-firmware only if you accept that the installer then looks for a Windows driver store, which is gone after the wipe. On a system that is already installed, the add-on's own omarchy-surface-sl7-firmware does the same job (--from-msi FILE).
3. Write the stick (16 GB or larger) from an Arch-based host:

   sudo pacman -S --needed dosfstools mtools util-linux python github-cli
   tools/installer-kit/make-install-usb.sh --device /dev/sdX                  # latest release ISO
   tools/installer-kit/make-install-usb.sh --device /dev/sdX --from-ci latest # newest CI artifact
   tools/installer-kit/make-install-usb.sh --device /dev/sdX --iso FILE   # FILE.sha256 next to it
   

   Check the device with lsblk -o NAME,MODEL,SIZE,TRAN,RM. Run it as yourself, not with sudo. It verifies the checksum, refuses non-removable devices, and makes you type the device path. It adds a small SL7DATA partition with the firmware.
4. Secure Boot off. Power off, hold Volume Up and press Power to enter the Surface UEFI, then Security > Secure Boot: None.
5. Boot the stick. Plug it into the USB-A port (the live image keeps the DSP driver off because starting it resets USB-C) and stay on AC power. Hold Volume Down while pressing Power, or pick the stick in the UEFI boot menu. Expect a black screen for a minute or two.
6. Run the installer. Choose the internal NVMe, not the stick, and set a LUKS passphrase. The unlock prompt may be blank on early boots: type the passphrase blind and press Enter.
7. First boot. Reboot without the stick. The machine should land in linux-sl7 (the stock linux-aarch64 entry stays as a rescue kernel and has no internal keyboard). Check with uname -r (contains sl7) and sl7-doctor.

Troubleshooting and the layout of the stick are in tools/installer-kit/README.md.

Updating an existing install

For an Omarchy install on a Surface Laptop 7 that was not installed from our ISO. Download, read, then run (curl ... | bash also works):

curl -fsSLO https://github.com/qBitnaut/omarchy-dragon-sl7/raw/main/tools/bootstrap/omarchy-sl7-bootstrap.sh
less omarchy-sl7-bootstrap.sh
bash omarchy-sl7-bootstrap.sh --dry-run    # read-only preview
bash omarchy-sl7-bootstrap.sh

It checks the machine, fetches the repository public key and requires its fingerprint to be 6387C619EF246F6F20C536B72C3331C78353BA04 (embedded in the script), trusts it in pacman's keyring, adds Include = /etc/pacman.d/omarchy-sl7.conf above [core], installs omarchy-sl7-keyring omarchy-surface-sl7 linux-sl7 linux-sl7-headers iptsd-sl7 omarchy-sl7-battery in one pacman -Syu transaction through Omarchy's own wrapper (so the raw-pacman update guard is satisfied), and runs sl7-doctor. Every step is idempotent. --no-install stops before the transaction. From then on omarchy update carries our packages. Clean installs from our ISO need none of this: the installer includes omarchy-sl7-keyring, omarchy-surface-sl7 and the battery app (omarchy-sl7-battery); the add-on enables the repository at first boot. The battery app comes by default (omarchy-surface-sl7 depends on it, so omarchy update installs it on existing systems too).

If a later Omarchy change drops the repository, sudo omarchy-sl7-repo-ensure puts it back (it also runs after omarchy/omarchy-settings upgrades, at boot, and from an omarchy refresh pacman hook). sl7-doctor reports the state.

Day to day

• omarchy update carries our packages (linux-sl7, iptsd-sl7, omarchy-surface-sl7 and the face unlock packages), because the repository sits above Omarchy's in pacman.conf.
• After a kernel update, power off and on rather than rebooting. A warm reboot can leave some devices in a state a full power cycle clears.
• Run sl7-doctor after updates to check the kernel, firmware, repository and power state.

Tools

All ship in omarchy-surface-sl7 unless noted.

