Comment by emacsen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by emacsen | Hacker News Reader

I've had my framework for about six months, and it's been an incredibly mixed bag. This isn't a bad laptop by any means, but it's not been a panacea either.

The battery life, as other have mentioned, is poor.

The Linux support is "OK", and improved greatly when I upgraded to the latest Ubuntu and what I assume is a host of updated proprietary drivers.

But the system also got regularly stuck in a mode where it wouldn't wake up from sleep, for weeks, until one day it simply couldn't be woken up, even after having no power. Tech support was competent, but slow, with replies every next business day.

Resetting the sleep situation also required taking the unit apart, which seems silly.

And one of the dongles that it comes with, the USB-A one, totally flaked out on me.

And at the end of the day, while repairability is lovely, so is a tech support line you can call and talk to a human being, so is a depot you can send the laptop to, and so is being able to pay for a repair person to come and fix my work machine.

These are premium asks, the repair person in particular, and I know that big companies like Dell and Lenovo can only offer them based on bulk sales, but I'd be willing to pay for this, but it's not offered.

Right now, the laptop is good, but I wouldn't buy one. They say their next model will have better Linux support, and be better in other ways. I'd wait for that and hope that Framework also works out a better tech support system.

"I bought this user repairable laptop and they don't offer an on-site repair service. Also one of the USB ports burned out and it cost me $9 for a replacement. Absolutely terrible"

I ran into a similar issue. It took a Google search plus following a nicely documented guide to reset, and I was back at it. Way easier fix process than dealing with <PC Laptop Manufacturing Company> support.

What is this sleep issue that needs a reset that might require opening the laptop case?

Not a framework owner, buty money would be on the reset being a cmos reset, which means it's most likely some toggle in firmware being set incorrectly.

This is a guess based on a couple years in a repair shop, I could be completely wrong.

It was exactly this.

I think a previous firmware version had an issue with the RTC crapping out

> being able to pay for a repair person to come and fix my work machine

In the context of the Framework, I think it seems to be the intention of the designers that you buy replacement parts and replace them yourself.

It should be much cheaper then

It cost more than a macbook ARM, and you get less perf, worse battery, worse cooling, and less support, yes you get to repair it yourself and more easily, but i never had to repair my macbooks (other than changing the battery, and that was easy to do myself, and looks like it is still easy on the ARM ones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l_Dw_5_JJk)

This isn't a Macbook Air, though. This is a workstation laptop with serious IO, serious repairability considerations and serious x86 performance. If you're the sort of person who doesn't know/care about that stuff, you'd probably be better off with an iPad anyways.

In any case, these machines are not even remotely as close as people paint them to be. That Macbook Air won't have a 32-gig (or 64 gig) option for memory, much less a fully replaceable and upgradable mainboard with swappable NVMe drives. Plus, it's only got a paltry 2 ports of IO, one of which will be occupied by the charger (the other presumably plugged into the SINGLE DISPLAY that the Air supports).

They're different devices for different people. I think the Framework is surprisingly cheap for what it offers, and I'll happily pick one up when the Alder Lake models get stocked.

That's a lovely idea, but I simply don't have the ability to do that.

I think it's great that we're able to fix our own machines, and I think it's wonderful to teach people to fix their own machines, but it's ablist to assume everyone has the ability to do so. I don't.

Moreover, there are lots of people who support Right to Repair but don't want to have to repair their own equipment. Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to take your computer down to a repair shop or have someone come over and fix it?

Absolutely. Of course no one is saying you cannot or should not send it to a local repair shop. The point is just that it seems misdirected to fault Framework the company for not offering these kinds of services when anyone with a job at a repair shop should be expected to be able to repair this model if they have competency in other less repairable models.

You are right my reply was framed in ableist language. I apologize for that -- I appreciate your feedback and will try to do better going forward.

> They say their next model will have better Linux support

How come a machine like this doesn't have flawless Linux support? Such a lost opportunity...

Brand new hardware rarely has perfect Linux support (or the other way around).

My experience is that it takes about two years to get 90% or better hardware support on a new one.

They say they made significant improvements to Linux support with this 12th gen model. Here's hoping!

It's likely limitations of the drivers for the underlying hardware they were able to source in quantity and at the right price. Some of the highest-volume manufacturers have traditionally also been bad about Linux drivers (looking at you, Broadcom).

They say their next model will have better Linux support

Interested, got a reference?

"The next version will fix all your problems" -- Every software salesmen, everywhere ever

10 versions later: "It's on the road map."

If you go on their website they say that the Intel 12 model, the new one, has better Linux support.

I'd love to love these guys, but it's not yet baked enough for me.

Understanding that this company wants to change a whole industry with the idea that laptops are not disposable products and is competing against giants, I am reading your list of very minor complains about one of their first results as an attestation of an incredible success.

It is time to choose, brothers and sister - do you want to be the problem or do you want to be the solution?

The battery life of my Linux Framework is ~6 hours after tuning, but it has required real time to tune it and a little bit of attention to crack down on runaway processes (mostly web threads)

honestly this sounds like a much better outcome than getting a proprietary laptop where you've gotta replace the whole thing when a port goes bad

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