[clepto]

I just got one of these last weekend(I ordered it in early August) and so far it’s really great. The modular I/O and general mission of the company was what initially sold me on it, but now actually being hands on with it, I definitely feel secure in my decision to get one. I can’t overstate how good these modular ports are.

I also really like that you can bring your own hardware in a lot of cases. For example I had an extra M.2 SSD laying around, so I ordered mine without one and installed it. You can also do this with the RAM, and even the wifi card.

The only thing I’ve disliked about it so far is the arrow keys on the keyboard. Having full size keys for left and right but split keys for up and down feels weird, I would have preferred all full size arrow keys and a small right shift(because let’s be honest, when was the last time you used the right shift key?).

For anyone curious about Linux on it, I’m running Arch and had basically 0 problems specific to the device. It’s my understanding there were some incompatibilities with certain kernel versions before so maybe some of these problems exist in distros like Debian with an older kernel, but I have had no issues.

All in all, it’s just an exciting project and nice to see innovation in the space that isn’t just rounded corners or a sleeker edge or something where they take modularity or performance away for the sake of aesthetics.

[tkluck]

> because let’s be honest, when was the last time you used the right shift key?

Worth a try if you don't have the habit yet: use the pinky of your right hand when typing capitals with the left hand and the pinky of your left when typing capitals with the right.

[bradlys]

Yeah, this is a weird comment from the OP. I use the right shift for 99% of my shift typing. This is probably because my version of "homerow" for keyboards is left shift, a, w, f, spacebar and spacebar, ., p, [, right shift. Which likely stems from years of gaming.

[OJFord]

That's probably what I was taught, but in practice why? What's my left hand going to do with all its hundreds of milliseconds of free time while my right types a capital letter?

[epolanski]

It's not just about speed it's also simpler and doesn't stretch your palms across the keyboard awkwardly.

[OJFord]

Eh? If I hit shift with my left and the letter with my right, that can't possibly be more stretching (it's probably less) than hitting both (the other) shift and the letter with my right?

[thomasahle]

For me it's more a matter of putting as little stress on my hands as possible. Pressing two buttons (shift and key) with one hand is just a little less comfortable than pressing just one key.

[OJFord]

Oh I misread the comment I replied to! I thought it was suggesting using the same hand for both letter and shift.

Yes, I see, that would be better if I could get used to it. (I'm pretty sure I use left only.)

[twobitshifter]

Be careful or you’ll start people on eMacs vs. vim.

[samstave]

>What's my left hand going to do with all its hundreds of milliseconds of free time

Mine BTC?

[TapamN]

>when was the last time you used the right shift key?

I generally use the shift key closest to the key I'm typing. For keys near the center, I favor the right shift key.

The keyboard would absolutely be the show stopper for me, if I didn't just get a new laptop last year. The lack of dedicated Page Up and Page Down keys is unacceptable.

[archon810]

Finally somebody else mentioned it. I will never buy a laptop without a dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys.

I've used Chromebooks without them before, and I still to this day can never remember how to select while jumping to the end of the document, for example. It's like four keys all pressed at the same time in a very awkward way.

[floatingatoll]

From the Mac side, Fn-Up/Down support seems to be universal for replacing the missing Page Up / Page Down keys. I bet Chrome is Ctrl-Alt-Fn-Down, copying Mac:

Down - Cursor trajectory

Fn - Page instead of Line

Command (Alt) - Document instead of Page

Shift - Text selection mode

(But I had to hit the keys and then look at my hands to figure out what they were, because I'm just used to keeping the modifier layers in muscle memory, so I could be wrong.)

[boogies]

Chromebooks don't have Fn keys.

[kelnos]

On the contrary, I have those dedicated keys, and I am constantly accidentally hitting Insert when I want Home, which screws up line editing (which is 99% of the time what I'm planning to do after hitting Home).

[bavell]

Thanks for the report on Arch compatibility!

[the_benno]

For what it's worth, here are also [1] the Framework community forum thread about Arch and [2] the Arch wiki page about Framework in case you're interested.

I'm still waiting for mine to arrive (in the next batch) but I plan to install Manjaro when it does, and am cautiously optimistic that it'll be mostly painless.

[1] https://community.frame.work/t/arch-linux-on-the-framework-l... [2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Framework_Laptop

[wyclif]

Wow, amazed by how short that Arch/Framework wiki page is! I went there expecting a long scrollable entry, but there's actually very few issues.

[clepto]

Might be worth noting, I forgot about this when making my original comment, I wasn't able to get my USB drive for it to boot without disabling secure boot, but secure boot isn't something I care about so it wasn't a problem for me. I've heard it works but I can't comment on the specifics of it.

[OJFord]

They donated several laptops to different distro maintainers, Arch included, fwiw.

Not to say that it guarantees anything, it's just nice I think that Framework cares about Linux compatibility and is acting on it.

[epolanski]

Right shift key is important if you want to write fast and ergonomically.

I used to not use it till I found typingclub.com and finally learned how to use a keyboard proficiently.

[_ph_]

I would assume I am using the right shift key like 50% of the time - for all the capital letters which are on the left half of the keyboard.

Strangely though, for control sequences, I basically exclusively use the left control key.