Have been keeping half an eye on framework laptops as a potential next daily driver as and when I’m ready for one.
Just wondering what people’s experience of using them on linux has been, particularly nixos
I’m assuming all the drivers are in the kernel given the way the company is
Have been using a 2016 thinkpad for the past year or so and have had a decent experience with it, with the way lenovo have gone with their newer thinkpads it seems like framework is now the best for maintainability/upgradability
(not planning to upgrade in the immediate future as this machine is doing fine, but frameworks are a strong contender in my mind right now and I’m curious as to people’s experience)
Honestly? Not that good. My favorite computer hardware I’ve used period, no competition. I like the design, the keyboard is fantastic, and the build is very high quality. Seeing it online doesn’t do it justice. That aside, the Linux experience? It’s been straight up bad. I bought this computer for school. it ended up being around $1300.00 which is absolutely not cheap by anyone’s standards (easily 3x as expensive as any laptop I’ve ever bought) but then again this is the first current gen computer I’ve bought as well. The first week using it was pretty good, actually. I’ve been using Ubuntu which is officially supported for this framework by the Ubuntu devs. Fast forward to week 2, the wifi stops working. Mind you, I’m using this FOR SCHOOL. The computer will connect to wifi no problem for the first few (literally maybe 3) minutes but after this the wifi will disconnect and will straight up refuse to work unless I restart the entire computer, and even after I do the problem will occur again in under 4 minutes. Doesn’t matter if I turn wifi off and back on in the quick settings or restart the wifi services in the terminal, no dice. I tried updating the kernel, etc etc etc. in order to get any of my school done I did literally have to restart my entire computer 3-5 times for every single class or for any time I wanted to use the computer. Again. $1300 computer I bought SPECIFICALLY FOR SCHOOL. The insanity of having to drive to my school and use their computer lab and work around the hours that the computer lab is open after spending that much on something is infuriating to me. I asked on Reddit, the best advice they could give me was replace the wifi card (Framework AMD) as ‘mediatek is crap’ which I thought should not be necessary. So I ate $20 after just spending $1.3k and bought one of the compatible intel wifi cards and for a few days, I though the issue was solved. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I still have to restart the computer 2-4 times per day. I’m just so sick of troubleshooting something every single day, and more than that I legitimately don’t have the time anymore even if I did have the energy. I believe in the concept and see the vision but I don’t have the time in my life to spend 2+ hours tinkering and troubleshooting and fixing something every day, (especially on an OS that is officially supported by the manufacturer and OS maintainers, mind you). I plan on wiping the computer and installing a different officially supported OS and if this does not fix the issue, I will be getting in touch with framework to ask for a refund.
P. S. - I’m sure this might be a duh thing when it comes to Linux on laptops but the battery life is not that good. It hasn’t been absolutely horrible, but I also haven’t been measuring it outside of “will this get me through the day” nor have I been doing much heavy work on it beyond the regular. I have not found the battery drainage issue to be a problem for me personally , although I have noticed it drain some especially after a couple of days. But if you leave it alone for a few days with a decent amount of charge it’s not going to be dead when you go to use it.
Edit: I also cannot for the life of me get my drawing tablet to work with it even though I have the drivers installed, but this could be a Linux issue.
I think you should try a full reinstall it sounds like something’s just borked in the install, otherwise get in contact with them and get a refund/send it in for them to look at it that’s what supported means
Also Ubuntu is kinda overrated nowadays anyway, you should absolutely try something else before giving up on it.
Gonna get hate for saying this but if you don’t want to tinker and you just want a working machine you should probably just put windows on it, at the very least if it still doesn’t work then you know it’s 100% a hardware issue and can get in contact with framework
Self managed Linux is not a good plan for people who have zero interest in having to fix anything themselves
I tried using windows one afternoon and almost shot myself.
It’s obviously subjective but it is not for me. If anything I’ll go back to macos if it doesn’t work out. It’s not that I “have zero interest in fixing anything myself” I just can’t spend 8+ hours a week troubleshooting things that should work out of the box on a $1300 computer. On top of school full time and my job. Hopefully I’ll get the time to do a reinstall this week. Being able to browse the web seems like the bare minimum.I read the last part of your comment in a nerd voice.
Entirely fair I am a nerd
My experience of Linux has been that it needs a certain amount of tinkering to function properly and my experience of people who make statements about supported configurations is that they are not willing to put up with that
Agree with that windows is a horrible user experience by comparison but it’s the most likely to just work and be supportable
Have 16, FedoraKDE not nixOS though, no problems to report in my sector.
