Welcome! Please introduce yourself

[TheTwistgibber]

Oh hi there!

I’ve recently joined Framework and am excited to be a part of this community! I’m a tech geek and child of the 80’s that started my journey on a Commodore 64 which evolved into a PC build of a 386dx40 with 4MBs of RAM and a monochrome monitor. I ran BBSs and played MUDs after getting to telnet through the University of Minnesota’s Gopher System. I know that ages me a bit, but I’m still an avid PC and Xbox gamer, recently hitting the level cap in New World while driving around in Forza Horizon 5 and skirmishing in Halo Infinite.

I worked in the video game industry for many years, worked on Call of Duty at Activision, led global support for Oculus in its early days, and stood up support for Anduril Industries.

We’re heads down preparing for scale, but I’ll be following along and chiming in when I have free moments. I’m passionate about what we’re doing here and thank each and every one of you for breaking the mold and trying something new to influence much needed change.

[V_Chan]

I’m a 20 year vet in the world of IT. Built numerous desktop PCs in the past and always enjoyed the design aspect of routing wires, and water cooling tubes around as a work of art. My background is data networks, data center design, operations primarily around Windows Server, Cisco networks, data security and now architecture.

I am currently working as a Infrastructure Architect for a large organization and one of my areas of ownership is end user device roadmaps. Typically we buy from the big three vendors for devices (Apple, Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc) and usually these devices are recycled after 3 years (recycle typically means collection, destruction of data, and either resold to staff, or donated to charities). Worst part of this is knowing hardware has a much longer shelf life than 3 years, but corporate policy states 3 years, and senior leaders love their new shiny toys and expect them to be the latest and greatest, regardless how old their current devices are.

Stumbled upon FrameWork laptops and admit very intriguing and wonder about the Enterprise application. Right now don’t see it being viable, due to the high cost of ~$1500 for a laptop, when vendors the big three tend to offer heavy discounted prices when purchasing large volume orders. But who knows, those vendors have the economy of scale with their strangehold on suppliers.

As we are all trying to reduce our digital waste, FrameWork is ahead of the pack for sure. I’ve always disliked buying the fully enclosed laptops where nothing is replaceable (cough cough Apple, Razer, Lenovo, Dell, HP to name a few). If a part it is replaceable, vendors expect you to ship the unit to them at a cost, and they replace it for you at another cost, which then they offer you a newer model with a discount, while telling you replacement parts is much more expensive than brand new (what a business model).

Recently had that issue with a laptop battery. Vendor told me to ship the laptop to their depot in Phoenix, they would diagnose the problem for me, then bill me parts and labour after. I knew the exact problem was the battery, ordered a replacement from a 3rd party site and replaced it myself, wish I could do the same with the memory, but those are fully soldered on board (lame).

Love to see the success of FrameWork in the coming months and years. Will heavily consider these devices for future upgrades for myself and others.

[Darki]

Hello my name is Darki

I am a technology and space enthusiast from Europe

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Framework is interesting to me because it fills a void in the market that I have been waiting for, for years; a laptop you can easily upgrade, a laptop you can customise the way you want.

My favourite part about it is how much attention and detail has been made to make it as easy as possible for an end user to open up and tinker with, all the components are simply explained with little guides and QR codes next to them, I don’t know, I just find it really cool and refreshing c:

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I first heard about framework earlier this year in July just before it started to ship, however, I didn’t really look too much into it until the media coverage started to come through later in the month. Since then I have kept my eyes on the blog here and the framework twitter to see the latest news and information about what’s happening with the laptop :o

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I hope to over the next few months integrate myself in the community where I can help support users with issues, learn more about framework and hopefully make some new friends along the way

[QRP]

Hello world! Since I learned to program an IBM 360 in 1972 I convinced enough people, including myself, that I understood computers, and I have managed to retire without having blown up the world. Let’s call that a success. Now I dabble with Ubuntu, quite contentedly.

[Alec]

Hey Framework Community!!! I am a senior in high school taking Dual Enrollment CIT (CS, CIS, whatever you want to call it) courses at a local college, computer hardware nerd, and casual gamer.

I discovered Framework through an article in my Google news feed (don’t remember which newsletter). I was on the website the day of the laptop’s announcement back in March of this year. I immediately signed up for updates before the Framework community was released.

As a child, I had a Dell Latitude E6410 (released in 2010), I still have it. I fell in love with computers fixing that thing unnumbered times for assorted reasons (bricked OS installs, fried RAM, damaged HDDs, etc.) That laptop was old enough that any parts I needed I could easily replace: CPU, heatsinks/fans, RAM, storage drives, even that little annoying or lifesaving (depending on what kind of person you are) cursor nipple in the middle of the keyboard.

I dreaded when I finally had to upgrade about a year ago for my programming endeavors because, as we all know, they just don’t make laptops like that anymore. Six months after I purchased that new laptop Framework entered the picture. I instantly fell in love with their concept. I have craved the Framework laptop since I read about it, and I won’t stop craving it until I own one.

