WW0CJ

Goodbye Mac, Hello Framework!

I've been a Mac user for a very long time. My family owned several iMacs throughout my childhood that I used (including an iMac G3 that was slightly before my time but still incredibly cool nonetheless) and I got my own Macbook Air in middle school, sticking with the ecosystem ever since.

Sometime in 2020, I bought an M1 Macbook Pro with 16GB of RAM that has been my daily driver for the last 5 years - doing everything from my professional work to my academic work including heavy duty simulations. I loved that thing - it had amazing processing power, MacOS is pretty sleek and easy to understand, and the underlying BSD foundation makes it a joy to work with for programming.

But, all of that joy in using it slowly got thrown out over the years due to compatibility issues and frustration. For those unaware, Mac's M-series processors use an architecture called ARM - commonly seen in small-form computers like the Raspberry Pi, and a lot less in daily use machines. Most software is developed for x86 for Intel and AMD processors, so compatibility when Apple first launched these new machines was limited. Ever since then, it has gotten immensely better to use but there's still downsides - especially when using less common packages specific to software development.

Then came the other layer of compatibility issues, when I started to really dig my teeth into amateur radio and found out that most software is only designed for Windows - I couldn't even attempt to run it with Rosetta!

I knew I wanted to switch machines, but I never had the funding or motivation to finally do it until recently. Saving up through my summer job, I've finally purchased a Framework 13! Here's the specs on my new machine:

I've had it for a couple of weeks now and I'm thrilled. It has definitely taken some getting used to and configuration (I did have to reinstall my OS already from diving into the deep end too early...) but it's been a blast so far.

I got the DIY Edition since I am comfortable enough with installing computer components, and it was a breeze to build. It took me ~30 minutes before I was booted into the BIOS and ready to install an operating system. The only problem I encountered during the initial setup was a little trouble aligning the RAM, but I ended up watching the video in the guide a few times and sorting it out.

With this new machine, I've also taken the leap to daily driving Linux. I've used it before on Raspberry Pis and servers (mostly Ubuntu), and I think it has a lot of potential especially for what I use it for. So, I'm running Fedora 42 with GNOME and will continue to post updates as I learn more and gain more experience with it.

The last thing I'll say is, as with any machine, the compatibility issues didn't completely go away when I switched - not all companies like to develop for Linux in the same way they didn't for ARM originally. It has been a lot better, but there's still a ways to go before I'm doing everything on this machine. I'm experimenting with containers for some applications, which I think will be interesting to share down the line.

I'm really happy with my purchase, and excited to continue diving into a new side of computing. If you've got a Framework, I'd love to hear about your experiences with it - are you happy with it? What OS are you running, and what have you done to make it work for you?

If you're interested to hear more thoughts, my friend Amin wrote a spectacular review after using his Framework 13 for a semester. I plan to write something similar after my next academic semester, with hopefully some interesting insight into doing engineering work and simulations on Linux as well, but his thoughts are super in-depth and it's a great read if you're looking for another opinion!

Thanks for reading, and I hope to continue to share my Linux journey as I progress :D

73 de WW0CJ

#'Linux'