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Framework Laptop Review (Intel 12th G. Laptop) with Linux: The Definitive Review

56 points by ekianjo 4y ago

jonahbenton 4y ago
Bought a DIY and a Chromebook from Framework and am quite pleasantly surprised. Will definitely be getting more hardware from them.
dtx1 4y ago
TL;DR: nice Hardware but they haven't done the hard work yet: battery efficiency and sleep efficiency under Linux as well as what seems to be a known unfixed bug with the display brightness control. By the time they fixed this to be on par with the best of the best in linux notebooks it's already old hardware.
- dmm 4y ago
  > battery efficiency My understanding is that some of this is because the Intel 12th gen 15-watt U-series chips only had 2 performance cores so Framework went the 28W P-series instead to get 4 performance cores. Using socketed ram is also going to use more power than lpddr. > sleep efficiency under Linux What are you comparing it to? Macbooks can sleep a week and lose 5% of battery but I don't know any non-apple machines that can do that. The Framework sleep perf seems comparable to my XPS 13. IME all non-apple laptops suck at suspend. Sleep works out of the box with Fedora 36/37. > By the time they fixed this to be on par with the best of the best in linux notebooks it's already old hardware. It seems to work as well as it will already? It's easy to swap out the mainboard if more efficient chips come out.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    I have multiple old laptops that can sleep just fine, none of them Apple. This sleep issue is a recent regression and Apple laptops are just as affected.
    - dmm 4y ago
      The Framework sleeps and wakes just fine. We were discussing battery usage during sleep. Do your old laptops use 5% of battery after a week of sleep? That's the performance I've observed with Macbooks.
      - rnk 4y ago
        My chromeos framework laptop also seems to lose little power when sleeping, but I haven't done a long study. I just upgraded the ram to 64gb, so happy I bought this one. Next step is switching it to dual booting linux and chromeos.
      - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
        The battery issue is likely because sleep is no longer sleep. Laptops have stopped properly supporting S3 sleep, where the cpu is off but memory is retained. Often what you get these days is S1 sleep where the system can be woken by software and start installing updates. Older laptops don't have this issue so bttery use is no problem.
      - adonig 4y ago
        AFAIK you can configure Linux to go from suspend to hibernate after some hours. Hibernate puts the contents of the RAM on disk so it doesn't drain the battery anymore. You can keep a laptop for months in hibernation without losing a lot of battery. https://community.frame.work/t/guide-fedora-36-hibernation-with-enabled-secure-boot-and-full-disk-encryption-fde-decrypting-over-tpm2/25474 https://community.frame.work/t/guide-fedora-36-hibernation-w...
- slaw 4y ago
  > Framework has a pro-Linux stance by providing direct documentation .. They didn't do any work yet. It doesn't look like there is anyone at Framework working on Linux issues.
jvanderbot 4y ago
I adore my framework laptop. Everything just works, and swapping ports to match my office, home office, and garage tinkering setup is a huge bonus. (Home is DP + ethernet, Office is USB-C, garage is HDMI + USB-A heavy) I'm also looking forward to upgrading when new boards come out. Finally, there's a huge opportunity to DIY expansion ports, it's just USBc on the inside.
intsunny 4y ago
Now that AMD supports USB4, I'm hoping Framework has an AMD edition in the future.
waynesonfire 4y ago
even today, the most supported linux built laptops have the same issues from 20 years ago. i don't know what the root cause is. it's most likely that linux isn't keeping up with the latest chips. maybe they need to cobble up parts from 5 years ago that do have linux support and release that. at least it would work.
- mkozlows 4y ago
  I disagree with this characterization, in two ways: 1. This is a Linux-friendly laptop for the most part, but it's still built with Windows as the primary OS (and the only one you can get preinstalled). When you're building things with Linux kernels in mind, it's easy to pick current hardware that supports Linux optimally (see also: every Chromebook). 2. The places where this laptop isn't perfect are _nothing_ like the problems Linux laptops had twenty, or even ten, years ago. I used a Thinkpad with Ubuntu in 2012, and it worked pretty well... but also ran super-hot and burned through battery ridiculously quickly. The Framework doesn't do that. Sure, it doesn't have amazing battery life (around 5-6 hours), but it also doesn't have amazing battery life in Windows; it's just the nature of the hardware. The automatic-brightness thing is real, but relatively minor compared to all the rest of the hardware (Wifi, fingerprint reader, etc) working smoothly.
  - waynesonfire 4y ago
    Sugar coat it however you want, it won't fix the issue. It's a failure. The laptop market is so competitive that I'm not interested the moment I see that suspend is broken and battery life is garbage. Apple will keep milking us until the community can come together and address the compatibility issue. We need an open linux laptop consortium that can address these issues across the board and then manufacturers can deliver a working product and compete on other dimensions, like how rounded the corners are and thin the laptop is. As it stands, manufacturs appear to be cheering they've sold 10 laptops with broken wifi! But it's wifi6e+8g revision 2023 and has a fingerprint reader. Disconnected. Meanwhile, Apple is laser dialed on every relevant metric and they're rewarded with a closed eco-system and high margins.
adonig 4y ago
I'm a developer and I went from using a MBP to a 12th Gen Framework Laptop with Fedora 37. I like the laptop because it has a better keyboard and better battery life than my old MBP (the battery needs repair after 4 years). What I don't like is that it often freezes for 5-10 seconds because of a bug in Intel's i915 driver (GPU Hang). I'm also a bit unhappy about some Linux applications having bad support for fractional scaling. For some reason I can't see the speed of the CPU fan. Looks like there is no sensor for it. Also the display is a bit wobbly, but overall I'm really happy to leave OS X behind and found a way back to Linux. The touchpad isn't as good as the one I'm used to but I have seen worse ones. I hope that you can upgrade it in the future. EDIT: Oh and the speakers are bad and the mic sometimes doesn't work after waking up from suspend but I read that there's a fix for it.
- hanklazard 4y ago
  Yeah that freezing bug is pretty annoying. I’m running pop 22.04 and I’m overall pleased with the purchase after using it for the last month. I find that I seem to get less of that freeze problem if I don’t put it to sleep, but rather shut it down completely (which also saves battery life). It boots so quickly that I don’t mind. Great machine overall—if they can fix a few little bugs it will be pretty much perfect.
  - trynewideas 4y ago
    The GPU issue isn't limited to Framework; see https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/intel/-/issues/6679 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/intel/-/issues/6679 Panel Self Refresh (PSR) seems to be at least the most common cause: > @kelnos, have you tried without psr? E.g. add i915.enable_psr=0 into your kernel boot parameters or disable it via debugfs (as a root): echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_edp_psr_debug # yes it's '1' > You can check that psr got really disabled by: sudo cat /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_edp_psr_status Sink support: yes [0x03] PSR mode: disabled PSR sink not reliable: no I'm on a Framework 12th Gen running Fedora 37, kernel 6.1.9, with no freezes for several weeks after having loads of them under both GNOME and KDE on Ubuntu and pop_OS.
    - 4y ago
wkat4242 4y ago
Matte screen option or bust. So bust for now :( I'll stick with Lenovo Thinkpad for now.

