Hello,
I just purchased an AMD framework 13 and while I wait (im)patiently for it to arrive, I was wondering what Linux distros people here are using.
I’ve only ever use Ubuntu on desktop, but I think I’m ready to move away from it now, which I guess leaves fedora and mint as officially supported distros.
What have you tried? What are your experiences?
Mint is my goto for newer Linux users, and users that want something that #justworks.
I use Mint on all my personal laptops with the default Cinnamon desktop environment and it’s always incredibly stable.
Mint just announced a few weeks ago that they are partnering officially with the Framework team to make sure compatibility is top notch, so the already good compatibility will become even better over the coming months and years.
The only real downside with Mint, and specifically Cinnamon, is that it looks a little dated. You can get it looking pretty modern and clean, but it doesn’t look nearly as modern and sleek as KDE Plasma or Cosmic. It doesn’t look bad though, and honestly, when I need to just get work done, I don’t need it looking ultra sexy-sleek.
Is Mint using Wayland? If not, how well does it work with touchpad gestures? I’m asking because at least on Fedora, when I try it on X11, it does not have the same level of advanced touchpad gestures as on Wayland.
Mint personally didn’t stick with me, and I settled on Kubuntu. I felt like troubleshooting ended up being a lot more opaque and frustrating on mint than on kubuntu, and I felt like there were a lot of little accessibility features that were missing on mint.
Kubuntu (KDE in general) is more overwhelming at first, but I feel like it’s much more of a “set it and forget it” experience
Slightly off topic, but whatever distro you choose you probably want to use the kernel parameter amdgpu.abmlevel=0 because without it the display gets super washed out and low contrast when the laptop is in power saving mode which drove me insane until I figured out that parameter.
Mint if you are coming from Windows.
Pop!_OS if you are coming from Mac.
Pop!_OS on a Thinkpad has been my daily driver for five years now. Not a single problem, ever. Rock solid.
Have you tried pop on the framework? Have you had any compatibility issues?
@JoMiran @anytimesoon
RedHat if you’re coming from OS/2. 25 years now, going strong.
I too ran OS/2 back in the day (started with 2.0). I started my Linux journey with Red Hat Halloween in 95(?), but I tend to only recommend Debian based distros to beginners due to the vast amount of support available for that flavour. On the server side, it’s still RHEL and its forks.
I would recommend you Aurora or Bluefin. They’re both the same, but one is KDE, and the other is Gnome.
They are pretty much indestructible, ultra-low maintenence (staged automatic updates, etc.), different branches, great quality of life tweaks and more included.
It’s a bit similar to how Android works, but powered by a common PC.
With the great touchpad both KDE and Gnome would shine due to their smooth gestures they offer.
I’m trying Aurora on a Dell with Amd. I had the bitlocker issue coming from windows 11 that slowed the installation process. The os seems fine, I’ve used Mint and Ubuntu. I spent a good hour trying to get my flatpak apps to show up in the launcher, so that wasn’t fun.
While I like the concept of keeping the os immutable and all apps running in a container, I’m not sure this is the best setup for me. I feel less in control which I have become used to under other distros.
Anyway, I’ll stick with it a bit more and see how it goes. Battery life is good and everything else seems to be working.