Have been keeping half an eye on framework laptops as a potential next daily driver as and when I’m ready for one.
Just wondering what people’s experience of using them on linux has been, particularly nixos
I’m assuming all the drivers are in the kernel given the way the company is
Have been using a 2016 thinkpad for the past year or so and have had a decent experience with it, with the way lenovo have gone with their newer thinkpads it seems like framework is now the best for maintainability/upgradability
(not planning to upgrade in the immediate future as this machine is doing fine, but frameworks are a strong contender in my mind right now and I’m curious as to people’s experience)
Kubuntu on Framework 16 AMD 7000 series here. Sleep is horrible - definitely drains your battery. Bag heats up, and I estimate maybe a 1% drain per hour. I’ve enabled hibernate though I rarely use it.
Battery is alright but not great. I get maybe 2-3 hours of active, light use from full battery.
No compatibility issues that I’ve noticed, though, of course, Linux has its fair share of minor non-hardware-related bugs.
Camera is serviceable but not amazing. Not sure about microphone but I assume the same thing. Speakers are somewhat odd in that the speakers are pointed to the side rather than toward the front, but again - serviceable.
Have you tried it much without the GPU? I imagine that would cut down battery usage by a lot right?
Camera mic and speakers are not a deal-breaker especially as they’re upgradable from what I understand
Yes, I don’t use the external GPU. I just use the AMD APU. Also I realized that AMD 7000 could refer to both the cpu and the GPU. Ah, AMD and their marketing
Hmmm 3 hours battery is definitely a major downside, given it charges off usb c less of an issue but still
Was actually considering getting one of those copilot pcs once the Linux support catches up, supposedly people are charging those things once a week or so
Just tested with normal power profile and screen brightness turned down - battery went down by about 50% after 3 hours. I think my laptop usually dies after 3 hours because I have the screen brightness up
What’s the brightness like and in what country if you don’t mind me asking?
Tend to have my current laptop on full brightness all the time otherwise I can’t see anything, and I live in a generally pretty dark country
My understanding is that Arm chips don’t have any fundamental advantage over x86 chips. They’re more efficient simply because they’ve been optimized to be more efficient for so long. I’ve heard that upcoming Intel and AMD chips could be able to compete with the new Arm cpu’s, so if you’re not going to get a new laptop soon, it seems worthwhile to just wait and see
Not planning to give up on the trusty ThinkPad soon anyway
So far the evidence I’ve seen has been overwhelmingly that arm chips are way more power efficient
People say it makes no difference but I’ve yet to see an x86 device come close to the arm ones battery wise, seems like a strange coincidence
Yes, but that’s my point, you see. Because Arm historically has been used for mobile and small devices, there’s been a strong incentive for decades to emphasize power efficiency. Because x86 historically has been used for desktops, there’s been a strong incentive to emphasize power. It’s only been very recently that Arm attempted to have comparable power, and even more recently that x86 attempted to have comparable power efficiency.
Sure, Arm is currently more efficient, but the general consensus is that there’s no inherent reason for why Arm must be more efficient than x86. In other words, the only reason it is more efficient is just because they’ve been focusing on efficiency for longer.
Both AMD and Intel’s current gen x86 cpu’s are, from what I can tell, basically spitting distance away from Qualcomm’s Arm cpu’s in terms of battery life, and rumor has it that both x86 companies should be able to match Arm chips in efficiency by next gen.
So if efficiency is a priority for you, I think it’s worthwhile to wait and see what the cpu companies cook up in the next couple of years, especially as both AMD and Intel seem to be heavily focused on maximizing efficiency right now
Interesting, is the CPU upgradeable on the framework? Could be nice to replace that later down the line when those come out