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.
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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.
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@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!
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No RHEL? …But I guess that may go through RH support.
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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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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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
If you’re referring to the whole OS, then far from it. 
The kernel is probably the easiest component to swap out without side effects due to its well defined interfaces. The collection of libraries and services running on top are not nearly as easy to interchange without breakage. Take this to an extreme and you have Android. You’ll find it difficult to run a lot of stuff that runs on Ubuntu or Fedora.
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I think I addressed this in my last post, and I am not going to slide into a case of arguing semantics. If you build from source you can essentially circumvent/rebuild any distro. Different package managers, different breakdown of what is actually in a package of a particular utility, different flags on the the kernel, but ultimately they all use the same damn kernel and everything else can in fact be broken apart and made to work. I did not say it was a drop in replacement.
PopOS does not work well, because frankly it is running a year behind real updates at this point. When it comes to new hardware which Framework is going to roll out every year. Essentially any stale linux distro is going to be a pain. However solutions in one distro will 90% apply nearly identically, or very closely in any other distro. Otherwise the Archwiki would not be quoted nearly as often as it is.
Ultimately the linux kernel essentially defaults to promoting structures around it that ensure a degree of commonality that will aid any knowledgeable user in deducing what needs to be done to a solution to make it work on another distro.
In short if you need the support, and you need exact instructions, use the supported distros.
For newer users reading this. Just to make sure lesser familiar users get what it all comes down to at a higher level.
Intermediate and advanced users, carry on.
Yes, to a varied degree “Linux is Linux” as in ice-cream is ice-cream. Shared ingredients, but different flavors and often things added that one distro may have that others may not.
Users relying on community support are welcome to run whichever distro suits them - I think that’s great.
Users relying Framework for OS/software support will want to consider running those distros we actively test with. Yes, different distros with similar kernels absolutely can behave differently (differing init systems, desktop environments (even versions there of), grub vs systemd-boot, the list goes on and on.
I agree about 88% of the time on this. Paths, custom configs, etc, can differ and do. But this does hold true for tweaks and some general advice. However, I have also witnessed countless times when users blinding apply stuff from forums and wikis having no idea what it does - always best to check with the community first to make sure it’s appropriate, then try it.
And yes, while I don’t actively run it (no pun intended) at the moment, VOID continues to have a warm place in my heart.
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Yup, I have seen it as well. Another me would say RTFM and don’t do anything until you understand what you will be doing and why you will be doing it…oh wait this me would still say that I have had plenty of users break things by blindly applying a command from something they found online without understanding what it does.
Void is still one of my favorite non mainline distros, unfortunately I don’t have the itme to run it. Pun intended.
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Boy we agree there. So important for newbies to ask if they don’t understand before applying commands. And I suspect we could compare notes on some doozies out there.
VOID is just fun to run. So pun accepted.
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Void is the only distro I got my external AMD GPU to work on the framework laptop without any hassle at all. I couldn’t get it to work in other distros no matter what I did.
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