Introduction
Once you have your Framework Laptop set up following the Quick Start Guide, you’re ready to install your preferred OS. The Framework Laptop is running some very recent hardware, and we’ve worked with the team at Fedora to improve support. Fedora 37 is one of the Linux distributions we recommend most, as it has full hardware support with very little setup required, and it offers a great user experience overall.
One note on Fedora is that the distro follows a fairly aggressive update policy on new kernels. This means that if you have the most recent generation of hardware, there is a higher risk that a kernel update could have a driver regression. On older platforms, this is less of a risk. To avoid this risk altogether, you can use a more conservative distro like Ubuntu LTS.
Tools
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Parts
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Fedora has a fantastic tool called Fedora Media Writer to create USB installers. It's available for Windows, OS X, and Linux. For Windows and OS X, you can download it here: https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/dow...
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Insert your USB drive (2GB or larger). Note that it will be reformatted, so make sure you are ok with erasing any data that is on it.
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After installing Fedora Media Writer, run it. Click Next to go to the "Select Fedora Release" screen. We'll proceed with the Official Fedora Workstation release for this guide, but there are a range of other options available. No click Next.
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The latest version of Fedora will be selected by default. Make sure the correct USB Drive is selected in the drop down, and then click Write.
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Once the USB drive creation is complete, you can click Finish, close Fedora Media Writer, eject your USB drive, and if you'd like to, delete the downloaded ISO file.
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Insert the USB drive into your powered off Framework Laptop, and then power on. If you have an existing OS installed on the Storage drive in your laptop, you'll need to tap F12 as you boot to bring up the Boot Manager screen. You can then select the EFI USB Device item with your arrow keys and hit Enter.
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Hit Enter again to test the media and boot into Fedora.
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After a few seconds, you're in! If you just want to try Fedora out, you can click on the Try Fedora button and browse through the live USB version of it without touching the internal storage drive. If you do want to install Fedora to the internal storage drive, go on to the next step.
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Click on the Install to Hard Drive button.
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Select the keyboard language you'd like to use. On the next screen, click on the Installation Destination button to choose the disk. Note that you can install Fedora onto a USB drive or a Storage Expansion Card as an alternative to installing it onto your internal drive.
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Click Finish Installation and then reboot into your new Fedora install!
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Click on Start Setup button. This begins the process of completing the initial setup of your Fedora installation.
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Connect to Wi-Fi or Skip. If you wish not to connect to wireless just yet, you can skip this and return to connecting to Wi-Fi later on.
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Choose your Privacy settings. Here you can decide if you would like to allow Location Services using Mozilla Location Service or not.
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Click on Enable Third-Party Repositories. Unless you have a specific reason for not doing so, it's recommended that these repositories are enabled for access to additional drivers and applications.
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Connect Online Accounts or Skip. Connect to Google, Nextcloud or Microsoft online accounts to access your email, calendar, contacts, documents and photos.
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If you have not done so already, follow the on-screen instructions to connect to Wi-Fi, configure some basic Fedora settings, and create a user account using a strong password you'll remember.
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Once the user is created, make sure to update your packages using "sudo dnf upgrade" or the Software application to get the latest kernel version, which includes further improvements for the latest Intel CPUs and for the Framework Laptop specifically.
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That's it! Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, the Fingerprint Reader (once configured), touchpad gestures, media keys, and just about everything else works right out of the box on the latest Fedora.
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Install TLP for improved battery performance. Simply install and reboot, the default settings are recommended for most individuals.
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Install and run PowerTOP in a terminal to monitor your overall power usage.
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sudo dnf install tlp Then reboot.
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Please see notes on enabling TLP and Gnome power profiles at section 3.3 of the Getting started with Linux guide.
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sudo dnf install powertop
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sudo powertop --calibrate (Allow to sit for a bit, this will take some time, screen will flicker, computer will do odd things.)
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powertop --calibrate: Allow to sit for a bit, this will take some time, screen will flicker, computer will do odd things.
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There's one issue that is specific to systems with 12th Gen Intel Core. The ALS (ambient light sensor) & the brightness up/down keys conflict on some current kernels. You can disable the ALS to restore brightness up/down functionality with the following command (making sure you've first updated your packages to get the latest kernel available):
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sudo grubby --update-kernel=ALL --args="module_blacklist=hid_sensor_hub"
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Framework Ethernet expansion card on Framework laptops with TLP installed. If you notice the card isn't working on resume from suspend, please run the following in a terminal:
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sudo lsusb
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Look for ID 0bda:8156 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. USB 10/100/1G/2.5G, we want 0bda:8156.
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Now back in the terminal:
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sudo grubby --update-kernel=/boot/vmlinuz-$(uname -r) --args="usbcore.quirks=0bda:8156:k"
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Reboot.
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In the past, various tweaks made to the TLP config worked. During my testing, this was not longer the case and grub changes above are recommended instead.
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Enjoy using Fedora on your Framework Laptop! If you have any questions or run into any issues, we recommend bringing them to the Community in the Fedora 37 topic. Members of the Framework team and sometimes the Fedora team as well participate in discussions there.
Enjoy using Fedora on your Framework Laptop! If you have any questions or run into any issues, we recommend bringing them to the Community in the Fedora 37 topic. Members of the Framework team and sometimes the Fedora team as well participate in discussions there.
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22 Comments
Hi mitesh,
Let's have you open a support ticket so it can be sent to me and we can gather logs from there. This will allow me better tracking of everything (as comments aren't that great for this sort of thing).
I appreciate it.
Agreed - support ticket opened. Thank you
mitesh -
TLP sounds like it was putting the ethernet cards to sleep. I'll be testing the ethernet card out myself to see if I can duplicate the issue.
Was anything showing up in PowerTOP in the tunables section mentioning ethernet by chance?
TLP often performs a little smoother in terms of extended battery life in my experience. However, either on its own is fine if you prefer one to the other. But together at the same time usually is a problem.
The ethernet card stops working after a reboot.
mitesh -
Hi @matthartley,
This is the only line I see in in the 'Tunables' section of powertop related to ethernet:
>> Good Autosuspend for USB device USB 10/100/1G/2.5G LAN [Realtek]
The one difference from this time and last time was that this time the ethernet cables was connected when I installed tlp and ran powertop --calibrate.
The ethernet card appears to be working this time. I'll test it a bit more and report back if I notice anything out of the ordinary.
mitesh -
