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I have a T14s Gen 1 for work, and it runs flawlessly Linux without major tinkering using Arch. Everything from sleep, display output, fingerprint reader, wifi, bluetooth, trackpad works out of the box and pretty darn well.

And I'm rocking a Dell XPS 9570 for personal use, still on arch, no real issue there neither. Well except the Nvidia gpu using prime that needed a truckload of work to get to work, but that's not Dell's fault.

So yeah, in my experience, a quick google search for systemic problems (bios related) of the laptop, its wifi chip support, etc, is enough to tell whether a laptop is fit for linux.

I really wanted to get a framework as this new one was announced. But… the glossy screen was a no-go (also the lack of dedicated home/end keys). I went with an x1 carbon gen 9 instead (replacing my thinkpad t440s). Flawless so far with Linux. I’m sure it will last me 5+ years.

Stinks that such little (yet significant) things kept me from the framework!

Tangentially, the non-100% DCI-P3 gamut (or better) display made it a no-go for me. Color gamut and accuracy is a must for any visual or visual-adjacent work.

I do visual work, as well. And I think by the end I just got a little worn out by the overall "which laptop is right for me" research process and said, "well, I'm sure the monitor on this laptop will be much better than my T440s click"

Me too. The T14s is probably the closest to "classic ThinkPad" that they currently sell.

Can't consider anything else because I'm addicted to the TrackPoint.

> $1032

> It's cheap enough that I don't worry about it getting lost or stolen.

Not sure if this is impressive or reckless, but either way it doesn’t apply to most people.

I mean if you're making 150k a year as a SWE, losing your laptop isn't a big deal.

As long as you have backups

Having anything local is reckless at this point imo. There are so many mainstream backup options at different price ranges/free!

Even if you knew that it would never get stolen the SSD could still die unexpectedly. Or any number of other problems.

And the worldwide percentage of laptop users and devs that make 150k is how much?

Spending 1% of your net annual salary on a laptop still strikes me as a large purchase.

What if one only buys a laptop once every three or four years? Then it would be 1/3 or 1/4 of a percent of annual salary.

It would probably be tax deductible, depending of course on variables not discussed yet.

There is a world out there where people pay 15~20% of their annual income to buy a computer

seen under a different lens: you think that an effort a person does over 3.65 days to afford a computer is expensive, while many people would have to accumulate the effort of 73 days to afford it.

A large purchase- but perhaps just small enough you can agree with yourself to let go of worry. Perpetual anxiety about theft is no way to live.

You're buying a tool for your work, it will last at least 2 years, and as a developer you have almost no ongoing costs or required consumables. Comparing to many other kinds of jobs, 1% per year for equipment is nothing. If it makes your job more comfortable or faster, thinking too much to decide between 0-2% of your annual salary seems counterproductive.

large: yes, justifiable: very possibly.

I think of a laptop in the same way as a chef's knife: it needs to be an extension of your being when you are in the zone, and good tools do that. Ive had near-religious experiences woodworking with good tools and other craft types tell me they have too.

for such a tool, 1% is nothing.

Maybe it sounds better if you look at it this way: if every Framework laptop you buy gets stolen halfway through its useful lifetime, it's still cheaper than owning Macbook Pros.

A MacBook Pro starts at $1299 with a significantly faster processor. You can’t upgrade a MacBook Pro, but if your laptop is getting stolen half way through it’s lifetime, you’re probably not upgrading it. So not really.

In the US maybe. In other countries Macs are quite a bit more expensive. And your customer support and service experience could be worse than in the US.

You can’t buy a Framework device in most countries, so that’s a little moot.

Can you tell I’m a tiny bit bitter, as an Australian? :)

Have you considered using a third party shipping service?

If you do this you often get hit with significant import & customs duty (at least in NZ, everything here is more expensive than in US)

It'd cost about $250-300 to ship to Australia, based on the last time I bought a laptop from the US. Then you pay customs & import taxes on the combined purchase+shipping costs, which would be about another $200-250.

Wow. A person could perhaps not cover, but at least nicely subsidize, the cost of a trip to Australia by hand-carrying a couple of laptops with them... wonder how many you can bring through Customs before they start to get suspicious?

It reminds me of my family from the UK when they used to travel to the US decades ago. They'd go home with half a dozen pairs of jeans each, and nearly pay for their tickets.

