[HN Gopher] Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes for a ...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes for a Great Linux
       Laptop
        
       Author : jiripospisil
       Score  : 117 points
       Date   : 2023-11-15 17:11 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.phoronix.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.phoronix.com)
        
       | ylyn wrote:
       | I just received mine. It's indeed great!
        
       | starkparker wrote:
       | It's been good for me; I think it'll be great soon. AMD support
       | on Linux is the biggest issue.
       | 
       | The upgrade experience from the Intel 12th gen to a Ryzen 5 took
       | about a half-hour, doing only the mainboard and no display or
       | hinge upgrades, and I was already familiar with the internals
       | from assembling it as a DIY. It's not trivially easy, and there
       | were a few frustrating moments that aren't unique to the
       | Framework (ok, I'm just talking about the goddamned wifi antenna
       | connections), but I've had a harder time upgrading or repairing
       | just the RAM or storage on some ultrathin laptops.
       | 
       | The firmware limitations on ports imposed by AMD are frustrating
       | in concept but less so in practice; for me it meant just swapping
       | expansion cards from the rear slots to the front slots. I can
       | imagine for people who had very specific setups it could be more
       | disruptive.
       | 
       | But the OS experience was sloppy, and I'm not surprised that
       | Phoronix waited until Fedora 39 left beta. AMD GPU issues
       | necessitated kernel patches that wouldn't land in Fedora 38 by
       | launch, and I still hit GPU-related memalloc issues with the
       | updated kernel _and_ the BIOS update that Phoronix also waited
       | for.[1] I've also hit the wake-while-lid-closed problems specific
       | to the AMD mainboard that have onerous udev workarounds.[2]
       | 
       | The weird power supply limitations for using the board
       | standalone, requiring at least a 100W supply for still less than
       | full performance unless any battery is attached, also limits the
       | flexibility that makes these boards attractive outside of the
       | laptop case, whether bought for that intent or as a post-upgrade
       | reuse.
       | 
       | 1: https://community.frame.work/t/tracking-graphical-
       | corruption...
       | 
       | 2: https://community.frame.work/t/tracking-framework-amd-
       | ryzen-...
        
         | binkHN wrote:
         | Don't feel too bad; I too am on the latest AMD 7040 hotness via
         | a ThinkPad and the BIOS here is garbage too as it relates to
         | Linux.
        
         | nicolaslem wrote:
         | > AMD support on Linux is the biggest issue.
         | 
         | From my experience, it takes about a year between the time AMD
         | hardware is generally available to the public and the time
         | Linux support for it is rock solid.
         | 
         | I got one of the first 6800U laptops available and at the
         | beginning it was rough, crashing often for no reasons. Slowly,
         | each new kernel or firmware version fixed more and more things
         | until one day, about a year later, all issues were gone.
        
         | phkahler wrote:
         | >> The weird power supply limitations for using the board
         | standalone, requiring at least a 100W supply for still less
         | than full performance unless any battery is attached, also
         | limits the flexibility
         | 
         | What? I've been thinking about a VISA mounted PC on the back of
         | my TV. This board seems like a great idea, but 100W for a
         | laptop board? Why? Are there some transients that need more
         | than some caps can supply?
        
           | starkparker wrote:
           | There are community threads with details -- there are more
           | things to worry about than just the power supply, but it's
           | the biggest and weirdest one. The AMD boards also don't ship
           | with a RTC battery for regulatory reasons, and they use a
           | two-pin connector instead of a bare coin cell. There are
           | further port limitations for connecting a display when no OS
           | is installed or the mainboard wasn't initialized in the
           | laptop case.
           | 
           | https://community.frame.work/t/recommended-watts-for-amd-
           | coo...
           | 
           | https://community.frame.work/t/resolved-mainboard-
           | standalone...
           | 
           | https://community.frame.work/t/amd-board-solely-in-the-
           | coole...
           | 
           | The Intel boards also recommended 100W if there's no battery;
           | the AMD issue is that _even with_ a 100W supply, performance
           | is capped, and with a smaller power supply you might not be
           | able to boot at all.
        
         | xd1936 wrote:
         | I currently have a 12th Gen Intel Framework. How much of an
         | improvement in everyday use do you see?
        
