Debian based Linux on the Framework Laptop

thearctican · August 19, 2021, 4:15am

@Paulie420 - Debian is a special breed because, unlike Ubuntu (which is a commercial product) and Arch (which is a rolling release), It has a strict validation and becomes stabilized at release.
Debian 11 JUST came out of its ‘Testing’ phase and is now ‘stable’. That means that included packages will get maintenance updates but not necessarily major feature updates.
This means that it takes a bit more work to get this distro on bleeding-edge hardware (which, arguably, the Framework is).
Ubuntu is in a similar boat, but the upcoming release, 21.10 in October, should ease the remaining issues.

Have a look at this post for information on the current (non-LTS) version: Ubuntu 21.04 on the Framework Laptop

gjason · August 19, 2021, 7:27pm

@Paulie420 I’m not speaking from personal experience (I’m in Batch 2 so my machine hasn’t shipped yet), but my understanding is that as long as you install Fedora from the Respin disk images, everything just works, including the stuff other users / distros have issues with (fingerprint reader, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc). If you’re used to Kubuntu, Fedora has a Respin that uses KDE.

Gary_S · August 19, 2021, 10:04pm

Mirroring what has been said before re: Debian - the ‘stable’ version (currently Debian 11) lags behind other distributions that update more frequently (such as Ubuntu and derivatives, or rolling release distros like Arch or Fedora. That said, the current kernel for Debian 11 is 5.10.0-8, and libfprint (included in the biometric-driver-community-multidevice metapackage) is 1.90.7-2. I set up my Framework for my partner to use so I can’t verify Debian 11 works out of the box with the network card but 5.10 has support for ax210 so it should.
@Paulie420 If you are a KDE user and you want to stick w/ Kubuntu, all you really need is linux kernel 5.10 to support the WiFi card, and libfprint 1.92.0 or newer for the fingerprint reader. If whatever release you’re using has both of those, you’re all set. If not, you’ll need to install a 5.10 kernel, and build libfprint 1.92 from source.

If you don’t want to build the current version of libfprint from source and/or don’t want to install a custom kernel, you’ll probably have to wait for 21.09 if you’re not using LTS. 21.04 has 5.10 so it should support the WiFi straight away. If you want to use an older Kubuntu version (20.04, for example) a compatible kernel should be available in the backports repository. You’ll still have to build the fingerprint software, as I think all of the Ubuntu distributions are running libfprint 1.90.7-2.

Paulie420 · August 20, 2021, 12:55pm

Thanks a lot, Gary S… as much as I think I know about Linux, I’m still a new sysOp. RIGHT NOW, I’m on 5.11.0-25-generic, so I guess I don’t have a ton to worry about… I don’t mind building [any] software from source, but it sounds like I might not even have to. I’m using Kubuntu 21.04.

Thanks for your reply.

Paulie420

malachid · August 20, 2021, 8:03pm

I installed stock Ubuntu 21.04 w/ Gnome on mine. I haven’t tried doing the fingerprint stuff yet. I’m currently on 5.11.0-31-generic.

Moronpalindromenorom · August 22, 2021, 2:02am

Sadly, I haven’t yet been able to get the wifi module working on Debian 11 yet. It looks like there’s been a regression of the Intel AX210 driver in the kernel in the latest release: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=966218. It’s exactly what I’ve been seeing…

Christopher_Reese · September 1, 2021, 5:44pm

For those of who who want to install Linux Mint, consider the edge installation. You can see the documentation here: Edge ISO Images — Linux Mint User Guide documentation

The current Edge ISO image is for Mint version 20.2 and already contains the 5.11 kernel. This will prevent the user from having to connect via Ethernet to upgrade the kernel version after the standard installation process.

Brett_Kosinski · September 7, 2021, 4:14am

In case anyone’s interested, I’ve written up a (somewhat lengthy) post on getting Debian Bullseye up and running. Probably the most interesting bit is I’ve included instructions on how to build actual Debian packages for libfprint 1.92.1 and fprintd 1.92.0, which results in a cleaner install and makes removing or upgrading them later a heck of a lot easier:

Brett_Kosinski · September 22, 2021, 5:06pm

As an FYI for folks, Debian Testing has now migrated to Linux 5.14.0, which means PSR should work out of the box now!

In addition, the AX210 should work, though on my own laptop Bluetooth still doesn’t work for reasons I have yet to figure out. It’s especially weird because when I stick the AX210 in my old X1 Carbon with the 5.14.0 testing kernel it works just fine. It’s only when the card is in my Framework that it doesn’t. Hopefully other folks have better luck!

thearctican · September 25, 2021, 10:13pm

Got my FW today and installed debian stable.

NetInstall from the /current/ branch (dated 09/25/2021)
Obtain and move linux-image-5.14*.deb and firmware-linux-nonfree (and dependencies) onto the laptop
Install the new kernel image and firmware and reboot

Works great - running kernel 5.14 on Debian Stable.