56 points by ekianjo 4y ago

Bought a DIY and a Chromebook from Framework and am quite pleasantly surprised. Will definitely be getting more hardware from them.

dtx1 4y ago

TL;DR: nice Hardware but they haven't done the hard work yet: battery efficiency and sleep efficiency under Linux as well as what seems to be a known unfixed bug with the display brightness control. By the time they fixed this to be on par with the best of the best in linux notebooks it's already old hardware.

dmm 4y ago
> battery efficiency My understanding is that some of this is because the Intel 12th gen 15-watt U-series chips only had 2 performance cores so Framework went the 28W P-series instead to get 4 performance cores. Using socketed ram is also going to use more power than lpddr. > sleep efficiency under Linux What are you comparing it to? Macbooks can sleep a week and lose 5% of battery but I don't know any non-apple machines that can do that. The Framework sleep perf seems comparable to my XPS 13. IME all non-apple laptops suck at suspend. Sleep works out of the box with Fedora 36/37. > By the time they fixed this to be on par with the best of the best in linux notebooks it's already old hardware. It seems to work as well as it will already? It's easy to swap out the mainboard if more efficient chips come out.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  I have multiple old laptops that can sleep just fine, none of them Apple. This sleep issue is a recent regression and Apple laptops are just as affected.
  - dmm 4y ago
    The Framework sleeps and wakes just fine. We were discussing battery usage during sleep. Do your old laptops use 5% of battery after a week of sleep? That's the performance I've observed with Macbooks.
    - rnk 4y ago
      My chromeos framework laptop also seems to lose little power when sleeping, but I haven't done a long study. I just upgraded the ram to 64gb, so happy I bought this one. Next step is switching it to dual booting linux and chromeos.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
      The battery issue is likely because sleep is no longer sleep. Laptops have stopped properly supporting S3 sleep, where the cpu is off but memory is retained. Often what you get these days is S1 sleep where the system can be woken by software and start installing updates. Older laptops don't have this issue so bttery use is no problem.
    - adonig 4y ago
      AFAIK you can configure Linux to go from suspend to hibernate after some hours. Hibernate puts the contents of the RAM on disk so it doesn't drain the battery anymore. You can keep a laptop for months in hibernation without losing a lot of battery. https://community.frame.work/t/guide-fedora-36-hibernation-with-enabled-secure-boot-and-full-disk-encryption-fde-decrypting-over-tpm2/25474 https://community.frame.work/t/guide-fedora-36-hibernation-w...
slaw 4y ago
> Framework has a pro-Linux stance by providing direct documentation .. They didn't do any work yet. It doesn't look like there is anyone at Framework working on Linux issues.

