In the meantime, we've been recommending Ubuntu 21.04 because it does have full support and good stability with all updates applied: https://community.frame.work/t/ubuntu-21-04-on-the-framework...
But time is the main reason I bought the machine in the first place. Reviews about Ubuntu support were glowing. Linux support was touted in the website significantly.
I'm really not trying to do anything extraordinary with the machine, so I thought it would be better just to spend the money and get one that works than it has been trying to do things like run Lubuntu on my old Chromebook Pixel.
I'm doing basic things like research things in a web browser, scan documents with xsane, or occasionally record audio in Audacity. I'm not trying to do anything extraordinary or complicated.
I just wanted a machine that would do those things without tracking me everywhere (Windows) and where I could fix pieces rather than having to replace the whole device if something broke or wore out.
I paid more than twice as much as I ever have for a computer so that I would NOT have to help you develop the product, do quality control, or troubleshoot it. I wanted it to be ready to use for my run-of-the-mill needs.
And it wasn't, and that's why I wrote this review here.
If time is your valuable commodity then buying a first gen "revolutionary" product was never going to be a good move. In your case, buying "known good" was the direction you should have gone and let others cut themselves and bleed out on the edge. Sorry for your bad experience, chalk it up to lessons learned. It's ever the case with tech: the vision is far, far ahead of reality.
It doesn't sound ridiculous to me that someone might decide to target the Linux market really well even though others haven't. I had hoped that was what had happened. Maybe I wanted to believe it more than I should have believed it.
But that's the motivation behind my posting here, to save anyone from making the same mistake.
I have a $1700 paperweight. Oh well. But that doesn't mean I want anyone else to make the same mistake.
Truly best of both worlds in my experience- incredible battery life and everything ‘just works’ for normal workflows on the MacBook, and can ssh into the headless Ubuntu box directly or from anywhere with internet. Depending on your dev needs, this anecdote may be useful: I’ve exclusively used vim and VS Code with a remote server extension to target the Ubuntu box for builds and I haven’t touched the setup for 6-8 months.
Also, if you’re willing to spend some time learning, getting into Nix ends up saving time in the long run as your nix shell definitions should provide replicable user / build environments on top of whatever Linux flavor you happen to be running at the time, for the headless dev box
TBH, then I think you should have bought an Apple or Windows computer, and put up with whatever the downsides of such things are (such as the tracking you mention).
Not saying that the extremely poor performance you describe is your fault or that the manufacturer should be absolved or anything, just that this is precisely the point of paying for conventional computers and putting up with their bullshit (real or perceived).
I'm glad yours does; that does sound convenient!
Given all the very positive press out there about Framework products, and the forum where this conversation is happening, I would have expected an answer more along the lines of: "your experience is unacceptable to us. Let us send you a box to return the laptop for an exchange or a full refund."
I realize that this might be more appropriate for a private communication with he customer, rather than a public HN post. Maybe you've done that. I have no way of knowing. But from what I can see, it seems like OP is being told that its on him to figure out how to fix a laptop that he just paid $1,600(?) for and that, from the sound of it, never worked properly.
I get that this product is aimed at folks who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty. But I would not have expected that to mean a customer would be relegated to the forums to address such major issues. The fact that some of your employees may help him do this on the forums is very cold comfort. It is still going to burn up a lot of the customer's time.
Edit -- Just to refine my thoughts here: it's not a bad thing that Framework has an active forum that can help a customer resolve issues like this, nor is it a bad thing to invite a customer to participate there if they want to. On the contrary: that's all to the good. At the same time, though, I'd expect a company like Framework to evince a greater sense of their own ownership of the customer's problems, rather than exclusively suggesting ways that the customer can find a fix for themselves.
But that's kind of framework's go to market: an open ecosystem. Which includes troubleshooting in public so other users can see what the problem and solution is. Vs. the magic bullet being locked in some internal KB. It also would do no good to run through troubleshooting here, clogging up a thread on HN trying to solve one users issue.
So - you say: immediately return the laptop! I say: nothing he's described immediately indicates a hardware problem; it mostly looks like software configuration issues. So why on earth would they replace the hardware as step 1?
I don't mean to tell them exactly how they should communicate with their customers, but communicating some sense of ownership over the problem would have gone a long way.
Of course, it's also entirely possible that I'm just not the target market for these laptops. I certainly have no problem with fixing my own tech problems as a general matter, but I wouldn't want that to be my only recourse on my daily driver. If that's just not what Framework is selling, then I'm glad they've communicated that!