           | starkparker wrote:
           | Most of the improvement is in gaming and GPU-intensive work,
           | which is why I upgraded. Baldur's Gate 3 via Steam/Proton at
           | 1240p went from ~30 fps with settings cranked down on Intel
           | to 40-60 at high/ultra.
           | 
           | I didn't upgrade the battery and the battery life is similar
           | (as in, not great; about 4-5 hours of coding while
           | occasionally maxing all cores, 2 hours or less of sustained
           | gaming), but it's also hard to judge because of all the
           | power/wake problems while in sleep. I've gotten in the habit
           | of just shutting it down instead.
           | 
           | Blender was "usable" on Intel but I can work comfortably with
           | much bigger scenes on the AMD board. I had 32GB RAM on both
           | boards, going from DDR4 to DDR5 by necessity.
           | 
           | Anecdotally, non-GPU single/multi-core stuff (for me,
           | typically GIS-related functions) feels better but not by as
           | huge of a leap.
        
             | kelnos wrote:
             | Wow, that's fantastic. I have the 12th-gen board (bought
             | it, along with the full Framework laptop, when they started
             | offering it), and gaming perf is ok for what I play, but
             | not great. There are a few other issues (like severe
             | spurious thermal throttling) that make gaming even harder
             | (not great to be playing a FPS and suddenly all 20 cores
             | are locked to 400MHz and stay that way for 15 minutes for
             | no reason).
             | 
             | I get shit battery life (~3 hours), probably because I have
             | 30 Firefox windows open with a total of 2k tabs or so (my
             | fault, I should clean it up), so at least one core is at
             | 25% or so all the time, or worse. And of course compiling
             | things or watching video drags that down real fast.
             | 
             | I can't justify another upgrade after having this one for
             | only a year (especially since I'll need new RAM), but maybe
             | I'll think about an AMD board in 2025 or so.
        
             | abdullahkhalids wrote:
             | What is the source of these sleep problems? I don't
             | understand why they still haven't been fixed.
        
         | jamesdutc wrote:
         | I am very surprised to hear reports of poor Linux support for
         | AMD devices. I recently purchased a GPD Win Max 2 [1] and a GPD
         | Win 4 [2] for work. Both devices are AMD 7840U with Radeon 780M
         | (and 64 GiB RAM at 6400 MT/s since I saw what appeared to be
         | instability at 7500 MT/s.)
         | 
         | I installed Archlinux on both and the support has been very
         | solid with the `linux-lts` kernel and only one kernel flag
         | (`amd_pstate=guided`.)
         | 
         | The following work: touchscreen; suspend (s2idle, which
         | correctly enters S0ix state giving >=100h battery life
         | suspended but requiring I disable entries in
         | `/proc/acpi/wakeup`); audio; media keys; game controls; wifi;
         | Bluetooth; USB; SecureBoot (with `systemd-boot`); webcam
         | (available only on Win Max 2.) The TPM2 works, but I haven't
         | done anything with it yet (and it's an fTPM.)
         | 
         | Battery life is quite good (8~10h with the `acpi-cpufreq`
         | `powersave` governor.) If I dial down the TDP, I can eke out
         | even more battery life than that. If I dial it up to
         | performance, I get 1~2h of battery life (and the exhaust from
         | the fan port runs very hot.) I plan to try the `amd_pstate`
         | governor (kernel flag `amd_pstate=active`) once support is
         | available in the LTS kernel, though I like being able to
         | control TDP via the CLI with AUR packages like `ryzenadj-git`.
         | (This sounds like a lot of work, but I have a short shell
         | script where I dialed in the right `cpupower` and `ryzenadj-
         | git` commands optimal for my use.)
         | 
         | Hibernate works perfectly on the Win 4; I haven't tested it on
         | the Win Max 2 (since s2idle works so well!)
         | 
         | On the Win 4, I can't get `xrandr` modes at anything other than
         | native resolution (1920x1080) to work, but I am content with
         | scaling via `xrandr --scale-from`. All resolutions display
         | properly on the Win Max 2. Rotation works perfectly on both
         | devices, but I rotate manually (and I haven't bothered to see
         | if there is a gyroscope sensor.) There is minimal to no screen
         | tearing. The displays present to the OS as landscape (i.e.,
         | rotation is not necessary from the Linux console.)
         | 
         | The only hardware that outright doesn't work are the
         | fingerprint readers (but I believe Linux support for
         | fingerprint readers is limited to very few devices.)
         | 
         | In short, my recent experience with AMD 7840U/Radeon 780M has
         | been nothing short of amazing, and these devices have been an
         | absolute pleasure to use.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.gpd.hk/gpdwinmax2
         | 
         | [2] https://gpd.hk/gpdwin4
         | 
         | [3] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ryzenadj-git
        
