I recently bought a Framework as a replacement for my 2012 MBP. I ordered it a few weeks before the new M1 announcements because I liked their philosophy. And the hardware is, in fact, great!
But the Linux desktop experience has been ... frustrating to say the least. And I say this as someone who has used linux in the terminal at my job every day for 5+ years now. It's ridiculous that the software experience still cannot match my 9 year old laptop running macOS Sierra on a 2.5GHz Core i5 and 8GB of DDR3 RAM!
I am running PopOS 21.04. There's inconsistent keyboard shortcuts, lack of touchpad precision, glitchy touchpad gestures, inconsistent fingerprint auth and more. Just on Day 2, I somehow ended up with a machine that somehow took 30+ seconds to go from login to desktop and 3-4 second lag when typing with 100% CPU usage when running any GUI app. The only way to fix it was to completely reinstall the OS -- I have no idea what caused this. I have now found some usable options for implementing my preferred touchpad gestures ("fusuma") and system-wide keyboard shortcuts ("kinto.sh") though there are still many quirks that are irritating.
I like Framework's approach, so I supported them by buying the device. I promised myself I will keep daily driving it for at least a month to give it a chance. If it keeps getting on my nerves, I will sell it and buy one the of the new 14" MBPs. Life's too short to spend hours upon hours fiddling with configuration files and reinstalling operating systems to get basic functionality working.
Personally I find Gnome environments pretty ugly. I switched to KDE on my Framework and it’s almost night and day that I’m leaving my desktop Gnome install behind for KDE as well.
I tried switching to KDE yesterday (still in PopOS) and it's been a much better experience so far. I was able to customize a bunch of stuff including dock/global menu to be more macOS-like which is what I prefer, and the touchpad also seems to be much better integrated. I will look into Manjaro as well.
Hi,
glad to hear you made the de change. I'm also on PopOS 20.04LTS and I would like to go to KDE. How did you install from terminal, the standard or the full version? Which is the best version?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Awesome to hear you made the leap! I think KDE works wonderful on Pop_OS since Pop is mostly just a few gnome tweaks here and there on top of Ubuntu.
FYI I only am trying out Manjaro just because I wanted an Arch experience and for my gaming build I thought it might fair a bit better since the Steam Deck is built against it. I think Ubuntu is still a perfectly great solution.
But the Linux desktop experience has been ... frustrating to say the least. And I say this as someone who has used linux in the terminal at my job every day for 5+ years now. It's ridiculous that the software experience still cannot match my 9 year old laptop running macOS Sierra on a 2.5GHz Core i5 and 8GB of DDR3 RAM!
I am running PopOS 21.04. There's inconsistent keyboard shortcuts, lack of touchpad precision, glitchy touchpad gestures, inconsistent fingerprint auth and more. Just on Day 2, I somehow ended up with a machine that somehow took 30+ seconds to go from login to desktop and 3-4 second lag when typing with 100% CPU usage when running any GUI app. The only way to fix it was to completely reinstall the OS -- I have no idea what caused this. I have now found some usable options for implementing my preferred touchpad gestures ("fusuma") and system-wide keyboard shortcuts ("kinto.sh") though there are still many quirks that are irritating.
I like Framework's approach, so I supported them by buying the device. I promised myself I will keep daily driving it for at least a month to give it a chance. If it keeps getting on my nerves, I will sell it and buy one the of the new 14" MBPs. Life's too short to spend hours upon hours fiddling with configuration files and reinstalling operating systems to get basic functionality working.