Framework 13: best OS and battery life tips?

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
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Hi everyone,

I’m currently using a Framework 13 (AMD 7640U, 32 GB RAM, 1st gen 2.2K display).
At work I mainly use Red Hat Linux as a system administrator, and I’m considering switching my main personal laptop back to Linux.

In the past I used Linux daily, but I had some issues with Bluetooth, so I eventually went back to Windows 11. To be fair, Windows 11 works fine for me, but as a big Linux fan I’m tempted to make the jump again.

A couple of questions for those with similar setups:

  • Do you usually get better battery life on Linux compared to Windows on this hardware?

  • Are there any specific tweaks or tools you recommend to improve battery life on Linux?

  • Which distribution would you recommend for a Framework 13 with AMD (Fedora, Ubuntu, something else)?

Thanks!

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Framework recommends Fedora (along w Ubuntu) for Linux, and I can also vouch for Fedora. Running Red Hat as a sysadmin, you should feel right at home w the package manager and SELinux security policies.

  • While I have not ran Windows on a Framework, Fedora has had better battery life compared to Windows in general for the last few years in my experience. Older hardware especially, since you can dial down what background processes can use resources.
  • Fedora and Ubuntu GNOME based Desktop Environments give you the option to select which power mode you want to run straight from the control panel. You can select “Power saver” and that has usually added at least an extra hour of use for me.
  • I personally recommend Fedora, using GNOME desktop environemtn coming from a Mac. But if you want an experience closer to Windows, I would recommend Fedora KDE desktop environment. Very stable, and “just works”. I was only able to break it before, due to pushing the “rice” on it too far.
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What do you mean by pushing the rice?

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I tried customizing the grub-efi bootloader and a load of other useless eye-candy lol

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I have been giving Aurora a try and have been liking how hands off it is for maintenance for the laptop.
It uses KDE and the battery life has been really solid ~8h while working on Wi-Fi with brightness at 30%, Firefox open with a few tabs, slack and bunch of terminals running connected to work servers.

Everything is very well supported but I haven’t made any specific tweaks for the battery life yet beyond just limiting charge to 85%

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Is “pushing the rice“ a common term in english? It is not my primary language, never heard of it :smiley:

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Rice is a term for (mostly visual) customization at least in linux/computer contexts. Pushing it probably refers to taking it a bit too far or at least far.

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Here are some battery life tips:

  1. Mute your microphone in software whenever not using it. I don’t know why, and I’m not 100% sure, but muting my microphone in software (like the little audio menu) decreases battery drain a little bit
  2. Blacklist the uvcvideo kernel module at /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-webcam.conf. I’ve also noticed that battery drain can be decreased by not loading the webcam at all. I rarely use it, and when I do, I can just do a quick # modprobe uvcvideo in my terminal to get it working in that session.
  3. Enable Wi-Fi power saving whenever on battery. I wrote a custom udev rule that will enable Wi-Fi power saving for me whenever I am on battery but turn it off whenever I am on AC, since it does increase latency. If you want to use my script, you need to first find the name of your Wi-Fi interface with ip. Make sure that the iw command is installed.
SUBSYSTEM=="power_supply", ATTR{online}=="0", RUN+="/usr/bin/iw dev wlp192s0 set power_save on"
SUBSYSTEM=="power_supply", ATTR{online}=="1", RUN+="/usr/bin/iw dev wlp192s0 set power_save off"
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