I’ve been wanting a Linux Laptop with a good display for a while. For years my go-to option for non-Apple laptops was HP (mostly) but I got tired of the poor displays.
I picked up an Asus Zenbook S14 UX5406AA today, since I wanted a good display and Best Buy was running a sale.
I’m very impressed with the Zenbook: the hardware is way ahead of other high-end PC laptops I used; HP EliteBook/OmniBook/Spectre, Dell XPS and Lenovo ThinkPad (yes, ThinkPads are actually unreliable).
However, to no surprise the Asus Zenbook has out-of-the-box issues with Fedora, and probably other Linux distros. It can be worked around if you don’t mind using Fedora 45 beta as of August 2026.
Brightness
By default, the brightness runs at 100%. This can be solved using grubby:
grubby --update-kernel=ALL --args="xe.enable_dpcd_backlight=1"This makes the brightness works out-of-the-box.
If you’re running a non-Red Hat-based Linux distribution (i.e. Arch, Ubuntu) the commands are different.
Audio
Audio also doesn’t work out-of-the-box on Fedora 44, even with the latest packaged kernel. This is because there’s a “ghost” Realtek audio codec when the real HD Audio codec is Cirrus Logic.
Audio works after working to Fedora 45 beta with Kernel 7.2. Although I normally use Sony Bluetooth earbuds.
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth should work fine.
Suspend and Resume
Suspend and resume should work fine once Fast Boot is disabled in the UEFI setup.
Conclusion
While it’s not as good out-of-the-box as a ThinkPad, XPS or even HP models (although this is current-gen hardware), the Zenbook UX5406AA is a refreshing change from other x86 laptops hardware-wise.
Interestingly, older HP Spectre models didn’t have working suspend-and-resume but the Zenbook does (well, after disabling Fast Boot).
I’ve wanted a Linux laptop I actually enjoy using. Yes, Apple Silicon is great. But I was longing for premium Linux hardware. I’m not the biggest fan of macOS, maybe unless the other option is meh hardware. And considering Asahi’s delays I’m not going to use Apple M2; I like new hardware. Well, as long as I don’t get ripped off by SK Hynix.
Asus also did one thing right over Apple: The Zenbook has better oleophobic coating than MacBooks. The same can also be said about HP, though HP has poor displays versus Apple and Asus.
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