[HN Gopher] Open-Sourcing our Firmware
___________________________________________________________________
 
Open-Sourcing our Firmware
 
Author : aram
Score  : 679 points
Date   : 2022-01-21 17:48 UTC (5 hours ago)
 
web link (frame.work)
w3m dump (frame.work)
 
| VTimofeenko wrote:
| Excellent news, can't wait to play with the new firmware. I will
| echo the Fedora 35 recommendation from the article. Ran a liveusb
| of it for a week or so on this laptop and it was buttery smooth.
| All components that in the past I had mixed experiences with
| (wayland, pipewire) just work.
 
| smasher164 wrote:
| I've been running NixOS on my Framework for the last few months,
| and I've been really happy with it. I initially got it so I'd
| have viable hardware to do osdev on, so learning that they are
| going to open-source its firmware makes me even more happy.
 
  | TallonRain wrote:
  | I'm curious what the build quality is like. I've heard some
  | complaints about QA and reliability issues with the hardware,
  | but I don't know anyone in person who owns one of these
  | devices. What has your experience been like?
 
    | smasher164 wrote:
    | I haven't had any hardware issues tbh. The only thing I would
    | say is that the fans kick in pretty loud when doing anything
    | remotely intensive. Even battery life has been fine, compared
    | to my old Macbook Air. I've had to put in some work
    | configuring drivers, since they're so new that they haven't
    | landed in the distros yet. But NixOS makes that easy, so
    | that's about it.
 
      | gorjusborg wrote:
      | Same here. I own two Framework machines and haven't had any
      | issues so far.
      | 
      | I also own an M1 air without any issues, but there was a
      | class action lawsuit claiming that people were getting
      | inordinate numbers of cracked screens
      | (https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-m1-macbook-
      | cracked-s...).
      | 
      | I haven't noticed inordinate fan noise running windows 10.
 
  | rnk wrote:
  | Seems too good to be true. Reasonable prices, upgradable, no
  | soldered ram. So has it been a reliable Linux laptop, what's
  | the battery life with your options?
 
    | Rebelgecko wrote:
    | From what I've heard battery life is much worse on Linux than
    | Windows. If you're willing to spend some time hacking around
    | you can close the gap a bit, but it'll still be a gap.
 
      | james-redwood wrote:
      | I've found this to be variable in my personal experience
      | based on OS, hardware, and use of TLP.
 
      | sva_ wrote:
      | Personally I can't confirm this. I've recently replaced the
      | battery on my 2014 Thinkpad, and on low brightness I get
      | around 8h of battery. That is of course, while not doing a
      | lot of compute (compiling).
      | 
      | I don't think this was much higher, back when I used
      | Windows all those years ago, so I'm not sure what people
      | are saying with low battery with Linux? I don't see how
      | Windows could get me much more? And why would it?
 
        | Rebelgecko wrote:
        | If you have a Thinkpad, then the issues with the
        | Framework (CPU sleep states, needing to turn of secure
        | boot to hibernate properly, power management issues in
        | Framework BIOS 3.06, etc) wouldn't necessarily apply to
        | your laptop
 
    | sneak wrote:
    | The screen is very low-res and the GPU is weak. This is why I
    | don't have one.
    | 
    | If you don't care about pixels (seems common in PC-land),
    | this is probably a good thing re: power consumption.
    | 
    | I look at text all day, every day, and want it to be high
    | res. It's been high res on my Macs for half a decade, and my
    | XPS is even better. I'll get one of these once they fix the
    | screen.
 
      | aquova wrote:
      | The Framework has a 200 DPI screen. It's lower than say a
      | MacBook, but I wouldn't consider that to be "low-res",
      | especially in the laptop space.
 
      | jonaustin wrote:
      | This 'low-res' comment makes no sense, I'll never go back
      | to 1080p, but 2256x1504 is plenty IMO for text (I live in a
      | CLI all day pretty much).
 
        | gorjusborg wrote:
        | Especially on a 13" screen. I have an XPS 13 with a 4k
        | screen and I never use it at native resolution undocked
        | because I'd need a magnifying glass to read anything on
        | it.
 
        | sneak wrote:
        | You're always using it at native resolution, you're just
        | adjusting your renderer settings.
        | 
        | Nobody's saying your fonts should be tiny. I'm saying
        | they should be rendered in high resolution.
        | 
        | I have the same computer and display. I run it at 4k
        | native but nothing is small, no magnifying glass
        | required.
 
