I have been looking at them a lot recently and they have a premium price is it worth it?

What does it look like when you want to upgrade? Like can you just swap out all parts over time and essentially it’s like having a custom desktop, but in small form factor.

Can you buy a base model and upgrade components over time?

Would it suit my use cases for it? Which are to run Linux, I have to use Windows as a Software Dev and so can’t do it on my main. Can I run Minecraft on Linux? I know, but I like that game it makes me happy to unwind.

I want to get more into cyber security related tasks and most likely increase my Darknet activities using Tails.

  • randombullet@programming.dev
    0·
    5 months ago

    I got an Intel 12th Gen laptop but wanted an AMD 7040 gen CPU. I was going to live overseas for a while so shipping laptops via air is questionable.

    So I bought the 12th gen and then a year later upgraded the main board. No issues other than VeraCrypt being annoyed.

  • theshatterstone54@feddit.uk
    0·
    5 months ago

    I’ll answer what I know:

    Yes, you can run Minecraft on Linux. There are both official and unofficial, paid and free versions.

    For Java Edition, there’s an official launcher.

    For Bedrock, there’s an unofficial bedrock launcher that uses a Google Play account with a Minecraft License.

    For Java for free, there are cracked launchers that download as jar files and work great.

    For Bedrock for free, I just wouldn’t bother. I’m big into piracy, and even I just gave up and bought a license from Google Play Store. If you want to give it a shot, you can find a launcher that takes x86 apks, but it’s near impossible to find x86 apks that work, and the only ones I found were from super old versions, like pre-1.16.

      • Unmarketable Plushie@pawb.socialEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        Prism Launcher is easily the best third-party launcher, hands down. It’s really useful and intuitive, with instances (basically it lets you make seperate game installs for different modpacks or versions or whatever) and lets you easily install any mod, modloader, modpack, resourcepack, or shaderpack from all the major platforms (CurseForge, Modrinth, FTB, Technic, etc.)

  • Xyre@lemmus.orgEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    I did just order one to replace my MacBook, so I’m interested in hearing from others as well. The upgradability was a big plus for me beyond being able to have a mobile Linux machine for dev work.

  • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
    0·
    5 months ago

    I have one (FW 16 AMD), I don’t have any complaints so far. It comes mostly assembled but you put your RAM, SSD, screen bezel, keyboard, touchpad and all the port modules yourself. The machine is well built and genuinely very easy to work with. You can swap the keyboard and touchpad without touching a screw.

    For the most part it seems like they’re holding up to their promise, you can buy a new motherboard for a CPU upgrade, remove the old one, put the new one in, and you’re good to go with the rest of your existing stuff (as long as it’s compatible, if the new board needs DDR5 instead of DDR4 then you need new RAM too but that’s expected). So far everything I’ve disassembled as part of the firs assembly has been a breeze. It’s a very nice laptop to work on and swap parts that’s for sure. You get the assurance that you can swap the battery, input modules, IO modules for the foreseeable future.

    Where I’ve been disappointed is the third-party ecosystem for it is not what I was hoping it would be, there’s not a lot of third-party modules for it. But the designs are all open-sourced so you can 3D print parts for it. Maybe in the future we’ll have more modules. Overall though, it’s not like you could even think about that on any other laptop brands, you get the laptop and it’s what it’ll be for the rest of its life.

    Runs great on Linux, most of the company actually uses Linux so support for Linux is very good. All of the models will run Minecraft very well, Minecraft in particular has been known to run significantly better on Linux to begin with, especially on Intel graphics where the OpenGL drivers on Windows are terrible.

    • dave@hal9000@lemmy.world
      0·
      5 months ago

      One neat thing about swapping the motherboard is that you can easily just 3d print a case for it and use it as a server! I saw a post on the homelab community where FW was selling older model MBs for cheap, and people snapped them up for that. Someone sells a slim case for it, but they also have a printable model for it online

      • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
        0·
        5 months ago

        Yep and there’s even a BIOS option for that use case! I really like they they go “oh, people use the parts for that, we’ll add a feature for it!”

  • aedelred@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    I love mine I’ve had it over 2 years. It was a first-gen DIY Framework 13 and I ran into a faulty fan early on. I worked with their tech support and they sent a replacement fan under warranty. Took 5 minutes to put it in and all parts inside have QR codes that take you to the marketplace for replacements and repair instructions.

    They do have official Linux support for Ubuntu and Fedora. I can attest to Linux Mint working well on it although I don’t use the fingerprint reader, which I’ve read has some issues on some distros.

    As for upgradability, I’ve not needed to yet but you can just order a new motherboard and any other parts off their marketplace and drop it straight in. Should take around 20 minutes or so. I suspect this would take longer on the 16 since it is more complex.

    Also, here is a link to the marketplace if you want to browse the parts. I think you could build one from scratch from here, but I think it would cost more that way. https://frame.work/marketplace

    • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
      0·
      5 months ago

      Fingerprint reader working perfectly on my FW16. Not sure it’s the same reader module, but getting it set up on Arch was easy, pretty much worked out of the box in Plasma 6. Adding fprint to pam.d/sudo also worked right out of the box for fingerprint sudo.

  • Sequentialsilence@lemmy.world
    0·
    5 months ago

    I have been running one for 2 years and next generation am going to do the thing they were designed to do and upgrade my laptop without throwing away the whole laptop. So for less than $1000 I will be upgrading to something that is faster than my desktop, and it’s portable.

    The price tag is premium, at first, then it actually saves money.

      • Sequentialsilence@lemmy.world
        0·
        5 months ago

        Probably turn it into a dedicated mini pc for the 3D printer. It’s still decently powerful I just don’t need it anymore. I might gift it to someone as a mini pc, depends on if I see someone who needs a computer but doesn’t have one.

