Linux

I just bought one a couple of months ago. It’s my daily driver. My work issued laptop sits on my desk, and I carry my framework around. If you’re a Linux guy, fedora runs fantastic on it - everything works, couldn’t be easier. Battery life could be better, but it’s fine. Trackpad is great, I heard some bitchin about it, but I don’t get that hate. Some complaints about the hinges and how they bounce. Again, unfounded complaints in my opinion. The hinges are stiffer to open/close than I expected, but they are fine (just a little different feeling). New webcam is great for a laptop webcam. New screen is nice - but let’s be honest, not much touches an apple screen. Sound is ok, nothing special. The case is fantastic-people (engineers and nerds) drool over it. The swappable ports are awesome, that alone makes the laptop imo. But the real star is the serviceability of it. Five screws and the whole thing comes apart. Everything can be replaced and upgraded. They even give you the screwdriver you need to take it apart. Bios updates work with fwupdate in Linux and they update regularly. Keyboard feels good. It stays cool and fans don’t go crazy.

It’s expensive. But I love mine. But I do plan on keeping it and upgrading forever - or at least until I smash it accidentally, so maybe it wasn’t expensive.

The 13 doesn’t have a gpu. It’s capable, but if you want to game on it, look at the 16. If you have specific questions I’d be happy to answer or post a vid/pic or something.

YES! Big yes. I have one as well. Very pleased with it. Be very sure you pick the new 2.8k display version. So either pick 7640U - 2.8K Display or 7840U - 2.8K Display. Which works great for Linux, WITHOUT the need of fractional scaling.

Also be sure to pick the correct + right amount of expansion cards for your needs. 1 USB-C will be used for charging, so just saying.

I have a Framework 13 AMD running Linux Mint. It works great and I love it. Modular IO ports are super nifty.

Here are the downsides as I see them:

1. Price
2. No touch screen
3. No wifi 7

I expect 2&3 will come in the future and I can upgrade! The fact that I can upgrade rather than throw it away in the future offsets 1.

I'm super picky with laptops and have a bunch. Thinkpads, Macbooks... Framework 13 AMD is my daily driver that I prefer over all of those. It runs brilliantly with NixOS. I would buy it again in a heartbeat.

I have had that laptop a couple weeks and have been loving it. On fedora, everything pretty much just works flawlessly with no effort. I had a small issue figuring out how to turn off secure boot at first (f2 at boot time I think?) because that menu was separate from the rest of bios.

Other than the speaker not being great (not surprising) and the battery life being meh, it's a very impressive machine. Mac laptops for me have always been the gold standard for smooth operation but I despise apple, so when I got this machine and it felt mostly like the smoothness of a MacBook pro with the freedom of Linux, I was super stoked about this laptop. It feels very snappy and the keyboard and touchpad are great.

I can speak to longevity - I have a gen 1, batch 2 (humble brag?) - and absolutely love it. Got me to switch over to linux, and the quality is there. Minor gripe about the trackpad sticking intermittently, and had to have the hinges replaced (both known issues, resolved). 10/10 great laptop

So I have a Framework 13 AMD with Mint. Framework on older firmware isn’t the best, but with Mint 22 and by extension 24.04 it’s fine.

Got mine back in December and had no issues with the installation process. Games play fine though the fan goes to 100% after a bit. But with power profile in 22.1 it can quiet the machine down.

Other than that and the occasional hiccup. Compared to other laptops it’s the best machine I’ve used. So far no issues with only a few times of opening the terminal to fix minor issues.

I recently picked up a Framework 16 (AMD with GPU to replace an aging gaming laptop used for travel) and love it. Linux (OpenSUSE Tumbleweed) works wonderful. Thinking about picking up the 13 when I need to replace my other laptop when it's time for that.

Yes, of course. Check for a refurb on sale though from the official store. No sense in paying full price for a 2 year old reference.

I bought one last summer and the only problems I've had were some display issues which were solved by adding kernel parameters to disable all of the amdgpu power management (which as far as I can tell doesn't even increase power usage noticeably). Other than that it has been basically perfect and way better than any other laptop I've had. I wish it had real suspend, but that's just not possible on modern CPUs so that's not Framework's fault

Have had one for about three weeks no (13" and), and it's fabulous. Habent had any issues. Running fedora 41. I love it.

i have the intel one, i love it.

it matches with my definition of laptop, portable, 2k screen, the battery lasts a lot and a bit touchpad.

i have kde 6.x so i also have TouchPad gestures.

