[00:00:00] Eric Hendricks: Framework doesn't have a storefront that you can just walk into. There's no shelves, no display models, no salespeople walking around. But what they do have is a laptop that you can order that comes pre-installed with Fedora. They even include a screwdriver right in the box. Today, we interview Michael Tunnell about Framework and Fedora's partnership and the Framework Laptop 12, the latest addition to their amazing hardware lineup. Check out today's episode of the Fedora Podcast.

[00:00:46] Noah Chelliah: Welcome to the Fedora podcast. This is episode 61. On today's episode, Michael Tunnell from Framework is going to join us and we're going to talk about the new Framework Laptop 12, why Fedora KDE ships on it, and what makes a laptop that Linux users actually want. Joining me is my co-host, Mr. Eric Hendricks. Eric, the IT guy, welcome in, sir.

[00:01:08] Eric Hendricks: Hey, Noah, we missed you last episode.

[00:01:11] Noah Chelliah: Oh, I was just hanging around.

[00:01:15] Eric Hendricks: And I'm going to put you on the spot here because there's a story behind this.

[00:01:22] Noah Chelliah: So we plan typically a few weeks in advance and we'll put a calendar entries in. And Eric is really good about sending all the various invites and all the things. We kind of touch base, I think, morning of like, hey, we're going to go do this thing. Okay, here's what we're going to do. Here's the time we're going to do it. Great. So I think to myself, so you have six hours in between the time that you have to be on air with Eric and now, so what are you going to do? So I chose to get up on a scissor lift and go run cable 40 feet in the air. And if you're familiar with the way that electric battery operated scissor lifts work, they need electric power to run the hydraulics to put the scissor lift up and down. So I'm driving around and doing my thing. I'm 40 feet up in the air doing thing. And all of a sudden I realized that I'm done. The cables are strapped. I should go down and I should go do the thing. And I go to push the little doohickey and I'm not going down. And so I had to message Eric and I'm like, hey, I'm stuck 40 feet up in the air on a scissor lift right now. I could probably scale the side and get down, but I probably shouldn't. I should probably wait for somebody to come help out and plug me back in and do all the things to get me back down. And so Eric was kind enough to run solo last week, but I have returned.

[00:02:32] Eric Hendricks: So that's the conversation you and I had in your head. But the message I got was, I'm stuck on a lift. I'm not going to be able to make it. So in my head, I'm thinking, oh, Noah's just working. They had some kind of roof leak to damage some electronics, something like that. I only found out after the episode that he was indeed stuck on a lift.

[00:02:53] Noah Chelliah: Actually, it wasn't. So for what it's worth, it wasn't rain. It was like a legit wrecking crew. Like they came in and tore down a wall and ripped out all the cable and did all the things. And my job was to put it back up the right way. So you're not far off. I'm having to be back. This is way better than running cable.

[00:03:12] Eric Hendricks: I agree. But we're also talking about something that's near and dear to my heart right now, and that's new hardware. And Fedora, yes. But new hardware. I'm on the verge of a spending spree here. I'm upgrading everything from new desktop, new phone, all the things, new home labs. So I'm just waiting on that.

[00:03:33] Noah Chelliah: Are you upgrading your Fisher price, I'm sorry, your MacBook to a real laptop?

[00:03:38] Eric Hendricks: Well, no, but also kind of. So here's the thing. This bad boy is actually being sold on Facebook Marketplace in about two hours. So sorry, Michael, we can't go for three hours because I've got to go sell my old laptop. I do have a new issued laptop from work, which, by the way, I know a lot of non-topical conversation going on at the start of this episode. But for those of you that have been following along with my story and with the show, I did actually this week start a new job. I am back at GitLab as a solutions architect. So I am excited to be back in Tanooki land. If you don't know what it is, you know, see me after class. But really excited to be working for GitLab again. It was a great company. I actually only left GitLab to go work for Red Hat. So glad to be back. But so GitLab sent me a MacBook. And I expect for it to spend about 95% of its life sitting on the dock because part of my hardware refresh plan is that for the first time in like 10 years, I'm going to have a desktop again. I miss it. I miss the power. I'm doing a lot of home labbing stuff. And so being able to rapidly iterate on my local machine is something that I really want to do. And that, ladies and gentlemen, will be running Fedora. This is the RAM-pocalypse subsides.

