Linux Mint Installation on the Framework Laptop 16

First, download Linux Mint from Linux Mint's website. Linux Mint has a detailed installation guide that you can follow. We'll go through the steps in this Guide assuming you have a simple installation scenario of a fresh install on a blank drive.

Download balenaEtcher as a tool to create the USB installer from the ISO. balenaEtcher is available for MacOS. Install it.

Launch balenaEtcher. Insert your USB drive (8GB or larger). Click on "Flash from file" and select the Linux-Mint iso that you downloaded. Click on "Select target" and choose your USB drive. Click "Flash" and wait a minute or two for it to complete.

Once the USB drive creation is complete, you can close balenaEtcher and eject the USB drive from your OS.

This process will delete all data from the flash drive being used! Ensure any important data that may be kept on those drives is backed up before continuing.

First, download Linux Mint from Linux Mint's website. Linux Mint has a detailed installation guide that you can follow. This guide will walk through a basic setup that automatically uses the entire internal storage.

Download Rufus as a tool to create the USB installer from the ISO. The first item in this list will be a link to install installer for the latest version. Install Rufus using this.

Open Rufus, from the Device drop-down, select the USB flash drive stick.

In order to use devices like external hard drives, external solid state drives, or the Framework Storage Expansion Card to create a live USB, List USB Hard Drives must be enabled under Show advanced drive properties.

Use the Select Button next to Boot selection to choose the downloaded CachyOS ISO.

Set Partition scheme to GPT to ensure the live USB is properly recognized at boot.

Click Start. A window will pop up to prompt for a choice between dd image mode and ISOHybrid image mode. Select ISOHybrid image mode then OK.

Before we begin the installation process with the Live USB, let's make sure you have your Linux Audio Compatibility set to Linux in the BIOS. Explanation as to what this does can be found here.

Power on the laptop, repeatedly tapping F2 in order to get into the BIOS. Note: If you're having trouble with this, try again, holding down the Fn key while rapidly tapping F2.

In BIOS mode, arrow key over to Setup Utility. Press the enter key. Arrow down to Advanced. Then arrow right, then arrow down to Linux Audio Compatibility. Press enter.

A new box for Linux Audio Compatibility will appear, arrow to Linux, then press enter. Now press F10 key to reboot.

Now we don't have an OS installed yet. So the reboot won't get us to a running operating system and we fully expect to see an error to this point. Simply press the power button to shutdown.

The next step is to install Linux Mint.

To install Linux Mint, please disable Secure Boot! While Linux Mint can support Secure Boot, we recommend disabling it for ease of use and maintenance. Please refer to our explanation of Secure Boot to learn more.

To disable secure boot:

Boot into BIOS by tapping F2 just before the Framework splash screen.

Arrow down to Administer Secure Boot. Press enter.

Arrow down to Enforce Secure Boot. Press enter, select Disabled, and press enter.

Press F10 to save and reboot. With Yes selected, press Enter.

To enable Secure Boot again, repeat the above steps but select Enable this time.

Insert the USB drive into the powered off computer. Power on the laptop, immediately after the power light comes on begin tapping the F12 key before the Framework logo is visible.

If no operating system is detected, the system will automatically boot from the Live USB.

Select the USB drive. Press the enter key.

The system will automatically boot into the live USB after a few seconds. The speed of the flash drive will determine how quickly the desktop live environment starts.

Click on the Install Linux Mint icon on the desktop.

Select the language and keyboard language you'd like to use. On the Multimedia codecs screen, optionally check the "Install multimedia codecs" box and set a Secure Boot password, and click Continue.

If you do select Secure Boot, on the first boot after installation, a blue screen will come up, and you can select Continue.

On the "Installation type" screen, you may have a range of options available if there is already on OS on your internal drive. For the purposes of this guide, we're assuming a clean install with the "Erase disk and install Linux Mint" option. For the other advanced options around dual booting, check Linux Mint's documentation. Click "Install Now".

Follow the on-screen instructions to select your time zone and set up your user account. After installation completes, click Restart Now.

How to check the BIOS version. Go to and click upper left corner where you see the horizontal line, search terminal and launch it. Please follow this link to copy and paste the code into your terminal, then press enter. The output will tell you which Framework Laptop 16 you have and also which BIOS version you're using.

For Framework Laptop 16 AMD Ryzen 7040 Series, you can check here for the latest firmware.

IMPORTANT: Per the instructions above, we do NOT recommend updating BIOS and firmware using various GUIs. We recommend using fwupdmgr as provided in the step above. Using GUIs can potentially create issues that would not be present using fwupdmgr directly.

If you are looking to run Steam games, please follow our guide links below.

You will be using the Ubuntu links below for 1 or 2 NVMe drives to run games on Linux Mint.

One NVMe Drive Guide.

Two NVMe Drives Guide.

If you are unsure if something is using the dGPU, use this AppImage program.

For all other applications, simply run your software with DRI_PRIME=1 cheese (or whatever the application name is).