Razer Certifying Their First Laptop For Linux: Razer Blade 18 RZ09-0582 Review - Phoronix

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Razer Certifying Their First Laptop For Linux: Razer Blade 18 RZ09-0582

Written by Michael Larabel in Computers on 7 July 2026 at 11:38 AM EDT. Page 1 of 12 . 11 Comments.

Razer is a brand synonymous with gaming and finally in 2026 they are in the process of certifying their first laptop for Ubuntu Linux. This laptop going through Ubuntu Linux certification is the Razer Blade 18 RZ09-0582 and it offers incredible performance with the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processor and GeForce RTX 5090 graphics but with that also comes a very high price tag.

Razer better embracing Linux has been a long time coming. Going all the way back to March 2017 is when Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan publicly expressed interest in better supporting Linux on their Razer Blade laptops. He went as far as wanting to make the Razer Blade "the best notebook in the world that supports Linux."

Shortly thereafter contacting Phoronix and I heard more about their plans and then had reviewed the Razer Blade Stealth laptop with Linux. But then after that, all went silent from Razer on hearing about any Linux plans. By 2019, their Linux ambitions appeared to be all but forgotten.

Fast forward to last month, Razer reached out to share they are certifying Ubuntu on the new Blade 18 laptop as an alternative to Microsoft Windows 11. The Razer Blade 18 with Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 offers a lot of compute power for not only gamers but also developers whether you are doing code development and compiling a lot of code and/or also leveraging local AI inferencing to make use of the GeForce RTX 5090.

As of writing, Razer is still going through the certification process of the Blade 18 laptop on Ubuntu Linux. They added in a message to Phoronix, "going forward supporting the platform is important to us." Nearly a decade after Min-Liang Tan first was publicly talking up Linux, we are finally seeing the first Razer laptop going through Linux certification for Ubuntu.

While they are certifying their laptop for Ubuntu Linux use, at this stage they do not have any announcements to share regarding bringing their Razer Synapse software to Linux for better managing their Razer laptops and other gaming peripherals under Linux. They do acknowledge though the community-maintained OpenRazer drivers and that when paired with the likes of Polychromatic can make for a decent albeit unofficial Razer experience on Linux.

Somewhat surprisingly, when using the latest OpenRazer and Polychromatic from the Ubuntu PPA, this laptop is yet to be supported by the open-source, community-maintained software. Then again it's just for RGB lighting controls and the like - if you are at all interested in such controls.

I have been trying out the Razer Blade 18 RZ09-0582 on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and it's working out very smoothly. With there being mature Intel Arrow Lake CPU support on Linux and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Blackwell graphics being in good shape when using the official NVIDIA Linux driver, it was smooth sailing. ACPI platform profiles and other functionality also working for this laptop on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS with the Linux 7.0 kernel.

The Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus features 24 cores in total made up of 8 P cores and 16 E cores. This Arrow Lake processor features a 5.5GHz turbo frequency, 40MB smart cache, 55 Watt base power rating, and 160 Watt turbo power rating... Yes, it's quite performant but also quite power hungry too. In the Razer Blade 18, doing the best when AC wall powered such as predominantly at your desk and then just on battery while commuting.

The Razer Blade 18 review unit provided by Razer was equipped with 2 x 16GB DDR5-6400 memory, 2TB NVMe Samsung MZVL82T0HBL1 NVMe SSD, 3840 x 2400 display panel, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 discrete graphics with 24GB of GDDR7 vRAM.

The review unit as configured with the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus / GeForce RTX 5090 / 2TB SSD / 32GB RAM retails for $5399 USD. Or if maxing it out with 128GB of RAM it jumps in price to $6999 USD. At the low end, the Razer Blade 18 can be swapped for the Core Ultra 9 275HX, GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, 1TB SSD, and 32GB of RAM to lower the price to around $3499 USD.

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Page 1 - IntroductionPage 2 - Linux Laptop TestingPage 3 - Razer Blade 18 Linux Laptop BenchmarksPage 4 - Code CompilationPage 5 - Graphics + BlenderPage 6 - Creator WorkloadsPage 7 - AI BenchmarksPage 8 - HPC ComputingPage 9 - CPU / HPC BenchmarksPage 10 - Python Scripting, Developer BenchmarksPage 11 - Video Encoding, OpenFOAM CFD, BRL-CAD, PogocachePage 12 - Razer Blade 18 On Linux

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