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I do value the Purism goal of eradicating all the blobs from the hardware, but reading this I don't feel any envy compared to my Framework which is almost a yea

I do value the Purism goal of eradicating all the blobs from the hardware, but reading this I don't feel any envy compared to my Framework which is almost a year old already. I don't have fixed standard ports, but I do have 4 full thunderbolt 4 ports, supporting power/charging on all, and displayport on all, and the modules convert those into whatever combination of dongle-less ports I want. Even though I would like a dongleless ethernet and there is no module for that yet, I still feel like I have way better io than this because what I do have is configurable and way more powerful. Framework's special aim is more about hardware freedom and reusability/repairability, but software freedom is a very close second and they are not exactly slouching on that job. Of course the machine is fully supported under linux for all hardware, and beyond that, they have fwupd support in beta, and most impressively they open sourced the bios a few months ago. Between the open source bios and the ability to install whatever wifi card and storage you want, and the ability to disable the management engine in the cpu yourself by a hack essentially, you get pretty close to eradicating all the blobs. And it's cheaper, even more repairable, and has better io (in a sense). It has hardware camera & mic kills but not hardware rf kill. The screen is 3:2. I routinely run 2 portable external thunderbolt/dp displays. Single usbc/tb3 cable to each display, power and data. I'm not a gamer but other people have used external gpus on it so the ports support that. I also routinely use a tb3 dock on my desktop for gigabit and two monitors and power on a single cable. The plugin modules also means that the usbc ports are also all essentially prophylactic. If you break a usbc port, all you really broke is a $9 passthrough module which you can replace in 2 seconds like swapping a thumb drive. You can even keep using the real usbc port while the replacement module ships, if you didn't already have a spare. 64g removable ddr4, 2t removable nvme, 11th gen i9. I don't suffer for power. Battery life could be better. After tuning I get 6 or 7 hours. Not really up to par for today, although my machine is maxxed out in cpu, disk, and ram which is on me. There is a known issue that some of the plugin usbc modules draw power at all times even when not in use and even when the machine is powered off. So, I happen to use a thunderbolt dock on my desk, and my portable monitors are usbc, so I don't happen to ever actually use the hdmi or dp modules I got, so I don't happen to suffer that power drain because the usbc modules have no electronics. I'd be interested in hearing more about the touchpad and keyboard. The Framework keyboard feels fine and is backlit, but I don't love the layout. And I really don't like the apple-style huge glass touchpad with no buttons. At least the pad is clickable so I can at least still disable taps. And at least it does work well when I must use it. Mostly I use an mx keys keyboard and mx anywhere 3 mouse. I really like the keyboard and touchpad on my x1 carbon 5th gen (2017/2018).

rank0 5y ago
I just got a framework last week, and I was quite disappointed with the supposed “Linux support”. It’s absolutely not “out of the box support” as they claim on their marketing material. I had to do a number of tweaks to get into a usable state using Fedora 35, their recommended Linux distro. I love the company’s mission, so I’ll cut them some slack on v1 but it feels dishonest. They should really iron out all their problems with BIOS, audio jack, suspend/hibernation, grub before selling the idea that fedora 35 is fully functional. Just be honest! EDIT: I’m looking for a reasonable dock/KVM switch lmk if you have any recommendations!
- hansel_der 5y ago
  > I had to do a number of tweaks to get into a usable state using Fedora 35 might be worth the effort of testing other distros (i hear arch has the bleeding edge)
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  I'm using xubuntu and the mainline kernel and the only thing I'd have to do special at all would be to make the fingerprint reader work. Everything else has just worked. The suspend thing I think has to do with the bios not linux. It's a bug but not a linux support bug, I think. I'm currently using a fairly old HP tb3 dock that was really only intended for use with a few laptops of theirs. I like it for it's form factor, and it does function, but there are a couple annoyances that have me looking for an update. The tb3 cord is removable but so special that it might as well be hardwired. The dock end has a big plug with both a usbc and barrel connectors in one big chonk. The usbc part is normal so you could replace that cable with another, but you'd lose power delivery. The video outs seem to be a bit marginal. They work but they seem to be easily disturbed, like they are right on the edge of not working. The screens lose sync and reconnect once in a while. Once in a while is not multiple times per day, but probably at least a once or twice most weeks, but also some multiple weeks with no glitch. My magnetic usbc adapter surely contributes. Somewhere between half the time and all the time, the external monitors do not wake when the laptop wakes from sleep, and by sleep I mean just the first level like just blanking the screens. I don't have any swap or hibernate configured. But all I have to do to restore both screens is just rock the magnetic usbc connector 90 degrees to break the connection, wait 2 seconds or so, and let it snap back, and both monitors come back on and the xubuntu xrandr tool automatically restores the profile that uses them positioned the way I had them. If I'm lucky, maybe even most of my ssh sessions survive the temporary loss of ethernet. oh-well-emoji haha I got the same model of dock for my gf and she has a lg gram and only one external minitor, and she's running windows, and her monitor loses connection all by itself even when not idle/blanked, sometimes multiple times in a day, sometimes a couple weeks with no problem. I have gone through a few different attempts at getting new higher quality cables and shorter runs etc. So I think the display flakiness is in the docks and not in the laptops or the OS's or the monitors. But it is suuuuch a sweet little unit, and it does work so 99% well. Everything else are these big ugly boxes that are big enough that they might as well just be mini pc's and skip the laptop. Or they are nice looking small but junk guts. HP Elite ZBook TB3 dock 1DT93AA#ABA

