I ordered two weeks ago making it into the July batch. Got the shipping notification on Monday and received my laptop today. I ordered the DIY i5 edition with 16GB RAM, two USB-C modules, 1 USB-A, an HDMi, and a 1TB storage.
I unpacked everything and assembled it. It really isn’t what I would call a DIY experience, all I had to do was install the RAM, SSD, bezel, and input panel.
I booted to the BIOS and disabled secure boot, added the grub UEFI key from prepared USB drive of Fedora 38. My error was not realizing I re-enabled secure boot when I copied the key. Booting from the USB I kept getting the message that I needed to load the kernel first. After reformatting and re-imaging the USB drive a couple of times, I ended up writing the installer image to the 1TB storage module before I realized my error and disabled secure boot again.
Fedora proceeded to install without issue. I followed the install guide on the framework forums. The fingerprint reader did not work, but everything else seems to work out of the box. Took a few minutes to run dnf upgrade and install some software.
Initial thoughts: I like the keyboard, it feels good with a bit of resistance, the key texture isn’t a smooth friction-less plastic, almost more like a velvet feeling, kind of rubbery. Rubbery isn’t the right word, but I just can’t think of a better way to describe it. The display is much more square than what I am use to, so I am going to reserve my judgement on that for now. The screen is matt, another change that will take time to decide whether or not I like it, but it was something I was looking for. Glossy screens reflect too much when working in the light and require looking at it at just the right angle. Chassis feels solid, a bit of heft but lighter than the HP Spectre 13 that I am coming from. The microphone and camera along the top of the screen have built-in slide covers; I don’t remember seeing anything about that when I was looking at the Framework, so it was a pleasant surprise.
Looking forward to share more after I have a chance to really make use of it.
Nice, congrats! The camera and microphone switches are better than slide covers, they cut power to those sensors. It’s kinda cool that it’s become so standard for Framework that it’s not discussed much anymore but it definitely deserves more attention. It was one of the many selling features for me when I pre-ordered the first gen framework (11th gen Intel).
It really is a nice touch! And I love the magnets that hep align and secure the bezel and input cover. Such little things making the whole better.
If you have an update after a bit of use, that would be great. Still using my Thinkpad from 2011, but my next laptop is probably going to be a framework. I don’t see any deal breakers so far…
See my 10 day update: https://lemmy.world/post/2554698
Why did you need to disable secure boot? To boot from USB?
I am looking forward buying a framework laptop. Still using an ASUS from 2011 but it is getting slow and I am starting to have issues, e.g., my touchpad seems to have broken down.
I can’t explain it, you’d be better off doing a bit of googling to get the details. It’s not hard to do, just boot into the boot menu (using F2 key as soon as you power on), go to Security entry, then Secure Boot and disable it.
I think they are referring to the fact that disabling secure boot is unnecessary (or dare I say, less secure), since fedora supports secure boot out of the box.
Sadly it didn’t work. I’ve successfully booted other machines with it enabled, but it wouldn’t do it on the framework.
That is wierd, I have never seen similar issues reported. Do you know anyone else have this issue with framework?
And also on their fedora install guide they also didn’t mention disabling secureboot, so they probably support secureboot.
I’m running a first gen DIY i5 with Ubuntu distro. Only real complaint is that o can’t get the battery to last in sleep mode. Other than that, big fan of this laptop. Enjoy!!
I have a 11th gen i7 and battery is definitely my biggest complaint. I was able to get hibernate working in Ubuntu following some of the guides from the community page
Im still getting 5-6ish hours just depending on what I’m doing but its far better than what I had been getting before running tweaks
Oh you rock, I’ll go take a look at that! Thank you :)
Did you get the fingerprint sensor to work?
See reply below.
I think there was a comment on reddit mentioning you need to downgrde the firmware on windows (or fingerprint sensor passed into windows) to get it to work, else you would need to wait for an update.
I haven’t put any effort into it. A quick look at the forums does show an issue with the firmware that requires using Windows to fix it. I don’t care enough to go through that effort right now. I’ll wait it out and see if they come up with another fix. This was a very recent issue, like the initial post was July 20.
