I personally do. A "just works" configuration will be ideal for me. Anytime I install linux on a new computer, I find myself spending too much time tinkering with configuration settings to make basic things like adjusting keyboard brightness and volume control work with the respective keys.
You don't have to do any of that with a Framework and Ubunut/Pop. The only real thing to adjust was getting the fingerprint sensor working, which really was copy/pasting a script. Everything else worked perfectly out of the box.
You can fix the battery drain issue by changing one line in a config file. The issue is from how Intel chips handle hibernation w/ Linux, so not a Framework specific issue though.
I don't, and I suspect that people who would want Linux preinstalled don't have much experience in it, and being lost would hate it, badmouth it, and badmouth the company for making it an option. Installing Linux is quick and of trivial difficulty, and if you're afraid to do it you should probably work on that fear at a different time than when you're also breaking in a new computer.
I would say that installing Linux is like being able to tune your guitar or a chef being able to sharpen their knives, but it's an order of magnitude easier than either of those things.
Agree with sibling that maintaining preinstalled Linux is a good sign that all the guts and peripherals are compatible, although that might be a perverse incentive to use a bleeding edge kernel/distro to accommodate flashy hardware. If anything, they should install a boring LTS/Debian Stable, completely stock other than a custom wallpaper.
I want to know that the hardware will work with linux, and will continue to work with linux.
A pre-install option is just one way to advertise and convince the user that you've tested the hardware to work on linux
Yes. The linux market is extremely diverse. The sheer amount of distros and DEs is pretty good evidence of this. It doesn't even have to be different people.
For personal laptops/desktop I don't care if it's preinstalled for me or not since the very first boot is going straight into my usb installer since it's extremely unlikely that they checked all the boxes I will check (especially getting my LUKS passphrase correct!!). But for my wife or parent's laptop that's exactly what I want. If dad runs linux I can help him out a ton more, even SSHing into his machine to set things up or install updates, etc, but I'd prefer he be able to turn the thing on and connect it to his wifi and start using it without me having to be there.
OK, but devil’s advocate, if they explicitly mention Linux, that means they have to explicitly support Linux for newcomers and experts alike, which for a small company, is probably not an insignificant lift, from a customer service perspective alone. They are really clear about how things are in the DIY and Linux sections of their forum and on Reddit/Discord, there are tons of people helping out (including employees), but that’s a little different than being a mainstream laptop company (and not niche like System 76 or Tuxedo or whatever) that is also prepared, within 6 months of shipping their first product, to offer robust Linux support.
I think this is doubly true when you consider the elevated support task they have by the nature of how upgradable/repairable the laptop is. The number of issues I’ve seen from people (and I’m just an owner who lurks a bit in some of the communities) who didn’t know how to properly insert RAM or have had other more basic problems (which is separate from the more widespread issue of installing the wifi cards, where the antenna cables were legit the most difficult I’ve ever dealt with and I have years of experience — Framework sent me a replacement cable and card and that was great), makes me sympathetic to them trying to grow their support teams at an even pace and not inviting a bunch of support queries that can tie-up even the more established Linux hardware vendors.
So yes, I agree, better Linux support would be great. The good news is that it’s already becoming an enthusiast computer so Linux support, especially on newer kernels, is already better than on many other enthusiast laptops (the suspend issues and some recent kernel regressions for wifi are obviously issues but they aren’t isolated to just the Framework), so hopefully that will help. But a hardware startup can only focus on so many things and if being explicitly Linux-first isn’t one of those things (and due to market size, I think that probably makes sense when you have mainstream aspirations), it probably isn’t a good idea to over-promise in that respect — especially when the DIY options and unofficial support is really strong/encouraged.
It takes 10 minutes to install Linux from a boot drive and have everything setup as you need. Bizarre to me that those 10 minutes would determine whether or not you spend the next x years with a computer.