As a general matter, I have seen this kind of sentiment a lot, and I don't think it's particularly helpful. This subthread OP clearly feels let down and potentially betrayed. Why would you respond by suggesting that the conversation goes private onto a forum Framework controls? Shifting the forum of the discussion to a place where one party has more power seems inherently questionable.
I say that even though I have no reason to believe you all would do anything inappropriate, and my general view of your project is highly positive.
AFAIK it will not go private, it will still be available for everyone to follow. HN is not exactly convenient place for user support (unless it's Google or Apple).
At this point, when a client of mine that is technically litterate has such a bad experience, I pay them a visit.
They would probably learn a ton by having the setup at hand.
i mean, for a top-down approach i would probably also choose redhat because they seem to have structures for a streamlined b2b communication and commitment, but on the other hand i absolutely know nobody who uses it apart from the odd researcher and enterprise-it guys.
I believe it's the other way around: no other Linux distribution has a higher overlap with the target market of the Framework Laptop than Fedora.
Because unlike Ubuntu, Fedora Workstation has been specifically design for developers, hobbyists, and early adopters[1].
Personally, I only recommend and install Ubuntu for non-technical people, who don't need or care about always having the most modern OS features.
Things like mock and fedpkg make modifying upstream/bundling your own stuff up super easy. Then add in COPR (like PPAs) and it's a feedback-loop friendly setup
You either get stuff sooner or get stuff more stable, you can't have 'rock solid' stuff sooner.
Its where the new fun stuff goes first... not so new that it will bite you, but still new enough to be fun to play with. That seems perfectly in line with the marketing I see from framework.
Nice to hear that Framework plays well with Fedora, it will definitely be the next laptop I buy (if they ever start shipping to Norway).
but ime it is unpopular for personal use esp. in the enthusiast/dev/ops/hacker demographic that i consider to be a sizeable portion of the framework target market.
public opinion here also seems to suggest that my experience is less trustworthy than your feeling and tbh i mostly don't care wich flavor of unix is running my wm and browser.
- As has been noted time and time again, battery life is atrocious. As in unusable for even the travel time required for a three hour flight: factoring in the poor sleep, an hour at the airport, and time on the aircraft the battery is dead. Crazy for 2021/2022 - my eight year old Macbook does better.
- Wifi. The Intel Wifi modules provided with the Framework are very poorly supported in Linux. I spent six hours the other night running additional ethernet drops because I just couldn't stand my workday routinely being interrupted by repeatedly disassociating from my AP (fixed with reboot). Even unloading and reloading the associated kernel modules wouldn't bring it back.
- USB-C acts... Strange. I have two 4K displays using Displayport over USB-C and the Framework repeatedly fails to initialize them from boot. I have to do a strange dance (the steps of which I'm still figuring out) involving powering off the Framework, unplugging/re-plugging everything, and then rebooting until it magically works again.
- Fan. The fan is crazy. I've settled on disabling turbo mode in Linux.
- Build quality. I'm convinced if I drop this thing it's all over.
All in all I'm mad at myself for spending over $3k on a productivity configuration centered around what is pretty much beta hardware. I should have known better.
Anyway, there's hope for some of these issues as they seem to be releasing BIOS updates pretty regularly (currently running 3.07) but even then I need to USB boot to use their EFI update tool. Intel wifi should get better over time and worst case I can swap it out for Atheros or something. That said I think the battery, build, and fan issues are fundamental hardware design choices.
- Re battery: Yup, battery life during sleep sucks, it seems like this is mostly an Intel 11th gen issue as S3 sleep went away and folks on Dell, Lenovo, etc., 11th gen hardware have similar issues.
- Re Fan: it does seem to like to ramp up a bit too much even when components are not really that hot yet.
- Re USB-C: have not used that, so cannot comment
- Re build quality: yes, it is a bit flimsier than I would like (though have definitely used laptops that are way worse), but it is also lighter than competitors that are less so. I am mostly okay with that trade-off, others may not be.
As you say, the company has been responsive and helpful on the community forums in a way the big players never have been, and the BIOS updates are fixing genuine issues and complaints with real release notes. It's not all great for sure, but there's lots of things that are a lot better than competitors.
Laptops are sold as an appliance for the most part, they have to own it’s quality.
Actually more than that, this should first be an excellent laptop and then the repairability and customisable it should be layered on top of that without compromising it (too much), as opposed to the other way around.