           | starkparker wrote:
           | Framework's been transparent through the process about
           | firmware issues being part of their mainboard development. A
           | lot of their problems are specific to the intersection of
           | their expansion slot/USB-C port capabilities, particularly
           | power draw and PD/DP capabilities, and AMD's firmware for
           | mainboard components. I'm not surprised that GPDs have a more
           | solid experience as they're not expected to be as flexible.
           | 
           | And I want to emphasize that the "support" as in Framework
           | responding to and shipping fixes has been good. The "support"
           | as in the hardware working consistently, particularly in
           | Linux and without distro-specific workarounds, has had holes
           | which sound common enough outside of Framework devices that
           | I'd wager the GPDs are the exception more than the rule.
           | 
           | I'll say at least that the Framework's fingerprint reader and
           | display settings Just Worked through the upgrade.
        
             | jamesdutc wrote:
             | That makes sense.
             | 
             | My assumption prior to purchasing these devices was that
             | AMD support would be the main reason for me returning them.
             | 
             | I was quite surprised to see just how well everything
             | worked, and, in fact, these devices have given me much less
             | trouble than my i7-1165G7 Dell XPS 13".
             | 
             | In fact, these devices has worked so well that it's really
             | made me more excited about consumer technology and new
             | laptops and portables than I have been in a long time!
             | 
             | I am worried that I may be mistakenly generalising this to
             | all AMD devices. I have even been considering ditching
             | Intel for my next laptop upgrade...
        
         | mschuster91 wrote:
         | > The weird power supply limitations for using the board
         | standalone, requiring at least a 100W supply for still less
         | than full performance unless any battery is attached, also
         | limits the flexibility that makes these boards attractive
         | outside of the laptop case, whether bought for that intent or
         | as a post-upgrade reuse.
         | 
         | That's because Framework doesn't want to risk getting liable
         | for damaged power supplies. With a battery, the power
         | management circuitry can make sure that, bar an outright
         | shortcut, the load on the PSU will not ever be more than the
         | allowed power. Without it, there is no buffer.
        
           | starkparker wrote:
           | You're not wrong, but the problem is a difference in
           | capability combined with a performance cap that you can't
           | power-scale your way out of.
           | 
           | The 100W suggestion is the same as the Intel board, though
           | the Intel board can run standalone on the stock 60W supply
           | without a battery by staying in a lower-wattage mode. The
           | 100W problem specific to AMD is the inability to boot at all
           | without a battery at under 100W, and not being able to hit
           | max stock TDP with a 100W or greater supply unless a battery
           | is also installed -- even if it never draws from it.
           | 
           | From Framework's emails to early-batch buyers on the subject:
           | 
           | > Note that performance will currently be limited without the
           | battery present. We're working with AMD and our manufacturing
           | partner Compal to tune and improve this. In the meantime, we
           | recommend using a 100W USB-C power adapter to mitigate some
           | of the performance reduction.
        
         | dizhn wrote:
         | Wifi antenna. Damn. Align the connector with the socket. Push
         | it forward/up then press down into the socket. I did a
         | replacement once and I was about to break it until I saw a few
         | videos and a text description of it.
        
         | nbf_1995 wrote:
         | I've also experienced the GPU issues and sleep issues, but for
         | me, these were solved by updating to bios v3.03
        
         | KRAKRISMOTT wrote:
         | I think the bigger problem for the community is that the M3
         | absolutely spanks it in performance. https://www.cpu-
         | monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-amd_ryzen_7_7840u-...
         | 
         | It's not just a matter of poor drivers and not being able to
         | wake up from sleep. You typical Mac lasts for tens of hours on
         | battery and runs faster than Intel/AMD's flagship laptop grade
         | processors. This is a big deal and if the x64 hardware people
         | don't up their game soon, the Linux on desktop community will
         | be hurt as users would move to the Apple ecosystem, despite the
         | non-free nature. The gap has grown too big.
        
