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Comment by okennedy | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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