      • Sequentialsilence@lemmy.world
        0·
        5 months ago

        Totally, I’m not buying a new monitor, keyboard, speakers, webcam, or chassis. Just a new CPU and in this case RAM, as we made the switch from DDR4 to DDR5.

        Imagine having to buy a new keyboard, mouse, monitor, and speakers, every time you wanted to upgrade your desktop. It’s the same thing.

  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    Framework 13. Had to RMA the first one I had for a battery issue. The one I currently have has a bad memory controller, so one of the ram slots periodically fails. I decided it wasn’t worth it to RMA the second one. So I’m living with a single stick of RAM.

    Overall I’m impressed. It’s a good system. You can upgrade RAM, hard disk, and the motherboard/cpu combo if you want.

    It’s a sturdy device, I’ve had no issues with the battery life, Wi-Fi is good. It’s a good laptop. Great compatibility with Linux and qubes

    • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      0·
      5 months ago

      Thanks for the reply. I think the consensus here is overwhelmingly positive which is nice to see. I’ve not had one comment say anything particularly bad about them.

  • Kuvwert@lemm.ee
    0·
    5 months ago

    I’ve got a 13 at home and a brand new 16(?) At work. On the 13 I’ve replaced the hinge and the mouse trackpad. It’s been great and it’s running windows 11. The swappable ports are a GD GAMECHANGER I keep a set in my backpack and I can’t count how many times a swap has saved the day.

    The 16 at work is way nice, and I love the custom keypad. I installed Debian on it and I struggled a bit at first getting drivers installed… but with the help of the Debian wiki and llama3 I got it sorted. I haven’t tried installing Minecraft just yet but I’m confident it would work as I’ve used Minecraft on Ubuntu before and it was fine.

    I believe you can replace anything that’s not the mainboard/cpu on the 13. I believe the GPU on the 16 is upgradable which will be nice for gaming.

    The only critiques I had about owning the 13 for so long is that there were lots of weird firmware glitches that have been solved over time and it’s become a very reliable, usable laptop.

      • GbyBE@discuss.tchncs.de
        0·
        5 months ago

        The 16 inch model can have a GPU module installed indeed, which makes it slightly longer and heavier of course. Framework plans on releasing newer GPUs in the future, but can’t guarantee it, as it also depends on the GPU manufacturers.

        Let’s hope they will be able to also provide GPU updates, which would truly make it fully upgradeable machine.

  • Pixel@pawb.social
    0·
    5 months ago

    Typing this from an 11th gen intel framework right now –

    I’ve upgraded a few things (namely the CNC shell, the hinges, and the speaker) and it’s pretty painless. I have some experience repairing electronics though – but not a ton – and it’s been generally pleasant. I had some issues with my batch that required more work than I think it probably should have, including an RMA at one point, but that was a few years ago and it seems most of the problems have been ironed out. You can swap out any parts you want and the compatability has been really good, both for hardware and software. You can upgrade any model with any of their components, it’s a whole ecosystem, so buy a config that’s accessible to you and upgrade it then. Everything you asked about being able to do you should be able to do no problem, there’s nothing unique to the framework computers that would stop that from being the case. If gaming is your usecase though, get an AMD machine (or get one of the new 16 inch notebooks, I have a 13 inch one which doesn’t have the space for a dedicated graphics card, so gaming performance has taken a hit accordingly). Hopefully that helps!

  • hungover_pilot@lemmy.world
    0·
    5 months ago

    I’ve had my fw 13 since early Feb 2022. So far, I’ve replaced the hinges and upgraded to a new mainboard. (11th gen i5 to 12 gen i7 when it became my main PC).

    I’ve redone the thermal paste on the 12th gen 2 times already to clean the fan out and have not had any problems opening things up. I open it up so often to tinker that the pull loop on the keyboard cable finally broke on me a few weeks ago.

    My old mainboard is currently running my entire homlab. Opnsense, pihole, Plex, Kavita, audiobookshelf, foundry vtt, *arrs, unifi controller. I threw it into a 3d printed case and its been running fine without any issues.

    I thought about upgrading to the fw16, but it’s too expensive for me to justify it. If I want to game I just plug into my eGPU. I don’t need my gaming system to be ultra portable.

    I’ll probably upgrade again when they release a new ryzen mainboard that has USB 4 2.0 support so I can take advantage of the additional pcie bandwidth for my GPU.

    I would reccomend the fw13 to anyone who is into customizing PCs or is passionate about repairability in the electronics they own.

  • featured [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    I have a framework 13. Bought it with 12th gen intel mainboard, upgraded it to AMD when that came out. Also upgraded the battery, RAM, and soon the screen when the 120hz one ships. It’s super easy to get into, just five screws and then pop the trackpad/keyboard cable off. I honestly love it.

    Framework has fantastic support for windows and Linux. There used to be some minor fixes needed on certain models but they’ve since resolved them and my experience on Fedora and Arch have been plug and play. On windows they have a driver install script that installs everything in one go, that’s nice too. And yes Minecraft does run on Linux, at least the Java version does. Idk about bedrock though

      • featured [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        You’ll have just as good of an experience on either Intel or AMD. Framework is releasing a new generation of intel models in August so if you want the most cutting edge model and can wait those are a good bet. But personally I’m very happy with my current gen AMD model’s performance and efficiency so I’ll be waiting a while before another upgrade. There really aren’t any major downsides for any of the current options though, just personal preference.

  • cwg1231@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    You can indeed run Minecraft on Linux. In my opinion, it’s even easier than running it on Windows, since you can use your package manager to install openjdk instead of fishing around Oracle’s website to get the Java 17 graphical installer. I use Prism, which is a 3rd party launcher, and I’m loving the experience.