Tool	What it does
sl7-doctor	Read-only health check: kernel and device tree, cpufreq, initramfs modules, firmware, touch, boot order, repository, power mode, PSR and VRR state. Exits 1 on failure.
sl7-powertest	Measures idle or video power from the battery gauge with a pinned brightness, and compares two runs.
sl7-sleepstats	Prints SoC sleep counters (cxsd, ddr, aosd); --trace finds what blocks deep sleep, --suspend-test runs a measured suspend.
sl7-ir-probe	Read-only camera probe: sensor binding, media topology and a 30-frame IR capture.
sl7-camera-tuning	Builds the front webcam's libcamera tuning file from Microsoft's driver package, on your machine (--blend, --dry-run, --status, --remove).
sl7-camera-check	Captures GPU and CPU frames at 1080p and 720p, raw and dark frames, logs and a CPU/power sample into ~/sl7-camera-<time>/ and tars it.
omarchy-sl7-powermode	Applies or shows the power mode: frequency caps, Wi-Fi power save and display settings chosen from the power source and the power profile (power-saver is stricter, performance uncapped).
omarchy-sl7-bag-guard	Service (on by default): suspends, then powers off, a laptop left awake with the lid closed on battery and no external display, or too hot; --check shows the decision without acting.
omarchy-sl7-test-entry	Adds optional boot entries for experiments (psr, clk-unused); off by default.
omarchy-sl7-faceunlock	Face Unlock setup and face manager (Omarchy menu: Setup > Security > Face Unlock). Package omarchy-sl7-faceunlock.
omarchy-sl7-battery-plugin	Installs the SL7 Battery plugin for your user and swaps it in for the Power bar widget once; uninstall puts the Power widget back. Package omarchy-sl7-battery (also ships sl7-batteryd, the battery daemon; open the app with omarchy-shell qbit.sl7battery toggle).
sl7-ir-bridge	On-demand bridge from the IR camera to a stable V4L2 device, /dev/v4l/by-id/sl7-ir-camera. Package sl7-ir-bridge.

Power and performance results so far

Measured on the 13.8" X1P-64-100 (16 GB). Numbers are from sl7-powertest and the battery gauge. For a while the gauge reported energy_now in whole percent (about 496 mWh), so idle watts were taken as the integral of power_now. It now reports fine-grained energy again; each figure below says which method it used.

Idle

About 2.9 W at 30% brightness with the browser closed, on battery, measured over 20 minutes with the battery gauge. An earlier bug in the measuring tool overstated the savings; these are the corrected numbers.

Awake, against Windows 11 (preliminary)

Same-spec Surface Laptop 7 13.8" (X1P-64-100) pair, on battery, 50% brightness locked, 30 minute idle desktop, average discharge power. Preliminary: a re-run with the latest fixes (kernel and packages) is pending.

Bench	Windows 11	Linux (7.2.8-15)
v1 (first scripts; Linux gauge in whole percent steps)	3.19 W	3.27 W
v2 (fixed scripts, power_now integrated on Linux)	3.08 W	2.95 W (about 4% lower)

The Linux v2 run predates the DPU per-mixer clock fix (7.2.8-16) and the Wi-Fi power-save fix (omarchy-surface-sl7 32), so a re-run with both is pending. Windows had its background services (search indexer and similar) active. One run per cell, so treat differences of a few percent as indicative only.

Suspend

Deep suspend, 8 to 10 minute traces with sl7-sleepstats --trace:

Metric (8-10 min deep suspend)	7.2.8-7/-9 (before)	7.2.8-11 (after)
DDR self-refresh (qcom_stats ddr, lpm-0xd4)	0% of suspend, 0 entries	~95% of suspend (419 of 442 s; 584 of 615 s)
DDR bandwidth votes in the RPMh sleep set	MC0/SH0/SH1 held	all released
PCIe links (NVMe, Wi-Fi)	kept up through suspend	powered off, relinked on resume (Gen4 x4, Gen3 x2)
ADSP wakeups	~104/s	~11.5/s
XO (crystal)	held	still held (one prepare)
CX power collapse (cxsd)	no	not yet
Suspend power (overnight)	0.8-0.9 W (8 h 25 min, 16% of 48.6 Wh, 7.2.8-4)	about 0.35 W average (0.31-0.42 W range; 7.2.8-13 and -22)
Battery life asleep, full charge	about 2.4 days	about 6 days