[00:04:57] Noah Chelliah: Are you building it?

[00:04:59] Eric Hendricks: Yes, yes. I actually live about three quarters of a mile from, and all the nerds rejoiced when Eric says, Micro Center. Yay! I live three quarters of a mile away from Micro Center, so I fully intend on custom building my own machine and having it run Fedora out of the box. So yes, I do have a MacBook.

[00:05:18] Noah Chelliah: That's the apocalypse. It's kind of the everything apocalypse at the moment. Graphics card apocalypse.

[00:05:23] Eric Hendricks: Right.

[00:05:24] Noah Chelliah: Kind of the tech apocalypse. Okay. Well, before we get to your personal desktop, let's talk a little bit about Framework. To do that, let's bring in Michael Tunnell. Michael, welcome into the program.

[00:05:36] Michael Tunnell: Hi, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.

[00:05:37] Noah Chelliah: Thanks for making the time to be here. Can you give us a bit of a 30-second elevator pitch? Who are you? What do you do? Do you run Fedora? And if so, for how long? And can you talk to us a little bit about what you do for your phone?

[00:05:48] Michael Tunnell: I'm Michael Tunnell, and I'm the Senior Marketing Manager for Linux Marketing at Framework. And I wear many hats at Framework, but the main thing that's important is that all those hats have a penguin on it. And so i cover various different things related to Linux and the marketing side so my my main thing is that i'm a huge Linux enthusiast i've been using it for years including Fedora i've been using Fedora probably, seven six years something like that and i use other distros as well because i also have to test distros and things like that but Fedora is pretty much my go to.

[00:06:25] Noah Chelliah: It's your favorite

[00:06:26] Michael Tunnell: Yeah specifically Fedora KDE just to be clear i forgot to answer the whole how do you what do you do for fun thing.

[00:06:33] Noah Chelliah: Just out of curiosity what's the answer to that

[00:06:35] Michael Tunnell: Oh i mean lots of stuff i mean when i'm not doing Framework stuff i'm doing like TuxDigital stuff this week in Linux podcast and also spending time with my lady for example and we do all sorts of stuff like watching movies playing games watching nba and i also like to play basketball.

[00:06:53] Noah Chelliah: Cool i didn't know you were a basketball player yep

[00:06:57] Michael Tunnell: I am i i've been playing basketball since i was like six no kidding and then i was gonna sound.

[00:07:04] Noah Chelliah: This is gonna sound like i'm making fun of you i'm not uh it's a legitimate question are you good at basketball

[00:07:09] Michael Tunnell: I am yes i mean being tall is also beneficial but i mean i am a good uh i'm a good player i'm a good shooter i'm not the greatest, obviously, but funny story is that my brother was like, a ridiculously good shooter and he taught me how to shoot. So I, I became a good shooter because my brother was already, and then I do everything else better than him. So I give him a heart.

[00:07:36] Noah Chelliah: So tell us a little bit about the Framework 12. If you were standing in an elevator next to somebody and they said, you've got one breath, tell me about the 12-inch, 12.2-inch convertible touchscreen, stylus support, all of those sorts of things. How would you describe the Framework 12?

[00:07:52] Michael Tunnell: Well, I think the Framework 12 is a fantastic laptop. I mean, I have one right here. This is actually the new one that's available to pre-order. And you have the like as you said it's got the convertible aspects you can use it as a tablet you can use it as, a regular laptop however you want to do it and it comes with a stylus as well as using a finger control if you want to and there's so many cool things about it it's probably one of the best travel laptops you could have because it has, a metal casing that's the The whole thing is built in, but it also is surrounded by very tough plastic that makes it so it's very durable and you don't have to worry about scratches and that sort of thing. So taking this on a plane, for example, is awesome.

[00:08:38] Eric Hendricks: Yeah. So one of the things that caught my attention was it's not a traditional just Intel graphics chip or it's, you know, it's not a thread ripper. There's a little bit of a different architecture into this Framework. Tell me a little bit about the Core Series 3.