        | gorjusborg wrote:
        | > You're always using it at native resolution, you're
        | just adjusting your renderer settings.
        | 
        | No, when I wrote 'native resolution' I meant 1:1 pixel
        | mapping, which is pretty obvious by context. Nobody has a
        | laptop with a CRT on it these days.
 
        | sneak wrote:
        | Once you get used to 220+ ppi, it's very difficult to go
        | back.
        | 
        | I even don't like my 218ppi displays that much, they are
        | a little fuzzy compared to my 300+ ppi displays.
        | 
        | It's not a matter of opinion what is "low" or "high" when
        | dealing with integers for resolution. It's evident that
        | you think a low-res (by 2022 market options) display is
        | sufficient. That's fine, but it doesn't make it high res.
        | 
        | There are people who think an analog serial console with
        | 24 lines and 80 columns is sufficient resolution for
        | text. That's not what's being discussed: simply the
        | resolution of the display in the computer. It's low by
        | modern laptop standards.
 
    | _zooted wrote:
    | Having come from elementaryOS I can say that Fedora 35 is
    | awesome. So much better!
 
      | carlhjerpe wrote:
      | Having come from Debian, Ubuntu, and Manjaro I settled on
      | what feels like the last distro I will use on my own
      | systems: NixOS. It's not so much better, it's so much
      | different.
      | 
      | Every(ish) single package, every single line of
      | configuration(ish) is under version control in a(couple)
      | nix files. I share (most) of it between my systems. With
      | flakes (and it's lockfile) it's a 100%(ish) deterministic
      | system.
      | 
      | Downside: The language is arcane to me and the tooling is
      | dogshit. Not that I could've made it any better, but
      | running my config repo through entre to rebuild on every
      | write to get some promiscuous error nobody has had before
      | sucks major D.
      | 
      | Therefore I still have an Ubuntu container (because every
      | desktop application targets Ubuntu) running with X11
      | forwarding for the few packages that aren't in nixpkgs that
      | I wanna run.
      | 
      | I also don't use home-manager, but chezmoi for my dotfiles.
      | Since I want my home configuration to work on MacOS and
      | other distros I might SSH.
      | 
      | Atomic upgrades and downgrades are such a great feature I
      | don't know how people can live without it now that I've
      | experienced it.
      | 
      | Note: The default configuration NixOS gives you is also
      | shit, out of the box they don't ship a system like you'd
      | want to consume it (nixos-generate-config). An anecdotal
      | example is that Avahi isn't installed by default, which
      | means chromecasting won't work until you figure out that
      | you need Avahi, i18n config is shit too.
      | 
      | So it's not all green grass, but definitely worth it, since
      | every Nix line you write is an investment into making your
      | experience better "forever" (I don't see NixOS going away
      | anytime soon, very healthy activity on the project).
      | 
      | Now after praising NixOS for awhile, let's praise the
      | developers of all packages that are compiled into the
      | lovely distros you all use. For me the KDE team can't get
      | enough praise, the software is so damn good.
 
        | Ericson2314 wrote:
        | > I also don't use home-manager, but chezmoi for my
        | dotfiles. Since I want my home configuration to work on
        | MacOS and other distros I might SSH.
        | 
        | FYI, home manager works on MacOS just fine. I usually
        | tell people to start with Home Manager as I think it's
        | the best gateway drug to Nix stuff at the moment.
 
        | [deleted]
 
    | bo1024 wrote:
    | You nailed it, battery is the only downside I've had, not
    | awful but probably say 3 hours of video playback, or 5-6
    | hours of web use. Haven't used it unplugged all that much so
    | very rough guesses. Bigger problem with my fedora install at
    | least is battery draining while the lid is closed.
    | 
    | Overall great machine
    | 
    | Edit: I may be missing software updates that improve this, no
    | idea
 
      | reacharavindh wrote:
      | I very much wanted to hear about this and damn :-( Video
      | playback must be hardware accelerated by now and be super
      | efficient. Another worry was about low power sleep modes
      | and waking up, and looks like it is not solved too. I might
      | have to suck it up and buy the Mac for my needs after all.
      | I have my trusty Linux desktop for all my big compute
      | needs. I was hoping to make the mobile machine also run
      | Linux, but the specific needs there (crisp display, nice
      | battery life, Linux friendliness) seems to be an elusive
      | goal.
 
        | xvector wrote:
        | The M1 MacBook Air honestly feels so far ahead of any
        | other laptop I've used that it's not even funny. Fanless,
        | powerful, absolutely bonkers battery life.
        | 
        | M1 + Nix is ideal, IMO.
 
