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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 ne

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)

deepsun 5y ago
What is battery drain issue? I have Framework laptop with Linux Mint (Ubuntu inside), and don't see any issues. If you mean high consumption in "shallow sleep" -- I switched to "deep sleep" in the first day.
willmorrison 5y ago
I’m using Arch with Wayland and Sway and I notice very little battery drain. I generally shut it down overnight though. Do most people rarely shut down their laptops?
- hypothermic 5y ago
  I assume most people use FDE nowadays. Unless you're using a really well modified LUKS setup the encryption keys stay in RAM while the PC is hibernating/sleeping. So I think it's reasonable to assume most people shut their laptop down overnight.
Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
> without battery drain issues 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?
aunty_helen 5y ago
This is a point that people should remember if they're thinking about purchasing a framework. This is still very much beta hardware. 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 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.
- pmontra 5y ago
  I didn't try the Framework but by looking at it my complaint with the touchpad would be that it has no physical buttons. Hard to middle click to paste with Linux. I only buy laptops with 3 buttons and I disable clicking on the touchpad, so the pointer doesn't move when I click. I've got the buttons after all... 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.
- tebruno99 5y ago
  Weird, I love the touchpad. So much better than My Dell XPS 9710
- emptysongglass 5y ago
  Has the 3.07 BIOS update fixed the overnight drain issue? [1] [1] https://community.frame.work/t/bios-3-07-windows-10-and-11-alpha-driver-bundle/12651/214 https://community.frame.work/t/bios-3-07-windows-10-and-11-a...
- omdv 5y ago
  Anecdotal, so obviously YMMV. 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 :)
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nikodunk 5y ago
Is this an issue for Ubuntu specifically or all distributions? Read somewhere that they recommended Fedora 35 for the best driver support at the moment, though that'll probably change after the next releases of 22.04 and F36. Awesome that you're switching your whole team to Frameworks - my next work laptop will for sure be a Framework too :)
- kkielhofner 5y ago
  I've taken to having a Fedora 35 install on a bootable USB SSD. I don't prefer it for daily use (Ubuntu/Pop for me) but if I'm ever in doubt when debugging a suspected Framework issue I boot into Fedora 35 as that's the semi-official/supported distro and version. 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
- freedomben 5y ago
  The main reason for this is that the drivers are in the kernel, and Fedora ships new kernels regularly. Ubuntu and many other distros will stay on the same version they initially ship with. For example if they start with 5.14.2 then even a couple years later it will be 5.14.86-200. Fedora tends to ship new major versions of the kernel within weeks of them being released upstream, so you're constantly getting bug fixes and new drivers. I prefer the ubuntu approach for servers (which is how RHEL/CentOS do it) but for desktop it's great to see it continually get better. 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.)
  - phendrenad2 5y ago
    Linux laptop battery life issues are a constant, right? This has been a problem across laptop brands, across Linux distros, across many, many kernel versions. I just want to temper anyone's false expectations that they can just update from a 1-year-old kernel to one released last week and it'll fix these long-existing issues.
criddell 5y ago
Do your developers have a say in what hardware they use?
- sudders 5y ago
  Yes, however we are unanimously siked for framework.

deepsun 5y ago

What is battery drain issue? I have Framework laptop with Linux Mint (Ubuntu inside), and don't see any issues. If you mean high consumption in "shallow sleep" -- I switched to "deep sleep" in the first day.

willmorrison 5y ago

I’m using Arch with Wayland and Sway and I notice very little battery drain. I generally shut it down overnight though. Do most people rarely shut down their laptops?

hypothermic 5y ago
I assume most people use FDE nowadays. Unless you're using a really well modified LUKS setup the encryption keys stay in RAM while the PC is hibernating/sleeping. So I think it's reasonable to assume most people shut their laptop down overnight.

Abishek_Muthian 5y ago

> without battery drain issues 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?

aunty_helen 5y ago

This is a point that people should remember if they're thinking about purchasing a framework. This is still very much beta hardware. 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 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.

pmontra 5y ago
I didn't try the Framework but by looking at it my complaint with the touchpad would be that it has no physical buttons. Hard to middle click to paste with Linux. I only buy laptops with 3 buttons and I disable clicking on the touchpad, so the pointer doesn't move when I click. I've got the buttons after all... 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.
tebruno99 5y ago
Weird, I love the touchpad. So much better than My Dell XPS 9710
emptysongglass 5y ago
Has the 3.07 BIOS update fixed the overnight drain issue? [1] [1] https://community.frame.work/t/bios-3-07-windows-10-and-11-alpha-driver-bundle/12651/214 https://community.frame.work/t/bios-3-07-windows-10-and-11-a...
omdv 5y ago
Anecdotal, so obviously YMMV. 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 :)
- deleted 5y ago
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- 5y ago

nikodunk 5y ago

Is this an issue for Ubuntu specifically or all distributions? Read somewhere that they recommended Fedora 35 for the best driver support at the moment, though that'll probably change after the next releases of 22.04 and F36. Awesome that you're switching your whole team to Frameworks - my next work laptop will for sure be a Framework too :)

kkielhofner 5y ago
I've taken to having a Fedora 35 install on a bootable USB SSD. I don't prefer it for daily use (Ubuntu/Pop for me) but if I'm ever in doubt when debugging a suspected Framework issue I boot into Fedora 35 as that's the semi-official/supported distro and version. 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
freedomben 5y ago
The main reason for this is that the drivers are in the kernel, and Fedora ships new kernels regularly. Ubuntu and many other distros will stay on the same version they initially ship with. For example if they start with 5.14.2 then even a couple years later it will be 5.14.86-200. Fedora tends to ship new major versions of the kernel within weeks of them being released upstream, so you're constantly getting bug fixes and new drivers. I prefer the ubuntu approach for servers (which is how RHEL/CentOS do it) but for desktop it's great to see it continually get better. 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.)
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  Linux laptop battery life issues are a constant, right? This has been a problem across laptop brands, across Linux distros, across many, many kernel versions. I just want to temper anyone's false expectations that they can just update from a 1-year-old kernel to one released last week and it'll fix these long-existing issues.

criddell 5y ago

Do your developers have a say in what hardware they use?

sudders 5y ago
Yes, however we are unanimously siked for framework.