Hi everyone, looking at picking up the Framework 12 for art/design, anyone currently using the Framework stylus on Linux with Krita, Gimp, Inkscape etc? Would love to hear your experience, including which distro you’re using.
For the brief time I had a 12, the stylus itself worked great, and the laptop was plenty fast enough for Krita, GIMP and Inkscape, but the screen wasn’t/isn’t color-accurate enough to really be serious about art. As a hobby-only device it’s great though.
I ran Fedora KDE 43 on mine. Returned it due to the case-cracking issue, which apparently they’ve largely resolved by now.
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Thanks for the info! Good to know about the color accuracy, and side note, I did hear that the stylus is more customizable (pressure sensitivity) on KDE vs Gnome, so I’ll probably look at a related distro.
Do you think you would have held onto it aside from the cracking issue? Did you opt for a different framework or other solution?
If not for the cracking issue, 100% I’d have held onto it. I do love the 2-in-1 form factor, I think the FW12 could be really cool as just a general web-browsing, note-taking, and occasional sketchpad device, I just… Didn’t want to have to fix a device I’d only had in my hands for a week.
In the end, I opted to go for a completely different Framework device, because my use-case also changed a lot in the same period of time - I got a Framework 16 for the GPU because my gaming PC gave up around the same time.
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Only the bottom cover cracking has been solved.
Top covers still crack though its less likely.
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I bought a 12 to try to replace an iPad Pro that never lived up to its promise for me. (Using apps like Procreate on the iPad Pro is awesome, but everything else about the ipad’s nerfed experience, especially its inability to sync big files reliably including via iCloud, drives me up the wall).
The 12 hasn’t quite been a solid success for me either. The good: it’s fast enough, reliable, and battery life is fine. No heat issues. I haven’t had the case cracking issues yet (maybe because I’m not using it as much as I should).
And the not-so-good… the screen really is as bad as people say. I don’t know of a convenient way to store and charge the stylus (unlike the ipad where it’s always tucked into the case and charging), so the stylus requires continual management. Carry a spare. I find the 12 to be thick, heavy, and rectangular, not so pleasant to hold… and yet the screen is so small that it’s not great when using on a table either.
If you want to use a stylus with it, make sure to get a textured screen protector. I made the mistake of getting one that’s too much like paper, so a little too scratchy for my taste, but that is still a lot better than going slippery with no screen protector.
I’ve been using Gnome and it’s mostly fine. The on-screen keyboard pops up when needed and works well. I do get stranded sometimes and have to unfold the laptop to use the keyboard, but not as much as I’d thought.
My takeaway: the 12 is of course a compromise … but if you’re not trying to carry a stylus with you, and you don’t care about what reds look like, and you’re not trying to run LLMs or heavy games, and you’re willing to pay a little extra for Framework’s modularity (I am), then I think it’s fine.
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Howdy! Not an artist but I do enjoy paddling around in the art space. I have been using the stylus with FW12 in Krita for a few days and I have had some major issues with palm rejection, coming from a cintiq by Wacom means I am spoiled. But I did figure-out if you touch the stylus to the screen before anything else it resolved most the issues I was having. Pressure control was fairly decent, I enjoyed it over the Ipad I used. I am also pretty happy with the screen best i can tell colors seem pretty acurate.
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Krita generally works great on the Framework 12. I use a third party stylus (since the official one wasn’t released when I bought it) and pen input and gestures to rotate the canvas and stuff work great on Fedora.
As others have said, the colour accuracy is pretty bad, though. If you’re mostly writing and doing black and white lineart, it’s probably fine, but it’s not a professional graphics device in any way.
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Thanks for the helpful feedback everyone, for now I went with a Wacom Movink 13 pen display (as colors are important for me), but will look at other Framework options once my laptop hits end of life.
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