Exactly. This is exactly we get in return for compromising on quality and price with framework. Other tech is cheaper because of planned obsolescence or lock in. Im glad to pay more money to have this freedom

Yeah, there’s a lot of critiques of the product/packaging/etc, but this feels like huge validation of the Framework model - this is an unrelated 3rd party looking to get a chip in consumer hands who decided to use the FW chassis. That’s Exactly what we all were hoping for when Framework first launched.

Its about time, I hope System76 comes up with their own version of the Framework laptop, because I would love to buy a laptop where I can swap out all internals, motherboard etc. but I really also want to work with System76 because I love what they are doing with POP_OS! (though I prefer arch these days, I can still use their Desktop environment etc) and love that they make Linux hardware specifically.

We have needed a "Jeep of Laptops" for a while, maybe someone needs to spec out a fully open source design that any manufacturer can target.

Apple: "We can't make great products if we don't completely control everything"

Framework: "Let us show you how it is done!"

That is interesting.

I wish someone made a keyboard that doesn’t suck, ideally split as well.

There’s also this RISC V thing, I ordered one in July and got mine in November.

I could transplant the desktop model I got into my original framework, but I haven’t attempted it.

https://store.deepcomputing.io/products/dc-roma-ai-pc-risc-v...

My first thought was, "How many units could they possibly expect to sell given this target?"

But has Asashi managed to have support for bells and whistles like graphics acceleration and sleep by now?

This SoC may actually have Linux drivers.

Better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all. Why not buy the Framework, support the business, and have a laptop that's making you happy while it's around?

There's no guarantee any company lasts forever. What's the point in not using something now because it might be gone in the future?

In the worst case you would have used your Framework just like a regular laptop from Lenovo, Dell or Apple. You might not gain much, but you also don't lose anything.

But that's just the worst case.

If the company goes under, someone else will probably start manufacturing parts. Their CAD designs are open sourced on GitHub.

You can always just throw money at them for Pop!_OS[1] (which is what I did when I bought my Framework 13 and installed Pop on it).

1: https://system76.com/donate/

> We have needed a "Jeep of Laptops" for a while, maybe someone needs to spec out a fully open source design that any manufacturer can target.

That is the MNT Reform.

> We have needed a "Jeep of Laptops" for a while, maybe someone needs to spec out a fully open source design that any manufacturer can target.

I'm not sure if this counts in your book, but releasing all this stuff is closer than anyone else is to that dream.

> https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/Framework-Laptop-16

Similar to a sibling comment, and perhaps not really applicable (since this isn't a company making something people can buy...), but the MNT Reform is amenable to fitting a custom/ergonomic keyboard also (I hadn't seen the Framework in the sibling comment, it looks very cool!).

I don't know how to link to it directly, but midway down this article there's a picture and some more links of an MNT Reform (apparently completely home-built) with a very cool, "thumb-centric", column staggered ergo keyboard:

https://mntre.com/media/reform_md/2022-07-01-july-update.htm...

(search for "More great mods from the community..." heading if interested)

I would very much like to have a keyboard like either of those on my laptop. The stares you'd get when in public!!

I want to support and encourage companies that aren't Apple.

It's either a firmware or soc thing, hoping they can fix it without having to spin a new chip. O6 owners keep bringing it up, but personally I don't care since in my case it's lower than the hardware it's replacing.

They probably gave up on their Snapdragon X efforts as Snapdragon X2 Elite was nipping at their heels and they'd have a redundant device by the time their efforts came to market.

> I don't have much faith in Arm Linux. Tuxedo gave up.

I was also slowly loosing hope, although I do still run some NixOS ARM Raspberry PIs. But with the recent Valve backing, I'm back on the train again, and eagerly awaiting the slow but steady improvements, and figuring out where I can contribute back.

Valve seems to be putting a lot of resources into this area for their Steam Frame

We run a handful of Linux workloads on Graviton without any issues.

For some context, my 12-core Intel laptop consumes 1.5 to 2 watts at idle for the SoC. Apple M silicon might consume even less.

yeah, that is impressively bad. Perhaps a reporting error and it is 16W at full tilt?

Maybe it's a typo and it's 1.6W.

> upgrade kit

> makes your laptop slower

Hmm...

The CIX CP8180 uses UEFI (it is intended to boot Windows which requires it) but the boot flow can, I believe, use either ACPI or device trees, based on a boot setting. The ACPI boot flow has the advantage that any normal Linux distro should work, while the device tree variant I think has more hardware enablement.

