Distro of choice?

Framework Laptop 12 Linux
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I’ve got an incoming 12 and I’m curious which distro & DE people are planning to use (of the support and community-supported options).

I’m quite comfortable using Fedora as a daily driver, but interested in Bazzite (and other “atomic” distros). How big a hassle is the immutability thing really?

Thanks!

EDIT: I probably should have said something about my use case – I have an obnoxiously powerful desktop for demanding tasks (gaming, managing a large # of photos), which dual boots CachyOS for most things and Windows for gaming. The 12 is for using on the go and in other rooms of the home. But nothing I do really requires a lot of horsepower (even the work tools I use like Figma aren’t really THAT demanding to be honest).

So I’ll probably really use the 'lil guy as my “main device” plugged into the same hub and monitor that my desktop is connected to, and just switch over to the desktop as needed. To me it’s really a glorified super-console that edits a video maybe 4 to 6 times a year.

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Long-time Ubuntu / Debian user. Will install 25.04. Happy that it’s a supported system. No experience with real immutable distros (yet).

Edit: Just read up on atomic distributions and found out that atomic and immutable are not the same. Interesting concept.

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Been on SIlverblue since Fedora 38 on my Framework 13. It takes effort to shift your thinking towards a cloud native distro, but once you do so, the benefits are obvious. For users just wanting to do web browsing, and office work type task it does not even require a shift in thinking, just hop in and drive. For a laptop they are ideal options.

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Gonna run Windows 11, NixOS with a ZFS root, and possibly QubesOS, just for fun!

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I’ve been using OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for nearly a decade now and am running it on my FW16. Planning to try out OpenSUSE Slowroll on the FW12 —mainly hoping for stable but not out dated— hopefully it will run nicely out of the box.
I’ve tried out vanillaOS on an older machine, but didn’t try anything too crazy. Only other immutable/atomic experience is SteamOS on the deck.

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Mint!

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Mint, and unfortunately W*ndows 11, as I need to use some programs that only work on windows

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CachyOS gnome here, running off of an expansion card.

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Silverblue here.

I was getting tired of pop_os’s out-of-dateness, and converted my old xps to it as a warmup for the FW12. And it’s actually really nice. If you’re not in the terminal much, you’d hardly notice it immutable. Flatpaks work well. I’ve only had to layer one app into the base – tailscale.

I live in the terminal, for work and home, and getting used to toolbx took about a week. I was even able to install and run gnome-tweaks into a toolbx and adjust a few things (both shifts for caps lock).

Overall, don’t follow any guides that have you layering packages into the base image. That’s just cope. Try the atomic way first.

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Currently I am running Arch on all my machines, and I hope the fw12 will run it without flaws

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I keep thinking that elementary OS would look fantastic on the FW12, and its Ubuntu base is convenient for my job, but no support for fractional scaling probably rules it out.

Will give Bluefin DX a try.

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NixOS

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I’ll try Fedora Workstation first. I use silverblue and other atomic desktops on other computers, but for the Framework 12, I plan to install some emulators and video codecs and stuff and this will be easier with a mutable system.

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I would probably dual boot with OpenBSD and Gentoo, I specifically get a storage module just for another OS that I could swap around.

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I’m pretty new to Linux, so I’m planning on installing Linux Mint, Cinnamon when my 12 arrives :slightly_smiling_face:. I had it running on my Microsoft Surface Go for a short time before an update broke it and up to that point, it seemed nice and easy to use.

I’ve been intrigued by QubesOS, but would definitely want a better handle on Linux before trying it. I was aware that there are some particular requirements, so I checked it out.

It looks like the FW12 would be a decent candidate to run Qubes. The 13th gen i3 seems to be compatible.

There is no TPM in the 12 right?
And now I’m curious, does anyone know the internal connection used for the keyboard? USB, PS/2, or something else?

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Eyo, NixOS gang! High five! :joy_cat:

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Hey, we’d be in the same boat regarding QubesOS! :joy_cat: Right now, I’m mostly used to NixOS and not really Linux itself, so it might be the perfect opportunity to learn more about the inner workings!

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As it’s running windows 11, I think it should have a TPM

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It’ll be an fTPM or firmware TPM embedded with the processor instead of a discrete TPM chip located on the board that would be more vulnerable to certain attacks.

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Just found this on YouTube, and Xoe had already beat me to sharing it:

Not at all drawn to openSUSE myself, but good info for anyone who is! At about 17:25 they mention the 12, and indicate that they are in talks with Framework to be a “community supported” distro.

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