No issues with battery life or fan noise? That’s what I’m hearing from others
I have the 16 and use NixOS. I haven’t had any issues. I’m able to use the fingerprint scanner and all of the function keys do what they’re supposed to.
If you’re not already aware, there’s a nixos-hardware repo with common settings for various devices that you can import. All of the Framework laptops have a module there. Although, if I recall correctly, everything worked fine before I pulled that into my config, so it seems like the hardware scan did a good job making everything just work.
Is the 16 the one with the GPU slot? Thinking of getting that one myself at some point possibly without the GPU to begin with to save a bit of money then upgrade if I need it
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You probably have enough responses by now, but I have a 12th gen intel 13 running Bluefin, previously PopOS. I love it and haven’t had any problems with it. I once had to reset the main board by disconnection the batteries (both main and RTC) and it was a super simple process following their guide. The fan does get loud but I’ve only encountered that when I’m on Foundry or if I try to play a more modern game, but it doesn’t bother me.
What’s foundry?
Also, so using the thing normally the fans don’t spin up a lot? How about if doing a build or something else that uses 100% CPU?
Kubuntu on Framework 16 AMD 7000 series here. Sleep is horrible - definitely drains your battery. Bag heats up, and I estimate maybe a 1% drain per hour. I’ve enabled hibernate though I rarely use it.
Battery is alright but not great. I get maybe 2-3 hours of active, light use from full battery.
No compatibility issues that I’ve noticed, though, of course, Linux has its fair share of minor non-hardware-related bugs.
Camera is serviceable but not amazing. Not sure about microphone but I assume the same thing. Speakers are somewhat odd in that the speakers are pointed to the side rather than toward the front, but again - serviceable.
Have you tried it much without the GPU? I imagine that would cut down battery usage by a lot right?
Camera mic and speakers are not a deal-breaker especially as they’re upgradable from what I understand
I have a 12th gen Intel Framework running Arch. I love it, although as others have pointed out the battery life could be better. Early kernels shortly after release had some incompatibility issues that required specific kernel arguments to fix. Also I had to blacklist the light sensor as it conflicted with the brightness function keys.
The Arch wiki has a page with details on Framework laptops you may appreciate looking at.
How long would you say a charge normally lasts, apologies for the profiling but I’m assuming you tend to work at a terminal more if on arch rather than loads of heavy electron apps?
11th gen Intel Framework 13 and using Pop_OS. I have many USB related annoyances. For example, when I’m using their USB-A expansion cards that they state support USB 3.2 Gen 2 I am unable to get more than 30MB/s. If I use the same device but through a USB-A to USB-C adapter and a USB-C expansion card I see 500-800MB/s.
I also have some weird issue where USB devices sometimes just don’t show up when plugged in, or if I boot with them plugged in. Re-inserting the device usually fixes it. I was assuming it might have been a hardware problem at first, but it happens on every port regardless of what device it is regardless of if it’s through a USB-A or USB-C card. Not sure what’s going on or how to really go about debugging issues like this.
Sounds like some kind of hardware fault, have you got in touch with them about it?
I don’t really care about usb transfer speeds, that random disconnecting sounds like an issue though.
I have a 11th gen Intel Framework 13 running PopOS.
Everything is fine except the
bugfeature with the rechargeable CHMOS battery. On my model it only charges when the laptop is charging. (They changed that behavior in all later model afaik)Since I use my laptop only sporadically I can’t just pick it up and use it right away because that battery is always empty. When it’s empty the power button doesn’t work even when the main battery is fully charged.
What exactly is a CMOS battery?
If you’re comfortable soldering I believe they do offer a free CMOS battery substitution module to help with what you’re describing: https://guides.frame.work/Guide/RTC+Battery+Substitution+on+11th+Gen+Intel®+Core™/203
I run NixOS on my Ryzen Framework 13 and it works flawlessly, including fingerprint reader. I run KDE now but I’ve also used Gnome with no issues.
I used this nixos-hardware module for some of the fancier hardware tweaks I don’t really understand: https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware
How’s the fan noise? I’ve got quite accustomed to silent fans on my current laptop
if i have it on a table, it’s fine, mostly silent. if i have it on my lap blocking the vents then it can get noisier and hotter pretty fast
I’ve had a 13in for like 2 years now? Running Fedora KDE.
Software-wise, it is nearly flawless. Linux always has some gimmicks but the Framework experience has been on par with a Dell XPS 13 that I have also run Fedora on in the past.