I understand the sleep issues but battery life is miserable generally - the sleep issues only exacerbate an already pretty-much-terrible situation. Fortunately I don't really need significant battery life but if I did I'd be looking to unload this thing at this point.
Which makes me wonder - maybe the Intel wifi board has a lot of problems but is still the best Linux option...
And I'm curious to know which WiFi chipset you would rather they have used, as most alternatives either have worse Linux support or aren't as advanced as Intel's. Would you rather they used Broadcom, The bane of WiFi and Linux?
That's what my last sentence was trying to express. Something can be shitty and also the best option.
I’m not trying to give Framework (or any other laptop maker) a free pass here, just saying that it’s not a unique problem to this laptop.
One of the benefits that a company like Framework has is that they don't have to support everything. They can be like Apple and tailor their hardware choices to the ones best supported by the software.
To me, Asahi Linux is the most exciting thing going on in Linux-land right now. They have a very small number of hardware configurations to support. In theory, they should be able to get it really dialed in and polished to the point where it just works. I don't care if they go for KDE or Gnome, SystemD or SysVinit, or anything else in particular. If it works right from the start and is extraordinarily stable, I'll learn to love the choices they make.
Asahi is more of a project for driver and related development and upstreaming it. They do plan to release a distro, but the current plan is for it to just be Arch with the bleeding edge of their work applied (so perhaps not the “dialed-in” you’re looking for since Arch is far from that). IMO, Asahi is just solving the same issue with anything else: lack of drivers for some hardware. It just so happens that the hardware is very specific and popular. My feeling is that I don’t want to invest in hardware whose manufacturer is unwilling to invest at all in my use-case (Linux).
Do you want open computing?
Or Apple?
Pick one.
I’m really tired of the IT community that just wants high paying jobs but none of the skills that earn them.
As a hardware designer; do better, software “engineers”.
If the community is going to claim the title, it damn well better start engineering better than these awful websites and hacky operating system kernels and GUIs that glitch.
Or stfu over others efforts which are a bit beyond memorizing textbook math and recalling them via your text editor with algorithmic help.
Look at all the non-contributors certain they can do better.
Anecdotally, my battery life is plenty good when actually using it (I've yet to feel like I need to reach for the charger at all unless I started very low), but everyone's use case is different.
Andrew noted in a sibling comment what the issue was with the AX210 in Linux. Intel has informed us that the patch is going into kernel 5.17. In retrospect had we known how many issues we'd see with AX210 relative to AX201, we would have gone with the latter as the default option on the DIY Edition. Going forward though, we do expect compatibility and stability to improve (on 5.17 and later).
On the USB-C issues, it would be great to know the model numbers of the displays and cables that are having this issue. We want to continue to build up our library of peripherals that have unknown issues in order to resolve them.
On build quality, we've seen exceeding few field failures on mechanical issues, and a couple of reports of people dropping their system (or as often happens, blaming their cat for this) from high enough to dent a corner of the chassis and then being able resolve that by ordering a replacement cover part from us.
EDIT: Speaking of startups, if you didn't know already you have a lot of "street cred" out there. When wrapping an in-person presentation or meeting many of the questions I get are about my Framework!
Where should I report on the displays and cables with the USB-C issues?
Regarding drops I've actually never dropped a laptop in the > 20 years I've had them. So kind of a non-concern but the comment was referring to the general "feel" which may not really mean anything outside of perception.
This almost certainly has nothing whatsoever to do with the framework itself. That sounds like a software bug all day long. Something about your OS install is broken or similar.
The only other possibility seems like it'd be if the storage drive is broken. Which could then possibly be why you're experiencing so many other issues, if things like code pages are just failing to load or getting corrupted in the same way your JPG isn't able to load.
But it seems like starting with a fsck or even a re-install seems like a good idea.
I mean... Kind of? It's pretty clear that they're driver issues. Hardware manufacturers have to make in-roads with OS teams to get these things delivered flawlessly, otherwise they have to wait for the community to build fixes. System76 and Lenovo do their best to get ahead of driver issues from what I've seen. I'm assuming a lot of this has to do with the fact that OP is running 21.10 rather than an LTS release.
They just freeze the system if I try to open them from the file explorer.
I've not seen anything like this before.
Try `pv /dev/nvme0n1 > /dev/null` (or just cat, but pv will give you a nice progress bar if you install it). If that errors out or your machine freezes, you have a storage problem and probably need to replace your SSD. If that works, try booting in single user mode or from a USB boot drive and running fsck.