           | rstuart4133 wrote:
           | > the Linux on desktop community will be hurt as users would
           | move to the Apple ecosystem, despite the non-free nature.
           | 
           | That's an odd thing to say given given GNU/Linux runs on more
           | architectures than any other OS. For example there is a
           | Chromebook, which is (or is slated to become?) a skin over
           | GNU/Linux. That includes using Wayland. If you want access to
           | the full GNU/Linux stack, Chromebook's provide Crostini.
           | 
           | Your point about Apple pulling off a step change with the M
           | series is correct of course, and Asahi Linux notwithstanding
           | we don't have full access to it. But other hardware vendors
           | see that as an opportunity - if they can produce an
           | equivalent they can take advantage of the fact that Apple
           | produces a premium product most of the world doesn't want to
           | pay for. When they do, GNU/Linux users will be among the
           | early adopters.
           | 
           | It's difficult to see how be GNU/Linux could get left behind.
           | AMD/Intel on the other hand are likely shitting themselves.
           | They've now had years to catch up, but has been very little
           | sign of it. That mountain of technical debt created by the
           | necessity of backward compatibility is proving very hard to
           | move. The are starting to look like dinosaurs that are pretty
           | safe in their niche, but the world has moved on and that
           | niche is shrinking.
        
         | zerocrates wrote:
         | Just did my own swap yesterday: I was lazy (practical?) and
         | just kept the Intel wifi chip I had already so I wouldn't have
         | to redo the antenna connections.
         | 
         | I'm on Ubuntu 23.10 and I think just the pretty new kernel,
         | plus my Framework board being a later build with the newer
         | firmware, meant I dodged any graphics issues (at least any I'd
         | have immediately noticed).
        
       | zzzeek wrote:
       | Got one here, AMA!
        
         | totallywrong wrote:
         | How's the keyboard? Have you maybe used Thinkpads to compare?
        
           | zzzeek wrote:
           | I have a thinkpad also from work and I've never liked
           | thinkpad keyboards, and I especially never liked the
           | trackpad-buttons-on-top thing (it's a key reason I dont use
           | thinkpads normally). I've been through several thinkpads ( as
           | we have to swap out every few years) and while they get nicer
           | each time, they still carry along that old-school "lets have
           | lots and lots of small keys" thing.
           | 
           | Framework's keyboard OTOH is very similar to a macbookpro,
           | keys feel a little higher and more tactile and also the
           | layout is simpler than how my thinkpad has them laid out.
           | 
           | truth be told im mostly using an external keyboard so far,
           | havent really gone anywhere w/ the laptop yet.
        
             | totallywrong wrote:
             | Thanks!
        
           | tcbawo wrote:
           | I don't have a Thinkpad, but the plastic surface of the
           | keyboard feels like a slight step down from other keyboards
           | I've used (like my Logitech MX Keys). It's not as smooth --
           | the plastic of the key is rough, almost chalkboard-like. I
           | haven't used it in-depth enough to determine any pet peeves
           | about the layout. But overall, I like it. If anyone ever
           | offers an upgraded key cap set, I might go for it.
        
         | justaguitarist wrote:
         | What's your typical battery life like? The only thing keeping
         | me on my M1 MacBook is only having to charge it ~2x per week.
        
           | zzzeek wrote:
           | well it's new battery feel so far, just got the machine less
           | than two weeks ago. Haven't done any long battery-related
           | work yet. My previous Dell XPS13 had the battery puff out and
           | it actually wrecked the mainboard in doing so, so I'll be
           | watching out for any negative experiences like that here,
           | that I can open the machine right up in 30 seconds to attend
           | to issues like that should be a plus.
        
           | kelvie wrote:
           | Luckily there are battery stats. On a 7840U with power-
           | profiles-daemon installed and PCI power saving turned on (but
           | _not_ wifi or audio power saving, or VM writebacks, I don 't
           | feel those are worth the power savings), it draws 3W if I'm
           | doing absolutely nothing with the screen on its dimmest
           | setting (I mostly use the laptop in bed at night), and 5-11W
           | while web browsing on Firefox.
           | 
           | It goes up to about 13W while watching youtube, even though
           | it claims hardware accelerated video decoding is on.
        
           | starkparker wrote:
           | 6-7 hours of browsing in Firefox, 4-5 hours when doing work
           | involving occasional building/compiling, 3-5 hours of 2D
           | native Linux gaming, 2 hours or less of 3D AAA gaming through
           | Steam/Proton.
        
         | redundantly wrote:
         | How does the trackpad compare to a MacBook trackpad?
        
           | zzzeek wrote:
           | very similar. One would think they're on a macbook when using
           | this laptop. I have it set to use "area" for left/right click
           | and it works better than my older macbookpro where the
           | trackpad had lost some of its responsiveness at some point.
        
