Framework has a great community of users on alternative operating systems. Whilst GNU/Linux is well supported I thought I would start a thread to celebrate the less well known options that people out there are running.
Lets stick to those running on bare metal, not within virtual machines. That does not mean it needs to be a permanent installation - experiences of booting images on removable media like USB sticks are totally valid (and the best way to start, if you are new to this and want to give something a go).
Because this is a space for the weird and wonderful, we can disregard the well known Linux distros. On the other hand, users on particularly archaic or obscure editions of Windows are welcome to give themselves a shout out. No hard and fast criteria here.
We have Haiku users for sure, and Sculpt (Genode). Do we have people on Plan 9 or 9front? How about Serenity? Various AmigaOS descendants? Redox? The rarer types of BSD?
Why is your choice of OS notable, why does it appeal, how easy was it to run on Framework, and what hardware works? Share your stories!
In the list of the OSes you mentioned above, I found the following OS cases or clues on internet. For other OSes in the list, I was not able to find the cases.
I saw the title of this thread and was going to add FreeBSD to the mix, but see that might even be too “common” given your criteria of the rarer BSDs.
I’ll still talk a little bit about it since it is somewhat rare on laptops, and gives me an opportunity to introduce myself to the forums in my own unique way
I don’t have a framework yet, but am in batch 1 for the FW16 and intend on installing FreeBSD and helping get that working for others if I can. I’ll dual boot with Fedora 39 as well, but FreeBSD has long been my preferred OS for daily use, because it runs all the FOSS software I need with little to no modification and does not change quickly so my skills don’t go obsolete as fast as on Linux. And I like the project organization and license better, but that’s really just a personal preference.
EDIT: It’s a solid and very easy to maintain OS and would love to see it used more, and having a known good laptop configuration would be great for the community. Especially since hardware support is generally the harder part of running BSD on a laptop in an enjoyable way.
Perhaps, but as you say that BSD is not too common. Actually I thought that if I was going to discourage the most common Linux distros I should be evenhanded and try to downplay the most mainstream BSD. Like you, I would love to see BSD used more. And Haiku, Plan 9, Genode, …
And welcome to the forum!
Not strange at all! Around the turn of the millennium I had BeOS R5. I remember at the time it felt like what a PC operating systems should be.
If you had asked back then, the only thing that was “strange” about it was that everyone else was content to use Windows! So yes if you are a Haiku user please make yourself known! I got a native install of Haiku on an old laptop I brought for the purpose, it has become a worthy heir to BeOS, and continues to develop apace!
Oh I wish! Microsoft was closing in on a monopoly with Windows… More competition would have been great for the workstation world, especially with (at that time) Mac OS and Apple near death.
Screenshot of it running on the Framework, please!
Just looked it up on Wikipedia: its just another linux distro. Now, if somebody was to demonstrate TempleOS, or forks such as TinkerOS or ZealOS, on their Framework they quite possibly win the thread!
Yes for the most part. I can’t speak for the fingerprint sensor since I don’t use it and disabled it before installing. Next time I update the BIOS I’ll try and remember to check. The only non-working component and it’s not even really Framework’s is bluetooth. That is an OS support issue though and the Intel AX210 wifi card is supported up to an AC connection. All the dongles from the display port, ethernet, expansion, hdmi, usb A & C (thunderbolt) card have worked without issue. Hot swapping isn’t supported but again that is an OS support issue. Touchpad works well enough and has improved quite a bit over time. Camera and microphone work flawlessly on both main browsers available Chromium (Chrome as the kids call it) & Firefox.
The media keys specifically for display brightness and the consumer control key for airplane mode also do not work, due to a limitation in OpenBSD’s HID support.
That is true for airplance mode but that functionality can be manually mapped pretty easily. Not sure if that was true at one point and has since changed but the media keys for brightness work for me out of the box currently (7.4).
Now, if somebody was to demonstrate 