If any of them are still in the box you'll be enjoying a nice customs bill (doubly so because you definitely didn't declare them)

Even if you exclude the cost of shipping to purchase it, it becomes a significant risk if something were to go wrong and you needed to ship it back for repair.

Shipping it to the US and then back might involve not only stupid expensive shipping, but also having to figure out paperwork for both Australian and US Customs, unless you want to potentially pay double import-duties on each side.

I did it with Lenovo laptops years ago, because buying from the US and with shipping it still worked out to be around 1/3 the price of buying it from the AU Lenovo store, and Lenovo had a Global warranty program on their Thinkpad line. Smaller OEMs without that, I wouldn't risk it.

There was a point in history, where it was cheaper to fly to the US, buy photoshop and fly back to Australia.

Australian here - me too. And I need to buy a laptop now (haven't had one since WFH meant I didn't need anything but a desktop).

I'll be going for a ThinkPad Gen 2 instead.

Not sure if by Gen 2 you mean Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen 2 - if you did, as an owner of the said machine, everything generally works but that is the best I can say about it. Battery life isn't exactly stellar, graphics issues with NVIDIA drivers all the time, fans start blowing full-tilt at the earliest opportunity and can get pretty hot.

Practically being a life-long Linux user, I've never owned a Macbook so not sure if things are better on that side.

I'm looking at the L14 model, I don't exactly need "spectacular" just "Intel graphics": https://www.lenovo.com/au/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadl/th...

EDIT: Man, reviews for that and the Gen 3 just really aren't great in terms of Linux support.

And they are not exactly cheap either - practically same as P-series.

I have said this before but Framework are leaving the opportunity to create a Thinkpad-killer series on the table that would be perfect to target all the folks unhappy with the decline of the Thinkpad. Heck, these people would probably pay more than they did for Thinkpads just to get those features back and make up for years of pent-up disappointments. Such a device has a good chance to become the "de-facto" developer's choice for Linux folks.

You might not be able to get a Framework here (yet), but ebay is FULL of ex-business Thinkpads that are almost as easy to refurb and cost <$500. Hell a lot of them are new enough that you can still get genuine parts for them direct from Lenovo.

> MacBook Pro starts at $1299

In Germany the base model starts at 1599 €, which is around $1630.

Might look even worse for other countries.

Base model is 1700 Can$, which is about 1300 USD. But take with a grain of salt as those numbers are from apple canada's website. Inevitably, cellphones and consumer laptops, something makes them cost more than advertised.

Most of that difference is because advertised prices in the EU include VAT whereas sales tax in the US is added on top of the advertised price.

This is clearly stated on Apple's EU product pages.

Germany (VAT rate 19%): https://www.apple.com/de/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro

1.599,00 €

Einschließlich MwSt. und ges. Gebühren i. H. v. ca. 266,00 €.*

Ireland (VAT rate 23%): https://www.apple.com/ie/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro

€1,629.00

Total Payments for your device include VAT of approx. €305.00.*

From the US store you need to go to the checkout page before you see the tax payable, so assuming San Francisco (sales tax rate 8.625%):

Subtotal $1,299.00

Estimated tax $112.04

CA recycling fee $4.00

Total $1,415.04

Sales tax is lower in the US than VAT is in the EU. Taxes are the price you pay for living in more a civilized society.

When was the last time you checked the currency conversion?

15 seconds before the comment.

An M1 MacBook Air is $999 and has a much better display, four times the battery life, it's faster and doesn't run hot.

I was debating between the MBA and Framework. For me the deal breakers were:

* The MBA comes with 256GB which is not enough storage, especially since when you run out of space you have to buy a whole new laptop to get more. That's compounded by the high prices that Apple charges for storage upgrades. The cost of upgrading to a 2TB SSD and 16GB of RAM (just the upgrade, NOT including the base price of the laptop) is more than an entire Framework laptop with a 2TB SSD and 16GB of RAM

* IIRC the MBA only supports 1 external monitor. The Framework supports 4 external monitor at 4k144hz (I'd only ever need 2, but it's nice to have extra headroom).

* Ideological reasons I won't belabor

How does your Framework perform with dual 4k144hz monitors? My 16” 2019 intel macbook pro really struggled even at its max output of 60hz. My new M1 Max doesn’t miss a beat.

