Void Linux On A Framework Laptop: Two Years Later

In April 2023, I wrote about getting a Framework Laptop in December of 2022, putting Void Linux on it, and using it as my daily driver. It's been roughly two years since that purchase and I'd like to share my experiences with the hardware and software.

Table of contents

→ The Hardware

→ Setup revisited

I selected the DIY Edition offered by Framework because not only do I not mind a bit of self-assembly but I was actually very curious about what that process would look like for a laptop. I didn't really know of my model as a "Framework Laptop 13" until I looked up the setup guide for it to share in this blog post, but indeed my model has a 12th generation Intel CPU inside.

That setup guide linked above is more or less accurate, though I didn't need to mess with WiFi or touchpad connectors at all (as best as I can recall). The hardware was really easy to work with and seems to have been designed in such a way that practically invites you to take it apart. Despite the chassis being fairly small (especially compared to my last laptop, a Lenovo Ideapad Y510p), it's quite roomy in there and the hardware doesn't feel cramped. The screwdriver that comes with the hardware was easy to use and hold in my hands, and was super effective at doing its job.

→ How Did It Hold Up?

One of the really nice things about a laptop that's designed to be friendly to repair and disassemble is that if something happens, say for example I accidentally spill some liquid on it, not only is it possibly not a fatal accident but the path to remediation won't make your head hurt.

Thankfully I've yet to have such a spill incident! But I have had a couple close calls:

• I did manage to drop the laptop while the screen was closed. There of course was a loud noise but no damage to the hardware.
• Another time: I leaned forward with it in my lap, which then caused it to slide off of my lap. I quickly reacted by slapping my hand onto the keyboard in order to stop it from dropping to the floor - in the quickness of my reaction I did slap the keyboard quite hard but there was no damage to the keys despite that.
• On a couple of occasions I did manage to get something under a key that caused it to feel a bit mushy. Each time, rather than open the chassis I simply used a can of compressed air to blow out any foreign object that may have been there. Thus far that's worked to clean things out.

So far, I haven't actually needed to open the chassis up for any reason. That's really great on one hand, but on the other I can't really comment about doing that in the context of a repair.

As for the customizable modules: I've only swapped them around once since I got the laptop. I needed to rearrange them to better fit with the setup of my desk. There's been no issues with them coming loose or anything like that. I usually forget they are a thing!

Some other thoughts about the hardware:

• So far the display has held up and I don't have any dead pixels. I wouldn't expect any in just two years but you never know!
• I don't use them a lot but the internal speakers have also held up and still sound as good as they did day one (not bad at all, I will say).
  • It's worth noting that my last laptop was not only a popular name brand (Lenovo Y510p) but it also featured name brand speakers by JBL. Incidentally, those fancy JBL speakers were the first thing to go bad; within the first year or so of having the laptop they began to crackle and pop. ¹
• The battery has also held up fairly well. I can tell that some capacity has been lost, but considering I'm not bending over backwards to do all of the things needed to minmax that, the battery life I get is still very satisfactory.

→ The Software

→ Void Linux

This isn't meant to be a review about using Void in general so you won't find me going into a lot of detail about that. I've used Void for over 10 years at this point and am very happy with it. Big thanks to the Void community and all maintainers for working hard to bring the world such a wonderful distro.

Void's support for the hardware has been excellent, I basically want for nothing. I don't really use the fingerprint reader, but I had to at least try it and it does in fact work as expected. This machine is my daily driver for all of my non-work computing needs, including but not limited to:

• Record using a pro audio setup with Bitwig ²
  • I've used both PipeWire and Pulseaudio for this and have presently settled on the latter. At some point I'll do another blog post specifically about my pro audio experience.
• Chatting with friends and family on: IRC, XMPP, Mumble, Telegram, and Discord
• Recording video with OBS
• Doing live streams on twitch, also with OBS
• Developing a wide range of software with Emacs
• Playing video games
  • Since this thing does after all sport an integrated iGPU you can't really expect too much out of it, but despite that I'm able to enjoy a very wide range of (mostly older, albeit) games at reasonably high quality settings. At some point I might do a "gaming on the Framework" blog post and go into more detail. ³
• Listen to various audio via Bluetooth speakers and ear pieces

This is a very Linux-friendly piece of hardware. I really have no complaints and have been a bit surprised about how well the iGPU in particular performs for my needs.

→ Performance And Power Management

This is a topic that's tangential to both the hardware and software discussion. How do I tell the hardware to perform well when I want it to but also to cool it a bit when needed? There's a few things I've done in order to achieve an optimal setup where:

• On AC power, I run the hardware in performance mode to get the best out of it
• On battery power, cut things over to a powersave state where it's still good but a bit less taxing on the battery.

There are many ways to achieve this in the Linux ecosystem and I won't say which is best, that really depends on your own needs. For me personally, tlp and its GUI frontend (tlpui) have turned out to be exactly what I needed and worked extremely well. I installed tlp shortly after getting this laptop and then kind of just forgot about it. I never bothered to configure anything and kinda just rolled with the defaults. Early on I tried to pay close attention to my battery life and did note an improvement, so the powersave defaults were working out well.

Fast forward to this summer when, after having long forgotten about tlp I decided to start using cpufrequtils to handle swapping my hardware into and out of performance mode. You may have already guessed where I'm about to go with this but: suddenly I was seeing strange performance spikes while streaming (and doing other resource-intensive activities like compiling software), something that made the resulting video extremely hard to watch as it lagged in and out of usability.

After trying a lot of things, including dabbling a bit into cpupower as an alternative to cpufrequtils: I finally realized/remembered that tlp was there all this time, trying to do its thing. That's right folks, if you try to simultaneously use two (or more) power/performance management tools you will have a bad time! After I discontinued using and removed the other tools, my performance suddenly went back to normal and my streams stopped lag spiking. But this time I decided to take a closer look into the tlp UI and play with some of the knobs. As of right now, I've got it set such that:

• On AC power, uncap the CPU and iGPU frequencies so that they top off as needed. I've also disabled sound and WiFi power save features while on AC.
• On battery power, everything that can will go into their respective powersave modes.

The tlp-stat command makes it really easy to see what the hardware is capable of and where it's at. Combined with tlp UI I was able to try various things and arrive at an optimal setup with very little trouble at all.

With the exception of playing video games or compiling software, I don't notice much of a difference between the performance and powersave modes. I don't often compile things while on battery and the only video games I play while on battery are older ones that require less juice.

As I write this I feel like I'm in a really good place with regard to the performance and power management setup of this thing.

→ The Human

So what about me, the human? Did it pay off to put my money where my mouth is and go with a buyer-friendly hardware concept? Would I buy another Framework for myself or my family? Do I recommend that you buy one? Do I recommend putting Void Linux on it?

I hope throughout this post I already managed to give this impression but: I personally am really happy with this thing. Putting my money where my mouth is has paid off, without a doubt. Sure, not everything on paper is exactly as I think I'd like it to be (as I wrote in my last blog post about this, I'm not normally a fan of the kinds of keys that this thing appeared to have but they ended up being great) but there usually are compromises to be made with any major choice of this nature. I would absolutely buy another Framework, either for myself or for a family member.

As for would I recommend one: it really depends on your needs and preferences. For me, the "put my money where my mouth is" aspect was really important, more important than getting the best deal or feeling more secure in a big name choice. You need to decide what's right for you but I would say that it is definitely worth considering one. Should you put Void Linux on it? If you're someone who's experienced with Linux systems and doesn't mind getting your hands a bit dirty, Void is absolutely worth a look and is a great pair with a Framework Laptop.

→ Footnotes And References

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