The comments didn't seem bad to me. Some people were complaining about an HP laptop's power efficiency, but the framework's is fine. Also, the intel ones have noisier fans, but the amd is perfectly quiet in daily use. I have two real complaints with mine: while the power draw is low in use, it uses idle sleep, so it doesn't last that long asleep (longer than awake, so a few days to a week). You can of course power it off for longer term stuff, and boot times aren't bad so that really isn't a huge issue for me. The other one was a bit of a pain until I found the solution. All of the integrated amd GPUs from that gen have a problem on linux where they randomly get buggy and the whole ui drops to like 2 fps. It is resolved with a kernel parameter (sounds complicated but takes 5 min and a reboot. I will edit this with the steps when I get to my laptop). The frameworks generally improve over time. I wouldn't get a 16 yet, but my brother and I both got 13 amds several months ago and are very happy with them.

Edit: Nearly forgot, it came with an "AMD" (mediatek) wifi card. I replaced it with an ax210 as soon as I got it and would recommend you do the same. Amd requires laptop manufacturers to put the amd card in but it kinda sucks IMO.

I got mine last January and it's been pretty much flawless on Arch with KDE and Wayland. No regrets whatsoever. Battery life is probably the only weakness, but I also push my stuff hard. Overall, I'm super satisfied with the choice.

I've been trying to sell mine. Went down to 60% of the original price and no takers.

My tip: Don't take funny-colored borders or funny keyboards unless you're 120% sure you don't want to sell it in half a year.

I have loved my AMD framework . 3:2 aspect ratio took awhile to get used to but I love it now. Only thing I need to figure out getting the USB c ports to work but everything else has worked flawlessly

I've been using a framework since the first edition they've released and it worked great. Theyve only gotten better since.

I can actually game one the AMD one pretty okay. Couldn't with Intel. Battery life also increased by 30 minutes.

Don't think you'd regret it. I can't speak for that one in particular, but I'm still running one of the DIY Kickstarter versions. Will probably replace it with another Framework (or maybe even just upgrade the components if I can).

I currently own a Framework 13... and... after daily driving it for a year, I decided I don't like it.

The deal beaker for me is the high dpi display. Linux just isn't 100% compatible with hpi displays. I'm tired of my apps either having blurry fonts or tiny text. Ironic because hi dpi displays are supposed to look better.

With Framework, you'll be pushed into using Fedora (it doesn't solve all the scaling issues) or pushed to stop using apps you like because they're using older GTK (some times there are no alternatives). You'll also have to dive into debugging scaling issues.

I just switched back to my Dell XPS 13 9310 FHD and it was a breath of fresh air having everything just work. Any distro, any apps, no scaling debugging, text is readable and crisp, app UI elements look properly sized.

I only ever switched out the modular ports once, but honestly it would have been better to buy a dongle instead because that would work on any computer.

Oh, and I tried the higher resolution screen. It didn't fix the scaling issues.

Oh, and, I actually had a display fail on me! After like 8 months, half the display went black. Thankfully, they were nice enough to send me a free replacement, but it definitely left me feeling like the Framework isn't that sturdy or durable.

The shell also dents easily. I dropped a small music player from desk height onto the top lid and it left a small dent. (I have like 3 dents on the lid.)

Repairability is the one feature that the Framework beats everyone else on, but to me the cons outweigh the pros.

I have both the 13 and the 16. Absolutely love them.

Does anyone have experience running the 13 with linux and an eGPU by any chance?

I have the AMD edition and overall the laptop is nice but since I received the laptop about 9 months ago the screen broke 4 times. I only got it back 2 or so weeks ago from the repaircenter so I have only been able to actually use it for a few weeks. So my experience is pretty terrible so far. I honestly have no faith the screen is durably fixed this time but let's see, I'm pretty done with it.

I too am considering a framework 13, and am wondering the same. Hopefully someone will give some insight.

I've been cheering for Framework more or less since they first started shipping machines. I'm on MacOS and only use Linux on NUC-style machines and VMs, but if I was ever gonna buy a non-Mac laptop, I'd go to them.

For people with experience with any mobile 12th gen intel and the framework 13 AMD, can you quantify what you think the upgrade is worth or would it be better to wait for a refresh to the "ai" series if that ever happens.

I look at the price for board/ram/wifi upgrade and struggle to justify even though I expect the amd cpu to be cooler/quieter and have much better iGPU. I know it should easily outperform the steam deck in raw performance so with some scaling it should be reasonable for some light casual gaming but I don't have any experience with amd outside of desktop cpus and dedicated graphics. Every time I consider an upgrade it makes more sense to buy desktop upgrades and cope with the intel system for a few more years. I don't have a good use for the intel mainboard as it doesn't have much expansion, multiple ssd, pcie etc.