The upstream story due to this is kind of a mixed bag, though. I think they also still use out-of-tree NPU drivers, etc. Device trees and other updates are still flowing upstream. I think the next Mesa release will support the Immortalis GPU series though, so that'll hopefully polish off a big remaining problem with ordinary distros.

the minisforum ms-r1 has the same SoC and supports UEFI

Yeah this is what annoyed me about Pine64's Pinebook Pro 2 plans... No upgrade kits, they wanted to completely change the form factor!

The chassis of my PBP is great (brittle plastic notwithstanding)! That's the last thing I want to replace in the device.

Honestly a Framework+System76 merger would make a lot of sense. System76 cares about the software but uses whitelabeled hardware. Framework has done excellent hardware engineering but doesn't care much about the software.

Looking at the comparison btw M class machines and the Minisforum MS-R1 that is the same chip, I'm not sure Apple is being proved wrong here.

Asashi is a project built on sand. I'm not giving apple a dime

Yeah, or if you don't mind something with performance this low, the RK3588 has much better kernel support (I have a couple here) and there's some companies offering laptop format for those now.

But as much as I love the RK3588 it's very much in the "low perf utility SBC" world than "good performing general PC". I use my two boards for NAS, Plex, Forgejo CI builders, etc.

I do recall that Jeff Geerling I think had some followup with that board that perhaps there could be firmware changes that improve the power efficiency later maybe?

Apple hardware, yes. Fedora Asahi, maybe. OrbStack^1 provides awesome flexibility and DX/UX, w/ minimal footprint.

1. https://orbstack.dev/

Correct, it's not sold by Framework, but is a replacement mainboard sold by a 3rd party. I think that is one of the big appeals of a modular laptop like Framework, though. You can create an ecosystem around it, customize, and not be locked in to just what the primary manufacturer makes.

Do you mean "desktop arm linux"? Because AWS, Google, and others all run Linux on their arm servers and that market segment is only growing.

Valve is gonna save the day once again.

Supposedly the ARM ThinkPads are alright on Linux.

Honestly, I don't have much faith in Linux anymore, and it has everything to do with the explosion of the kernel's codebase due to the explosion of cheaper devices running linux and the (admittedly difficult) management issues surrounding the kernel. I feel like from a security perspective, macos is a better choice and that pains me as a long time linux user.

Can we please move on to microkernels already? I'm fine with a tiny performance hit, I just don't want to get rooted because I plugged in the wrong USB stick.

Arm powered chromebooks did that earlier than Apple Silicon laptops.

It also has basically no details. What even is the difference between the Standard and Pro offering at twice the price?

Oh, crap, guess it helps if I read next time.

FTA: “the company has introduced a mainboard that can be installe in the Framework Laptop 13 or in a mini PC case“

⇒ their market likely isn’t enormous, but it is larger than that of Framework Laptop owners.

Graphics acceleration yes - and more fully featured than Panfrost for Mali at that, but I think sleep is still just s2idle.

Maybe, but it works quite well for me, so to each their own! :)

Can't seem to get DP Alt Mode to work on my used 2021 M1 Pro though, even though it's listed as supported with an asterisk, maybe someone here has managed it?

(Also, if you're buying used and wiping MacOS are you truly giving Apple a dime? I guess it's a matter of perspective.)

Don't give Apple a dime, buy second-hand Apple hardware. Asahi can make a lot of sense on a Mac Mini, where proper sleep is not that important, but which could be an excellent small build server or a local ML inference box, for rather moderate money.

Yeah it’s a good feature. Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t misreading the situation.

I've been running ARM VM's on my M1 MBP for the last few years, and outside of the very beginning, it's been pretty smooth sailing.

I want a 4TB SSD.

To do that on a MacBook I'm spending a minimum of 3200$.

If you have unlimited money ( or can expense it) a 3200$ to 4k MacBook is going to be the best experience money can buy.

If you have limited funds, a 200$ used computer can get the job done with the right distro.

You can use microkernels whenever you want. Just be aware that they typically have the same issues with zombie/cruft code and aren't necessarily more secure for every application.

All the way back in 2012: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/11/review-samsungs-new-...

It looks like the pro is the version with the full framework laptop chassis, battery, etc, and the standard is the version in the coolermaster case. (The black one with antennas on top)

You can get a whole laptop if you purchase the "Pro" option that comes with the Framework 13 chassis: https://metacomputing.io/products/metacomputing-arm-aipc

UHK ultimate hacker keyboard

Just made a top-level comment about the same thing.

A big part of the core functionality of a laptop, as opposed to a PC, is is that of a typewriter:

* Notes in class

* Minutes in a meeting

* Entries in a journal or travelogue

* Writing the next great novel

etc.

