Can't wait for framework laptop to run Linux/Ubuntu stable (without battery drain issues)
Then I'll be switching all the developers in our company over to a new machine.
(Currently running XPS 13, but we are due an upgrade, especially on memory)
Then I'll be switching all the developers in our company over to a new machine.
(Currently running XPS 13, but we are due an upgrade, especially on memory)
The battery drain is annoying, it's around 30-50% per night depending on what addon cards you have. I've got a setup that puts it close to 40% per night so the laptop has to live on charger over night if I want to use it the next day.
However, the thing that's really stopping me from using my laptop (it has sat in my office for the last 3 weeks with its lid closed) is the touchpad. https://community.frame.work/t/subpar-touchpad/3962 External mouse only.
The mac-book killer was very much hyperbole from paid reviewers.
Edit: Also, the I'll throw in the speakers being absolute garbage as well. Think 1 step above 90s pc speaker. And the sound device has a constant background static when using headphones which clicks on when there's sound and then 2 seconds after any sound being played clicks off.
On battery - I am using "sleep then hibernate", which typically means 4-6% of battery drain overnight which happens while it is in first ~2hrs of sleep mode. Of course it means you now spend 30sec booting up, but I can live with that.
On touchpad - weird, my experience is opposite. I'd say this is the closest to Macbook experience I had, no issues whatsoever.
Speakers are a bit quiet, agreed, no static or anything, we occasionally use it to watch Netflix with my wife, while away from TV, interchangeably with her Macbook and definitely wouldn't call it garbage.
So, all in all I am in "quite happy" camp. Yes, not Macbook killer, but for me it is close enough and without any major inconveniences, but with all OSS benefits and presumably infinite upgradeability. I use Arch btw :)
I have other issues with it (USB-C DP alt-mode, fan noise) but I've already ranted about those on HN.
Changing the mode is just a matter of changing one line in one file. But getting hibernate to actually work is a bit of hassle, especially if you have any kind of encryption or non-standard file system. This said - I managed to get mine working on encrypted Btrfs.
What use cases are there that absolutely requires these features when boot times are so short?
What programs are you using in such a fashion that simply having the program autostart at boot is not feasible?
As a simple example open documents in libreoffice. I don't want to automatically start LO every time I turn on computer. If I have documents open I want to be able to return to the same place when I came back.
I don't know if it's able to handle reopening the last document, and even less if it can take you back to the position where you left off. This is probably application-dependent.
However, like others here, I would much rather have a functioning sleep that allows the computer to both wake up fast and not drain the battery. I don't really care for it to check my mail while it's in my backpack without any kind of network access, or whatever it is it does instead of sleeping.
I have an old 2013 MBP that wakes up from sleep quicker than I can open the lid.
This is one of the niceties I've lost when I moved to a PC last year (the others can mostly be attributed to cheap "enterprise" hardware).
My current laptop takes longer to wake from sleep while also sucking the battery dry. Talk about lose-lose.
Developing an application in Lisp and there's all kinds of state in the REPL right now. Gotta pick kid up from preschool, just close the lid and it'll be exactly as I left it when I come home.
Have a document open in an ad-hoc fashion (i.e. it's some PDF for work, not something on my autostart list) and I get interrupted. Close lid. Document is still there when I open it again, and what's more it's open to the exact spot I stopped reading.
Say no more. In my experience most of the "linux is fine for laptop usage" folks tend to be "laptop is actually a desktop that I rarely if ever take anywhere" folks also.
And when I have 20 programs open, even if it only takes 15-30 seconds per program to get them going again that's a bunch of time I didn't need to waste. And even the programs I have that autostart still require prodding to get them into the right state.
Debugging I can understand, as that's a bit of a different beast than a program that can run unattended.
On my Framework (running Windows) I have it set up to hibernate when the lid closes to preserve battery. It takes about 10 seconds to get back into the desktop when I open the lid again. It's not like I'm opening/closing the lid dozens of times a day; I open it, work for a few hours, then close it. It's not like a phone where I power it on for a few seconds every hour or so to check notifications.
Because it’s way more convenient. Next time you go to open your front door, take out your phone, start a timer for 30s, and then put the key in the door once the timer expires. Once you’re used to something being near-instant, there is no going back. Waiting is frustrating.
Personally I haven’t used hibernate in over a decade and my machines typically run 6 months until I have to reboot for updates. If I had to wait ~10 seconds every time I wanted to google something, I wouldn’t use my PC nearly as often as I do today. Maybe that’s why mobile is dominant in so many categories like web search.
