My FrameWork 16 inch AI 9 300 series laptop came today and i tried to boot it up on Zorin OS 17 Pro but it just hangs on black screen in normal mode, if i pick safe graphics it works fine.
I tried with secure boot on and off same issue on normal mode, while on ubuntu it just tells me magic number invalid what so ever on 25.10 won’t boot.
So i saw people said there is bios version 4.2 available, but manual for update bios only have 3.04 listed for EFI file but no 4.2 EFI file for my model, so any way i can get these 2 OS to boot at all?
Since i suspect it needs a bios update maybe to make it work
Note: My FrameWork 16 does not have dedicated gpu, instead it has a expansion bay/shell or w.e it’s called for now.
If it fails to boot when not in safe graphics mode, then it probably is a driver issue linked to the drivers in the Zorin OS.
Try an other distribution to see if it is the case.
tried ubuntu but then it just nagged magic number invalid and that i must load kernel first.
I starting to think this issue is also cause of normal boot of zorin to not booting up into normal mode. Just a guess, some say update bios may solve it but i cannot find latest EFI image 4.03 or 4.2 for Framework 16 with Ryzen AI 300 series.
Update: It might just be USB Thumbdrive i use that might be fault. So i’m gona try different one and see if issue remains
well i saw some 1 got 4.2 on their AI Ryzen 300 series so idk if that’s correct or not.
Update: I feel stupid, when i downloaded ubuntu 25.10 i thought the page said Intel and AMD version and then just AMD bellow it. But now after checking it again it clearly says ARM not AMD -.- idk where i got AMD from. Now wonder why it nagged about magic number invalid and that i must load kernel first.
Retrying again with Intel & AMD copy to see if that works on my framework 16.
So i got ubuntu to boot up normal now, so i wonder why Zorin OS 17 Pro wont? since it clearly says on their website that Zorin OS is fully compatible with all framework laptops.
after googling around it seems i got a suggestions to try and install it in safe graphics mode and then see if it boots up normal. Afterwards, since it seems AMD driver and kernel is conflicting with each other, so if this won’t work then i will have to wait for a upgrade chance for 18. Right now that discount offer is not yet available for the users with 17 pro sadly
I have never used Zorin OS before, but I am a Linux developer.
Zorin 17 OS appears to be based on Ubuntu 22.04. It is very old.
So, if you can get Zorin OS installed and running in Terminal (non-GUI) mode.
You might be able to force the kernel update to the “hwe” or “oem” version, that is more up to date and might work with the AI-300.
Zorin 18 OS is based on Ubuntu 24.04 and will likely work better all round.
I’m gona try install it in safe graphics mode and then see if it boots up afterwards, if it does then it was just a conflict within installation side that caused no display when picking normal mode.
If it does not work i will just have to stick with Ubuntu 25.10 or some other linux in main time until Discount upgrade offer is available for users with 17 pro to upgrade to 18 pro cheaper.
After som struggle I still cannot boot i to normal mode but some how recovery mode works.
So I found a 2nd way to update kernel, but doing so is to use mainline kernels tool but when I pick 6.14 or 6.18 it installs all packages except 1 which is linux-header that always fails on configuration. So then it causes a kernel panic when os tries to boot up and cannot load kernel. So anyone got solution on how to get kernel-header successfully setup?
Update: I gave up on Zorin 17 Pro and managed to get a 20% discount on Zorin 18 Pro so now i’m runing Zorin 18 Pro in normal mode on my FrameWork 16 with AI 300 series. I must say this laptop is really quiet and i saw load was like 1% most of times on this linux os