Why have manufacturers simply taken that away from us, in favor of a terrible excuse with ridiculous tactile feedback?

That's really cool. What's it like to use in terms of performance and software compatibility?

Sounds like the board also somehow works inside a mini-itx chassis or something?

It does have graphics acceleration and you can even play AAA titles with fex [1] since last year. But many bells and whistles still don't work --- for example, the video decoding hardware, proper sleep, etc.

Anyway, I've been using it on my Macbook Air M2 and it works fine for my use case [3]. Pretty smooth.

[1] https://rosenzweig.io/blog/aaa-gaming-on-m1.html

[3] https://daniel.lawrence.lu/blog/2024-12-01-asahi-linux-with-...

I have an MNT Pocket Reform with an RK3588 and I do like the device, but yeah, it can be a little sluggish at times.

It is very usable for email, editing documents, code review, etc - but it will struggle if you're trying to multitask heavily.

This CIX SoC is a fair bit faster than the RK3588 though I believe.

Orbstack is just a less bug-ridden implementation of Docker4Mac, not really pertinent or earth shattering for running desktop apps on the daily.

What's wrong with Asahi?

it doesn’t do gui afaik.

I was about to comment to say that unless Valve is prepared to invest significant effort into an x86 -> ARM translation layer that's not going to happen but a quick search for "linux x86 to arm translation" led me to an XDA article[1] proving me wrong. The recently announced Steam Frame runs on ARM and can run x86 games directly using using something called FEX.

Now we just need to be as good as (or better than) Apple's Rosetta.

[1] https://www.xda-developers.com/arm-translation-layer-steam-f...

Running Windows stuff.....

Not really. The drivers are not upstream, so it only works well on specially made Ubuntu spins that carry out of tree patches and random binary blobs. It is really still quite a mess at the moment.

If you don't want to go macOS route and want to leave Linux world, your destination would be FreeBSD or OpenBSD.

On the other hand, if you're not running Wine, you can't get autorun virii from USB drives, plus the Windows virii just lives there and can't do anything.

I don't know that it's fair to say Framework don't care much about the software. Their oldest devices are still getting firmware updates. At any rate, Pop!_OS runs very well on Framework Laptops (though I use Arch + Hyprland, w/ Windows on their storage expansion card).

How is CIX CP8180 the same chip as any of the Apple M chips?.

Also, a very different approach to GPU.

I already have a Corne and a Glove80. I'd like something built into a laptop as well.

it has a few issues, I think jeffgeerling sums it up fairly well.

https://github.com/geerlingguy/sbc-reviews/issues/82

"Like the Pi 4, I think this system is the first RISC-V desktop environment that isn't painful to use, just inconvenient. Actions still have delays, but the delays are more reasonable, and don't make me constantly question if the computer's frozen."

also some really odd choices by Eswin for the eic7702x, which is essentially 2 p550 chips glued together.

It's not standard mini-itx. Since the physical form factors for their laptop boards are published publicly and are somewhat stable, are "desktop" cases for them.

There's an RK3688 coming next year (hopefully?) which looks like a perf bump.

Whoops, mea culpa. I'm not personally very interested in desktop linux GUI apps, and hadn't realized that was out of scope for Orb's featureset. Given my narrower criteria for "linux support" (VMs for CLI-based operations), Orb has been amazing. Its capabilities exceed that of Docker4Mac beyond stability and performance. But, yeah, that may be moot in light of your desktop GUI purposes. I have no experience w Asahi.

> What's wrong with Asahi?

...all the missing support?

what’s the reason for downvotes ? has orbstack started doing gui’s now ?

From yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46126446

Apple Silicon actually has microarchitectural quirks implementing certain x86-isms in hardware for Rosetta 2 to use. I doubt any other ARM SoC would do such a thing, so I doubt third-party translation will ever get quite as efficient.

> It is really still quite a mess at the moment.

Integration, testing, and support are all expensive. Right or wrong, that's a reason why if a laptop "just works" (like a Mac, Windows Thinkpad, or a Chromebook), it probably has proprietary binaries.

Also, if you aren't paying for the OS (via the hardware it's coupled with), you can't expect the OS to have the benefits of tight hardware integration.

Even Framework laptops use proprietary boot firmware, and they've been pretty clear that they only provide support for Ubuntu and Fedora, not the alphabet soup of other Linux desktop distros.

More ewaste. I have first one, chasis/screen good, hardware shit, software unsupported. Abandoned by everybody. Collecting dust.

That's a bit of a hot take considering all the donations they've been making to OSS projects. Sure, maybe they're not making Yet Another Distro but they're donating to and upstreamimg patches to things that everyone (including PopOS) uses.