You can also try SSHing in from another machine while trying to open the file locally. If the SSH session dies instantly, it's probably a kernel panic. If it survives, you can look at logs and top see what happened (maybe the issue is the desktop environment locks up?)
Sleep issues, the dock stuff, those sound like legitimate driver/support issues that would affect anyone. But opening PDFs crashing your machine really sounds like either your hardware or install is specifically broken and needs fixing, or you're running into a really weird bug that is not hardware-specific.
I do, and this enables me to delete and reinstall any Linux version without changing my home directory.
It seems reinstalling the operating system is the first thing you should try.
I just bought the framework and running ubuntu 21.10. I had some of the problems you mentioned but the forum has solutions to many. It’s a new product, and specially with Linux, I knew there would be some problems. You have to be willing to solve these problems o/w you should stay away from buying new hardware from a startup.
IMO, a computer should work decently without needing to tweak the BIOS. If a feature is "experimental" and is likely to cause problems, it should be disabled by default.
That said this is also the very first model of a device that’s intended to be DIY repairable…tweaking some BIOS settings shouldn’t be scary for someone buying what is effectively the beta version of a laptop that comes with a screwdriver so you can change out its parts.
I agree with the idea that it _should_ work decently without - but as of now, that is not the status quo.
Do you have a link to further elaboration and testing on this? Seems strange, and searching the forums is a bit difficult since the two terms get mentioned together a lot.
At the moment, the inevitable battery drain while asleep is quite annoying on modern laptops running Linux :(
In my experience current gen laptops except for certain ThinkPads and Clevos will have support issues in Linux. You get a much better experience using a model a year or two old because the community has had time to address any issues.
The design goal of the Framework wasn't out of the box 100% Linux support, it was reparability. While they encourage Linux development on the platform, what hardware works best to meet their design goal may or may not already have Linux support.
It doesn't, and I very much wish the company and reviewers had made that clearer.
The reviewers definitely need to do a better job of thorough testing before making claims. But in my experience it is common for things to inexplicably not work when before they did and vice versa in Linux with no good explanation as to why. It's part of the reason why "the year of the Linux desktop" is always next year IMO.
As for Framework themselves, I checked the product page and this is all they had to say about Linux support:
"Available in configurations with Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro, we’ve also tested for compatibility with common Linux distributions and will be publishing guides on using them."
I don't see those guides in the support section yet so it seems they don't support them yet. If a vendor doesn't explicitly list an OS as supported then I don't consider it supported. So like 99% of Linux situations I would assume YMMV.
You could buy some laptops, install a decent distro and be on your way. Nowadays sleep issues are affecting most recent CPUs, I had a pretty poor experience on any laptop. I picked a Surface 2 because there was a community effort (linux-surface) and I still have the same sleep / freezing issues I had on day one, despite my model being covered in green checkmarks on the support page of the project.
Unfortunately OSS is people working for free in their spare time and you can't expect much. Honestly I wish a company would come up and make a paid linux distro with proper support for one model.
I'd be happy to pay for an operative system that works and it's not Mac OS or Windows, as they both suck pretty bad in their latest iterations.
My ideal UX is the configuration of KDE I've used for years or my Sway setup, not window managers without tiling support and limited proprietary file managers which are designed for noobs.
The majority of Linux dev work is actually done by paid devs at tech companies who contribute to Linux. Its been this way for years now. The reason it doesn't seem that way is because almost all of that contribution is going to enterprise code with the rest going to supporting whatever technologies those companies directly use. Google isn't spending time on making x86 laptop sleep states work, they are improving Android. Same with Amazon, they are contributing code that makes Linux more useful in AWS.
The consumer side is much much worse supported than the enterprise side. And there are actually paid versions of Linux that have paid development and support behind them. But again, it isn't aimed at PCs so PC specific features aren't getting fixed.
The only software company I can think of that is putting serious resources behind improving Linux on the PC is Valve.
It's what I do. I bought a used LG Gram 17" with 24 GB of RAM about 18 months ago I think. Ultra lightweight (I think it's the lightest 17" laptop that exists) and I've got zero issue under Linux. It may not be as good as the Mac M1 I also own but it is lighter, has more RAM, works fine with Linux and cost me only 400 EUR (granted, that was a good deal back then).
For a laptop running Linux I never buy the latest of the latest.
WiFi and power draw issues are the biggest two problems they continue to experience.
Also while the screen is very nice it is let down by the resolution. It isn’t high enough to used at 2x scaling but non-integer scaling really hits battery and performance. I feel that was a terrible oversight.