I’ve told everyone who will listen about the Framework. I have the money for laptop saved up, I’m just waiting for the 15-inch variant wink-wink Framework team before I pull the trigger, as are several of my friends who I introduced to Framework.

I’m just here in the community, basically, to thank the Framework team for supporting our right to repair, the environment, and the sweaty computer nerds at the cost of long-term profit margins.

[FrameworkBee]

Hello, everyone,

My name is Hope, but everyone calls me Bee! I am Frameworks Community Support Manager, so you will always see me floating around our community, social media, and support queues! I am a keyboard hobbyist, coffee lover, and avid gamer.

I had discovered Framework through a few friends and had fallen in love with the idea of our products. Later, being reached out to over Linkedin about the Community Manager role, I gave it a shot and applied (If you couldn’t tell, I was offered the position)

I am incredibly passionate about my work and love what I do, so I am super excited to work for such a dynamic company. If anyone has any questions or ideas for me, please feel free to shoot me a DM or tag me on any threads, as I would love to learn more about every one of you!

I have a lot of ideas in the works, so you all will be seeing a lot more of me soon!

[ilikepie]

Network Engineer that has been in need of a new personal/work laptop for a little while. Am a big right to repair enthusiast, and saw the videos from L1 Techs and LTT then had to see what was up for myself.

[Zoe_Maxine]

Hi everyone! I’m Zoe, I’m an artist/illustrator/etc from Canada and I have just the worst tech luck. If you’ve ever read the xkcd strip “laptop issues”, that’s basically me.

Every single laptop I’ve ever owned has been broken in weird ways and after being told that because of the way my most recent laptop was made, despite the part needing to be replaced costing $20 CAD, getting to said part might wreck the whole thing - well, I started looking into laptops that are easier to repair. Found the rating for framework on ifixit and instantly got interested.

After doing more research and making sure that this whole thing wasn’t too good to be true, here I am!

[fangpenlin]

Hi there

My name is Fang-Pen Lin, I am a software engineer and also running a small software startup company in bay area. I write tech articles in my free time, such as explaining elliptic curve cryptography in an easy way.

I used to be a user of Macbook Pro, but then they were forcing you to accept the stupid touch bar if you want a high end model, plus terrible new broken keyboard design, and they called it brave. That pissed me off, so I refuse to upgrade it long time ago. The life of my very old Macbook Pro’s battery came to the end a while back, I wanted to fix it myself, but soon realized it’s glued into the case. Removing it involves of poking a hole on the battery and could potentially release toxic gas, so I didn’t end up fixing it myself. I found myself enjoying fixing stuff. And unfortunately that’s not a norm in the industry. Such as recently, my logitech g502 mouse’s micro switch stops working properly after just one year. Instead of throwing it away, I bought a super long lasting (well, at least they claim it to be ) micro switch and solder it myself. I found the process very challenging, to dissemble, to desolder and solder the new one:

And put everything back altogether. Even as tech savvy person like I am, I found it’s very difficulty to repair, not to mention normal people would just throw that away. As an engineer, I found this stupid because the only thing broken is the micro switch.

I found framework laptop from LTT’s video, and I felt really excited about it. I immediately fall in love with the design. This is exactly what I want, a laptop I can use forever instead of throwing away every few years. Recently I am porting my startup’s app for Linux, and I realized that I need a Linux dev machine. So I’ve placed the order and became the soon-to-be-customer of framework

What I hope to see from the community, a few things:

• Hardware eco system, such as 1U rack for retired motherboards as my home lab server cluster
• Software eco system, like one-click (or command) finger print / other firmware setup for framework laptop on major Linux distro
• Secondhand market, I found it hard to sell used electron devices, very time consuming and only get a little back. I hope there’s a place to sell or buy used components easily (certificated by framework?)

That’s it! Great work, I can’t wait for the shipping of my batch 6 order and get my hands on it !

[Jim_Boutilier]

I’m a long career IT professional that is incredibly fortunate to enjoy the work and field I’m good at. I want to help support Frameworks vision that I’d love to see eventually dominate the entire product industry.

That is well made, useful products designed with long service life that are easily and inexpensively configured, maintained, upgraded, and recycled with a minimum of waste. Long term I believe this is better for companies, customers, society, and the planet.

[Rick_Majtenyi]

Hi! Security Manager and Navy Reservist. I am super excited about the company, and the new laptop I purchased! The formfactor and end-user serviceability is perfect for my lifestyle. I am looking forward to the company continuing to offer new innovations and upgrades. I am most hoping for a Core i9 board/chipset and Gigabit Ethernet expansion card capability soon!