To our knowledge, this is the first published DDR self-refresh in suspend on a shipping Snapdragon X (X1E/X1P) laptop under Linux, with all DSPs running. The only earlier CX/DDR collapse we found was on Qualcomm's reference CRD with an experimental branch that disables the ADSP. Reports from the Dell Inspiron 7441, Latitude 7455, Yoga Slim 7x and IdeaPad Slim 5x show ddr at 0.

Latest overnight, 7.2.8-22, 7-8 October (charger unplugged): the whole night, 20:24 to 07:37 (11.2 h), took the battery from 75% to 67%, about 0.35 W on average, roughly 6 days of standby on a full charge. A 5.1 h stretch of it was measured precisely at 0.42 W, because the gauge now reports fine-grained energy; the whole-night figure comes from whole-percent readings. DDR was in self-refresh for about 94% of the time asleep.

The earlier night on 7.2.8-13 (sl7-sleepstats --suspend-test) gave 2948 mWh over 9 h 20 min, 0.31 W, but was measured with whole-percent quantisation (about 0.05 W of uncertainty), so read the range as 0.31 to 0.42 W rather than a single figure. Both are about half or less of the Windows figure of 0.8 to 0.9 W. CX power collapse is not reached yet because one XO prepare still holds.

One harmless stray wake happened about 5 h into the suspend (about 26 s awake, then it suspended again). Wake-source logging is now on: journalctl -t omarchy-surface-sl7 | grep wake.

What made the difference

From the linux-sl7 README (Power sections):

• The 7.3 PDC pass-through and domain_ss3 deepest-idle backport.
• The 7.4 pmdomain and cpuidle-psci backport (cores that never come online no longer pin their cluster).
• qcom-geni serial force suspend, so the Surface Aggregator UART stops holding clocks.
• The ps883x retimer releasing its XO clock while in reset.
• PCIe root ports reaching D3hot (d4c79b63d82d), so the NVMe and Wi-Fi links power off.
• The Qualcomm Crypto Engine driver disabled (it held a permanent DDR vote).
• schedutil with the SCMI sustained-frequency fix for cpufreq.

Bag guard and USB power

• Bag guard (omarchy-sl7-bag-guard, on by default): lid closed, on battery and no external display, and still awake after 120 s, so it suspends again. After 3 failed suspends, or more than 60 degC for 60 s, it powers off. omarchy-sl7-bag-guard --check shows the decision without acting.
• USB-A runtime power management is opt-in and tested OK on the SL7: sudo sl7-usb-rpm enable a400000.usb --record. USB-C stays always on, because of a wake-on-plug issue (future research); sl7-usb-rpm refuses to record it without --force.
• USB-C reverse orientation now runs at SuperSpeed (ps883x patch 0090, on by default).

Known

• VRR: no chip-rail power change measured; battery-gauge power is not measurable yet.
• PSR blanks the panel, so it stays off.

Roadmap

• IR camera and face unlock: working (lock screen and sudo verified). Still to do: stop libcamera/PipeWire from grabbing the IR camera (package update in progress), check recognition in daylight and darkness, the bridge delivering 18 of the sensor's 36 fps, and Windows' runtime gain (not decoded).
• Awake power: re-run the Windows comparison with the latest fixes.
• USB-C runtime power management (wake-on-plug issue) and hibernation.
• Runtime power tuning with a per-rail power meter.
• Rebase on Linux 7.3 when it is released, dropping the patches that land in it.
• USB4 once a host-router driver is posted upstream.

