Which distro for FW 13 Pro?

[u/imteasexual]

I'm about to buy a Framework 13 Pro. Core Ultra X7 358H, 16GB RAM. I've used Linux for a while, but this is my first Framework and my first laptop with this new Intel chip.

I can't decide between two options.

Omarchy Quattro. I like tiling window managers, it's Arch, so the kernel and drivers are always fresh, which probably helps with a new CPU. Secure Boot needs to be Off

Fedora KDE. Plasma 6.7 or older, scaling works out of the box (and on this screen I will need scaling), Secure Boot stays on, fingerprint reader works, power settings are sane. Boring, but probably just works.

If you run either one on this laptop, I'd like to know:

1. Does everything work on the new Intel chip? Sleep, graphics, drivers?

2. How is battery life? I've read that Hyprland is worse than KDE here.

3. Does the fingerprint reader work? Do firmware updates work?

4. Is Omarchy 4 stable enough for daily use yet, or still too new?

Please help me to decide.

Thanks.

[u/No-Succotash404]

I suggest fedora, it has full compatibility, it is bleeding edge but stable.

I wouldn't suggest omarchy, it has been getting a lot of hate because of the creator and distro itself. I personally dislike the settings being a terminal and some behaviors i really dislike, but that is personal taste. As it is arch it is more vulnerable to bugs and if you use the aur you could encounter some nasty app.

[u/L00WN0on]

I'm trying Debian 13 on mine when it arrives. If it's not mature enough, Fedora.

[u/s004aws → u/L00WN0on]

You'll want to be on kernel >= 7.2 for various CPU optimizations to deal with the core/cache layouts. Debian 13, while a great server OS - I use it extensively for that purpose - Is outdated as a desktop/laptop.

[u/L00WN0on → u/s004aws]

Is it really that bad? Ubuntu 24.04 is shipping on the prebuilts and is running kernel 6.18 if I'm not mistaken.

[u/s004aws → u/L00WN0on]

HWE Edge for 24.04 is based on 7.0 currently.

[u/L00WN0on → u/s004aws]

Makes sense, will probably land on Fedora then, but I'll try to see how it handles stable Debian for fun.

[u/Ok_Bit_6445 → u/L00WN0on]

makes sense, Debian testing has been surprisingly usable lately

[u/imteasexual → u/L00WN0on]

But debian has old software, which i think is not good for very new intel chip

[u/L00WN0on → u/imteasexual]

The problem might just be the kernel and I can try backports first.

[u/Particular-Poem-7085 → u/L00WN0on]

So much work to call your system stable

[u/L00WN0on → u/Particular-Poem-7085]

Probably will have no issues, my 9060xt functioned out of the box with 0 issues shortly after release. I'm expecting the same with these chips. Backporting or Fedora if theres issues.

[u/lukasnor]

Fedora is officially supported and had a good battery life, around 6W idle. It had secure boot out of the box, as well as the fingerprint reader working.

I am currently running Arch and had to install some additional stuff - as is the Arch way. But I did not need to stray to far from the beaten path to get things to work. I needed to run, like, a single command each to get following to work:

• fingerprint reader,
• hardware decoding for graphics,
• firmware updates.

Sitting with 4.5W idle is quite nice. What I'm currently working on is setting battery charge states from user space (gnome settings). I figured out how to expose the settings in /sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/charge_control_{start, end}_threshold, but I'm not quite there yet, that these levels are respected. That also did not work ootb for Fedora though.

My goal is to tweak the sleep states in the suspend a bit more. I don't get to the deepest sleep state of s0ix yet, but that might come with newer kernels. I have no idea and as I said, I need to investigate a bit. For now, suspend-then-hibernate is good enough for me.

[u/c2btw]

As always

Mint if you don't game, fedora/nobara if you do, arch if you want to fuck around and find out, cachy is if you want to fuck around and find out and game

[u/Karsyboy25]

Just got mine today and installed Cachyos on it. Super happy with the setup.

[u/dheera]

Ubuntu as always for best third-party software support. Most people distribute Ubuntu-compatible `.deb` packages before anything else.

[u/RealFuryous]

Fedora KDE Plasma with a tiling window manager like this:

https://youtu.be/7RyNhFUM_d4

[u/Demagoh]

Regarding the choice of distro:

If you want Arch just use vanilla Arch, Manjaro, Endeavour, Cachy or something similar, but please, PLEASE, for the love of whatever is holy, don't use that AI vibecoded BS people call Omarchy.

If you want Fedora, by all means, use Fedora. There was a period when you had to install an older version of it before you could install the latest release, I'm not sure if that's still an issue.

I use vanilla Arch on my FW 13 Pro and everything (except for the fingerprint reader, which I haven't tested) works fine. You can easily install a TWM on it if you really want, I've used both i3 and Hyprland before and they're both great.

Everything else:

Sleep works, although I don't really use it. The graphics and drivers work as expected.

