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Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes for a Great Linux Laptop

phoronix.com

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Re: Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes for a Great Linux Laptop

#21

Post by binkHN »

starkparker wrote: post #3

It's been good for me; I think it'll be great soon. AMD support on Linux is the biggest issue. The upgrade experience from the Intel 12th gen to a Ryzen 5 took about a half-hour, doing only the mainboard and no display or hinge upgrades, and I was already familiar with the internals from assembling it as a DIY. It's not trivially easy, and there were a few frustrating moments that aren't unique to the Framework (ok,…

Don't feel too bad; I too am on the latest AMD 7040 hotness via a ThinkPad and the BIOS here is garbage too as it relates to Linux.

Re: Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes for a Great Linux Laptop

#22

Post by totallywrong »

zzzeek wrote: post #13
totallywrong wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's the keyboard? Have you maybe used Thinkpads to compare?

I have a thinkpad also from work and I've never liked thinkpad keyboards, and I especially never liked the trackpad-buttons-on-top thing (it's a key reason I dont use thinkpads normally). I've been through several thinkpads ( as we have to swap out every few years) and while they get nicer each time, they still carry along that old-school "lets have lots and lots of small keys" thing. Framework's keyboard OTOH is ver…

Thanks!

Re: Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes for a Great Linux Laptop

#23

Post by opencl »

haunter wrote: post #18

Wish they were including a Macbook Air with Asahi Linux running on it. Nowadays you can get an M1 for $750 on sale or an M2 for $900. Even though these are the 8GB models only they are very much comparable to the review models in the test.

Phoronix already did an article comparing the M2 running Asahi with Zen 4 machines.

https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m2-zen4-mobile

Re: Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes for a Great Linux Laptop

#24

Post by nicolaslem »

starkparker wrote: post #3

It's been good for me; I think it'll be great soon. AMD support on Linux is the biggest issue. The upgrade experience from the Intel 12th gen to a Ryzen 5 took about a half-hour, doing only the mainboard and no display or hinge upgrades, and I was already familiar with the internals from assembling it as a DIY. It's not trivially easy, and there were a few frustrating moments that aren't unique to the Framework (ok,…

> AMD support on Linux is the biggest issue.

From my experience, it takes about a year between the time AMD hardware is generally available to the public and the time Linux support for it is rock solid.

I got one of the first 6800U laptops available and at the beginning it was rough, crashing often for no reasons. Slowly, each new kernel or firmware version fixed more and more things until one day, about a year later, all issues were gone.

Re: Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes for a Great Linux Laptop

#25

Post by phkahler »

starkparker wrote: post #3

It's been good for me; I think it'll be great soon. AMD support on Linux is the biggest issue. The upgrade experience from the Intel 12th gen to a Ryzen 5 took about a half-hour, doing only the mainboard and no display or hinge upgrades, and I was already familiar with the internals from assembling it as a DIY. It's not trivially easy, and there were a few frustrating moments that aren't unique to the Framework (ok,…

>> The weird power supply limitations for using the board standalone, requiring at least a 100W supply for still less than full performance unless any battery is attached, also limits the flexibility

What? I've been thinking about a VISA mounted PC on the back of my TV. This board seems like a great idea, but 100W for a laptop board? Why? Are there some transients that need more than some caps can supply?

Re: Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes for a Great Linux Laptop

#26

Post by binkHN »

IntelMiner wrote: post #8

At the risk of sounding negative I have to dissent. Linux on the Framework is great * if* you use GNOME or KDE. Those two DE's specifically support Fractional scaling in Wayland the best I've been using XFCE for the better part of 15 years meanwhile. Its Wayland support is a permanent unfortunate "work-in-progress" (apparently they only have two full-time developers for the whole project?) and I'd assume many other l…

For better or worse, I think Wayland is here to stay and that's where all the development is going.

Re: Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes for a Great Linux Laptop

#27

Post by y7 »

redundantly wrote: post #14
zzzeek wrote: post #4

Got one here, AMA!

How does the trackpad compare to a MacBook trackpad?

Besides the actual hardware, I think the biggest problem is the software implementation of trackpads in Linux (at least in libinput/Wayland). Even running Linux on my Macbook, the trackpad experience is vastly inferior to macOS.

I don't care too much about gestures, but mostly about stable palm rejection and proper acceleration curves. The current implementations sadly provide neither.

Re: Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes for a Great Linux Laptop

#28

Post by pram »

opencl wrote: post #23
haunter wrote: post #18

Wish they were including a Macbook Air with Asahi Linux running on it. Nowadays you can get an M1 for $750 on sale or an M2 for $900. Even though these are the 8GB models only they are very much comparable to the review models in the test.

Phoronix already did an article comparing the M2 running Asahi with Zen 4 machines. https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m2-zen4-mobile

Damn the Ally is very impressive.

Re: Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes for a Great Linux Laptop

#29

Post by burntsushi »

IntelMiner wrote: post #8

At the risk of sounding negative I have to dissent. Linux on the Framework is great * if* you use GNOME or KDE. Those two DE's specifically support Fractional scaling in Wayland the best I've been using XFCE for the better part of 15 years meanwhile. Its Wayland support is a permanent unfortunate "work-in-progress" (apparently they only have two full-time developers for the whole project?) and I'd assume many other l…

I've been using X11 on my Framework laptop for years. No desktop environment at all. Just my regular old school window manager[1]. No KDE or GNOME. But also no XFCE.

The only thing I had to do to get scaling working for me was set two environment variables[2].

I was indeed worried about this when I bought the laptop. Prior to this, I avoided anything with resolutions higher than 1920x1200. But it turned out that everything mostly worked with a couple tweaks.

I think the only real issue I've run into is `git gui`. As I understand it, the GUI toolkit it uses doesn't support scaling? Not sure. I ended up working around it by just increasing font sizes. I suppose this exposes the weakness that is probably impacting you: the scaling on my laptop is being done by the GUI toolkits, not the display server or compositor. (I don't always run a compositor, but when I do, I use `picom`. Mostly just to avoid tearing.)

[1]: https://github.com/BurntSushi/wingo

[2]: https://github.com/BurntSushi/dotfiles/blob/ea3a88e6160f4244...

Re: Framework 13 with AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes for a Great Linux Laptop

#30

Post by xd1936 »

starkparker wrote: post #3

It's been good for me; I think it'll be great soon. AMD support on Linux is the biggest issue. The upgrade experience from the Intel 12th gen to a Ryzen 5 took about a half-hour, doing only the mainboard and no display or hinge upgrades, and I was already familiar with the internals from assembling it as a DIY. It's not trivially easy, and there were a few frustrating moments that aren't unique to the Framework (ok,…

I currently have a 12th Gen Intel Framework. How much of an improvement in everyday use do you see?
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