Status of Official Linux Distribution Support

Framework Team
#1

Hello everyone!

We’re doing everything we can to make the Framework Laptop an extremely user-friendly Linux laptop for all those that decide that Linux is the right Operating System for them. As such, we’ve had to make decisions on where our focus should be and which builds/distros are going to be “officially” supported. Ubuntu LTS and Fedora is where we’ve decided to put most of our time and energy given our relationships with the developers and our ability to dial in the experience on those distributions. While we’ll continue to explore expanding our “official” support footprint as we scale as a company and build additional developer relationships, we will have to leave support for other distributions to the Community as we know everyone has their own preferences. As of late, we’ve seen some growing incompatibility issues with Pop!_OS and other distributions with Framework hardware, and we encourage everyone to continue to work with our fantastic Community to find workarounds to what are becoming common issues. Our Official Forums are a great place for these discussions, but please know that Framework staff will be pulling back from actively engaging in support given our current focus on targeted distributions to make sure that Linux “just works”.

Thanks for your understanding, and we’ll see you in the Community!

24 Likes
Pop!_OS 22.04 on the Framework Laptop
Pop!_OS 22.04 on the Framework Laptop
#2

That’s fair enough.

I believe focusing on less distros and concentrating the resources on them is a good way to handle the current workload,- there will be an influx of new users in the future and it’s already getting more and more crowdy each and every day.

While it is sad that PopOS support is officially pulled, I can see how it’s not really Frameworks fault.

I also want to give a :+1: to the Community part. I (and countless others) will try to help you as good as possible even without having your distro installed but please bare with us when it comes to the debugging.

Also a quick shout out to @Loell_Framework and @Matt_Hartley here for their current support.

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#3

Shame about Pop OS, always saw either that or Manjaro becoming the ‘go-to’ Linux distro

#4

Isn’t PopOS based on Ubuntu? I’d imagine 99% of Ubuntu solutions working just fine for PopOS. Only real difference would probably be at user interface level support, like how to do something in PopOS’s Cosmic DE

2 Likes
#5

It is based on Ubuntu, yes. But, it is different on a multitude of fronts. Here are just a few of the differences, not all, but some of the biggest differences.

  • Recovery partition. Pop uses a separate, Live USB-like GUI partition for recovery.
  • Kernels differ from Ubuntu and Pop.
  • Packages are not merely pulled from Ubuntu. They are Pop packages designed for their operating system.
  • system76-power. This renders TLP and Gnome Power Profiles as incompatible.
  • Disk encryption by default. Ubuntu must be selected manually.
  • Uses kernelstub to make parameter changes to systemd-boot where as Ubuntu uses grub. A systemd-boot kernelstub example: sudo kernelstub -o “quiet splash” for example.
  • Pop uses flatpak vs snaps along with its standard repos.
  • Pop is moving to Cosmic will mean Gnome as you remember it will be replaced with Cosmic - there will still be GNOME shell, but not as you know it now. As it is currently, Gnome on Pop has been heavily modified.
  • Ubuntu works great with Wayland, Pop OS prefers Xorg.

This is the short list of differences. Fedora 38 is our recommended distro for those looking for that cutting edge experience, but done with proper testing with our hardware.

Ubuntu LTS is recommended for those looking for a very stable, easy to use experience. We have guides for both at https://guides.frame.work/

15 Likes
Linux: Xorg vs. Wayland
#6

I think that raises a different question of how far does support entail then?

For example if Ubuntu does not have disk encryption by default but if you use it, does that mean that is outside support? Or if you use flatpaks instead of snaps? What about DEs? Only unity is supported and not KDE? What if you plan to load Cosmic on top of Ubuntu? or add PopOS, Debian or Mint APT repository to Ubuntu? Launchpads? Kernel upgrades?

Same for Fedora, the default comes with GNOME, but what about all the Spins they offer?

I think it is important to be clear where support starts and where it ends then simply saying these distros.

1 Like
#7

To be ultimately clear, we support Ubuntu 22.04 (and future LTS’) and Fedora 38. This means if you have trouble with something using one of those two, we provide official support to make sure the hardware is doing what it’s designed to do. Software, we also provide extensive support within the scope of our control as it’s FoSS software.

We support anything that doesn’t go into deeper areas outside of a standard install. So encryption on Ubuntu, is available with a couple of touchpad selections. Supported.

Flatpak on Ubuntu, while not officially supported as it’s not part of the installation without extra hoops, is supported as best effort as Ubuntu was not designed by default, to do so. But happy to help how we can.

Official support is outlined as it is. Community support, where we also help is outlined as well.

This set of guidelines is sent out with all purchases currently. It’s very clear what we are supporting. Appreciate the questions.