It's still in the mail, so we'll see! As long as it avoids the macOS issue where my left and right monitors randomly flip positions, I'll be happy :)

The Framework product has a much bigger value: it demonstrates that it is possible to deliver a consumer product with less builtin obsolescence. If they can stay profitable long-term they will be an important POC that we do not need to maximize obsolescence for a company to survive.

It's unfortunate the modern Macbooks are such sealed boxes. The M1 compares surprisingly favorably against even the i7-1165G7 that you get in the Framework "Performance" series. About the only advantage you get with Intel right now is the higher maximum addressable memory (64GB vs 24). And Windows, of course, if you consider that an advantage.

The base model is $829 at Microcenter and $849 at Costco.

I would never even consider buying an Apple product due to the price.

If he's buying one for an employee he probably bought it on the company dime.

My phone costs way more than that.

It depends where you live! I've lost laptops to guys with knives, guys with guns, mysterious cat burglars... hence my preference for easily replaceable ~$500 used Thinkpads.

The Dell XPS Developer Edition ones have always worked well for me with Linux, I never used the stock Ubuntu, and the hardware works really well and they actually do deliver firmware updates through fwupd for many years - I won’t defend the landfill future of the hardware and lack of user upgrade/ replacement, but I’ve had great success with Elementary OS and Arch on them.

Also I have had to use a Mac more recently for work, and I miss my XPS running well with Docker, and I find it hilarious that with MacBooks you need the new M processor models to be able to run Docker workloads without the fans blasting!

I’d love to try a Framework too though.

These are fair points. It's probably more accurate to say that I didn't give the Dells a completely fair shake on their "works with Linux" cred because I couldn't get past the lack of user upgrade and/or the cost to actually buy one. At one point I did buy a Precision 7000 series that wasn't certified for Linux, hoping I'd be able to get it running anyway, and it was a nightmare that ended in a return/refund: the whole machine would literally lock up hard upon waking from s2 sleep. It was upon researching the problem that I discovered the nature of Dell's "we won't actually support Linux on any laptop unless it's a specific model and you're running our specific build of Ubuntu, beyond that you're on your own, YMMV" and gave up. Framework still says "you're on your own" but they're also working furiously behind the scenes to make Linux as close to first-class-citizen as possible. Framework knows their customer.

I used Arch on XPS 15" 4k a while ago. At that time I had to disable something in the BIOS so that the hard disk could be recognized.

I use a mac and a thinkpad for two clients. Great machines.

I had an XPS for 1.5 years, with terrible chassis issues that got worse and worse until typing would cause it to freeze.

I use a Framework for my daily driver and I couldn't be happier! I do have the occasional issue with a WD-SN850 that causes freezing, but that isn't due to Framework specifically.

I've been running Ubuntu on a Dell Precision for about 5 years now and it's been great. Upgraded ram and disks a couple of times now with no issues.

Maybe it's just specific models with the hardware limitations?

I completely agree in nearly every respect. Especially notable is the fact that they sell replacement hinges. Considering that every one of my preceding non-Apple laptops has failed at the hinge, this is huge.

Support for suspend in linux is definitely shaky, but a (eventually fixable) firmware issue. On the other hand, I am concerned with the company's commitment to upgradability. Since they announced the 2nd generation motherboard some months back, the only way to get one has been with a brand new laptop around it.

Yeah I mean, even on the Framework I basically gave up on suspend. It wasn't freezing on the Framework like it was on the Dell, but there were definitely instances of things not working correctly upon wake, or with the machine never going to sleep, or with the machine waking itself, or with the battery draining too fast even in s2/deep. Switched to hibernate and I've been very happy.

It’s interesting this is still a problem going on twenty years.

I guess there’s some reason it’ll never actually work a linux laptop.

> I guess there’s some reason it’ll never actually work a linux laptop.

Except it clearly can; every thinkpad I've owned handled S3 flawlessly in Linux, and Chromebooks manage fine.

I have a Thinkpad X1 3rd Gen that does not handle that flawlessly.

I do not want to discuss that, I just want to show the value of anecdotal evidence postings: zero.

Anecdotal evidence does refute the point that "it’ll never actually work a linux laptop".

OK, I re-read the thread and in this case you are right - if it works flawless at least on one specific laptop, it can not "never work at all". Sorry for the disturbance.

Nah you’re fine - I try to avoid saying things like “never actually work” because there’s always someone on HN who will point to one working example as if that absolves my point, but sometimes I forget.