           | y7 wrote:
           | Besides the actual hardware, I think the biggest problem is
           | the software implementation of trackpads in Linux (at least
           | in libinput/Wayland). Even running Linux on my Macbook, the
           | trackpad experience is vastly inferior to macOS.
           | 
           | I don't care too much about gestures, but mostly about stable
           | palm rejection and proper acceleration curves. The current
           | implementations sadly provide neither.
        
             | Rebelgecko wrote:
             | One of my complaints with the older framework is that the
             | trackpad scrolling is REALLY fast and AFAICT there's no way
             | to change tbe speed on stock Fedora
        
           | kelvie wrote:
           | IMO not close (I spend the majority of the day on my work
           | macbook). It's especially apparent when scrolling or moving
           | the pointer small amounts, and especially near the edges of
           | the trackpad, where you need to make bigger movements for it
           | to work.
           | 
           | Your mileage may vary as people have different sized fingers
           | and such.
           | 
           | It's a far cry even from my old Google Pixelbook, which is a
           | (distant) second best touchpad I've used.
        
         | gumballindie wrote:
         | Which linux distro did you install and have you had any issues?
        
           | starkparker wrote:
           | Fedora 39 is the "official" way to go on the AMD board due to
           | the newer kernel. Installed without problems and all hardware
           | worked on boot.
           | 
           | The biggest issues are setting up a workaround for staying in
           | sleep/suspend while the lid's closed but plugged in:
           | https://community.frame.work/t/tracking-framework-amd-
           | ryzen-...
           | 
           | And flipping a VRAM flag to avoid GPU memory allocation
           | issues: https://community.frame.work/t/tracking-graphical-
           | corruption...
           | 
           | Neither of which is Fedora specific, and both of which might
           | be resolved via update.
        
           | zzzeek wrote:
           | I went straight for fedora 39. The two issues I had were 1.
           | the initial BIOS update hung, and I had to run it again -
           | elsewhere, someone who had this problem had reported that it
           | bricked their machine, however I was able to get through it: 
           | https://www.reddit.com/r/framework/comments/17jzj40/bios_upd.
           | ..
           | 
           | Then for 2., there's a kernel param I had to set to avoid a
           | display issue, that's mentioned here:
           | https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Scatter-Gather-Re-Enabled ,
           | I had that exact problem.
        
             | gumballindie wrote:
             | Thank you for sharing your experience and fixes. Sounds
             | straight forward to fix, although a bit disappointing that
             | they don't put the effort to supply kernel patches to make
             | it work out of the box, particularly for a laptop that
             | claims to be diy friendly. To be fair, i'd rate it 3/5
             | based on people experience with it.
        
         | Rebelgecko wrote:
         | Do the brightness keys on the keyboard work? What's the battery
         | drain like when the laptop is asleep?
        
           | kelvie wrote:
           | Yes they work (plasma 5 KDE on arch). On the 55Wh battery
           | with a 7840U, it loses 2-3% per hour when asleep, so I set up
           | suspend-then-hibernate after an hour (though setting that up
           | was a pain in itself).
        
           | nbf_1995 wrote:
           | They work, but on gnome you might have to disable the
           | `hid_sensor_hub` kernel module.
        
         | POiNTx wrote:
         | Does the pressure to click on the trackpad feel 'even' across
         | the entire trackpad? For example, does clicking at the top feel
         | the same as the bottom? That's something I never got used to on
         | my ThinkPad, clicking on the top is basically impossible.
        
           | starkparker wrote:
           | Nope. It's a mechanical trackpad with similar pressure issues
           | (super stiff in the top corners, a little softer in the top
           | center, best in the center and bottom). I switched to tap-to-
           | click.
        
         | random_dork1 wrote:
         | Is the fingerprint sensor working? How reliable/fast is it?
        
           | nbf_1995 wrote:
           | The fingerprint sensor is shared across all framework
           | laptops. It was about as fast and reliable as you can expect
           | a fingerprint reader to be.
        
       | INTPenis wrote:
       | Until they get a nordic keyboard, I'm out.
        
         | MrDresden wrote:
         | They do offer ISO layouts, which afaik all nordic language
         | layouts use.
        
         | Hinrik wrote:
         | My native keyboard layout is Icelandic so I'm not holding my
         | breath. I ordered one with a blank ISO layout.
        
         | mananaysiempre wrote:
         | You could order the (black) blank one and ordering an engraving
         | at a repair shop? (I have slightly esoteric keyboard-layout
         | needs and I'm thinking about it, although my last experience
         | with engraving wasn't the most positive.)
        