[00:08:55] Michael Tunnell: The Intel Core Series 3 is the lower end version of the Core Ultra Series 3. And it's a very nice hardware, though. It has the Core 3 option, Core 5, and Core 7. So you can get a fairly powerful processor if you want to. But this is not the, there's the Panther Lake and the Wildcat Lake and the Wildcat Lake is what this is. And the Framework Laptop 13 Pro has the Panther Lake. So this is more of a balance between high quality hardware with budget as well. So it's not, it's trying to have a good quality product that has nice feel and nice experience without breaking the bank.

[00:09:35] Noah Chelliah: Well Eric is going the desktop route I have gone kind of the opposite direction I've gone all laptop all Thunderbolt dock I understand that the new Framework has Thunderbolt 4 tell me about the connectivity that is on this laptop

[00:09:50] Michael Tunnell: Well, absolutely. The way we do our system is the expansion cards. So we have multiple, like there's each of our laptops have multiple sets. So you have four on the 12. The laptop 12 has four different cards, two of which are compatible with Thunderbolt 4. So the back two ports are Thunderbolt 4, and you can use the other ports for however, whatever you want. So basically, if you want to have any kind of anything we support in terms of the cards, you have the HDMI display port, SD card, USB-C, of course. So you can see like right here, maybe you can see this is the SD card and the USB-C. And then over here, I have a display port and HDMI. And then if you want to, you can just pop them out and then swap it out with something else. And you can have as many as you want. The coolest thing about it is that you could have a bag that you put your cards in. And if you have something that maybe you don't need an SD card or you don't need a DisplayPort and an HDMI, because I have that for reasons, maybe you don't need to do that. So you can swap it out and have four USB-Cs or a USB-A or whatever you want. And we also have an Ethernet card and many things.

[00:11:00] Eric Hendricks: So I got to tell you, when I first saw this machine, when you and I were first discussing this episode, I was just like, no, that's not for me. It's not going to work. But I've been without a tablet for a few months now, and I kind of miss having that handheld reading size. But like I said, most of my devices spend a lot of their time sitting on docks. I've got a OWC Thunderbolt dock. But I'm starting to kind of rethink this. even as we're talking, the Thunderbolt 4 is a very interesting idea or very interesting capability because now I'm starting to think maybe a full-powered desktop isn't the way to go. Maybe I want to go something like this because when I do travel, it'd be nice to have that small form factor and then just get an external GPU.

[00:11:46] Michael Tunnell: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:11:46] Eric Hendricks: I know this wasn't in the agenda, but I'm literally thinking about this as we talk.

[00:11:50] Michael Tunnell: I mean, you can do that or you can get the laptop 16 and have a GPU that is inside of the laptop and also modular. so you can take it out if you want to.

[00:11:59] Eric Hendricks: And to those of you that haven't seen a Framework in person, you really need to. Framework attends a lot of user events. I've held these devices a few times. And what's really cool, and maybe we glossed over this a little too quick, was that you can actually pull those expansion cards out. So back in the day, I remember when Apple went to their full dongle life where you just had USB-C and you bought all the dongles. This is so much better because if you're like me and only need HDMI, Ethernet, and a couple USB-C ports, and that's all you'll ever use, that's great. I can buy those, and I'm good to go. For those of you listening to audio, currently, Michael has just taken four little components out of his 12-inch laptop. I'd actually recommend watching the video version of this one if you can, just because it's such a cool little device. The idea of just fooling it around behind itself kind of makes me think of a Microsoft Surface. The stylus is kind of nice, because I do like to sit back in this chair when I'm in meetings and take notes. It'd be nice to have those digital that I could take with me. Maybe I saved myself some trouble.

