People with framework laptops on linux (nixos?) what is your experience with them?
People with framework laptops on linux (nixos?) what is your experience with them?
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)
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
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)
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.
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.
Do you know how to make the fingerprint reader work on my newly purchased Carbon X1 Gen 6 with Ubuntu on it? I've gone to great lengths to make it work but still haven't found a solution
Not in general, sorry. Best bet is to make sure you're using the most recent kernel, which Ubuntu tends to lag on. You can also try checking out the arch wiki entry for it. It's a different distro, but the wiki is good and commonly has tips relevant for any distro.
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
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
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
Yep, that's the one. I can't speak to the compatibility though because I got the one without a dedicated GPU.
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)
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
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.
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
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.
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.
I imagine the broken packages thing are less about the framework itself, he's probably using discord or other electron stuff right?
I've found when an electron package gets marked as insecure it takes everyone a while to update to the secure one
The clicking sleep thing is interesting one but at the moment I'm doing something very similar anyway
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.
Ooh battery upgrades are a good sign, what kinda battery life do you get now with an unupgraded one?
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.
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)
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
To clarify it doesn't get disconnected. It just periodically doesn't recognize that a storage device got plugged in or, alternatively, that there was one plugged in at the time that the laptop was powered on.
But no, I haven't contacted them about it yet. I need to first check if there's any dmesg/journalctl events happening that might be worth following up on before contacting support. Primarily because I don't recall having any issues like that when I had Windows installed so I'm not convinced yet that it is a hardware fault.
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.
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
What exactly is a CMOS battery?
It's a coin-cell battery. Traditionally it was used to keep the memory that stores the bios-settings and the real-time-clock powered when the PC was turned off.
By now the bios settings are stored ona different kind of memory, so it doesn't need power when turned off.
But the rtc still needs power when the laptop is off as well as other stuff (for example the circuitry that makes the power-button work)
In the framework it's also rechargeable, so you can't just swap it for a cheap one from the store once it runs out.
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?
That's hard for me to answer because I'm usually at home plugged in, and I set the max charge in the bios to only 65% so the battery will physically degrade slower (I don't need the charge). A few hours is really all I can say with any accuracy. Worth noting a few things -
- Since I bought my laptop they came out with an improved battery I could upgrade to, so you'd get a better experience.
- I believe(?) battery life is improved a fair bit at least with the AMD ones; less sure on the newer Intel ones.
I will say that if long battery life is your #1 concern this may not be the laptop for you.
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?
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.
I have the Framework 13 and am currently running the COSMIC alpha on Pop!_OS. I love my current setup, but have tried Fedora Kinoite as well, and also had a great experience. Apart from running a few commands to get the fingerprint reader working, I haven't really had to troubleshoot anything. Its been a solid experience from Day 1.
I have a Framework 13 with the Ryzen 7640U. I absolutely love it! When I first got it, it had a really weird issue where alternating lines on the screen went black for a quarter of a second randomly, but I contacted support and got a new display and it's been great! The fingerprint sensor is amazing. I have the config from nixos-hardware for whatever improvements that adds, and it's been working well! I get pretty good battery life for it being an X86 laptop too. You do have to remember to configure the regulatory domain if you get the AMD one or else you'll be stuck with 2.4GHz wifi! The archwiki page for Framework has instructions!