       | tromp wrote:
       | Nice hardware, except for that black strip between the |\ key and
       | the enter key, making them look as one big enter key.
        
         | kubik369 wrote:
         | Simple answer my friend, so that they can use one chassis on
         | both the ANSI and ISO models. Pretty standard practice in
         | laptops.
        
           | jayd16 wrote:
           | I guess they could have had a metallic strip option but it
           | looks fine to me.
        
         | thekombustor wrote:
         | The 'black strip' between enter and backslash is actually just
         | a recessed part of the enter key. It's not a separate plastic
         | piece.
         | 
         | Source: typing this on my Framework 13 AMD right now :)
        
       | IntelMiner wrote:
       | At the risk of sounding negative I have to dissent. Linux on the
       | Framework is great * _if*_ you use GNOME or KDE. Those two DE 's
       | specifically support Fractional scaling in Wayland the best
       | 
       | I've been using XFCE for the better part of 15 years meanwhile.
       | Its Wayland support is a permanent unfortunate "work-in-progress"
       | (apparently they only have two full-time developers for the whole
       | project?) and I'd assume many other less popular desktop
       | environments are in a similar bucket
       | 
       | The Framework is a _fantastic_ laptop and a joy to use even under
       | Windows 11. I don 't hold its XFCE issues against Framework, but
       | it's worth remembering that "Linux on the Desktop" isn't a single
       | monolith
        
         | binkHN wrote:
         | For better or worse, I think Wayland is here to stay and that's
         | where all the development is going.
        
         | burntsushi wrote:
         | I've been using X11 on my Framework laptop for years. No
         | desktop environment at all. Just my regular old school window
         | manager[1]. No KDE or GNOME. But also no XFCE.
         | 
         | The only thing I had to do to get scaling working for me was
         | set two environment variables[2].
         | 
         | I was indeed worried about this when I bought the laptop. Prior
         | to this, I avoided anything with resolutions higher than
         | 1920x1200. But it turned out that everything mostly worked with
         | a couple tweaks.
         | 
         | I think the only real issue I've run into is `git gui`. As I
         | understand it, the GUI toolkit it uses doesn't support scaling?
         | Not sure. I ended up working around it by just increasing font
         | sizes. I suppose this exposes the weakness that is probably
         | impacting you: the scaling on my laptop is being done by the
         | GUI toolkits, not the display server or compositor. (I don't
         | always run a compositor, but when I do, I use `picom`. Mostly
         | just to avoid tearing.)
         | 
         | [1]: https://github.com/BurntSushi/wingo
         | 
         | [2]:
         | https://github.com/BurntSushi/dotfiles/blob/ea3a88e6160f4244...
        
         | warner25 wrote:
         | Agreed. I struggled a bit with XFCE on my Framework for a few
         | months before switching to GNOME, largely because Framework's
         | display size is best with fractional scaling. 100% made
         | everything too small, and I could work with 200% and some
         | tweaks (although some applications didn't play nicely at all),
         | but 175% or 150% is perfect. Their choice of display size is
         | one reason (among several) why Framework is really not Linux-
         | first.
        
         | ollien wrote:
         | I admittedly just got my Framework a couple of days ago, but I
         | found scaling the text size to be sufficient in quite a lot of
         | cases, at least for me, in XFCE.
        
         | kelnos wrote:
         | > _I 've been using XFCE for the better part of 15 years
         | meanwhile._
         | 
         | Nice, nearly 20 years for me.
         | 
         | > _(apparently they only have two full-time developers for the
         | whole project?)_
         | 
         | We actually have zero full time developers. I'm probably the
         | closest thing to a full-time developer as I have a lot of free
         | time on my hands these days, but even then I don't work on Xfce
         | enough to call it full time. And we only have two people
         | working on Wayland support, and so that's even less than the
         | non-full-time each of us put in.
         | 
         | > _Its Wayland support is a permanent unfortunate "work-in-
         | progress"_
         | 
         | We've probably made more progress in the past 6 months than all
         | the time prior, combined. Things are coming along, but it'll
         | probably be another 1-2 years before it's usable, and only
         | "stable" in time for the 4.22.0 release at the end of 2026. And
         | that's still all aspirational; it may not materialize in that
         | time.
         | 
         | It turns out that the Wayland protocol is super limited, and a
         | lot of things that you could do easily on X11 you essentially
         | have to re-invent from scratch. And that's before we even talk
         | about turning xfwm4 into a Wayland compositor. (Some rando has
         | forked xfwm4 and is building a Wayland compositor with it, but
         | has chosen not to collaborate with us at all, so it's unclear
         | if their work will ever be mergeable.)
         | 
         | But that's what happens when you're a developer for a software
         | project that has no corporate sponsorship or people hired
         | specifically to work on it. Feel free to contribute; we could
         | definitely use the help!
         | 
         | Anyhow: I run Xfce on a Framework 13, and it's fine. I've set
         | UI scaling to 2x, and I've added a custom modeline to X11 for
         | 2712x1805 (1.2x native). Big downside is apparently this turns
         | off the iGPU's ability to eliminate tearing. I suspect there's
         | a way to fix that, but I haven't had the motivation to dig into
         | it (I wonder if simply using a more-even scaling factor like
         | 1.25 would do it, even if things would appear a little smaller
         | than I'd like).
        
