Returning my Framework 13: A foray into Linux

I have been a Mac user for eight years and for the most part I have been using the same MacBook Pro since 2016. It hasn't been a perfect computer: the keyboard had to be replaced and the keys used to stick (the '-' key is still a little sticky), but it has lasted all this time without much fuss. I supplemented it with a Mac Mini last year because I was a bit frustrated with its slowing down, but I still use my MacBook Pro because the Mac Mini is decidedly not portable.

All this is to say that I am a pretty happy Mac user. But as it is time to replace this ageing laptop, I thought I'd give something new a try. I didn't want to touch Windows, I don't judge those who do, it is just not my cup of tea. So the logical conclusion is Linux. I use Linux everyday – albeit only a cloud VM – so I thought it couldn't be too bad. I have tried using Linux as my primary OS before, just before I switched to Mac. It was a frustrating experience. The Asus laptop I had at the time was high DPI (above 1080p) which caused scaling issues (keep a note of this), I missed double clicking an icon to install something, and it never felt particularly reliable. But I thought surely things have improved, not necessarily in terms of Linux distributions, but in my own technical ability. I should be able to comfortably deal with installing from source, updating packages with apt/dnf etc. 

I decided on the Framework 13 because it seems like a really fantastic idea. Being able to change ports is nice, but the real killer feature is being able to upgrade RAM, disk and CPU, all in a professional, Macbookesque machine. Some other shoutouts are: the screen with a 3:2 aspect ratio which is brilliant. It make the 13" screen feel much bigger because the space is better utilised by webpages and IDEs. The battery life is also very solid and the finger print reader was remarkably easy to setup in Fedora.

Fedora is also incredibly usable, it uses Gnome which has odd default behaviour, but is easy to customise with Gnome extensions. It is also nice to use an OS where all the GNU tools and most other software tools are made. I will also admit Apple are not perfect. It was especially sad to see how impossible it was to use any Apple cloud features on Linux: no iCloud Drive, messages or photos. It really hit home how fenced off the ecosystem is.

However, the honeymoon phase didn't last very long. The first major problem I had was that the screen would occasionally go completely white after opening it from sleep. This is a documented problem and the recommended fix was easy and just worked. I then started to notice that a lot of the apps I was installing looked terrible. They had fuzzy text that looked awful. Unfortunately there's no real workaround for this, the conclusion seems to be that these apps (normally Electron-based) are using an older Wayland version so don't support high DPI (yes, this is still an issue eight years later). These were annoying and made me a little homesick from the polished MacOS experience, but they were liveable. The final straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was when the fan started whirring, CPU shot up to 100% and the laptop was completely frozen. I had to hold down the power button to stop it. At this point I realized that Linux as a daily driver may never be for me. 

I am certain there will be people who exclaim that I just needed to apply this very simple fix, or "why did you use Fedora? everyone's using NixOS", but even if those did fix those problems, I'm sure new ones would emerge. Call me an Apple shill who's scared of the real world, but I like living in the safe Apple orchard (could Apple be a callback to the Garden of Eden?).