jvanderbot 4y ago

I adore my framework laptop. Everything just works, and swapping ports to match my office, home office, and garage tinkering setup is a huge bonus. (Home is DP + ethernet, Office is USB-C, garage is HDMI + USB-A heavy) I'm also looking forward to upgrading when new boards come out. Finally, there's a huge opportunity to DIY expansion ports, it's just USBc on the inside.

intsunny 4y ago

Now that AMD supports USB4, I'm hoping Framework has an AMD edition in the future.

waynesonfire 4y ago

even today, the most supported linux built laptops have the same issues from 20 years ago. i don't know what the root cause is. it's most likely that linux isn't keeping up with the latest chips. maybe they need to cobble up parts from 5 years ago that do have linux support and release that. at least it would work.

mkozlows 4y ago
I disagree with this characterization, in two ways: 1. This is a Linux-friendly laptop for the most part, but it's still built with Windows as the primary OS (and the only one you can get preinstalled). When you're building things with Linux kernels in mind, it's easy to pick current hardware that supports Linux optimally (see also: every Chromebook). 2. The places where this laptop isn't perfect are _nothing_ like the problems Linux laptops had twenty, or even ten, years ago. I used a Thinkpad with Ubuntu in 2012, and it worked pretty well... but also ran super-hot and burned through battery ridiculously quickly. The Framework doesn't do that. Sure, it doesn't have amazing battery life (around 5-6 hours), but it also doesn't have amazing battery life in Windows; it's just the nature of the hardware. The automatic-brightness thing is real, but relatively minor compared to all the rest of the hardware (Wifi, fingerprint reader, etc) working smoothly.
- waynesonfire 4y ago
  Sugar coat it however you want, it won't fix the issue. It's a failure. The laptop market is so competitive that I'm not interested the moment I see that suspend is broken and battery life is garbage. Apple will keep milking us until the community can come together and address the compatibility issue. We need an open linux laptop consortium that can address these issues across the board and then manufacturers can deliver a working product and compete on other dimensions, like how rounded the corners are and thin the laptop is. As it stands, manufacturs appear to be cheering they've sold 10 laptops with broken wifi! But it's wifi6e+8g revision 2023 and has a fingerprint reader. Disconnected. Meanwhile, Apple is laser dialed on every relevant metric and they're rewarded with a closed eco-system and high margins.

adonig 4y ago

I'm a developer and I went from using a MBP to a 12th Gen Framework Laptop with Fedora 37. I like the laptop because it has a better keyboard and better battery life than my old MBP (the battery needs repair after 4 years). What I don't like is that it often freezes for 5-10 seconds because of a bug in Intel's i915 driver (GPU Hang). I'm also a bit unhappy about some Linux applications having bad support for fractional scaling. For some reason I can't see the speed of the CPU fan. Looks like there is no sensor for it. Also the display is a bit wobbly, but overall I'm really happy to leave OS X behind and found a way back to Linux. The touchpad isn't as good as the one I'm used to but I have seen worse ones. I hope that you can upgrade it in the future. EDIT: Oh and the speakers are bad and the mic sometimes doesn't work after waking up from suspend but I read that there's a fix for it.

hanklazard 4y ago
Yeah that freezing bug is pretty annoying. I’m running pop 22.04 and I’m overall pleased with the purchase after using it for the last month. I find that I seem to get less of that freeze problem if I don’t put it to sleep, but rather shut it down completely (which also saves battery life). It boots so quickly that I don’t mind. Great machine overall—if they can fix a few little bugs it will be pretty much perfect.
- trynewideas 4y ago
  The GPU issue isn't limited to Framework; see https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/intel/-/issues/6679 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/intel/-/issues/6679 Panel Self Refresh (PSR) seems to be at least the most common cause: > @kelnos, have you tried without psr? E.g. add i915.enable_psr=0 into your kernel boot parameters or disable it via debugfs (as a root): echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_edp_psr_debug # yes it's '1' > You can check that psr got really disabled by: sudo cat /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_edp_psr_status Sink support: yes [0x03] PSR mode: disabled PSR sink not reliable: no I'm on a Framework 12th Gen running Fedora 37, kernel 6.1.9, with no freezes for several weeks after having loads of them under both GNOME and KDE on Ubuntu and pop_OS.
  - 4y ago

wkat4242 4y ago

Matte screen option or bust. So bust for now :( I'll stick with Lenovo Thinkpad for now.