[Riopato]

Been a PC enthusiast since 1992 and a tinkerer since the 80’s.
Been waiting for a company like this for decades and many other companies have attempted modular style portables and have failed miserably. I have good vibes from this design so far and their concept is sound as long as this community thrives while they support their product to take advantage of every ounce of the technology. Looking forward to see newer models other than ultra-book formfactor. Great start with the choice of screen aspect ratio!

[Linen]

Hello all freshman doing Computer Engineering and this is my first and hopefully last laptop purchase. I’ve been really loving the idea behind this product and would hope for it to grow more in the upcoming years. I’ve been tinkering with software since I was a kid and the only reason that I went for a Computer Engineering course is my recently found passion in circuits and the process behind making hardware stuff. Hoping for a successful and lifelong success for the company!

[japanesejuan]

Hi!

I am Clinical Laboratory Scientist Supervisor/Manager. I enjoy photography and gaming (playstation). It’s been almost 7 years since I have owned a windows laptop (mac user) and am excited to own one that I actually have the capability to repair myself!
I live in the South Dakota/Iowa/Nebraska tristate area but moving to California soon!
This company is a blessing in my opinion and do truly hope ya’ll succeed! I have ordered my DIY config and am very excited to get my hands on it!

Batch 6

[Jay_Sekora]

Hi! I’ve been a Unix/Linux sysadmin in academia for my entire career, and am old enough to have used a printing terminal (DECwriter II, I’m guessing, although my memory is foggy) to connect to a mainframe as a kid, and to have used a cardpunch that was in actual production (although I was just goofing around on it). I live in Eastern Massachusetts, south of Boston, with my partner who moved in at the beginning of the pandemic.

My Batch 5 DIY came a couple weeks ago and I’m very very happy with it. (So much so that I’m considering replacing my desktops with it plus a dock at work and home. Probably not going to do that, but carrying my primary computing environment around with me all the time is a bit tempting.)

I have Xubuntu 21.04 and Windows 10 Pro installed in a dual-boot configuration (although so far I’ve booted into Windows mainly to see what this Untitled Goose Game thing is all about), and hope to be able to boot each in a VM inside the other.

[OldCoastie68]

I am 75 Years old, retired and looking to learn something new. Wrote my first computer program as a freshman in college in 1964 on what I remember as an IBM 1620. Didn’t do much with computers/programming as an undergrad but learned/used Fortran for my thesis in grad school in 1972-74. Used computers throughout my career as an engineering manager in the naval engineering area, but more involved with the management of IT than the hardware/software. Decided to invest in a new computer and discovered Framework from an internet posting. Liked the sustainability and repairability aspect and decided to put my money down. My batch five DYI i5 arrived today (12/2) and I am eager to put it together. Although I will have Windows as a main OS, I hope to install Linux on an expansion card and use it to learn about Linux and possibly wean myself from Windows. I feel a bit like someone who learned how to fly in a WWI biplane and finds themselves sitting in the cockpit of a Boeing 787. I was around in the early days and have been lucky to have survived long enough to use today’s machines. What a ride.

[M_Mothersole]

I’m a biochemistry researcher/grad student trying to survive a data science program using an old MBP but after trying to make it work this past year, coding BLNN with only 8GB RAM was the final straw that I needed a laptop that is legitimately upgradable. I’m tired of being told I need to downgrade my macOS to continue using installed protein modeling software. Love tinkering with my RPi4 and found the Framework laptop design inspiring.

[ImaxinarDM]

@OldCoastie68

Ah, yes the IBM 1620… My 1st after punch card joys with the 402 and 407.

[michel]

Hello! Linux developer here, based in Seattle, USA. Been hearing good things about the Framework laptop, and really love the repairability and swappable expansions in the incredible form factor.

I don’t have one yet - most of my time is currently spent on my work Thinkpads and my Asus PN50 MiniPC (the AMD version of Intel NUC), but at some point soon I might replace my aging XPS13.

Apart from packing an Intel rather than an AMD (or an M1 ARM, sigh) this laptop sounds close to perfect, so I expect to join the club properly soon!

Meanwhile, happy to hang around here, learn more, and help out especially with Linux questions esp Fedora and CentOS Stream. I’m also reachable on https://michel-slm.name/

[macropaige]

Hello!

I’m currently finishing an associate in Network Operations and Management as well as my Project Management certification. I may continue on to a four year degree but that’s still up in the air. This is my second time going back to school.

Most of my experience is not tech related at all. My current professional background is in animal care and has been for about 10 or so years.

I build and maintain my own desktop computers. I travel a bit and since it’s not exactly practical to bring you desktop with you I was in need of a laptop. My current one is starting to hit the end of it’s life even after replacing parts.

A friend of mine told me about Framework. I was skeptical at first, but after looking at other’s experiences with it online I began to warm up to the idea. The modularity and upgradable aspects are really what I’m interested in, as well has the expansion cards. I’m excited to see what the community can create on that front.

I’m in batch 6 so I haven’t gotten the laptop yet, but the more I look around this forum the more excited I am to get started with it.