I am still setting up my Framework Laptop to make it my daily driver. So far I have been only using my Framework Laptop at home. I haven’t set up for the battery effectiveness yet. But for the brightness on the screen I posted a part of my i3 config (.config/i3/config) [TRACKING] Sway / i3 WM on Framework - #17 by junaruga . Maybe it’s helpful for you.
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That looks like just what I’m after, thanks! I’ll try it out once my final exams are over. 
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Jeez - switching gears a bit. I’m still having a hardware microphone issue, BUT that doesn’t mean I haven’t made a lot of strides w/ my Frame.work distro work:
I have settled on Arch Linux, 100%. It works great, and even most of the issues that needed a work-around seem much better now. Heck, I prefer s2idle as opposed to the slower deep setting for mem_sleep.
While it doesn’t really jive w/ what Arch can be build into, I really like GNOME; its semi-customizable, looks great and isn’t as busy as Plasma - however, I’m thinking that it might be time to switch over to i3 or Awesome tiled WM. Anyone have suggestions or tips about switching?
I can still get all the things I like in the end, right? If I want some stupid floating dock I can just install some pretty option - yea? I do like the thought of using more keyboard and designing something that works for MY workflow…
I might just try a window manager. Arch, however, is pretty solid on the Frame.
pAULIE42o
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I have used only i3 in the tiling manager. It seems that sway config is i3 compatible. So, you can just try i3, sway and awesome to see which window manager you want to use.
I posted some informative Youtube videos about i3 and minimalist software: [TRACKING] Sway / i3 WM on Framework - #18 by junaruga
This video A Comprehensive Guide To Tiling Window Managers is informative.
I know it’s only been one day since my last comment, but I quickly came to realize that Linux on the Framework isn’t where I’d like it to be. There were a lot of things to like about Fedora 35, but the power management and fractional scaling (blurry fonts on non-native apps) were going to be a persistent problem. I’m glad that so many folks are enjoying Linux on this hardware, but I can tell that Windows is a better fit for this laptop / use case for me personally.
Fractional scaling will always be shit for non-Wayland programs IMO. There isn’t enough developer interest in kludging a workaround when we already have the “next-gen” solution.
As for power management, TLP seems to be quite decent, at least for my use case? How many hours are you getting per charge?
I didn’t run any formal tests, but anecdotally it was discharging (at idle and suspend) at a significantly faster rate than Windows 10.
So far, Ubuntu 21.10 with upgraded kernel to 5.14. After the quick kernel upgrade everything I use works OOTB, even power management is good enough. I get over 20 hours of work on this thing with a ~70 Wh USB C PD ~65W powerbank.
The only thing I couldn’t get to work easily was ZFS with 5.14 on Ubuntu 21.10, so I went with the default LVM/LUKS installation instead.
Just curious, what is the “next-gen” solution?
As some others have replied, fractional scaling is always bad - regardless of the laptop. If you’re like me, you came from a laptop with smaller resolution than the Frame.work and didn’t USE fractional scaling. What works for me is running Wayland, selecting the % closest to 100 that you can live with and using scaling on the FONTS… in GNOME, you’d get there using GNOME-Tweaks.
Like you, I liked Fedora on day 1, but changed as I began to see the shortcomings. I found that Fedora, Kubuntu, PopOS, ZorinOS - all had little bugs that were annoying. Fedora is supporting the Frame.work, but I believe 35 is current so more fixes might be 6mo out…
I’ve found that Arch Linux is fast moving, and has addressed even some of the issues that WERE listed in the Arch Linux Frame.work post. For example, you know the… switching s2idle to deep issue for suspend mode? In Arch, I now leave it on s2idle… or whatever it is; and the laptop wakes up just fine.
They even have a webpage dedicated to issues:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Framework_Laptop
If you find installing Arch tough, you can use Archfi to get thru it much easier…
Archfi Script
Really, the only wonky part is getting internet up using iwctl… but, its detailed in their documentation:
Arch Linux Installation Guide - Connecting to Internet Section
Last, I love that Arch is so DOCUMENTED… they have Frame.work specific troubleshooting, they offer a GNOME troubleshooting page, and a fractional scaling troubleshooting page…
I haven’t found anything that works as nicely as Arch - and for the issues that do exist, they have documentation and troubleshooting on ALL issues; I feel like that fact, in the future, will only get better and better.
pAULIE42o
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I’ve used fractional scaling in Windows 10 on all of the laptops I’ve used for a number of years now. A while back, Windows definitely had some weirdness with fonts in those situations, but it’s been rock solid for quite some time. Currently (and before attempting to use Linux recently), I’ve had the display configured at 150% fractional scaling in Win10 and it works perfectly.