[00:13:03] Michael Tunnell: I mean, having this as a tablet function is really good, especially when you can flip it over and then use the stylus and take notes, just write down your notes and stuff like that. It's very convenient in that sense. So if you want to have it for a travel laptop or just productivity laptop, it offers quite a lot of versatility. And I think that's really like the big value in this is that there's so much versatility that this then offers to, you know, all sorts of different ways of creating any kind of like notes or content or whatever. So just the convenience and being able to whenever you want to change your ports. I have many ports, you know, many cards, I mean. So I switch them out all the time. And when I first got the first Framework, I didn't expect to need to do that or want to do that very much. And then as soon as I thought of like, oh, I could do this. OK, right now I just swap out the card. I do it now so fast. So all the time it's, you know, you can just pop it and, it just comes out and it's so quick and easy. And also for people who are worried about that just coming out when you're pulling on it, there's actually a switch right here that you can lock it in place. So it won't be nice so if you and it's really easy all you got to do is just flip the switch on both sides and then they become easier to come out.

[00:14:26] Noah Chelliah: Michael, can you go back and talk a little bit about, if you're in tablet mode and you've got the stylus, is there a particular piece of software that you recommend on Linux for doing things like writing notes?

[00:14:35] Michael Tunnell: Well, it depends. So there's different ways you can do it. There's web apps that have like detecting the handwriting and then converting that into text. And then there's also stuff like Xournal or Xournal++, however you want to say it, but Xournal++ is something I use all the time for notes. But I also use it for like sketching when I'm drawing something like a logo for like Krita, for example. And this is more of like I'm trying to come up with like on the fly, you know, just I have an idea and I want to write it down, but I don't have any paper and I do have the laptop. So I just use Krita to sketch it out.

[00:15:14] Eric Hendricks: And what's really nice about this form factor in all of Framework's laptops is they are self-repairable and they are upgradable. So right now, Wi-Fi 7 is what comes included. But down the line, Wi-Fi 8 module comes out. You can just buy it, pop the old one out, pop the new one in, you're good to go. And what's great is this particular model, correct me if I'm wrong, but it supports up to 64 gigs of RAM and up to 2 terabytes of M.2 storage.

[00:15:41] Michael Tunnell: All of that is correct, yes.

[00:15:43] Eric Hendricks: I did my research.

[00:15:44] Michael Tunnell: Good job. I'm impressed. And you can pop off the cover just like that. And now you can see all the internals. and you can take out the components and to even go above and beyond there's QR codes for each component so you can easily find the replacement and instructions of how to replace it and stuff like that most of it is very easy to replace but the deeper and deeper you go the more difficult, but there are guides that document everything so you can very quickly and easily figure it out and if you've ever done any kind of, computer hardware work before, you're going to have no So no issue whatsoever.

[00:16:21] Noah Chelliah: Can you talk to us a little bit about the display improve or some of the improvements, the display improvement, improvement on battery life, those sorts of things? Where did that come from?

[00:16:32] Michael Tunnell: Well, the display is basically the same display, just slightly modified, but it's mostly the same. As far as the battery life goes, pretty much the upgrade from the previous generation of the Intel CPU, to the latest Core Series 3 with the Wildcat Lake, there is massive improvements for power efficiency, especially with like the core three core five and core seven have different values from which one you pick. And that that's the battery life improvement is the, the new CPU.

[00:16:58] Noah Chelliah: Can you talk to us a little bit about the target audience of this? You had mentioned the traveling person, the person who's on an airplane all the time. Do you see maybe, I mean, I guess, broadly speaking, who is this laptop for? I also might say my mind, Michael, goes to education, kids, places where you're going to have to fit a high density of these things in a small area. My mind starts to go to 12-inch. Seems like that would be really on par with what the kids have for Chromebooks.

[00:17:28] Michael Tunnell: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different variations. I mean, it's not for any particular type of person, but anyone who wants a high quality, well-made laptop that offers a lot of versatility while not breaking the bank, like I said, it's an outstanding travel laptop, not only just in the airport, but also like the airplane, you can be able to prop it up on the tray and have it where you can do it like the tablet aspects of it, just kind of prop itself there. And then you could, you know, do, it's a lot more convenient and you don't have a lot of space to deal with on a plane. So you can maneuver it however you need it to be. And it's very, very convenient there. There's also the things about like taking notes, the touch screen and the stylus, and with education aspects, you're, you're absolutely right. There's a lot of value in that sense, especially with having it all in one. So you can, you know, use, take notes for your class and stuff like that in that, and then be able to easily convert it back to the laptop after you're using the tablet function, which is, I mean, converting it basically just means, you know, pull the screen back into regular placement. So it's not like you're doing much to make it do that. But yeah, we also have, you know, the support for Fedora is, I think, the important part of this whole situation is because we made sure that the support is there for all the functionality, like the touchscreen and the stylus and the auto rotation and all that sort of thing. And we spent time trying to make sure that Fedora is the best experience it could be on this laptop.