It is a shame as the laptops overall build quality is very good. Hopefully these common issues can be sorted properly as I would be interested in picking one up once it has rocked solid Linux support. Also a higher (or lower) resolution panel option would be nice. After all it is the Framework laptop, surely they should have different panel options :)
On my phone now but there was a bug report I found to match this - apparently 5.14 kernel might work better but I haven’t been able to install it yet from the 3rd party repo.
Update: this is the bug I think: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=200977
The rest of the problems persist whether or not it's connected to the dock.
But the dock also doesn't have Ethernet problems with any of my other devices.
I did have to tweak few things mentioned in their community page/forum to get everything working.
Two issues (which hasn't bothered me yet)
- battery drain during suspend
- gnome not supporting different scaling with multiple monitors (fixed in later version of gnome as I understand)
With the RAM exception, my Framework and the author's appear to be apples to apples.
That's why this review confuses me so much; we appear to be using almost the exact same machine.
I had touchpad issues but there was a fix for it in the forums
With windows (I setup dual boot) everything works done. I had to tinker with Linux for everything to work how I wanted it. Which is what I’ve had to do with other Linux desktops too
Which isn't to disregard what you're experiencing, but maybe try updating the firmware? I've seen at least one email they sent out about new firmware that people should probably install if they haven't yet. And maybe try out a liveusb just to see if there's something weird in your installation?
I'd love to get off the apple train, but I can't go back after the battery life on my M1.. I can do two full 8 hour workdays without a charger on this thing... With VMs..
I also thing (again very minor) that the hinge is too loose. If I have it on my lap and type on it the hinge slowly opens up. I wish there was a stiffer hinge.
The main issues are just difficulty connecting to networks. When connected it usually works fine, sometimes DNS will randomly fail though.
Otherwise I'm extremely happy with mine!
I use Arch Linux for comparison.
The framework is not the best short-term laptop I've ever had, but it's Solid and if the company sticks around should be the best _long-term_ laptop I've ever owned.
- Deep sleep works fine; wake works fine (with a ~10s delay; that's just linux i think)
- Battery is far better than my Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th gen. (have not really tested, but at a guess, solid 6-8 hours; which for linux is solidly average-to-good i think)
- Never freezes
- Fans are fine (way, way better than my 2018 macbook pro...)
- Network is fine (I had issues at first, but was my fault due to faulty systemd configuration)
- Hinges could be tighter, but no issue with practical use (I'm typing on this on my lap right now and it's fine)
- I use it practically every day for hours at a time.
- I've dropped it at least 2 times -- once from ~3-4 feet high (onto carpet). Totally fine functionally; though the monitor back now has a slight protrusion.
- but hey, it's modular so I can just replace the screen at some point if I really want to (nit: hopefully they'll come out with a matte screen)
I haven't seen a lot of the problems you're seeing, but I definitely have seen this one. Not only is the touch pad hard to use because it's very sensitive, just using the builtin keyboard can accidentally cause the touch pad to be activated. I've read up on ways of fixing this in Linux, but I haven't quite found the trick to make the touch pad behave as well as the Mac touch pad, which is what I'm used to. I haven't even really found a fix yet, so I type very carefully, avoiding resting my hands on the laptop, when I'm not using an external keyboard.
Enabling deep sleep works fine; waking from it is impossible. WiFi stops working. The touch pad becomes hypersensitive. I've resorted to turning the whole thing completely off after every use. But the battery still loses power even when the machine is completely powered down.
The machine also freezes if I try to open a jpg or a PDF from the file explorer. Just completely freezes. Fan spins up like crazy, but as I mentioned, I have 64GB of RAM in this thing. It should be able to open a single one-page scanned document from my own scanner. If there's anything wrong with the file, this is the computer that's making the file poorly.
The internet connection also just turns off after about half an hour of use. I have a Belkin dock with Ethernet plugged into it, which is then plugged into my Framework's USB-C port. This dock supports my work Mac all work day every day with no issues at all, so it's not the dock's problem. But the Framework? Internet just stops working after half an hour. And it manages to kill both wired and WiFi when it dies. I can turn them back on, but this is a ridiculous problem to have.
This last point is pretty minor, but the hinges are floppy. The whole screen shakes around when I type on it.
I have no idea how this author's experience is so much better than mine unless they just haven't used it much yet, but I regret absolutely everything about the purchase of this machine and feel like I was sold a bill of goods by all the glowing positive reviews all over the internet.