I’ve had thinkpads that don’t work either. The issue is suspend still doesn’t work reliably going on twenty years - even in the case where the laptop is explicitly a Linux laptop made for this purpose.

It means my default assumption has to remain that it probably won’t work (or at least I shouldn't expect that it will). I’m tempted by the framework because I like what they’re trying to do, but if suspend is still an issue it’s imo not worth it (even ignoring the bad battery tradeoff). That’s even ignoring the continued distance apple keeps putting between themselves and everyone else with their custom hardware.

Also the modular ports are essentially built in usb-c dongles. It’s not obvious to me why this is better than just having adapters. It takes up internal space and may be partly why the battery life is bad. Instead of adapters you have modules - is this a win?

Try a laptop designed for Linux. Suspend is working 100% of the time on my Librem 15.

This seems like a general problem, not specifically Linux-related. On my particular HP Laptop, I have the reverse issue.

On Windows sleep is a shitshow. It sometimes wakes up if I leave it alone during the night, it sometimes doesn't sleep at all (the screen stays on), it sometimes completely breaks (fans go full tilt, screen backlight comes on, but that's it) and I need to do a full reboot to make it work.

On Linux: press sleep, and it sleeps. Press power, it wakes up. If it sleeps, it stays asleep. When it turns on, the computer is actually usable, no forced reboot required.

This despite the fact that "HP recommends Windows 11", and the support page has no idea Linux even exists.

This is also my experience on a HP ZBook from 2014, with an Nvidia Quadro that is about to become unsupported. The two minor problems I have are: shut down (very rare operation) results in a reboot so I have to press the power button when it starts rebooting; sometimes it resumes to a blank screen so I have to ALT F3 to console and ALT F2 to X11 to reset something. My session is preserved.

Still better than having to use Windows or OSX.

> It sometimes wakes up if I leave it alone during the night,

This is most likely wake timers. Some program or windows itself is waking your machine to do updates. Disabling wake timers will prevent anything from waking the machine while sleeping.

I don't think it's the timers. I have disabled them (though maybe not all / they've been reset by some update).

And this also happens during the day, say if I put it to sleep while going for a walk. It sometimes wakes up a few moments later, sometimes it'll sleep all the way.

My schedule is fairly regular, too, so unless the timers have large jitter, I'd expect them to trigger roughly at the same time (either after X time, or at Y hour).

This used to happen on Linux initially, too, and there were no timers there. I could stop it by disabling EC wake up. I've never found anything similar on Windows, so I just turn it off. At least it boots quickly...

It might not be useful after the timer goes off but you could try looking for them via

   powercfg /waketimers

Or checking what last woke you via

    powercfg /lastwake

I'm really curious about this failing at the hinges. Do you have thought about why this happens to you with all laptops. Is your use case to carry it around at the screen a lot? I never has such a damage or failure.

One frustration with Lenovo laptops is failing hinges. Well, not really the hinges, its the plastic around them that cracks. Neither of these was abused like you described, just occasionally opened and closed, probably not even on a daily basis.

I frequently carry my laptops by the body one handed, which probably doesn't help. I also (used to) travel a bunch, so the laptops end up getting stuffed into and out of densely packed bags. In most cases though, the hinges are just badly designed. In one extreme case, the hinge's mount points on the case were all in a straight line in line with the hinge's line of rotation. As a peer post pointed out, just the stress of the lid's friction lock + 1-2 years of constant use tore the hinge right off the case.

The Framework has a proper cross-brace on the hinge, the hinge mounting points are metal, and I can inexpensively replace the case or hinge if either breaks after the warranty expires.

I got the mail today that upgrade kits are in stock. Two months seems reasonable, as they obviously want to fulfill new orders first.

Timing! (To my credit, I had checked the upgrade kits page and they were still on "notify me" status when I posted)

Obviously I'm being a bit greedy here, but much of Framework's value proposition is built around upgradability. Servicing the crowd that actually buys into that proposition first seems like it would be more valuable from a customer loyalty standpoint, even relative to new customer acquisition. These are repeat customers clearly committed to your company's product.

That's interesting. The X1 Carbon range are almost perfectly compatible with Linux.

(I have had multiple over the years and have had zero issues)

The other models I can't say much about. But the yogas are not Linux compatible

The carbons are not upgradable and almost unrepairable. Just another landfill laptop

This was also my experience. Could never pull the trigger on the Carbon for this reason.