You're right that this is why I use my phone to do quick searches so often- it's on and searching within seconds. Even faster to use my voice to search instead of typing.
A bunch of browser tabs are open, and I don't feel like recovering them at relaunch.
I have my app windows set up exactly the way I like them, down to the pixel.
I'm used to my phone, TV, microwave, wristwatch, stereo, and car not needing to boot up.
I used to have a nasty habit of opening a text editor during the day and taking random notes during phone calls or as I worked. Several forced restarts (administrative, accidental or hardware related) forced me to start using those sticky-note apps. I've moved to Joplin now (very structured, supports markdown, syncs to dropbox periodically, is multiplatform)
The browser thing resonates though. It's not just which websites are open, but what state they're in (ie: logged in, midway through filling out a long form or survey). In a pinch I'll just 'kill -9 firefox' so after the reboot it automatically restores tabs and windows, but it's still messy. Sites that require authentication will just bounce you to the login page and may not "remember" where you were trying to get to. Maybe we need hibernate for browsers.
I don't think I've ever noticed a logout from restarting a browser.
I could understand if you're away from a plug and/or on the move though.
Also if cars have computers, don't they cold boot when you turn the car on? Phones and smart watches never truly "turn off" their screen goes into sleep mode which is fast to turn on
This can be done with an infrared camera, should be able to see which components remain hot after a long period of 'sleep', or a voltmeter for the more electrically inclined.
My bet is that its some kind of bus that isnt powering down and continually waking up the devices on it.
I'm generally otherwise super happy with it though. The speakers don't bother me much, they're good enough for calls, and if I'm actually trying to listen to music I'll just use actual bluetooth speakers or headphones.
I'm most happy about the fact that they put an actually decent screen and key switches. Many other laptops that run Linux have shitty 1080p screens and shitty keyboards.
And the fact that I was able to shove in 2TB of SSD and 64GB of RAM all bought at market pricing, not at Lenovo or Apple pricing.
There is an issue with ram timings not being supported that affects the more flashy ram chips. I was lucky enough that it didn't affect the 32gb module I bought but it could've been a return (they need to update the supported ram timings in the bios but haven't)
I really like the keyboard, although I would prefer the layout was more macbooky (the function key kills me but I've swapped it with the ctrl) and the screen I'm pretty happy with. The 100% / 200% scaling thats supported in fedora though is awkward. 100 is a bit squinty 200 is waay to big.
I like the laptop but have struggled to use it. I'm starting to wonder if my touchpad is actually defective.
And then maybe 5% of the time in graphics editing for which it doesn't matter.
For other locally run apps, scaling at 125% or 150% would be perfect but I think it's just a matter of time before Linux supports it properly without eating CPU.
Why buy a laptop with four interchangeable ports when my normal laptop has two USB-A, one USB-C, HDMI, microsd, and a charge port all at the same time? Heck you can't even charge the Framework unless you leave one port as USB-C.
Point is you can do that w/ framework. Fat luck getting dell or some other behemoth to design a device you can do that with. They have done a stellar job given how many have had hopes and dreams to do similar but haven't even got a product in people's hands.
You could obviously wire up an off-the-shelf USB3 hub controller in such a way as to get two USB3 Type-C ports in an expansion card. (I don't think two type-As would fit.) However, you won't be able to charge the laptop, use external displays, or connect external GPUs through either of the ports... which is kind of the expectation that people have with Type-C ports. If they sold such an expansion card, there would probably be plenty of people angry that they can't just have this one card for charging and dongles, and then fill their other bays with storage drives.
Related example: fiber-optic Type-C cables for long-run use basically only come in two flavors, DP and Thunderbolt. And the source device has to use that one specific altmode; there is no downgrading to USB 3 or 2.
[0] https://community.frame.work/t/dual-usb-c-expansion-card-moc...
Why bother when no other manufacturer does? Just give me two USB 2.0 ports for peripherals.
But I was (and still am) pretty critical of the headphone dongle that apple and many android phones make you use, so there may be some hypocrisy in what I say.
I bought an all-metal, tiny USB-C to 3.5mm dongle and it’s started cutting out, too - and it wasn’t cheap, at about $40.
That’s the thing with running Linux as a desktop, you’ve gotta tweak it to get it just right.
Battery life is a non issue for me on the framework. The speakers on the other hand is a brutal downgrade.