Any additional what ifs would fall into the guide linked above.

Another way to look at it, if someone is doing something to run an application on a supported distro, we will do everything we can to help. If someone ventures outside of our recommendations outside of our guides we provided in your welcome email, it will depend on what the end goal is.

Examples:

If someone is looking to turn their Framework into a secondary project outside of the scope of a laptop for example, we’d support this as a community project.

8 Likes
#8
#9

What sort of “growing incompatibility issues”? I was hoping to run Pop!_OS on my preorder of the new 13" model, but if there are serious issues I’d like to know so I can cancel and find a different solution for my needs.

1 Like
#10

Fastest approach is to use the search function on the forum as they vary. Again, you’re welcome to install whatever you like - we’re simply limited in the scope of what we can tell you is officially supported.

We have Arch enthusiasts using Framework 13, but they all understand when an update breaks something, we can’t tell them how to fix it - the community here can. Same applies for Pop.

5 Likes
#12

@Jeff_Schmidt1 - I ran pop on my primary machine once I received it. All was well until I encountered issues - not Framework specific - during one of the upgrades. I still am running it as the primary OS on my second machine, but moved to Manjaro (dodging empties) after the issues I ran into there. In my opinion, they weren’t machine specific, rather, likely due to how I was using the OS and customizations that I had made. I determined that I wasn’t savvy enough to move fully to Arch (with gnome, dodgin empties for a second time), but I have been quite happy on Manjaro, which also is not an officially supported distro.

I think that you will find that the community here is very solid and willing to help if you encounter issues. I’d say that if you want something rock solid (well, as rock solid as linux ever is), stick to an officially supported distro. If you’re willing to roll with the punches, try something else. For example. suspend-then-hibernate changed in systemd 252. I had it working great in manjaro with systemd 251, then it broke in 252. I pushed to the testing branch, and ultimately resolved my issues by setting the systemd timeout to be less than the one in gnome, and now I am back to my happy place, such as it is.

I heartily encourage you to take the plunge on a Framework machine, it’s worth it. I’ve used lot of different machines and OSes in my time, rarely have I been happier.

Have a great day!

4 Likes
#13

No RHEL? …But I guess that may go through RH support.

#14

I see quite a few people are upset that their favorite distro isn’t “officially supported”, but I have two points:

First, on every other mainstream laptop, NO Linux distro is officially supported. Closest I can find is forum posts about Dell laptops on their official forums from 2016, and even then you only receive help from users, not staff. Providing support for Linux is entirely too costly an endeavour (pun intended) for tech companies, so I’m happy to see boundaries being drawn.

Second, “officially supported” doesn’t exactly mean “you’re on your own” even from staff: at the bottom of it all, support staff want to help people, so you may receive a fix even if it’s not official, from an official staff member. See this post.

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#15

First, on every other mainstream laptop, NO Linux distro is officially supported

Not mainstream but there is System76 and Pop!OS. That’s probably the best anyone will get if they want official support from their hardware provider

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#16

When you go into the linux machine market, you start to get support (system76, Purism, Tuxedo, etc), but arguably that’s not the market Framework is trying to break into and disrupt.

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#17

I know that it is probably a bit too early for the question, however, I would like to know what I should expect regarding the support status of the AMD-based Framework Laptop 13 and Framework Laptop 16.

1 Like
#18

Support status on what? They’re Framework products, so Framework would support them. If you’re referring to linux, it would probably have the exact same stance as the intel SKUs, I can’t think of a reason for the list to change between CPUs.

3 Likes
#19

Linux is Linux. As with any new hardware it behooves the user to be on the bleeding edge if they want that recently released hardware to work at all, much less well. Official support does not really matter though it is convenient to know that they work closely with at least the Fedora devs to provide data upstream, and hopefully hasten fixes to issues. I love Fedora but if I was not running Fedora I would be running Archlinux simply to keep a rapidly updated machine using the newest software and firmware. The people with the most problems seem to be those on slow point release distro, the rest update past the issues.

#20

Linux is Linux

While a lot of stuff is interchangeable between distributions, there are some solutions that simply aren’t distro-agnostic. Distros often use different flags when compiling the kernel or other software. There’s also a matter of some distros forking software so there’s even different code than what you would see in packages on other distros. Then you have distros that use different system layers or libraries such as runit instead of systemd or musl instead of glibc. There’s even issues as simple as “command not found” and the binary is packaged differently between repositories.

#21

Yup. However if push came to shove you could strip runit out of (Void) a distro and use something else, you could compile the kernel with the right flags, you could package from source, you could move all the pieces a specific distro added and replace them with the pieces you need. So linux is still linux, it all runs on the same kernel and really in most situations upwards of 90% of it will be essentially the same. Everything else is customization and decoration.