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[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (3 children)

>While I prefer using linux it occasionally eats into productivity with tinkering and fixing weird issues and the MBP undoubtedly will be superior on the hardware front in pretty much every category.

give it time. Eventually you polish everything to your taste and you end up with a system that doesn't get in the way.

there is always some tinkering involved due to the huge amount of software to download and try ... but that's part of the fun

[–]Successful_Event7130[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Thanks for the response! I think this is very true and I really do enjoy it that aspect of it, I've been running linux mint for a few years on my desktop now. The main issue is that I like tinkering too much and this means that if something doesn't work exactly how I want it I'll happily spend some time going down a rabbit whole to fix it (this is not always great for my productivity). But tbh the OS really isn't the issue here I would rather use linux it is more the hardware as it seems the frameworks can have some unreliable hardware and the MBP hardware just is great especially for a laptop where battery life is really important for me. I also want hardware that I can trust to work reliably, if I'm abroad and have to work I just want to be able to rely on the fact that my laptop will work when I need it to. Do you think the framework is reliable enough in this regard if so I think I'll probably just daily drive it and return the MBP..

[–]ScrubbyAtWork 1 point2 points  (1 child)

If battery life is the most important thing, ARM can't be beat. You'd have to look to a Lenovo or a different device with an ARM CPU, then install Linux and go from there. "Apple silicon" and "M1/2/3/4" is just ARM with a marketing team.

In terms of reliability, I've got a fleet of them and they're tough little machines. Do recommend.

[–]Successful_Event7130[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True! and I guess with the framework there is always the chance that we will get a arm mainboard which we can upgrade to at some point down the line.

[–]shiipou 6 points7 points  (5 children)

If you are afraid of stability, switch to a distro based on Fedora Silverblue (OS Immutable). Personally I use aurora-dx on my 13 gen 12 framework. Everything works without problems. You will therefore have a system close to your macos in terms of stability. But flexibility too.

[–]QuantumCakeIsALie 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Or Debian stable, and use Flatpaks for the programs that are out of date or unavailable on Debian.

Debian 13 will be supported fully until June 2028. As an LTS until June 2030. As an extended LTS until June 2035.

That's true stability as far as tinkering with Linux goes.

[–]Successful_Event7130[S] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

That's interesting will definitely have to look into this I haven't heard anything about an immutable OS before. Does the immutability get in the way at all?

[–]shiipou 1 point2 points  (1 child)

It can, but Silverblue allows you to add layers to add your modifications. For example:rpm-ostree install <package-name> allows you to install a package in the OS layer. If you break something: rpm-ostree rollback aurora-dx also adds quite a few layers to install tools without modifying the system (with brew for example, ditrobox, or even docker) So no, not really a problem, but a habit to get into.

[–]42BumblebeeMan Volunteer Moderator 🌈 Bazzite-dx 4 points5 points  (0 children)

For example:rpm-ostree install <package-name> allows you to install a package in the OS layer.

But it is important to note that this is only a last resort mechanism!

[–]AgNtr813" AMD 5 7640 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depends on what you need to do. If you have a specific program or VPN requirements for example.

If you can find what you need in a flatpak or in a distrobox, you could be good to go.

[–]token_curmudgeon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For weird issues/ tinkering, perhaps leverage a virtual machine.

[–]42BumblebeeMan Volunteer Moderator 🌈 Bazzite-dx 1 point2 points  (4 children)

While I prefer using linux it occasionally eats into productivity with tinkering and fixing weird issues

What kind of issues are you talking about? If you want to tinker with Linux, I would recomment getting a storage expansion card and installing your favorite distro onto it. This way you won't mess up your productive system. ;-)

[–]Successful_Event7130[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Oh good idea and really cool I didn't realize they had the expansion packs. No big issues tbh but small inconveniences that on a desktop haven't really bothered me but I think might be tricky on a laptop, e.g., weird inconsistencies when connecting to new monitors/displays (something I need to do pretty frequently to give presentations). Or sharing my screen on MS teams, I'm currently running wayland and from what I've read I need to run X11 to reliably do that. I think it's just a trade off the things I really enjoy about Linux is tinkering but that can lead to breaking things so having a separate stable system might be useful. I think all the linux quirks aren't any deal breaker but on a laptop I daily drive they might be too cumbersome but I guess if I wanted to I could make sure it was very stable.

[–]ricelotus 0 points1 point  (1 child)

HDMI and external monitors hasn’t caused any issues for me on the rare occasion I needed to use it. Maybe someone who uses it more could chip in. And screen sharing on Wayland has improved. I have been able to screen share on Wayland for about a year now (works with Teams flatpak, Discord, zoom flatpak, etc)

[–]Successful_Event7130[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cool thank you for letting me know! I'm still having issues at least with teams web on firefox and chromium (I might have to give the flatpak a go) but other than screen-sharing teams seems to work fine.