rank0 5y ago

I just got a framework last week, and I was quite disappointed with the supposed “Linux support”. It’s absolutely not “out of the box support” as they claim on their marketing material. I had to do a number of tweaks to get into a usable state using Fedora 35, their recommended Linux distro. I love the company’s mission, so I’ll cut them some slack on v1 but it feels dishonest. They should really iron out all their problems with BIOS, audio jack, suspend/hibernation, grub before selling the idea that fedora 35 is fully functional. Just be honest! EDIT: I’m looking for a reasonable dock/KVM switch lmk if you have any recommendations!

hansel_der 5y ago
> I had to do a number of tweaks to get into a usable state using Fedora 35 might be worth the effort of testing other distros (i hear arch has the bleeding edge)
Brian_K_White 5y ago
I'm using xubuntu and the mainline kernel and the only thing I'd have to do special at all would be to make the fingerprint reader work. Everything else has just worked. The suspend thing I think has to do with the bios not linux. It's a bug but not a linux support bug, I think. I'm currently using a fairly old HP tb3 dock that was really only intended for use with a few laptops of theirs. I like it for it's form factor, and it does function, but there are a couple annoyances that have me looking for an update. The tb3 cord is removable but so special that it might as well be hardwired. The dock end has a big plug with both a usbc and barrel connectors in one big chonk. The usbc part is normal so you could replace that cable with another, but you'd lose power delivery. The video outs seem to be a bit marginal. They work but they seem to be easily disturbed, like they are right on the edge of not working. The screens lose sync and reconnect once in a while. Once in a while is not multiple times per day, but probably at least a once or twice most weeks, but also some multiple weeks with no glitch. My magnetic usbc adapter surely contributes. Somewhere between half the time and all the time, the external monitors do not wake when the laptop wakes from sleep, and by sleep I mean just the first level like just blanking the screens. I don't have any swap or hibernate configured. But all I have to do to restore both screens is just rock the magnetic usbc connector 90 degrees to break the connection, wait 2 seconds or so, and let it snap back, and both monitors come back on and the xubuntu xrandr tool automatically restores the profile that uses them positioned the way I had them. If I'm lucky, maybe even most of my ssh sessions survive the temporary loss of ethernet. oh-well-emoji haha I got the same model of dock for my gf and she has a lg gram and only one external minitor, and she's running windows, and her monitor loses connection all by itself even when not idle/blanked, sometimes multiple times in a day, sometimes a couple weeks with no problem. I have gone through a few different attempts at getting new higher quality cables and shorter runs etc. So I think the display flakiness is in the docks and not in the laptops or the OS's or the monitors. But it is suuuuch a sweet little unit, and it does work so 99% well. Everything else are these big ugly boxes that are big enough that they might as well just be mini pc's and skip the laptop. Or they are nice looking small but junk guts. HP Elite ZBook TB3 dock 1DT93AA#ABA