More thoughts here comparing a 2018 mbp: https://erock.io/2021/11/01/framework-vs-mbp.html
If you're running arch with wayland and sway, then yes absolutely. For people who stick with the default (often Gnome) I haven't had to tweak anything in many years. So I would just s/Linux/customized Linux/ or something like that. Mainly it only matters because some people will be scared away by "you’ve gotta tweak it to get it just right" so accuracy is important to me.
Hold on. Which reviewers received payments in return for positive coverage of the laptop?
We discussed investment with Linus only after his review, and before making a decision on it, he brought it in front of his community to flag the risks of future conflicts of interest. Since completing the investment, he has also continued to flag that potential conflict in additional videos he has posted.
Just because people have a different opinion than you doesn't mean they are hyperbolic paid reviewers. I love the trackpad, although I did have a minor issue out of the box where I had to click kind of hard toward the bottom center to get it to start working. I expect those things will go away as they get better. It's gotta be damn hard to put together such a complex hardware product.
I can agree that the speakers aren't stellar but that's something I don't care about on a laptop since I always have on headphones or I'm just using the speakers for video conferencing or something. Never experienced any background static when using headphones.
This is with a pair of akg K371.
That's a dealbreaker for me. I'm not one of those people that carries around en external mouse and stuff. I bought a laptop for a reason. "Better than the hot garbage trackpad on my wife's Dell" is not good enough.
My wife has a recent (2019-vintage?) Dell XPS and I can't stand using it. It's just a horrible machine, despite Windows 10 supposedly being good.
- Sleep when closing the lid barely if ever works (netflix keeps playing, etc.)
- When it does sleep, the network doesn't work when you wake it back up (have to reconnect to wifi manually)
- Randomly spinning up the fans when it's supposed to be asleep. Wake it up to discover windows update decided to do whatever it does
- Trackpad just doesn't work well in general. Lousy palm rejection, fiddly multi-touch
- Camera is on the bottom of the monitor so everyone on zoom gets a great view of your knuckles, and up your nose.
It's like nobody at Dell dogfoods their own products. It's just a thoroughly shit-tier machine.
>That’s not subpar, that’s standard. There’s a reason why macbook touchpads are so widely praised.
Trackpad improvement in current gen PC is a very recent thing. After people trashing PC laptop trackpad for years, and Microsoft throwing in some R&D money to help improve the situation.
And again if you are comparing to a Macbook, most PC speaker has been garbage for years. Only when reviewer start comparing their PC laptop speakers to Macbook did they start to put effort into improving it.
I dont know any reviewer actually said it is Macbook Killer. It would actually be a stupid thing to say. ( Show them to me so I will take notes ). But I am not surprised because current generation so called reviewers have practically little hardware and supply chain knowledge.
There are of compromise being made to have it all fixable. But they also put in the extra effort in motherboard reliability design. And things that aren't so obvious. Compared to Macbook which is all integrated. ( Although that is changing now, you see more individual components "blocks" being used )
I think it is an expectation problem. And may be people should not have overhyped it so much.
Anyway, this is a 13.5" laptop so space is at a premium. I can't expect to include everything. But if they'll build a 15" laptop with NO NUMBERPAD and buttons on the touchpad, I'll consider buying it. I'll pay extras for those buttons and for the numberpad-less keyboard.
[1] https://community.frame.work/t/bios-3-07-windows-10-and-11-a...
Awesome that you're switching your whole team to Frameworks - my next work laptop will for sure be a Framework too :)
Generally speaking I haven't found it to be any better than my Framework optimized PopOS 20.04 NVMe boot setup:
- Rock solid Intel wifi (mostly thanks to Pop providing kernel 5.15.15)
- Fingerprint reader works (custom fprintd/libfprint debs, kind of hacky but works)
- PipeWire PPA for better bluetooth audio support
- Suspend-then-hibernate for battery drain issues
- Probably some other stuff I'm forgetting ATM
- Quickemu
- Still basically Ubuntu LTS for the occasionally goofy/proprietary stuff I need to run requiring it
If you build/install the latest kernel (or a newer one) on Ubuntu I would expect a similar experience to Fedora (although Gnome and wayland versions can make a difference on some things.)
Not encrypting the volume isn't an option for me.
Battery drain seems to be a common serious issue among enthusiast linux hardware, e.g. PinePhone, CutiePi and now Framework. Is this a coincidence or is it due to incompatible ACPI on non-standard hardware?
If you mean high consumption in "shallow sleep" -- I switched to "deep sleep" in the first day.