I’m glad that Arch is working for you and others. I may give it a try at some point in the future, but for now I feel confident that Linux is not going to deliver a better experience on the Framework than Windows.
LOL - sorry, yes I meant fractional scaling on Linux only… I thought you were still wanting a Linux option as a daily… I misunderstood.
On a funny note, I’m actually running Windows 10 on a different NVME drive on my Frame.work ATM. Its not where I want to live, but I am seeing how all things play nicely. I dunno why nix folks hate Secure Boot so much - prolly just because it doesn’t work for us, but I like the feature. Furthermore, I’m enjoying playing with WSL and the Linux kernel right in Windows 10… I’m finding the walkthrough to be really nice. It teaches WSL, VSCode and some Python, node.js, express and other things. Nice:
Get started with windows subsystem for Linux
pAULIE42o
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I’ve been using NixOS after using Pop!_OS initially. It’s an interesting experience, being simultaneously hard and easy at the same time. It’s hard because you have to start over from scratch and figure out how to do things the Nix way. It’s easy because the things I’ve tried just work – knowledge that would normally be scattered is just baked into the package definitions.
It of course helps that others have shared their config files for NixOS on the Framework laptop, so I can just copy tweaks for it that others have figured out.
My batch 6 DIY was delivered yesterday, and I installed Fedora 35.
So far everything seems to working well out of the box. The scaling was set to 200% by default, but I lowered that to 100% and used gnome-tweaks to increase the font to a comfortable size. A few apps (openSCAD and Spotify, so far) ignore the font scaling, but are still pretty usable.
The touchpad felt good with the default scaling, but after changing to 100% I’ve had to adjust the speed but it still doesn’t feel perfect. Does anyone have any good resources on touchpad customizing in Fedora and/or Gnome?
Wayland! Fractional scaling with Wayland-native programs works perfectly okay (I’m using it right now and the only programs I have with blurry fonts are Xwayland-based programs).
so I can dual boot to kali, but I have to disable secure boot to do that, and then reenable to back to windows. is there a solution so that everything plays a little nicer together?
Why not just keep secure boot off? Why do you need it on for windows?
Why not just keep secure boot off? Why do you need it on for windows?
well when it is turned off, and I try to boot windows, bitlocker throws a fit.
Same as on all my other machines: Gentoo. I copied /etc and /var/lib/portage/world off my old Dell Latitude 7370 (the machine this one is replacing), booted a temporary Lubuntu 21.10 system off an ISO on an SD card, and installed things more or less as usual.
This page suggests that a newer kernel than you might normally run would be a good idea, so I have sys-kernel/gentoo-sources ~* in /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords.
I had some trouble at first getting WiFi working, but that was misconfiguration on my part between NetworkManager and iwd. Specifically, /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/iwd.conf should contain the following:
[device]
wifi.backend=iwd
wifi.iwd.autoconnect=yes
Also, iwd needs to run in the default group: rc-update add iwd default. I think I might’ve forgotten some of this stuff when I switched the old machine from wpa-supplicant to iwd.
Before figuring that out, I cribbed the kernel configuration (running 5.15.8) from Lubuntu, since WiFi was working there. I might try reverting reverted to Gentoo’s stock kernel config…it probably works, too, and would be less hassle to get going…
I only got the computer this past Monday, and have only had evenings to tinker around with it thus far. I got my usual KDE setup running last night shortly after getting WiFi working. The only annoyance I’ve run into so far is a lack of tap-to-click on the touchpad. After a bit of poking around, I found the touchpad controls in KDE system settings to enable tap-to-click. w00t!
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I’ve been getting about 8 to 10 hours of normal use. Less if gaming. (For my personal box, I’ve used xrandr to set brightness to .5 on boot which does offer a lot more battery life and is still plenty bright for night-time use.)