this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
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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)

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (6 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

you should enable suspend-then-hibernate instead. laptop suspends normally and if not woken in, say, an hour, the RTC hibernates it to disk.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Is that the case for the AMD boards as well?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Yep, that's the one. I can't speak to the compatibility though because I got the one without a dedicated GPU.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

How's the fan noise? I've got quite accustomed to silent fans on my current laptop

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ah that is irritating, I tend to have my ThinkPad on my lap every now and again and it's usually because it's in a public place without a desk. Would be pretty annoying for the fan to suddenly go crazy in public

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

it isn’t so loud that other people would notice, i don’t think - and usually just a bit of readjustment of my position is enough to unblock the vents

don’t let me dissuade you from buying the best laptop i’ve owned!

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm running Fedora on my Framework 13 - works great, no issues. I have only had it open to install the RAM so far, but it appears to be as upgradeable and repairable as advertised. Looks great, feels premium, nice and light. Not great battery life is my only complaint, but there are larger batteries available for the 13 since I bought mine.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Ooh battery upgrades are a good sign, what kinda battery life do you get now with an unupgraded one?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

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)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

My Framework 13 AMD works great on Zorin, as well as most distros I've played around with. Can't say anything for NixOS though. There is a script they have you run to install/auto update the OEM kernel. I have also noticed battery drain in sleep though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Seems to be a pretty common complaint, you'd hope they would've fixed that given how many people seem to be having that issue

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Got the Framework 13 Ryzen 5 7640U when it was initially released (Batch 5 I think). Brought my own SSD (500gb I still had kicking around) and RAM (32GB). Only ever ran Linux (Arch) on it. Had a lot of issues at the beginning with suspend pulling lots of power and then (after some tweaking) suspend not being usable because at every wake the Filesystem was read-only. Also the boot option (efistub) would vanish if I hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete during boot (meaning I would have to boot from a live USB every time to fix it. After a while of this (and some troubleshooting) I switched the SSD (with another 1TB leftover from some other project but rather new) and the boot option issue stopped. After undoing my tweak for suspend, suspending now works and at least seems to be pulling less power. So had a bit of hassle at the beginning, now it's just a great Linux laptop.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My brother has a Framework 13 and mainly uses a combination of NixOS and Windows. Most of the time he uses NixOS, but sometimes the software he needs is broken on Nix. When that happens, he reverts to a previous version of Nix or he boots onto Windows. He has Windows installed in one of the external-drive socket thingies that he keeps plugged in at all times in case he needs Windows.

Apart from the occasional broken Nix package, he has had issues with the hyper-sensitive two-finger scrolling in Gnome (which I would say is not directly a Framework or Nix problem). Also, a while back, when I bought the computer with him, we bought Oloy RAM because it was fast and cheap, but that lead to weird crashes. Framework support helped us test the sticks and eventually we sold those sticks and got the Framework-tested Crucial sticks, which solved the problem. Finally, I remember he had to be careful about not just closing the laptop but actually clicking "sleep" and then closing it, because otherwise it would get super hot and lose a lot of battery.

Despite these struggles, he recently told my Mac-loving girlfriend that he will not get a "disposable" computer. I take this to mean he will keep using his Framework laptop.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (9 children)

Yes, I don't use the external GPU. I just use the AMD APU. Also I realized that AMD 7000 could refer to both the cpu and the GPU. Ah, AMD and their marketing

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It's a program for running/playing ttrpgs (think d&d remotely). And I don't think they've ever spun up without me trying to do something graphically intensive. But I also doing do builds so our cases might not overlap much.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Just got a framework 13. Flawless on Fedora.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've got a 16 without dGPU currently. Running Fedora Silverblue after a bad experience trying out NixOS. Battery life could be better but, it's been pretty awesome and flawless so far. I've barely started my tinkering on it since I have a ton of other projects but, I'm really enjoying it and do recommend.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ouch if nixos doesn't work well that's a deal-breaker, what were the issues and how long ago? Other people seem to have had decent experiences with it

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Oh. The problem wasn't the hardware. Don't let my experience dissuade you, especially if you already know and like NixOS. It was the NixOS docs and my unfamiliarity with Nix/NixOS. Following the official docs gave me an install that worked perfectly but had no networking. I might give it another go once the docs are more mature but the experience and need of a DSL left a bad taste in my mouth.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

FW 16 on Ubuntu LTS has worked flawlessly for me except the battery drain on sleep is really bad (20% per 24 hours). No crashes or freezes or resume from sleep failures as I've experienced on other laptops with no vendor support.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Does the same apply for hibernation? My current behavior is to hibernate my machine manually before shutting the lid anyway so I don't think that would bother me too much (though it would be nice to have a machine that will suspend properly)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I'm currently using LUKS full disk encryption which can complicate hibernation. There are some community instructions here https://community.frame.work/t/guide-framework-16-hibernate-w-swapfile-setup-on-fedora-40/53080

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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?

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