I bough a high-end X1 carbon because I wanted to keep it for a long time and I trusted Lenovo. While I loved it and was very satisfied, it turns out that the main board suddenly died after 2 years, and it was not repairable.

They do not provide any post-warranty support (even paid) and do not sell spare parts.

Now I'm back to a desktop PC that I built myself and can repair or upgrade however I want.

Great to hear that! Manjaro support continues to be solid, and we just sent both 11th Gen and 12th Gen-based Framework Laptops to the team there.

Other people with these requirements may want to look at HP Pro and EliteBooks, if they're willing to put up with dubious screens (they're fairly OK for coding work, I guess).

They're repairable in that HP has repair manuals on their public site, complete with disassembly instructions and part numbers. Never had to replace anything, so I don't know how easy it would be to actually source the parts.

Most importantly, they are also one of the few to have AMD models without any soldered RAM, and they don't insist on HP branded RAM either.

Linux works great on these. The worst I had was an older ProBook whose fingerprint sensor was unsupported. On my current one, it works 100% under Linux, while on Windows I can't get the webcam to work.

I just bought a current ProBook (445 G8) and the fingerprint sensor also seems to be unsupported. Great laptop otherwise though so far!

I'll probably get rid of it in favor of a framework once they sort out their battery troubles either by getting ryzens or intel stepping up their efficiency game though.

Interesting.

I had a T42 in 2008 and read Thinkpads already went downhill back then.

They certainly have continued to take away nice features, stability, and build quality over the years. The "last good ThinkPad" is different for many. As you said the T42 or around there for pre-Lenovo, T400 for libreboot support, T420 for old keyboard, T430 for old charger/body design, T440p for last gen with socketed CPU and for coreboot support, T480 for last gen with a removable battery I think... But at the same time they've removed indicator lights, certain ports, I'm not even sure if there's a magnesium rollcage anymore.

I have a P15s for work and my initial model would hard freeze when putting pressure in certain spots. I used an external keyboard/mouse mostly, but it'd still happen occasionally. Eventually got a tech sent out and he swapped the motherboard. I think it's fixed, but I still touch it as little as possible and use external peripherals.

Some people defend modern ThinkPads saying they still beat the competition. I'd like to think the bar is higher than that considering some of what's out there.

My take on all this is that x86 is on its way out anyway, so I'm trying to make my T440p last and will try to go with ARM or RISC-V for my next machine. Likely just an M2 Max MacBook Pro when available. Hopefully Asahi support is pretty good by then.

The Framework is sort of cool, but it's just another modern Intel machine at the same time. Guts aside, they're doing a good job, but the guts are pretty important, and in this case, boring. The MNT Reform is a lot more interesting, although I don't know if any particularly performant SoMs are available for it yet. I'd like something with better performance than my Pinebook Pro if possible. The RK3399 is not quite Main Machine material.

I never really liked Thinkpads to begin with. The texture on their plastics makes my skin crawl. When I was working IT at the end of the '00s, I found Latitudes were a lot easier to repair and more durable.

My personal story is that I'll never use Lenovo, because of their crap website and customer service.

I tried ordering one of their laptops back around 2015 on their website. The cart just straight up broke during checkout. Tried contacting support - no response.

2 weeks later they emailed me asking how my purchasing experience was (hilarious that they couldn't tell the purchase actually didn't go through, because the card wasn't charged)

Was literally throwing money at them trying to buy their product, but I guess they didn't want it. So I'm never giving them a cent of it again.

> - lightweight and thin

Thin is a _problem_! Thin means:

1. The design of everything needs to be warped to fit in - less opportunities for modularization and more contortion needed for disassembly.

2. Bad keyboard with almost no key travel

> They started going downhill after that

I would say the X220 era is where things started going downhill. Although some might argue that it was even earlier.

You are making me think I might have to finally upgrade my T420

I like that someone else is still using a T420. I'm using the one I bought for college back in 2011. I've been running fedora on it since fedora 17 I believe. I preordered a framework a couple months ago though and it's suppose to ship in August. It'll be a sad day when I shut down my thinkpad for the last time.

Unless you buy an AMD Ryzen ThinkPad. Their Linux support stinks and the bug list of 2020 machines still hasn’t been fixed.