         | zerocrates wrote:
         | The solution I've been pretty happy with instead of Wayland
         | fractional scaling is to have scaling set at 1:1 and use
         | GDK_DPI_SCALE (I think that's the one) at 1.5 or 1.25 or
         | whatever. Things like Firefox, Chrome, the standard GTK system
         | apps will scale nicely, and stuff that doesn't support it will
         | just be small instead of doing a blurry zoom.
        
       | yett wrote:
       | Wasn't the trackpad scrolling bad though on GNOME at least?
        
         | blahyawnblah wrote:
         | Seems fine for me
        
       | wpm wrote:
       | I would love to be able to get a FM 13, but the non-inverted-t
       | layout of the arrow keys make it a non-starter. It was the one
       | thing I loathed the most about the butterfly keyboards on those
       | MacBook Pros that came with them, and I find it a baffling choice
       | to make on purpose today considering it was a major complaint on
       | those Macs. I cannot move my hand to those keys by feel alone if
       | the side arrows are twice the height of the up and down arrows.
       | 
       | I can wait and pay extra for a FM 16, but I don't need the extra
       | size or weight for what for me is going to be a secondary
       | machine. And sadly, the topcase and keyboard seem to be an area
       | where the "hackability" and "openness" of the hardware platform
       | don't exist, so I can't even homebrew my own solution.
        
         | zerocrates wrote:
         | I really prefer the half-height "T" layout in those size
         | constraints but some people really hate it. It's an oddity to
         | me: as you say, I'd be happier being able to easily feel out
         | the layout and having all directions be the same size targets.
         | Other than just not having the "look" of empty space I don't
         | feel that there's really anything to recommend the "full height
         | left/right, half-height up/down" layout.
         | 
         | I wonder if you'll have more ability to play around in that
         | space with the 16, as its top case is more modular. Part of the
         | problem with the Framework 13 input cover is that the cover
         | including the key gaps is all one piece of aluminum, so things
         | have to work within those sized holes, or else involve a
         | completely different input cover.
         | 
         | (Edit: the 16 does I think have more theoretical room for
         | alternate keyboard layouts, but of course that's assuming
         | anyone makes them. More importantly, it just has the inverted T
         | layout on the regular keyboard already.)
        
       | blahyawnblah wrote:
       | Mine showed up yesterday. So far so good dual booting openSuse
       | and windows.
        
       | haunter wrote:
       | Wish they were including a Macbook Air with Asahi Linux running
       | on it. Nowadays you can get an M1 for $750 on sale or an M2 for
       | $900. Even though these are the 8GB models only they are very
       | much comparable to the review models in the test.
        
         | opencl wrote:
         | Phoronix already did an article comparing the M2 running Asahi
         | with Zen 4 machines.
         | 
         | https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m2-zen4-mobile
        
           | pram wrote:
           | Damn the Ally is very impressive.
        
           | KRAKRISMOTT wrote:
           | It's not fair to be comparing it with the passively cooled
           | and throttled Macbook Air. The Acer Swift Edge is a 16" twin
           | fan air cooled machine. You should compare it to the top of
           | the line MBP for a fair benchmark without thermal throttling
           | concerns.
        
       | MrDresden wrote:
       | I'm in batch 8 for one of these and simply can not wait to get to
       | start using it (my current T460s has really started feeling slow
       | in the last year).
        
