Framework Laptop

This article covers the installation and configuration of Arch Linux on a Framework Laptop.

Hardware	PCI/USB ID	Working?
GPU		See Table
Wireless		See Table
Audio	`8086:a0c8`	Yes
Touchpad	`093a:0274`	Yes
Webcam	`0bda:5634`	Yes
Fingerprint reader	`27c6:609c`	Yes
Bluetooth		See Table
Accelerometer		Untested
TPM		Yes
Ambient light sensor		Yes

For a general overview of laptop-related articles and recommendations, see Laptop.

Hardware

Framework is intended to be a configurable and upgradeable laptop. The lists below is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all the hardware sold with the framework, but rather a list of tested modules that are specially made for the Framework laptop.

Motherboards

Note: Probably needs a better way to distinguish between motherboard revisions and CPU model used.

CPU Model	Working?	Notes
Intel i5-1135G7	Yes
Intel i7-1165G7	Yes
Intel i7-1185G7	Yes
Intel i5-1240P	Yes
Intel i7-1260P	Yes
Intel i7-1280P	Yes

WiFi/Bluetooth

Device Name	PCI ID	Bluetooth USB ID	Working?	Bluetooth?	Notes
AX200	`8086:2723`	`8087:0029`	Yes	Yes	Pre-production units
AX201 vPro			Untested	Untested	Professional Edition
AX201 w/o vPro	`8086:a0f0`	`8087:0026`	Yes	Yes	Base/Performance Editions
AX210 vPro			Yes	Yes	DIY Edition (Optional)
AX210 w/o vPro			Yes	Yes	DIY Edition (Optional)

i915

Device Name	PCI ID	Working?
TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics]		Yes
Alder Lake-P Integrated Graphics Controller	`8086:46a6`	Yes

Expansion Cards

Card Name	PCI/USB ID	Working?
USB-C		Yes
USB-A		Yes
MicroSD		Yes
HDMI		Yes
DisplayPort		Yes
Storage 250GB		Yes
Storage 1TB		Yes
Ethernet	`0bda:8156`

Headset jack

The Framework laptop includes a 3.5mm combination headphone/headset jack (TRRS). In kernel versions before 5.18.1 , devices plugged into the jack will only be recognized as headphones. To allow recognition of a headset (with microphone), use as the value for the , as explained in Advanced Linux Sound Architecture#Correctly detect microphone plugged in a 4-pin 3.5mm (TRRS) jack.

Firmware

BIOS Updates

The current Framework laptop BIOS version is 3.10 for 11th Gen Intel Mainboards . As of writing Framework laptops with 12th Gen Intel Mainboards are currently stuck on BIOS version 3.04. The BIOS can be updated by EFI shell script placed on a bootable USB flash drive. However, this firmware update method clears EFI bootloaders registered in NVRAM, so having a recovery disk or alternate method of reinstalling your bootloader(s) handy is recommended. If your bootloader installs itself as the EFI fallback at esp/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI (systemd-boot will by default, GRUB will with GRUB#Default/fallback boot path), no recovery disk is necessary, but your bootloader may need to be reinstalled to restore its NVRAM entry.

LVFS

Support for fwupd is in testing , and can be enabled by running:

$ fwupdmgr enable-remote lvfs-testing

And by uncommenting:

Secure Boot

One can enroll custom keys into the Framework Laptop without any Option ROM concerns, or use the SHIM approach. See Secure Boot for details.

Suspend

The inefficient s2idle (Suspend-To-Idle) suspend variant is pre-selected as default. This state is a generic, pure software, system sleep state. You can select the much more efficient deep (Suspend-To-RAM) variant, which offers significant power savings as everything in the system is put into a low-power state, except for memory, which is placed into the self-refresh mode to retain its contents. Note that the deep variant results in longer resume times.

$ cat /sys/power/mem_sleep 
[s2idle] deep
# echo deep > /sys/power/mem_sleep
$ cat /sys/power/mem_sleep 
s2idle [deep]

To make this permanent, add to your kernel parameters.

There is also one optional workaround needed to get the best suspend battery life, which is setting in your kernel parameters.

Touchpad

There are reports of the touchpad exhibiting issues (e.g. pointer does not move, two-finger scroll does not work, etc.) after waking from sleep. Disabling PS/2 mouse emulation under Advanced in the BIOS seems to resolve the issues.

Function keys

Key	Visible?¹	Marked?²	Effect
`Fn+Esc`	Yes	Yes	Toggles Fn lock
	Yes	Yes
	Yes	Yes	`XF86AudioLowerVolume`
	Yes	Yes
	Yes	Yes
	Yes	Yes	`XF86AudioPlay`
	Yes	Yes
	Yes	Yes	`XF86MonBrightnessDown`
	Yes	Yes
	Yes	Yes
	Yes	Yes	`XF86RFKill`, soft blocks wlan and bluetooth
	Yes	Yes
	Yes	Yes
`Fn+Delete`	Yes	Yes
	Yes	Yes	Controls the keyboard backlight

`Fn+k`

`Fn+Left`	Yes	Yes
	Yes	Yes
	Yes	Yes
	Yes	Yes	`Next/PgDn`

The key is visible to and similar tools.
The physical key has a symbol on it, which describes its function.

Ambient light sensor

Should work out of the box with . On GNOME it is enough to install the package and restart the session (or reboot, just in case). Then run to check if it is working.

Troubleshooting

Stuttering, flickering and periodic freeze

There was a regression in the kernel which caused issues with 12th gen Intel GPUs. You can workaround the regression by downgrading to or upgrading to 5.19.13+. See Archlinux bugtracker.

There are reports of stuttering, flickering and periodic freezes on the laptop. Disabling Panel Self-Refresh (as explained in Intel graphics#Screen flickering) has been reported to work. However it is helpful for battery life, so it should be left on if there are no issues.