[00:18:49] Eric Hendricks: Fedora and Framework have been partnered for a good while. In fact, if you go back and watch episode 44, we actually had Matt Hartley on talking about Framework and Fedora as a partnership. And what's been great to watch over the last couple of years is just how much that partnership has deepened. And that's not corporate speak. That's legitimately people like Michael Tunnell, people like Matt Hartley have worked very closely with the Fedora project specifically to get this hardware working better. And so you're a well-known proponent of Plasma, which for our Fedora users, if you didn't know, Plasma is one of the official spins of Fedora Linux. So you can get a nice out-of-the-box experience with Fedora. You're running KDE right out of the box. So why KDE? I've got to ask.

[00:19:39] Michael Tunnell: Okay, KDE is because... We chose KDE because it's a great desktop, first of all. But in testing, it also has the best stylus and touchscreen support. So it was just basically a technical reason.

[00:19:51] Eric Hendricks: What about for Michael?

[00:19:52] Michael Tunnell: I mean, I choose KDE for the customizations and stuff like that and the flexibility that it offers. But this is something I've been using for... Long time, like over a decade at this point. KDE is my preference. And I'm not really against any other desktop. I like other desktops. I use other desktops as well, especially with Framework. I'm testing all sorts of different distros and on different hardware. So I'm using quite a lot, but I always fall back to KDE Plasma as my favorite because of the functionality and the flexibility it offers. And it makes me, lets me do everything I want to do and it doesn't get in my way and if I want to have it. Laid out in a certain way I can do it and if I want to just leave it by default I can do that sure and these days I've actually been leaving it by default most of the time I used to customize it to like an extreme degree and now I just, use it as it comes especially easier when I have to switch distros all the time and try out different things it's like yeah I'll just use whatever's there it's fine but also Fedora KDE, I like the way it comes out of the box because it does the the twilight the Breeze Twilight theme i think that is a a great default option so i'm happy about that but i i think that KDE Plasma is just, it's getting a lot more attention these days but it's it's, it's been one of the best desktops forever so i'm i guess i am a KDE fan boy but i'm okay with that, but that has nothing to do with why we picked it for the laptop 12 just to be clear i didn't like pull any strings or nothing i just i just we it just happened to have the best support for the touch screen and the stylus so that's what we did, and we picked Fedora specifically because we wanted to have Fedora on our on one of our products anyway as a preload and also because this hardware needed Linux 7.1 or higher and Fedora being a distro that updates quickly on the kernel and mesa drivers and stuff like that made it a lot easier to make sure their support was there.

[00:21:51] Noah Chelliah: Framework publishes that 80% of Laptop 12 owners run Linux. Could you talk to me a little bit about how we arrive Linux on the computer? Is it Framework ships it with Linux and so people choose to buy that? Or is it the kind of customer that wants a Framework laptop is the kind of customer that wants to load their own operating system? How would you kind of square that?

[00:22:17] Michael Tunnell: I think there's a, mix between the people who want to use Windows and want to use Linux. I'm not sure. The mix between the Laptop 12 might be different from different other products. But the 80% Laptop 12 owners is because they just chose to use Linux. Because we didn't have a preload on the previous Laptop 12. So that number comes from people who were just wanting to use Linux. And that also includes every distro. So whatever they pick, and they tell us based on like surveys and stuff like that, which distro and stuff like that. And Fedora was pretty high on the list. So that also made it a clear option for putting it as a preload. But I also, to go back to your question, I feel like Framework has always been a company with deep interest in Linux. I mean, like you go back to the first Framework Laptop 13 that was in 2021. And I covered that on my This Week in Linux show literally like three days after it was announced. And that was because they talked about Linux as being an important piece. And when I joined the company, I actually found that it was more important to the company than I already thought it was. It's like every component in the laptop is chosen to make sure that it has good Linux support. And also that is for every product. So we're only picking stuff that is going to make sure that there is compatibility. Now, it might not be compatible with every distro because it depends on what kernel version and stuff like that. But it is like a very fundamental thing that if the product, if the component doesn't have Linux support or doesn't have intention to have Linux support, then it's not going to be on the list.

