Hi, I’m Amy. I’m a firmware engineer from the US. I received a FW16 as part of the Framework/NixOS partnership, and I love it so far! The modularity and repairability of it is nice, but it’s also a really nice laptop in its own right. It’s replacing a 9-year-old ultrabook, and I can’t believe how much faster laptops have gotten since then.
I’ll be lurking around the Linux boards, especially topics related to NixOS. I’ve been using Linux for a very long time, and NixOS personally and professionally for a few years now.
That works really nicely for lower-power, lower-bandwidth, lower-complexity applications. The Raspberry Pi Compute Module family and lots of other ARM system-on-modules work that way. They’re designed so that a system designer can build a custom board around them and plug in as much compute power as they need.
I don’t think it really scales up to the kind of performance that we’d expect from a laptop. I’d be worried about adding a connector between mother- and daughterboard since it would impact USB and PCIe signal integrity. I think they’d also have to put the power electronics, chipset, and other supporting devices on the daughterboard. At that point, the daughterboard would be almost the entire motherboard as it exists today.
Hey!
I’m a software developer in the US. I heard about FW only a few months ago from a friend.
I just got the AMD 7840U version FW13 a couple weeks ago. My wife and I had a first-gen surface book with performance base that died a couple months ago (might be slate battery, but haven’t tried to dismantle it yet). My older, backup laptop also starting having HW problems last month, so it was time to get something new.
When choosing a new laptop for myself, I would usually go for a Thinkpad. However I haven’t liked the direction they’ve gone recently.
I researched FW a bit, and liked the mission. I’m fully on board with “right to repair”, and am thankful the EU has been able to push that, so the US gets dragged along.
Aside from a few nitpicks (underside vent, mixed-height arrow keys, MediaTek wifi, and the size of the expansion modules), I absolutely love my FW. The benefits outweigh the issues for me.
I’m definitely recommending it to everyone I know (ahead of Thinkpad I usually recommend).
Hi,
I’m a freshman college student in Physics at the ENS Lyon, in France, I also work in software engineering and AI/ML research, I’m a big Linux enthusiast and free software advocate.
I’ve wanted to buy a framework laptop since the launch of the company, due to it’s commitment to open-source, the quality of the product and because I like do repair and build things myself !
I just ordered a FW13 with an AMD 7000s series yesterday. I cannot wait to install Arch and tinker with it !
I’ve seen some of the community projects, expansion cards and stuff, and it looks amazing. I hope I’ll be able to contribute !
Hi everyone–
After a quarter of a century owning laptops and 17 years in Apple’s walled garden, I have finally decided to make the jump to Linux, and Framework seemed the obvious choice to do so.
I’ve been eyeing the space for a quite while, but was nervous about taking the plunge. As an academic studying privacy/surveillance/disinformation, I felt like I needed to put my money where my mouth was, but I was also concerned about breaking a lot of my customary and ingrained workflows.
It started with phones, actually. In '19 I preordered a Librem5 from Purism; then in '21 (I was still waiting on the Librem5!) my old (2012!) iPhone broke, so I got a FairPhone3 as an interim replacement. Last year, the Purism phone actually arrived, and I tried to use it briefly as a laptop replacement, hooking it up to peripherals with a hub, etc. That didn’t really work, what with overheating and finickety wake-up from suspend (among other things), so with my old (also 2012!) MacBook Air literally on its last legs, I decided to pull the trigger on an actual Linux laptop. I had heard good things about Framework from various sources, and esp. on Cory Doctorow’s podcast, and liked how its design philosophy was similar to the FairPhone’s.
So, long story short, I just received a DIY AMD FW13 running Ubuntu 24.04. Minor panic in the setup with a recalcitrant bezel getting stuck and almost snapping, but got it straightened out in the end.
So far, loving the look and feel of the laptop, weight, battery life, and the freedom of modular expansion cards. Steep learning curve in teaching my fingers new keyboard shortcuts. And totally in love with the idea of replacing parts as they break or become obsolete, as opposed to buying a whole new machine.
Anyway, very much at the beginning of this journey, and really excited about what lies ahead. Expect several posts with annoying newbie questions in the near future! :-/
welcome to the community! we love answering newbie questions and won’t be annoyed by them, that being said, you will most likely find your answers using the search function!
Hi everyone:)
I’m Natan, backend dev, Brazilian living in the Netherlands, 33 YO
I’m a Mac user since 2010 but I was getting tired, now I’m fully on FW 13 AMD/Fedora
I like photography, messing with Linux and old unreliable cars.
Happy to see that FW has a vibrant community of VERY DIVERSE people, that’s very surprising and exciting to see.
I’m also very happy and excited to finally fully switch my main OS from Mac to Linux while keeping good hardware, thinking about contributing to some FOSS project in the near future as well:D
I graduated in CompEngineering many years ago, I was enjoying MacOS very much until Apple went full bezerk with soldered SSDs, pushing ppl to iCloud and verifying Apps online with gatekeeper.
Finally decided that I was tired and made the switch. Small quirks aside, it’s been a very exciting journey so far.
I wish you all the best:D
I just ordered my Framework Laptop this week (Laptop 13 AMD DIY) with the new screen and webcam. I’ve been batting the idea back and forth for a while, and having seen the new updates for the screen and webcam, and having a bad experience with a current laptop, decided that generating e-waste every time a component dies that can’t be easily replaced was not the way I wanted to move forward. I’m not a skilled laptop tech, but I’ve swapped my fair share of RAM modules and hard drives in laptops in my day, and watching the videos on the repairability of the Framework laptops and seeing the progress of the company into updated components gave me the confidence I needed to buy in.
I’m in Batch 3 for the DIY laptops with the new screen and webcam, so my laptop will ship next month. I’m very much looking forward to officially being part of the Framework community!
I’m an IT Systems Architect Intern for a local small business. I’m a recent purchaser of the Framework Laptop 13 AMD (performance) model. Just curious to see what the community is about!
hey! i’ve been lurking here for some time admiring what folks here have done. i make music, code, and other stuff. love my 16. i have only just scratched the surface of what it can do and i’ve got it dual booting, led matrixing, and keyboard uh… firmware…ing?
I’m Connor, a highschool senior from northeast US with wayyy too much time. I recently sprung for the Framework 16 (DIY, Ryzen 7, no dGPU) after saving for 2ish years. (Been saving since before FW 16 was announced)
Hobbies of mine include computer networking and cybersecurity, as well as hiking/volunteer work in my community. I used my new laptop as an opportunity to ditch Windows in favor of Linux. If I’m gonna support free/open source choice I may as well go all in.
Been following Framework for a while, and decided it was now a good time to take the plunge.
Will also be my first Linux laptop (was Windows since forever, and switched to a MacBook Pro around 2021). Going with Fedora for now, but it’s nice to have options.
Put my order in yesterday, but given the long weekend etc., don’t expect it to ship until the week of Sept. 9th.
Saved around $280 by buying the SSD & RAM from Amazon, so hoping I won’t regret that
Here’s Maxime Hackermann, teaching assistant and computer guy from erg art school (Brussels, Belgium), testing the Framework (DIY) 13 since last year !
(it’s a great product, we are now considering Framework when we’ll upgrade / replace our computer fleet =)