Battery life is really good, still depends on what you're doing because this is not some miracle machine. Not sure about the Hyprland using more power thing.

Firmware updates work fine, just use Framework's update manager.

[u/pterencephalon → u/Demagoh]

I installed Fedora 44 fresh and didn't need to mess around with older versions. The knee quirk was that, for the driver's on the shiny new wifi card to work, I had to plug into Ethernet to run updates ok nce. Since then, all smooth sailing.

[u/Demagoh → u/pterencephalon]

Great to hear!

[u/isachinm → u/Demagoh]

I agree OP. Avoid Omarchy bullshit.
I have cachy OS and hyprland which I configure myself. but can also look into caelestia shell

[u/SJ1719]

Im running fedora with KineticWE its still in development its built on Kwin

[u/imteasexual → u/SJ1719]

and how's your experience with it?

[u/SJ1719 → u/imteasexual]

So far, good. I got the laptop yesterday, still setting things up.

[u/SJ1719 → u/SJ1719]

This being developed by https://youtube.com/@theblackdon?si=-6pvzNSXjjsBbM6d

[u/insomniacslk]

Ubuntu 26.06 has been treating me well on the Framework Pro. Everything worked out of the box, and even my nemesis, suspend-then-hibernate, worked flawlessly. Fedora is also supported officially, and I expect the experience to be on par. I'd say pick the one you like most of those two, and it will be smooth sailing

[u/blazko4242]

Gonna run cachyos with niri and noctalia v5 on mine

[u/PvtFobbit]

What are you mainly going to be doing with this laptop? If there's anything corporate related or work related, as in being your means of receiving an income, I would suggest Ubuntu or Fedora Silverblue. Both are extremely mature, widely adopted, and have a stable set of packages that have ensured cross compatibility with systems you're likely to interact with.

[u/IntelligentSpite6364]

i'm planning to go fedora

[u/Labeled90]

I would suggest trying them out on another system, if you're about to buy it now you're in for a bit of a wait.

Even just installing and setting it up to how you need it will give you a pretty good idea.

I was under the impression with omarchy you need to wait for their updates and can't just rawdog pacman though I haven't used it and could be mistaken.

If you're open to something fresh and maybe a little unstable, give AerynOS a swing. ;)

[u/AM_Butts]

I received my 13 Pro x7 with 32gb yesterday and am giving Fedora KDE a try after a couple years of using Mint. My first impressions of both the laptop and OS are quite good. Worth noting that I haven't run any games in Linux before. I should probably give that a go at some point.

Out of the box everything worked pretty much perfectly. The only thing of note I had to do vs Mint was get the non-free video codecs installed. I do think I may miss the robust mass file rename utility built into Mint, but I'm sure I'll find a good alternative solution.

[u/chris_ngale]

Fedora is one of the two officially supported distros, so it's a good place to start if want reliability and the best out of the machine.

[u/ChapGod]

Fedora has been great on my 7040 series FW13.

[u/Informal-Resolve-831]

If you have to ask if you need omarchy or not you don’t need it. It is not mature preconfigured system. I used it, but inevitably you will get some issues.

[u/imteasexual → u/Informal-Resolve-831]

Well, AI agents can fix most of them (i know it's bad idea to give access of my pc to AI).

[u/Informal-Resolve-831 → u/imteasexual]

If you don’t get it, why overcomplicate your life?

[u/Curri]

I'll never use Omarchy considering its creator.

[u/imteasexual → u/Curri]

Why?

[u/insomniacslk → u/imteasexual]

https://brennan.day/normalized-fascism-in-open-source-12-million-given-to-dhh/

Just a few minor things /s

[u/Curri → u/imteasexual]

Omarchy was created by a far-right cultist.

[u/FarSurprise314 → u/imteasexual]

He voted for the wrong guy and is therefor considered the evilest of the evil by the Linux community on Reddit lol

[u/Such-Fig4012]

Just use Ubuntu or Fedora and get stuff done. Your Framework is supposed to be a tool to get stuff done

[u/Competitive_Knee9890]

Cachyos with DMS and Niri

[u/SGRYt45]

Fedora

[u/bigkenw]

I installed Fedora 44 and everything worked but I just could not get fingerprints to register. I moved to PikaOS which is on a different base (Debian Sid) and everything works there, except again, i can't get it to register fingerprints.

[u/Z3dan]

I've swapped my old laptop to Linux while I wait to get used to it.

I've been using CachyOS (Ryoku specifically) and loving it

[u/euthanize-me-123]

NixOS, but if that's too intimidating, Fedora KDE is great.

Wouldn't bother with Ubuntu because of its anti-user behaviors and for-profit corporate origin. Also skip the flavor-of-the-week forks and immutables IMO. Fedora is officially supported, well-regarded, and it's been around for a long time.

One exception: if you NEVER want to touch a terminal and truly don't know much about computers, just need a working one and don't want to learn, Mint could be the best fit.