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Comment by trustingtrust | Hacker News Reader

With computers like framework and system76, the community for hardware support is solid too now. Seriously considering a switch from M1. I feel like macOS is half baked development environment. I only stay because I never bought a Linux supported computer and I got the M1 air very cheap. But I am considering getting a framework as I just damaged a usb-c port and I am not entering apple’s repairability problem.

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The Starfighter also seems quite interesting: https://starlabs.systems/pages/starfighter (Although I love the Framework concept)

As for Linux support for your M1, did you check out Asahi Linux? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zHoZK4FoIo Its development is progressing rapidly, so be sure to check out the latest development status at their site: https://asahilinux.org/

Have a work mate that has just bought a 2nd hand apple lappy with the M2 and has Asahi installed on it.

it is blazingly fast. No kidding around... everything just snaps on when clicked.

If this is the future I may have to start buying apple hardware

While Framework and Sys76 are the two major players in the Linux laptop space, if you are looking to save money I would recommend picking up a Dell/Lenovo/HP "business" laptop, those run Linux really well and a good chunk are even certified to run Ubuntu.

In my experience though I stopped buying laptops for personal use and started buying desktops. Easier to upgrade, usually cheaper and better support for Linux just by virtue of not having things like a Wifi or BT card.

Why is Framework considered a player in that space? What does that company actively do to improve Linux support? Do they offer free BIOSes like coreboot? Are any of their peripheral firmwares open-source? What kind of Linux compatibility do they guarantee for their hardware prior to launch?

Afaik they're exactly the same as Lenovo: a Windows PC manufacturer that happens to be popular with Linux users, and which doesn't go out of their way to break things for Linux users. But they've shipped laptops that had broken power management on Linux on launch day, for example. They're not a Linux hardware vendor.

Lenovo Thinkpads have explicit Linux support, but they still tend to have issues with Bluetooth audio at the very least.

That's a welcome development. In the past, every time I've been in the market for a laptop, they had few or no explicitly supported models.

(The Bluetooth thing sucks though.)

I've had excellent support from Linux across a variety of machines for 2 decades. Dell, Lenovo and HP.

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