@2disbetter, thanks for the reply. Neat knowing you have a Frame, too - we are on a couple of the same social geek sites…
While I really know Ubuntu deeply, I’m STILL eigging the heck out of Fedora. I dunno, I might be getting sold on it. 
I’ve been on super older hardware; think Thinkpad T430s… and Fedora just makes this feel like a MBP. Anyway, I’ve been doing some benchmarking and… you’ll have to share any Frame.work awesomeness you come by.
Cheers.
pAULIE42o
. . . . . . . . .
I’m using Ubuntu + regolith (a preconfigured i3 for ubuntu with some extras) with kernel 5.12. I’ve just spent a bit of time setting it up so I could be convinced to try something different if there’s a reasonable reason.
I’m using Ubuntu 20.04.3 w/5.11 kernel.
applied the Wifi fix, but other than that, everything just works. I haven’t looked into the fingerprint scanner yet as that’s not really a feature I use.
@RandomUser I don’t think I can coreboot the T430s line - but now that I have the Frame, I do have a few of them - maybe 2 that are good-working that I can play around and make anything out of. Hmmmmm…
The other two folks who have more custom Ubuntu installs - thats cool… I am pleasantly liking the dang Fedora. AND, I believe they will be fulling supporting the Frame.work in version 35 - so for me this is a high contender. I might end up living right here.
I’ve started to do some benchmarking and am enjoying the Frame.
pAULIE42o
. . . . . . . . .
I’m running Arch Linux with KDE. I think the 5.14.8 kernel fixed the bluetooth issue on reboot, but I have yet to extensively test that.
EDIT: Nope, still broken after a warm reboot
I started on Mint 16 (Cinnamon) then distro-jumped, using Cinnamon where I could and Gnome where I couldn’t and after Gnome 40 dropped, I decided that the Gnome extension support was now worth the switch since I’d spent too much time working on Cinnamon extensions to get features already native in Gnome. I fell in love with the simplicity of Pacman and YAY on Manjaro, then made my way up the complexity+customization ladder to EndeavorOS, and then last week, finally Arch, where there’s no more “I’ll stay here because X isn’t worth it,” because ‘X’ no longer exists. Speaking of X, running Wayland on modern hardware gives me so much more faith in the future of GNU/Linux, as I have had lots of issues with X, but had only run Wayland on old AMD (bulldozer?) laptop hardware in Manjaro several years ago. Super Happy with Arch running Gnome, especially as MS continues down their path of BS.
I’m running Fedora 34 Cinnamon at the moment. It’s a little outside my comfort zone. I’m usually running Mint Debian Cinnamon edition but I wanted to get my hands dirty with DNF etc… It’s been a bit of a learning curve. I’ve used Fedora before, but now that I’ve got the Framework I’m going to give it a good solid 6 months or so and see if I can stick solely inside the Linux ecosystem. My previous laptops have been old retired systems that couldn’t really do much, so this is my first experience running it on some grade-A hardware. So far I’m pretty impressed with the experience. The battery tends to get drained really fast in F34, but from what I’m reading there are some improvements for that in F35 so I’ll be upgrading once it’s feasible to do so. I may end up switching to GNOME for the desktop though, the lack of integrated fingerprint support in the F34 Cinnamon spin is kind of annoying.
I’ll be running Ubuntu 21.10 on my framework, once it ships later this month. I may play around with other distros, but Ubuntu will always be my daily driver.
Sorry if this isn’t the place for this, but what was the extent of your work with Canonical?
No worries.
I bounced around a little bit, first as a software engineer and later as a technical lead. Mostly I worked around developer tooling and configuration management (Juju), but later my focus was on open source software in the telco world. All of my work was server-side stuff (OpenStack, Kubernetes, LXD, etc), but I’ve been using Ubuntu as a desktop since 2004 or so.