Hardware-wise, also been pretty nice. Battery life is ok, not amazing. I broke the screen on a trip one time - I bought a replacement from the website and did the maintenance myself to put the new one in. Not going to lie, that felt pretty awesome (and I’ve built many high complexity desktops in the past). Fixing your own laptop isn’t something you can usually do.
The touch pad is currently haven’t some issues, so I’ll replace that too eventually.
Quirks: Touch pad responsiveness was never excellent but certainly serviceable. The 4:3 screen ratio is odd to some people, though I personally really enjoy it.
At this point I can’t picture myself going back to laptops I can’t repair myself. It has been a breath of fresh air. If you care less about that and want just the best Linux experience on a high end machine, Dell XPS might still be the one, but Framework comes very close in my opinion.
I’m a big fan of being able to fix stuff myself, XPSes I’ve heard are very good but I also like the idea of being able to just upgrade the CPU GPU and memory later on when it starts to slow down and not have to buy a whole new laptop
Sleep kind of sucks on the original 11th gen hardware. They pushed out a bios update that broke S3 sleep, so now all you’ve got is the s2idle version, which the kernel is only OK at. Your laptop bag might heat up. S3 breaking isn’t really their fault, Intel deprecated it. Still annoying though. I’ve heard the Chromebook version and other newer gens have better sleep support.
Other than that, it’s great. NixOS runs just fine, even the fingerprint reader works, which has been rare for Linux
Is that the case for the AMD boards as well?
Couldn’t tell you unfortunately. It looks like AMD is also on board with deprecating S3 sleep, so I would guess that it’s not significantly better. The kernel controls the newer standby modes, so it’s really going to depend on how well it’s supported there.
Pretty much all my sleep/suspend issues with Linux went away when I switched to Manjaro from Fedora on my 11th gen Framework 13. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but the majority of the time I can open my laptop after a couple days and still have most of my battery.
What kernel are you running? From what I understand, that should be the major differentiator if you’re not using S3.
I can live with that, my thinkpad won’t sleep properly at the moment anyway (I’ve taken to just running systemctl hibernate before closing the lid, I should probably set that to the default behaviour instead of suspend at some point)
you should enable
suspend-then-hibernateinstead. laptop suspends normally and if not woken in, say, an hour, the RTC hibernates it to disk.Doesn’t work, I’ve already spent ages trying to get this to work properly and have basically just given up at this point.
I don’t mind waiting for it to recover from hibernation, I only hibernate it once or twice a day anyway
I really want one because I am tired of my lemon of a 2022 M2 MacBook Air and even more tired of paying money to a corporation that does basically everything in its power to remind me that I don’t own my own hardware. I had to have the goddamn logic board replaced on this thing, and Apple refused to let me retain the original part, even though the SSD chips were perfectly fine. I unknowingly botched my time machine backup and forewent the $100 bench backup, and now some five weeks worth of my data is gone forever because they wouldn’t let me keep the original part because “muh policy”.
The only thing stopping me from purchasing a Framework laptop is that the fan intake vents are on the bottom of the device, which makes using the laptop on my lap not very doable.
Also, I am pretty over aluminum as a material for devices that I have to touch with my skin for long periods of time. I would prefer carbon fiber.
Do you know if the fans are particularly loud? Something I love about my ThinkPad is that it’s basically silent
I’ve heard people complain, but mine are so quiet I thought they weren’t spinning. I think the difference is the external GPU, which I do not have.
Ah interesting, I was considering not bothering with the GPU as I only plan to use the thing for work anyway
What’s the battery life like without, I heard from someone else 3 or 4 hours of normal usage but unsure if that’s with or without
I definitely don’t know. I have had no opportunity to physically use a Framework laptop. I am only speaking about what I know from the images on their website.
Or do you mean the MacBook Air? These later model Airs don’t have fans, and that means the aluminum gets really, really hot. The CPU temperature readouts get up to 170°F. It’s bonkers.
I meant the framework, but fair enough
Supposedly the newer macs were quite good at heat dissipation, was that iBullshit?
I’ve been running KDE-debian for 1.5 years on my amd framework with no issues (fingerprint sensor worked after installing some software). Can’t say anything for nixos though.
Fantastic, no issues with sleep or anything? Everyone else seems to say the sleep mode battery drain is huge
(planning to do sleep then hibernate anyway, or maybe just hibernate and not even bother with sleep)
Just got a framework 13. Flawless on Fedora.
Fantastic, how long have you had it for out of curiosity since you said you got it recently? I’m also wondering as to the longevity of these laptops
My batch shipped a month or so ago. But the other posts in your thread kinda give you an idea of longevity. Seems like someone else has one from the first batch and it’s still going.