To me, that's far from not caring about the software. Especially when you compare to other vendors like Pine.

Very cool!

Although to be pedantic, that's not an "ortholinear" keyboard (as in a square grid) rather a keyboard with column stagger (which you should use).

I wonder if you could make it for a FW13 too? I know QMK doesn't work for 13.

Edit: I see now that it uses a separate microcontroller, so yes if you could make it fit then it should work.

Yes, something like that. Ideally for a reasonably sized 13-14” laptop.

I actually like short travel very light linear switches, mechanical or not.

I don’t like row stagger and non-split keyboards, for ergonomic reasons. That’s definitely a niche preference, but if anyone would cater to it you’d expect it to be Framework or similar.

Given it's a Framework 13 mainboard, you can probably put it in any Framework 13-compatible enclosure:

https://frame.work/products/cooler-master-mainboard-case https://frame.work/products/framework-laptop-13-mainboard-ho... https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/Framework-Laptop-13

etc., lots of designs available.

> proper sleep

:(

The one feature that only works properly when using both Apple hardware and software...

Is _everything_ working? Last time I put Linux on a x86_64 Air Book I was given for free, everything was working _except_ resume from suspend would crash and reboot the system, and from the reading on it, it seems it is a know issue due to T4 security chip or something. Made me believe that if older chips doesn't yet work, the newer ones probably have more caveats. Or am I wrong?

Generally I'm reluctant investing in Linux on a hardware from company more or less hostile to it, but I also don't have any need for ARM laptop, and I'm happy with my Framework.

I don't use Windows but I do run a lot of software made only for Windows. I don't see any problem with that.

Isn't Valve's new VR headset running ARM?

I have faith!

I quite prefer that to the alternative of not running Windows stuff.

What about plan9? ;)

Yeah I genuinely don't understand why they didn't consider fast tracking rk3588S boards for a retrofit. Drivers weren't good for a while, but they weren't hopeless either.

To be clear, this wasn't an attempt at a diss on Framework. They're what my recommended laptop has been for the past ~3 years (and would be what I got if I hadn't gotten my most recent laptop before frameworks were widely available).

What I probably should have said is that System76 takes open software ridiculously seriously in the same way that Framework takes open hardware ridiculously seriously. On the scale of Linux laptops, Framework is on par with Dell and Lenovo (the best of the big OEMs) in terms of upstreaming patches etc.

System76 OTOH is completely crazy. They've put Coreboot on their laptops, built their own DE because they got tired of Ubuntu not shipping proper nvidia drivers, etc.

It also bothers me that the meaning of "ortholinear" has been lost, but at least it's a sign that the hobby has grown to a certain point.

It should be possible to make a dumb version of such a keyboard wired the same as the stock one, just with the keys moved around. It would need some OS configuration to be truly useful, though.

The Legion Go is basically that with some joycons and a screen. I keep mine in my entertainment center when I'm not using it handheld, and play plastic instrument games on the big screen.

Looks like this would be an easy entry point to a DIY Steam Machine that takes up ~no space under your TV.

Wow. That's amazing truly. They really are entirely open source. You can even 3D print one.

I have seen VR headsets trying to break any significant market share since 1994, they have never been anything other than a niche, with customers having too much money to throw around.

Plan9 is like ocean yacht racing. If you have to ask about the "cost" you aren't the target market.

Plan9 is like writing. You either do it, or talk about doing it. I'm talking not doing btw. I tried, but I got stuck on trivial things and the barrier to asking for help over 2+2= is high. (No offence intended. The 9 heads aren't interested in running a kindergarden)

You're right that Framework is exactly where I would expect flexibility on this: I mean, just looking at their landing page - you see a laptop without the keyboard and ports. Framework offers 176 (!) kinds of "keyboards":

https://frame.work/marketplace/keyboards

but not one decent keyboard. Why?

(Answer: it's basically just keyboard covers, and the many options are due to variations of colors and languages. But I would take a hot pink / toxic green keyboard with ancient tibetan labels if the keys were non-chicklet, with decent travel, sizes, and feedback. 7 rows if possible.)

From 2017-2023 I had Thinkpads and some Acer which was well supported by Linux and sleep was the worse part. On numerous occasions across different devices I'd put the laptop to sleep, put it in my bag, and pull it out in a coffee shop to find it was on and now the battery is down to 50%. Why is sleep so hard?

> more or less hostile to it

I wouldn't say the problem is hostility. It's complete non-interest. Apple wisely allowed us to load a non-chain-of-trust OS while maintaining the chain of trust in macOS, which is an incredible advancement still unmatched by other manufacturers.