I’ve REALLY been enjoying Fedora. I’m running the GNOME version, and dnf isn’t too terrible to get a hang of. Reminds me of a mix between Ubuntu and Arch - with yum and RPMs making things easy to find. I could see how a newb might not understand that ‘software’ doesn’t have all the packages that one might need… I like dnfdragon for GUI, but anything you want it just a few keystrokes away since yum and .RPM support is there.
I like how clean Fedora has been for me, and in MY case GNOME extensions have been enough to customize as much as I need. Heck, its almost nice to not have to do so much editing to dial in KDE.
I think I’m gonna hang out with Fedora and can’t wait for 35 to drop… I’m hoping that it only brings more support for the Frame.work.
pAULIE42o
. . . . . . . . . .
The last time I messed around with Linux, it was Mandrake (not even Mandriva back then) 8.0 so I’m a bit rusty. Installed Mint 20.2 MATE x64 on my new Framework and plan on getting myself (slowly) back up to speed.
I got Debian unstable working without much trouble. Downloaded the daily installer build with the non-free firmware included (so the wifi would work) and updated to unstable as soon as possible. Didn’t even have to turn off secure boot.
But I’ve not even tried to do anything with gestures. I’m coming from a Thinkpad with real buttons so I’ve never needed them before. Haven’t messed with the fingerprint reader either, nor tried bluetooth (which I never managed to really figure out on any previous laptop either).
Now that I have Fedora running pretty well, with fingerprint - that… sucks more than just using passwords, anyway - so it’ll probably get toggled off…
gestures is my next stop on the happy Frame.work train. I heard above a user running ‘touche’ for gestures, but I’m gonna look into different gesture solutions and try to find something that works with my flow.
Another Fedora GNOME extension that has been really useful is simply Tiling Assistant. Now… Frame.work’s limited keyboard does make it a TAD bit harder (or, should I say less intuitive) to interact with, but its still a must-have.
My Fedora experience is getting better and better everyday. The Frame.work has been a powerhouse of a heart.
pAULIE42o
. . . . . . . . . .
I have settled on Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS. Very few hiccups, nothing more than a comparable windows installation with the level of fiddling I do. I am quite pleased thus far.
So… I was able to get Ubuntu going fairly easily, too - but the fingerprint software was giving me some troubles. Its stupid, too, cause just like with my older ThinkPads - once you get fingerprints GOING… I always hate it and wanna toggle it OFF anyway. I’m a stickler for having every function SUPPORTED, tho - so I gave Fedora a spin…
Being a longtime Ubuntu user, I am surprised that I’m liking it SO much. I love customizing my setups and KDE allowed that [I was a Kubuntu user…] - but I think I’m gonna remain on Fedora. I like it that much.
With GNOME extensions, it gives me… JUST enough customization, and its pretty rock solid. Glad you got your Ubuntu working the way you need it - but also glad that I installed Fedora.
Cheers,
pAULIE42o
. . . . . . . . . .
Straight up Debian Stable for me. I used a firmware-included installer from the /current/ branch and installed an updated linux image after the OS install was complete.
Runs great, no complaints. Behaves exactly as it should.
I love Debian - I’m also starting with my first server right now and instead of running with Proxmox, I just put a standard Debian on it. For the amount of services I want to run, I can doso underneath one OS and figure its a good way to learn yet another type of Linux distro. [Altho Debian and Ubuntu are really similar.]
Its good to know that Frame.work can handle lots of flavors… there are choices for us to pick from. Again, I’m stoked w/ Fedora… but keep the deets coming about which dist yer rocking on your Frame! Thanks, et all.
pAULIE42o
. . . . . . . . . .
/s
Well, many installs and reinstalls since I received my Framework, but I’m currently settled on Ubuntu 21.04 and Fedora 35 (and Windows 11).
Not sure if triple-booting counts as being “settled” but there it is.
@Chris_Eden If you’re familiar and comfrotable with Linux, you might consider Bedrock Linux. It can allow you to use the things you like most from Fedora and Ubuntu simultaneously and cohesively, causing them to become what’s known as strata. I’m currently using Bedrrck with Void and Arch strata.