         | binkHN wrote:
         | > current T460s has really started feeling slow in the last
         | year
         | 
         | Been there; web sites are rather heavy nowadays and two cores,
         | combined with everything else running on the system, just can't
         | keep up anymore.
        
         | marssaxman wrote:
         | I hope you'll write about your experience with the Framework
         | when it arrives. I am still content with my T460s, but it won't
         | last forever.
        
         | orthecreedence wrote:
         | Fellow batch 8er! I got the 8-core AMD option, super excited.
         | My 2016 Razer finally shat the bed after I attempted to clean
         | the keyboard...now it "turns on" but the fans don't spin and
         | the BIOS never loads. I read it might be the fuses on the
         | motherboard, but I tested them all and continuity is fine. I
         | was originally a bit hesitant to go from a GPU-enabled laptop
         | back to integrated, but realized that almost all the games I
         | played on my laptop didn't need a GPU anyway. My Razer battery
         | would blow up every once in a while and I suspected it had to
         | do with the excessive heat of gaming, so I stopped pushing it.
         | 
         | In the meantime I got my desktop set up again (was stuck on
         | Windows 7, now on linux) and got some horrible Asus laptop for
         | when I'm not at my desk.
         | 
         | The only thing I'm worried about is all of my current setup is
         | on X and it seems for any real display scaling that Wayland is
         | the way to go, so I'm not excited about switching everything
         | over (I'm on i3 and probably a few other tools/scripts that
         | rely solely on X). I guess we'll see how it works out.
        
       | sekao wrote:
       | I'm running NixOS + KDE on the AMD framework and surprisingly it
       | worked perfectly out of the box. All I had to do was disable
       | secure boot to get it running, and after install I had to
       | configure the global scale in display settings to 200% so it
       | looked right. No weird hacks needed at all -- the 23.05 installer
       | just worked, including wifi, which apparently isn't true for
       | Windows 11.
        
         | ollien wrote:
         | Yeah, some of the wifi drivers aren't available in the stock
         | W11 image.
        
         | Cu3PO42 wrote:
         | If you'd like SecureBoot back, lanzaboote [0] has worked well
         | for me and no longer requires unstable!
         | 
         | [0] https://github.com/nix-community/lanzaboote
        
       | tsuraan wrote:
       | Oddly specific question, but can anybody confirm whether the
       | AX210 (no vPro) wifi works with the AMD motherboards? I've seen
       | some pretty bad reports about the realtek chip they're defaulting
       | to on the AMD systems, and I already have the AX210, so if I
       | could just keep using it, that would be ideal.
        
         | nbf_1995 wrote:
         | The ax210 does work in the ryzen motherboard but just ok. I had
         | persistent errors relating to the card in dmesg and occasional
         | disconnects.
         | 
         | The wifi that ships with the ryzen framework is made by
         | MediaTek, not Realtek, and it's been working smoothly since I
         | installed it.
        
           | tsuraan wrote:
           | Okay, good to hear on both counts. Thanks!
        
           | zerocrates wrote:
           | I haven't seen issues bringing over an AX210 but I've barely
           | used it so I'll have to keep an eye out for that.
           | 
           | I think just in its own right there are some AX210 Linux
           | driver issues, particularly with 6E connectivity; I don't
           | have a 6E network so I haven't really noticed.
        
         | NewJazz wrote:
         | They're shipping Realtek? I thought they were shipping
         | Mediatek? Big difference in my experience.
        
       | nbf_1995 wrote:
       | I got a unit from batch one and experienced some gpu issues and
       | sleep/wake issues, but they went away after updating to bios
       | v3.03. It's been fine since then.
       | 
       | Mediatek wifi is basically as good as the ax210 in my 12th gen.
       | 
       | The CPU uplift over the 12th gen i7 is immense. I foolishly
       | forgot to do before/after compilation times on my usual projects,
       | but in general things seem to build significantly faster (Medium-
       | Large sized Typescript + Rust codebase). My workloads also don't
       | seem to get the new cpu as hot as my 12th gen intel cpu got.
        
       | pkulak wrote:
       | I'll have to wait for better fractional scaling in Wayland before
       | I jump to a laptop with a weird, in-between resolution. Hopefully
       | soon though!
        
       | thekombustor wrote:
       | I'm running this laptop (the R5 variant) on Arch w/ i3 and it's
       | been pretty great so far. High DPI screen isn't really a huge
       | deal as long as you set Xft.dpi correctly and change your
       | terminal/i3bar font size.
       | 
       | If anyone has questions, feel free to ask.
        
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