Just asking: is it possible to get superior Linux support by partnering with other companies (e.g. System76)?
They should have superior expertise around Linux support (Just guessing, sorry if you don’t think so), and even if not so, offloading the resources needed for Linux support might be a good idea.
To be economically viable, maybe let system76 sell the laptop with some price premium and their sticker?
As far as I can tell, the framework laptop is about as compatible as it can get. Some of the hardware is too new to be supported in mainline distros (fingerprint reader) but the code is already there so it will work out-of-the-box in a distro release or two. The Framework engineers can’t do much about that.
Having said that, something like coreboot would be very cool. The system76 guys certainly have experience with that.
We’ve been getting great support from the team at Fedora, and have been getting help on NixOS and Elementary as well to some extent. We’re definitely happy to work with more distros though!