[00:23:54] Noah Chelliah: Can you talk a little bit about what officially supported means? So you, I mean, okay, so great. Framework has a commitment to Linux and they employ people like you to make sure that you're getting the word out there about Linux. But what does it really mean to say that a company supports Linux officially?

[00:24:12] Michael Tunnell: Well, I can't really say what other companies mean by official support, but what our meaning for it is that we offer customers direct support for this. It's having support for the hardware and the distro, but also direct support with us. So if you buy Laptop 12 from us, then you will be able to contact us and get in touch with one of our dedicated Linux support specialists if you have any kind of issue whatsoever. So that's where we mean by the official support. So it's a combination of collaboration with the distro, support for the distro, and support for the customer. And we have like deep engineering collaboration in place with the partners that we have official support for, which is including Fedora. And so if they have like a collaboration in terms of, you know, stability aspects, resources, and making sure that everything is compatible. And if we find bugs, we can, you know, do technical escalations and make sure that everything is fixed and then validated and that sort of thing. And we've done that with this laptop as well, actually. So I've personally been involved in that process this time.

[00:25:16] Eric Hendricks: And I think that's really important to call out, because not only are you offering traditional call-in support for customers, whether that's Discord or Ticket or something along those lines, traditional support for the end user, but you also pointed out that you're also working with a lot of different distributions, such as Fedora, to put those fixes upstream. So do you have an instance or some kind of an anecdote of a bug that the Framework hardware was able to fix and push back upstream to either Fedora or even the upstream kernel?

[00:25:48] Michael Tunnell: Oh, yeah, many times. Our main focus is making sure that everything we do to make improvements to the distro is going to go upstream, whether it's Fedora or the kernel. We found some issues with like there was an issue with the cpu limiter and like thermals stuff for the latest intel wildcat lake and it was just like a bug that happened and we found the bug figured out the solution reported it to Fedora and worked with the developers to see what the solution is and then we got that sent upstream into the kernel and we've done that with also So the, audio support for various different modules. And also, let's see, there was figuring out some of the bug for rotation of the screen was something that we also addressed and was able to not only get upstream into Fedora, it's also in the kernel as well.

[00:26:40] Eric Hendricks: Well, it's not just working with these distributions, but even firmware. As I understand it, even the backlit keyboard runs ZMK. That's ZMK, which is open source.

[00:26:53] Michael Tunnell: Yes, exactly. We have ZMK for those who want to customize their keyboard for whatever they want to do. And we're trying to get everything as open source as possible. We embrace open source in many ways, including the traditional way of working with developers and that sort of thing. But also we do things like opening up CAD files and sharing the details and how you can 3D print components if you want to and all sorts of stuff. So our goal is to be as open as possible and have you feel like this computer is yours. If you want to mod it, you want to customize it, everything you want. The whole goal is that we want people to see their Framework laptop as their laptop, not our laptop.

[00:27:36] Noah Chelliah: Can you talk about what if any cost is associated with allowing people to repair their own product i mean to some degree other companies competition of yours if they have built in obsolescence it means that you have to go buy a computer every few years it also means that from a support aspect they don't have to continue to manufacture parts what does it cost internally to be able to say Hey, we're going to maintain this and we are going to allow you to fix it. And we're going to support you fixing that and, and, and, and, and focusing on repairability, not just as a marketing line, but as a core belief as to how you build your products.

[00:28:15] Michael Tunnell: Well, I mean, I can't really go into the details of like how much it costs us on the logistics part of it, because I don't know. I'm the marketing guy, so it's a little bit out of my scope.

[00:28:24] Noah Chelliah: Good answer.