And that's it. They have done zero work to accommodate Linux. At all. Perhaps if Microsoft ever figures out that NT used to run on more than one arch, Apple will revive Boot Camp for Windows and deem it useful to include Linux this time?

The Macbook M2 Air running Asahi Linux is easily my favorite Linux laptop ever, far superior to any Thinkpad or Dell XPS I've owned, imo. I think things like Thunderbolt and some DisplayPort features are missing, but I have never needed this as it is purely a laptop for me. But it has everything else I could want: suspend/sleep, proper frequency scaling, great GPU drivers, USB/wifi/bluetooth, speakers, brightness/keyboard settings, etc. The webcam works I think but I haven't tried it. The battery life is great, though macOS is still quite a ways ahead in that department.

Until the fountain runs dry, because the kingdom lords diverted the river from Valve's well castle.

Thing is, that strengths Windows market relevance, as IBM learnt with OS/2 and its Windows compatibility.

Overhead of small volume manufacturing. If they make all those variations and intend to continue existing as a company that makes money selling things, it would have to be at a price where no one's going to buy one. But if I start an Etsy store selling one-offs at $399 each, people can grumble about my price, but it's not on Framework.

Ever since Microsoft added "modern standby" it's not a problem anymore. Chips became power-efficient enough that we can just "fake sleep" now, which means disabling all but one core and downclocking it to the lowest possible frequency. My AMD laptop was 400mhz, draining about 15% per day.

Say what you will about Microsoft, but sometimes a strong leader can make good things happen (TPM2 and modern standby)

Well it's being discussed on here in most linux laptops thread.

On x86 it's because linux relies on the acpi tables which vendors don't bother to do properly.

On Apple ARM hardware/linux it's because Apple don't bother releasing any docs.

On other ARM SoCs... not sure. In theory every vendor wants volume orders for phones so they should be able to sleep properly?

It's sad if you're an Apple hardware + software slave and used to just closing the lid on your laptop and having it basically lose no battery for days, especially since ARM.

> Apple wisely allowed us to load a non-chain-of-trust OS

> an incredible advancement still unmatched by other manufacturers

Sheesh, don't forget to zip up Tim's pants once you're done. I hope other manufacturers don't follow Apple in forcing proprietary bootloaders. Open alternatives like Clover and OpenCore are fully viable for booting macOS.

> "Some DisplayPort"? There's still no HDMI/video out on the M2 air under Linux? No Ethernet 1 or 10gps?

I'd advise buying a MacBook air m1 over an m2 if the goal is to run Linux...

https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m2/

> Apple will revive Boot Camp for Windows and deem it useful to include Linux this time?

If Apple wanted to, they could already do that right now. Windows runs on arm just fine. Heck, windows on Arm in a parallels VM runs better on my macbook pro than it does natively on an x86 laptop.

If Apple would make some drivers, even just for Windows, I bet they'd sell more macs. But it would seem Apple either calculated that ecosystem/services lock-in is way more important to them than a potential boost in hardware sales for alternative OSes, or they are really reluctant to make drivers for Apple Silicon available elsewhere out of fear it'll expose some trade secrets, which they didn't have to worry about when they used intel.

I'm sorry but that doesn't make any sense.

Valve is pushing mostly open source to expand to other platforms which is a win win for everybody.

Good. I love exploiting Windows' market relevance, it's rather fun and engaging.

> If Apple would make some drivers, even just for Windows, I bet they'd sell more macs.

The incremental bump in sales would be very small.

Even when Apple did provide bootcamp drivers to run Windows on old laptops, very few people used it as their daily driver for a Windows computer. I'm sure Apple has a better estimate of the market for people who bought Macs to use with alternative OSes back when they supported it, but they've calculated that it's not worth the effort.

Until like IBM found out, devalues the underlying offer enough that it becomes irrelevant.

The problem is indeed Windows. Could you point me to where you can legally buy a Windows for ARM licence?

That would be true if they were actually making devs embrace SteamOS.

You can buy it from the Microsoft Store inside of windows once its installed. That's how it works with parallels, or any other Windows on Arm device (say, for upgrading from Home to Pro).

They are. You're mad that Valve isn't militantly enforcing Linux-native games, which is nonsense. The OG Steam Machine did that and was DOA.

Thousands of game studios are gone now, and supporting their software is important legacy work. You don't have to appreciate that, but I do. I do not give the faintest fuck about the opportunity cost you bemoan towards native UNIX games when I do this. That's your problem, not mine.

Yeah, and Windows running WSL 2 is the Year of Linux Desktop, it is your problem to accept it, not mine.

If Proton is "Linux" games, so is running GNU/Linux under a VM a proper distro.