Two/three finger clicks

By default, the touchpad provides middle and right click by clicking on specific regions (bottom middle for middle click and bottom right corner for right click). To switch this two-finger click for right click and three-finger click for middle click, you will need to set the "click method" via libinput. First, find your "Touchpad" device name:

$ xinput

And then set the click method, where is the name (or ID) found in the previous step:

$ xinput set-prop "device" "libinput Click Method Enabled" 0 1

To make this persistent, put it in a startup script. Alternatively, if using X11, one can create a custom Xorg configuration file with the appropriate settings (see libinput#Via Xorg configuration file).

HiDPI settings

Using 1,5 scaling factor is suggested. For more details, see HiDPI.

Lowering Noise of Fans

The handling of fans can be significantly improved by using the service which can be tuned automatically by . After downloading it, run it using root privileges which will install the profiles into your location and will have different names based on how the profile was generated. You can then copy the contents of the auto-generated profile available at thermal-conf.xml.auto to thermal.conf.xml which is automatically used by the thermald service which you can then Start and Enable via the thermald.service unit file.

# cp /etc/thermald/thermal-conf.xml.auto /etc/thermald/thermal.conf.xml

Changing the brightness of the monitor does not work

See Backlight#xbacklight returns : No outputs have backlight property.

For Alder Lake CPUs a solution for using the backlight keys instead of the light sensor is to deactivate the ambient light sensor.

Reboot is required, the light sensor module will be deactivated and the backlight keys work.

Bootmanager flashing black screen and not loading operating system

If your Framework laptop loads the bootloader and can recognize the EFI partition on your flash drive or m.2. drive, but cannot load your boot manager (it only flashes a black screen before returning to the bootloader), you must disable Secure Boot.

Reboot holding . There is a bug in some versions of the BIOS that prevents the key on the builtin laptop keyboard from being recognized during reboot or power up. The workaround is to connect an external USB keyboard to the laptop an hold the key on the external keyboard while rebooting or powering up the laptop. After the laptop has entered the BIOS settings the builtin keyboard can be used and the external one can be disconnected.
Go to the Security Tab
Secure boot defaults to ON; disable it
Save changes and restart

Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 reset/ low throughput / "Microcode SW error"

Under high stress, Wi-Fi device restarts and network speeds become abysmally slow or non-responsive until disconnecting and reconnecting to WiFi network.

This issue has been observed by owners of other manufacturers' laptops (not just framework).

Disabling IEEE 802.11ax seems to be a suitable workaround for the time being.

Intel is aware of the issue and there is a patch that fix slow tx after restart, and another that address the SW error.

Fingerprint reader device disconnected error

When the fingerprint reader has been used to enroll a fingerprint on Windows, and you later attempt to use the reader under Linux without first unenrolling your print from within Windows, can fail to work. In this situation, upon enrolling with fprintd-enroll, the command will hang, as has crashed.

The best way to deal with this, if you still have access to Windows, is to boot back in and unenroll your fingerprint from there. If this is not possible, you can try a script posted by someone on the Framework laptop forums.

Low framerate or stuttering webcam

This issue can occur if the program displaying the webcam feed is using the YUYV 4:2:2 color format. Most GUI camera applications do not allow for configuring this. Some applications that will let you configure this include and , and they also appear to work with the default configuration. You can also open the webcam using vlc with:

$ vlc v4l2:///dev/video1 --v4l2-chroma MJPG

12th gen Turbo-Boost on battery with tlp

By default the 12th gen will not Turbo-Boost on battery if is installed. This can configured in tlp's configuration.

12th gen brightness and airplane mode keys

On the 12th gen motherboards there is a bug where ALS and the brightness up/down including the airplane mode keys conflict. In order to make the brightness and airplane mode keys work in the detriment of using the ambient light sensor, blacklist the module.

Additional Hardware

Docking Stations

The following docking station(s) work out of the box with no additional configuration:

Name	Model Number	Interface	Power Delivery?	Notes
Hyper Drive Power 9-in-1 USB-C Hub	`HD30F-GRAY`	USB-C	Yes	Needs to be reconnected if power is removed while connected.
Anker PowerExpand 13-in-1 USB-C Dock		USB-C	Yes
Anker 777 Thunderbolt Docking Station		USB-C	Yes	Instantaneous wakeups from suspend when connected to the dock if using for sleep; PCI/USB devices are not detected after resume from sleep when using for sleep.
ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock		USB-C	Yes	Dock Power button does not work properly to boot the laptop
ThinkPad USB-C Dock		USB-C	Yes	Dock Power button does not work properly to boot the laptop
Dell USB-C Dock	`WD19`	USB-C	Yes
OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock		USB-C	Yes
uni 8-in-1 USB-C Hub		USB-C	Yes	Short removable cable can be replaced; the Spigen USB 4 cable works.
CalDigit TS3 Plus Thunderbolt 3 Dock	`TS3 Plus`	USB-C	Yes
StarTech.com USB-C Travel Docking Station		USB-C	Yes

External GPU

Name	Interface	Power Delivery?	eGPU?	Notes
AKITO Node Pro Thunderbolt 3	USB-C	Yes		Errors with PCIe bus expansion for eGPU, 3.16.5 kernel, 3.07 firmware
Sonnet	USB-C	Yes	Yes	Tested in kernel 5.15 and above
Razer	USB-C	Yes	Yes	Tested in kernel 5.15 and above

gollark: And probably some reference boards, but mostly those.

gollark: ARM only make core designs.

gollark: They have their own silicon fabs and mobile SoCs.

gollark: Actually Samsung does.

gollark: Besides, watches are made orders of magitude less precisely than modern microprocessors.