[00:28:25] Michael Tunnell: Yeah, but I can say that it is something that we have like it was a mission. It's like a pillar of our mission, basically. So we're trying to make sure that, the consumer feels like that the laptop is their laptop. They can, you know, rest assured that if there's something that goes wrong and they want to replace a piece or if they spill coffee on their laptop or something like that, that they can, you know, fix whatever has been messed up rather than having to buy a whole new thing. As far as like why we went the modular route and the repairable route, I feel like it is because, you know, the answer is we wanted to. It's basically like we have a slogan that's kind of like we're fixing the electronics industry. Industry the the goal is to make sure like you know we're there's so many years of people have you know other companies have made it, a claim or like you know it's too difficult it's too costly to make a good product and making it repairable and you know they just try to cut corners and stuff like that and we're showing that you can make good products and make them comparable and modular and make the consumer happy and still have a product that is worth purchasing and having being able to keep and keep long-term because you know if you want to like you can buy the laptop 13 original laptop if you bought it in 2021 you can take that original laptop and upgrade it all the way to the 13 pro and have a brand new laptop basically with without having to pay for every new every single you know product on the on the way so if you wanted to buy one wait a couple years and then just upgrade some components that sound good to you you can totally do that because it's that's just basically our mission is to make it make that possible.

[00:30:07] Noah Chelliah: Tell me about the fingerprint reader. It's built into the power button. How does that actually work on Linux or does it actually work on Linux?

[00:30:14] Michael Tunnell: It works great on Linux. And like I said earlier, the components we choose specifically are Linux supported. So if we announce that there is a component in the laptop, it has Linux support. And we can say that because we choose the components specifically with Linux in mind because we want the experience of a Linux user to have like, Like, you know, whatever distro you pick, I mean, depends on like the kernel version and stuff like that. If you pick a really old distro that has a really old kernel, then you might have support for input, you know, something, this or that. But in terms of like a modern distribution that has the latest drivers and latest kernel, you're going to have support for everything because that's really our mission. We want to make sure that everything does. So the fingerprint reader works and it's you just you just do the whole you go into the KDE plasma you can use it in GNOME also has a detector so you can just scan your your fingerprint and then you just tap it and it works you just tap it on the power button and it just logs you in, it's pretty awesome and the the 12, and the 13 and 13 pro they they all work in the same way where the power button has the fingerprint reader and it just it's just an awesome experience really because It's like when I first got my first time I ever got a laptop that had a fingerprint reader, I was very annoyed by it because they replaced the fingerprint. They they replaced the right control of the keyboard with a finger. Oh and it infuriated me i like i can see.

[00:31:43] Noah Chelliah: Why because the right control would be more important than a fingerprint reader

[00:31:46] Michael Tunnell: Much more important and it was actually kind of funny because at the time i didn't really think it was that big of a deal and then after probably like two weeks i was like why why would you ever do this.

[00:31:56] Noah Chelliah: Fingerprint copy no not what i meant fingerprint dang it

[00:32:00] Michael Tunnell: Exactly completely completely wasted but like if if you're gonna put it anywhere don't like put it in a place that you're not likely to use rather than where you normally sit your fingers when you're doing commands of any kind.

[00:32:16] Eric Hendricks: My first fingerprint reader on the laptop was below the right control key about an inch or so, but it was kind of in a divot almost. So you didn't often accidentally brush it when you were moving for the keyboard, but I can't imagine replacing the right control key.

[00:32:33] Michael Tunnell: Yeah, I don't even, I'm not going to name the company that did it because I don't want to throw any shade or anything. But I can say that I hate that laptop with a passion.

[00:32:47] Eric Hendricks: So we see a lot of benefit for the end user. There's... Between the customizability, sort of the build-it-yourself, literally both in the store and then yourself, there's a lot of benefit to Framework for having a business model like this. A lot of reproducibility, a lot of customer loyalty. I know some people that are really excited to buy new Framework laptops, but they're like, but I just upgraded this one. So it's like, do I buy a new chassis or do I just keep upgrading this one? What do I do? And there's a lot of benefit for Fedora and the open source community at large. So, you know, kind of what's next? What does the next year look like? Obviously not asking for release dates or any secret projects, but is it just kind of more of the same or is there something in the works?