Repository

Packages are published as assets of the rolling GitHub Release repo-aarch64:

[omarchy-sl7]
SigLevel = Required DatabaseOptional
Server = https://github.com/qBitnaut/omarchy-dragon-sl7/releases/download/repo-aarch64

• .github/workflows/publish-repo.yml runs after linux-sl7, iptsd-sl7, omarchy-surface-sl7, omarchy-sl7-keyring, howdy-next, sl7-ir-bridge, omarchy-sl7-faceunlock and omarchy-sl7-battery succeed on main (and on manual dispatch). It takes their latest artifacts plus the packages already on the release, refuses firmware files, signs every package (gpg --detach-sign), runs repo-add --sign, keeps the current and previous version of each package, and replaces the assets. Concurrent runs queue.
• Releases cannot hold symlinks, so omarchy-sl7.db and omarchy-sl7.files are real copies of the .tar.gz files, each with a .sig. omarchy-sl7.pub.asc is the public key.
• pacman follows GitHub's redirect from github.com/.../releases/download/... to its object storage (libcurl follows redirects; the same scheme serves other Arch repositories).
• Signing uses the repository secrets REPO_SIGNING_KEY (ASCII-armored private key, no passphrase) and REPO_SIGNING_KEY_ID. Without them the workflow still runs and warns that the repository is unsigned. The key must match pkgs/omarchy-sl7-keyring; rotate with tools/repo/make-keyring-files.sh.
• Immutable releases must stay disabled for this repository.
• Signing runs in a pinned, network-less container in a job of the protected release environment (main only). To verify what you download, check the signing key's fingerprint (6387C619EF246F6F20C536B72C3331C78353BA04); see SECURITY.md for the trust model and how to report a problem.

Firmware and licensing

Microsoft and Qualcomm firmware is never committed to or distributed from this repository. It is fetched on the target machine from Microsoft's public Surface Laptop 7 driver MSI. The .gitignore blocks firmware and captures.

License

• Scripts and packaging are MIT licensed (see LICENSE).
• Kernel patches under pkgs/linux-sl7/patches are GPL-2.0, like the Linux kernel they modify.
• iptsd-sl7 (the iptsd fork) is GPL-2.0-or-later; howdy-next is GPL-3.0-or-later.
• Microsoft/Qualcomm firmware is never included and remains under its own license.
• The Omarchy logo is Omarchy's, under the MIT license.

Support

If this port makes your Surface Laptop 7 better, consider buying me a coffee. It helps keep the kernel rebases, testing and updates coming.

Credits

Built on the work of the community:

• Omarchy (omacom/omarchy, omarchy-iso, omarchy-pkgs) and its dragon branches.
• Surface Laptop 7 ports: denislopt/omarchy-surface-laptop7, bryce-hoehn/linux-surface-laptop-7 (touchpad calibration by Oliver White), ProgrammerIn-wonderland/ELLX-Kernel, ItsLucas/surface-laptop-7-ubuntu-kernel, dwhinham/linux-sp11, and linux-surface.
• alex-lentz/iptsd: the iptsd fork with Surface Laptop 7 touchpad support.
• valeronm/sl7-mac: factory Wi-Fi and Bluetooth addresses.
• nathawat/howdy-next: face authentication; the AUR package it builds on.
• nate8199/omarchy-plugin-howdy-face: the lock screen overlay we patch.
• v4l2loopback: the virtual camera device behind sl7-ir-bridge.
• petm5/vd55g (and ST's GPL firmware arrays): the VD55G0 IR sensor driver.
• scuggo (and Nikkuss): the msm variable refresh patch and QSPI work.
• Kernel patch authors credited in each patch: Maulik Shah, Ulf Hansson, Abel Vesa, Manivannan Sadhasivam, Bryan O'Donoghue, Jens Glathe, Liviu Nicoara, Jiajie Chen and rafaelguariento, among others.