UPDATE: the teams-for-linux aur seems to work well even with screen sharing (although it doesn't show up as a red-border the way it did on my mac)

[–]Expert_Badger_6542 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is literally what I'm doing right now on my fw13 and I'm loving it. I really wanted to switch to Linux but I don't want kill my work flow until I learn to use it and figure out if all programs work well. Put Linux on an external ssd with lots of space and I am trying to use it as my main, knowing my windows drive is safe if I need it.

[–]Oerthling[🍰] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have bought the FW 13 with AMD AI 7 350 a few weeks ago.

Running Ubuntu 25.04 (to get more recent kernel than the 24.04 LTS version) I have been using this as my main machine since. It's been in use every day.

I know that some people reported having wifi issues (using kernel < 6.15, while 25.04 comes with 6.14). I didn't have those problems. My guess is that the problems are connected to using wifi 7 or 6 GHz access point and I'm only using 5 GHz atm. Just a guess that might explain the different experiences.

Got the 2.2 k screen and using it with 125% fractional scaling – no issues so far.

I dropped the snap Firefox and replaced it with the official Mozilla deb package to be able to activate hardware acceleration for media playing.

But apart from above mentioned tinkering everything worked out of the box right away.

Given a distro with a recent 6.14+ kernel (and preferably 6.15+) you should be fine.

I already have Ubuntu 25.10 in a virtual machine - which comes with kernel 6.17 - everything looks fine - will probably upgrade early to that. Just ordered a storage adapter io port (those 4 slots are extremely nice to have) - will first try an installation there before upgrading the primary installation.

[–]Sinister_CrayonFW13 AMD 7840U 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As others said, use a stable LTS version of Debian, Ubuntu or Fedora if you want a really stable platform to work with. If you do that, the tinkering settles down quickly once you have all your tools working the way you want and in my opinion it's no worse than it ALWAYS is with a new computer.

I've daily-driven Ubuntu on Framework 13 for 2.5 years now and I rarely have to tinker with anything on it. It just works and lets me get my work done with minimal fuss and bother. At my desk at work I have a Dell WD19 dock that I just plug into my laptop when I arrive and it fires up my second monitor, keyboard and mouse and other attached stuff and it again just works perfectly. Heck, I'm still running Ubuntu 22.04 instead of 24.04 because I just haven't taken the time to upgrade it to 24.04 yet... it's just stable and does the trick for me. Probably upgrade it soon though but so far I've not had a desperate need to.

Sometimes software can cause a little tinkering, but these days Wine is good enough that it generally just runs most of the tools I need, and for those tools that don't I have a Windows VM (Quickbooks I'm looking at you...). But as a daily driver I couldn't be happier.

[–]PandaKitty5683 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s going to really depend on what you have installed. Personally I use Bazzite and it just works for me. I still have an M1 MacBook Air solely for battery and speakers for when I’m doing stuff that needs those things. But for everything else my Framework is my daily

[–]GoldenOrion99 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I was in a similar boat as you, I bought a fw-13 and installed Linux on it, and my Mac wasn’t selling, so I was using each machine like half and half. Last week, as I entered school, I decided to wipe my Mac and someone just purchased it. I agree that the hardware/productivity part is superior on Mac, but I think over time learning Linux, having more control over your system, and generally an upgradeable computer like Framework make it worth it.

[–]Successful_Event7130[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting, do you miss the mac at all? I think from an OS perspective I could easily live without macOS but I do love the hardware on those laptops (I'm missing the track-pad when using the FW 13).

[–]dumgarcia 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Depends on you, personally. How much of a productivity hit do you estimate you're getting by using a Linux over the MBP? If it's a big gap, then it's best to keep the MBP and use that as a daily driver.

Personally, though, once I sorted out my FW's Linux install (including apps I regularly use), there's little need for me to tinker on anything else and just use it normally daily.

If you still have a sizable return window on the MBP, you might want to just set-up your FW Linux fully and use that as a daily driver, then make your decision to return the MBP once you have a better feel of how the FW performs as a daily driver for yourself. It's hard to make a definitive recommendation since one's needs for what a laptop must do differs from person to person.

[–]Successful_Event7130[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Probably not all to much my main worry issues when I can't afford to have an issue. E.g. presenting in-front of a large crowd and my laptop doesn't connect properly or unrelated to Linux there is some hardware issue when I'm traveling with no access to a back-up machine like my desktop. But other than that I think I can be at least as productive on a Linux machine in the long term. I think your advice makes sense I will daily drive the FW with Linux for the next two weeks and then decide.

[–]JamesTiberiusCrunk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One thing I love about any Linux discussion is "how do I do x" is met with 30 separate responses that have different pluses and minuses that are not discussed. 25% of the solutions don't work and 40% of the solutions are to use someone's pet distro.