[00:33:37] Michael Tunnell: I mean, there's always something in the works. I mean, the next thing that's coming out, I can tell you, because we've actually already announced it and it's this keyboard. So it's basically like wireless couch keyboard type of thing and it has a touchpad and multiple profiles. And this is also open source firmware. And you have, you know, the typical keys and all the function keys and stuff like that. And if you'll notice, this is a Framework logo key, you know, you can- Our laptops also do that as well. But this is coming out fairly soon. I'm not really sure when the shipping dates are happening, but I can say that I'm a big fan of it. It's, I know I'm a little biased because i'm but also like i was a fan of Framework before i ever joined the company so i joined the company because i already was the fan so it just, when i got involved i saw like how much better than i it was and i already thought it was so you know the the Framework laptop 13 13 pro the 16 the 12 the desktop the the new keyboard wireless keyboard and there's always going to be something down the road. So just keep an eye out.

[00:34:49] Eric Hendricks: So tell our listeners what's actually when they can order the new Laptop 12.

[00:34:57] Michael Tunnell: It's actually available pre-order right now. If you purchase it right now, you'll go into the next pre-order batch. And their batches are already starting to ship, or at least on the beginning of October. I'm not sure exactly what dates the different batches are because, you know, depending on the component availability, that can fluctuate, you know, depending on how many are purchased and that sort of thing. So I can't really say when exactly you can get it, but you can order it now.

[00:35:23] Eric Hendricks: And there's two different editions. There's the pre-built and the DIY. Can you talk to us about the difference between the two?

[00:35:30] Michael Tunnell: Absolutely. The pre-built is, as you would imagine, it has Fedora, and it comes with this sage colorway, which is this green, and the input cover is about the same. It's pretty much the same on every one of them. The gray style but he has the different options on the the outer the outer shell so you can have up to five different colorways the black then there's the sage gray Bubblegum, Lavender, and i i think the the sage one is is really nice i didn't know what i think about it when i when i first got it and i i actually had a black from the previous version of the 12 and, it turns out i like the green one better the sage is my favorite which is also kind of funny because the reason we chose to make the the sage the the pre-built option is because it was the most popular choice from the previous edition, and i see why i think the people who chose the sage were correct that was a good choice. But you get Fedora pre-loaded and you kind of just have like a great out-of-the-box experience if you're the type of person who just wants to, buy a laptop pull it out of the box start using it then you're good to go with the pre-built option, and if you want to use a DIY you can save a little bit of money and put stuff together yourself and it's not hard at all it's actually super easy to put stuff together as you can see there are some screws on the back, as i showed earlier you can also just, pop off the input cover right here and then you get access to all the components and it's it's super easy to put it together so in terms of like DIY if, if that seems like a scary thing to you once you look into it and try it you'll laugh at how not scary at all it is.

[00:37:16] Eric Hendricks: So easy even Michael Tunnell can do it

[00:37:18] Michael Tunnell: Yeah i mean i mean you're giving me a jab about it but you're right because, the first time i ever touched one of these laptops and started putting it together with a DIY i, i made it more complicated than i needed to like i thought i needed to make it like oh this has got to be like okay this is here and i'm putting it in right and like then i thought wait it's, not it's not just that simple i can't just push it down and it lock into place oh that is okay that is what you do and it was this, i was trying to make it much more complicated and it was just press it down and it locks in like what like that's awesome.

[00:37:54] Noah Chelliah: If people do have questions if they're unclear about what you're talking about if they want to learn more about Framework where would you send them michael

[00:38:01] Michael Tunnell: I just go to the website at frame.work and you can go to the Linux section frame.work slash Linux and learn more about the Linux support and the efforts we do in terms of like official support with Fedora as well as the community support and all that other stuff.

[00:38:17] Noah Chelliah: Thanks so much for joining us this has been episode 61 of the Fedora podcast make sure to check out the show notes there you'll find links stay connected to the Fedora community so on behalf of Michael Tunnell my guest today Eric Hendricks my co-host and the entire Fedora project community we'll see you next time