Now to go through the power management/battery life threads to get it tuned for daily use.

WANg · September 27, 2021, 2:45pm

Eh, yeah. I am on Debian Bookworm/kernel 5.14 with the Intel firmware-iwlwifi package - looks like there’s some regression with how the bluetooth firmware interacts with the machine. I was able to get the bluetooth working by replacing the firmware included in the sid/bookworm release (20210818-1, Intel release 28502) with one that was recently updated on the linux firmware git repo (Intel release 31586, checked into the repo on Sep 19th).

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/commit/?id=087753f61e17ac978c97bc9e838bd64837675c44

Copy the sfi file into /lib/firmware/intel, then power cycle your machine (shutdown, wait about 10 seconds, power it on again). The issue here is that while the bluetooth works just fine right after the power-on, any reboot will make it disappear. Resuming from sleep (not hibernation) is just fine, though.

Brett_Kosinski · September 27, 2021, 7:15pm

Yup, confirmed here as well. TBH, this firmware is the first time I’ve seen the AX210 work with Linux 5.14 at all. But I agree, a reboot or resume from hibernation leads to Bluetooth no longer functioning.

thearctican · October 1, 2021, 8:02pm

A quick update - I tried using bluetooth on kernel 5.14 and, surprise surprise, I ran into the ‘warm boot’ issue with Bluetooth.

So I compiled and installed 5.12.15 from kernel.org and all of my problems have evaporated. I just used the same kernel configuration from my initial install with 5.10 and it built in about 45 minutes (I wasn’t timing and I was sleepy as it was finishing up).

Matt_Beary · October 15, 2021, 2:59pm

some notes from my install of Debian testing with i3 over an LXDE base installation:

xbacklight doesn’t work as expected, you need to use light instead. You’ll also need to chmod +s $(which light) after installing.
to get the touchpad working as expected, I added this to a file (as root) in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d:

Section "InputClass"
	Identifier "touchpad"
	Driver "libinput"
	MatchIsTouchpad "on"
	Option "Tapping" "on"
EndSection

the DPI is … interesting (see xdpyinfo | grep -B2 resolution for more info). To start with, I added this to a file in the same xorg.conf.d folder, again owned by root:

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier "eDP-1"
	DisplaySize 285 190
EndSection

and then added a file in /etc/X11/Xresources/ (201 is actually correct, but 144 looked better to me):

Xft.dpi: 144

I also added this to the bottom of ~/.config/i3/config:

# EDITS
# needed for pkexec stuff
exec_always --no-startup-id lxpolkit
# ... no
focus_follows_mouse no
# backlight keys
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec --no-startup-id light -U 1
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec --no-startup-id light -A 1

connman wouldn’t hold a connection and was slow to reconnect. I ended up switching to NetworkManager, which works great.
I’m still not getting great signal strength: Anyone else getting really bad wifi range? - #2 by Josh_Cook

edit: if you’re using steam, you’ll also want to run: echo "GDK_SCALE=2 steam" | sudo tee /usr/local/bin/steam && sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/steam to fix its DPI - it doesn’t respect X’s font DPI, just the toolkit’s scaling factor

Dan_Coleman · November 20, 2021, 10:12pm

Thank you! This was the only way I was able to get bluetooth working on my FW running Debian 11. It sucks that a soft reboot borks it, but at least it’s an easy fix.

SinistralFern23 · March 11, 2022, 4:55pm

Anyone have updates on the long term use with Debian Linux on this laptop?

Laurent_GUERBY · March 30, 2022, 9:11pm

Just received my frame.work \o/

On debian 11.3 GNOME installs without issue (trackpad recognized, usb-eth for network), annoying bluetooth off/on messages but solved by installing kernel from bullseye-backports (wifi then works).

Installed from sid : firmware-misc-nonfree and firmware-iwlwifi.

Also installed from sid : libfprint and libpam-fprintd and fingerprint was proposed in GNOME and works.

Andreas_Tille · June 2, 2022, 6:26am

I’ve tested

$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-touchpad.conf 

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad"
        Driver "libinput"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        Option "Tapping" "on"
EndSection

but it does not solve the problem I’ve described here (Debian testing under XFCE4, verified under Debian 11.3. live installer)
Do you have any further hints?
Kind regards, Andreas.

wchargin · June 26, 2022, 7:31pm

Alternatively, per this Ask Ubuntu answer, you can add the
following to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (creating it if necessary):

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Intel Graphics" 
    Driver      "intel"
    Option      "Backlight"  "intel_backlight"
EndSection

This works on my Framework (Intel 11th gen with Linux Mint and XMonad).

SinistralFern23 · July 28, 2022, 8:03pm

Anyone have updates with Kali installed on this laptop?