I like the product but I can not make the switch to this laptop because there seem to be some issues with Debian 11 on this laptop.
Are the devs and creators planning on officially supporting Debian? I only see Ubuntu and other distros…
Also the installation process and debugging because of some random WiFi or graphics issues, is not user friendly.
How can I sell my friends this laptop, if they have to do some shell stuff. It would be great if Framework = Every stable Debian works on this machine without installation hassle.
Because not everyone likes Ubuntu or the company behind it.
It would be great to know what the actual status of the Debian-Framework lovestory is!
Debian is old. That is a problem as the laptop has bleeding edge hardware. I’d recommend moving over to something that has a newer kernel like Sid or another distro. The recommended kernel version is 5.15 and above if I remember correctly.
this seems to be debian related, most other distros don’t have this issue. i wouldn’t use debian stable on a framework laptop even just because the kernel they ship (5.10 if i’m not mistaken) is older than the latest two generations of framework cpu’s.
you should really use debian testing/unstable if you want to stick to debian.
I usually run Debian Stable on my computers, because “stable” is the big attraction of Debian. But as others have said, the Framework hardware is quite new, so Debian Stable doesn’t work well on it. I’ve moved to Debian testing (“bookworm”) for my Framework, and it’s worked quite well.
Now that bookworm has frozen for the next release, it’s fairly stable. I haven’t had any issues.
So the issue is with Debian’s older kernel and the newer modern hardware?
As stupid as this question may be: If I use the newest Sid or testing, I could simply install Debian on the newest framework without fiddling with some shell code/scripts?
Thanks. I am not that deep into all the technical stuff and I want a simple “plug USB in and Install Debian without hickup”. But thanks for the help, guys!
I’m very confused on your use case. Typically either old-guard developers that are very adamant about getting their hands dirty or people that use ancient equipment that will never change will run Debian, but you mentioned wanting a plug-and-play experience where you don’t have to deal with any hassle. The best place to do that would be an officially supported distro, and the closest to Debian would be Ubuntu. In my experience though, Fedora has given me a much better time and I couldn’t be happier that I switched from deb to rpm.
To be clear, I’m not trying to find you a distro (grudges against “mainstream” linux are valid) or make any arguments about why you should/shouldn’t purchase. Indeed, this forum is probably the best place on the internet to get Debian working in the shortest time possible given the sheer number of people who have used any arbitrary configuration with the exact same hardware. However, even the power of this forum never really aligns with your preferences, because at the end of the day you’ll still be messing with install scripts and custom package configuration, just following the steps that someone did before to do the exact same thing that you now want to.
Hello @Steve_Osten , Just agreeing what others have already said that hoping you’d give debian testing a try, your feedback is valued, let us know if you encounter issues with “testing” branch. thanks.
if this is the case maybe you should skip debian and use a distro that is less of a hassle. regardless, you will need non-free repositories to install iwlwifi, so keep that in mind once you install. once you get the wifi to work everything else should be easier.
Can confirm. I usually run Arch, but have a debian bookworm on the side for my $dayjob, and it’s running fine. (I’m actually still amazed. In that setup I use systemd-homed with an external nvme enclosure over thunderbolt (so full-speed because of pcie over thunderbolt!), a 4k monitor attached providing power, keyboard & mouse, a USB-C hub for extra ports & ethernet NIC & to add yubikeys etc… All peripheral slots filled and it runs perfectly and all that with custom secureboot keys and… I could go on and on but I’m already way too off-topic here…!)
Did laptops even exist yet when debian stable was released?
As stupid as this question may be: If I use the newest Sid or testing, I could simply install Debian on the newest framework without fiddling with some shell code/scripts?
Thanks. I am not that deep into all the technical stuff and I want a simple “plug USB in and Install Debian without hickup”. But thanks for the help, guys!
Debian is not the distro you want to use if you don’t want to fiddle with the shell, not that deep into all the technical stuff, and want a plug and play experience. I’ve used Linux for most of my professional carrier, had some prior experience with Debian, and for me setting up Debian testing on my 12th Gen was harder than I anticipated.