        | nathancahill wrote:
        | You have Nix running on M1?
 
        | shepherdjerred wrote:
        | Nix is the package manager, NixOS is the OS.
        | 
        | https://nix.dev/tutorials/install-nix#macos
 
        | Teknoman117 wrote:
        | It's still a real pain to get hardware accelerated video
        | in a browser on Linux. Google is still outright refusing
        | to support it in chromium, even though they do support it
        | inside Chrome OS. There are few community patches
        | floating around if you're willing to roll your own
        | chromium to enable to Chrome OS hardware decode pathways
        | on generic Linux.
        | 
        | You can mostly get it working on Firefox if you play
        | around with the config options, but it only works with
        | AMD and Intel GPUs (anything supporting vaapi).
 
        | fubbyy wrote:
        | Really? I'm pretty sure chromium has decent VAAPI
        | support.
 
        | DrBenCarson wrote:
        | * crisp display
        | 
        | * nice battery life
        | 
        | * Linux friendliness
        | 
        | Not elusive at all, you can find an M1 MacBook Pro at any
        | Apple, Best Buy, or Costco store.
 
        | Kinrany wrote:
        | M1 are not Linux-friendly at all.
 
        | vorpalhex wrote:
        | You can't even run unsigned apps on your M1. There is
        | linux support slowly coming thanks to the fine folks on
        | Asahi, but it is very pre-beta.
 
    | dheera wrote:
    | I've been using a Framework laptop for a month on Ubuntu
    | 21.10 and pretty happy with it. Some hiccups but mostly
    | answered by digging through forums.
    | 
    | Battery life in operation is excellent, but it does drain 30%
    | in 8 hours when on suspend which is a bit much. Not a
    | dealbreaker but hope this can be solved.
 
      | BlackLotus89 wrote:
      | > cat /sys/power/mem_sleep
      | 
      | If deep isn't selected do so and try again. You could have
      | problems with your nvme coming out of suspend though.
      | 
      | I got similar problems on my pinebook pro, but sadly this
      | is all too common.
 
      | addcninblue wrote:
      | Out of my element here, but would be curious to see if this
      | is something solvable in firmware (now open-sourced!) or if
      | it's a hardware problem to begin with (power states? etc).
      | 
      | Edit: Also curious if this issue is generally a hardware or
      | firmware issue in most laptops, or if it's a mix of both.
 
        | 4cao wrote:
        | Could be caused by Modern Standby (by default newer
        | laptops remain on even when nominally off, which has been
        | known to cause issues). Some more details here:
        | 
        | https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/145891-how-check-if-
        | mode...
 
      | throwaway2568 wrote:
      | High battery drain during standby on Linux can be due to
      | the system not entering the proper sleep state. I had this
      | happen to me on an AMD machine lately, in that case
      | disabling secure boot solved the issue.
      | 
      | Here is a pretty detailed blog post in checking if that is
      | the problem and how to deal with it on intel systems
      | 
      | https://01.org/blogs/qwang59/2018/how-achieve-s0ix-states-
      | li...
 
        | tata71 wrote:
        | > disabling secure boot solved the issue
        | 
        | Lovely...
 
      | sydney6 wrote:
      | I can imagine that the power draw in S3 could come from
      | having (replacable) DDR Memory instead of (mostly soldered)
      | LP-DDR Memory.
      | 
      | edit: typo.
 
        | bestouff wrote:
        | The problem is that current Intel laptops don't use S3
        | anymore, they use S0ix a.k.a. "modern standby", an
        | abomination where the CPU doesn't really sleep and the
        | battery drains fast.
        | 
        | Dell, Lenovo, HP etc. all have the same problem.
 
        | sydney6 wrote:
        | I have a Thinkpad X1 from 2018 and by default it came
        | with S0ix enabled and Lenovo later on added the S3 sleep
        | state option through a BIOS update, called "Linux
        | compatibility something".. Before that, one had to
        | manually edit the DSD table to get rid of this evil
        | burning-sleeping-laptop-in-backpack-feature called S0ix.
        | 
        | Does the Framework Laptop, or other popular models from
        | the other manfacturers you mentioned, not have a S3 sleep
        | state option these days, i.e. S0ix only?
 
        | bubblethink wrote:
        | So it was believed that S3 is deprecated on TGL, but it
        | probably works. I remember reading about it on some
        | coreboot channels. Starlabs may have enabled it. Grep for
        | S3 on https://support.starlabs.systems/kb/bios-and-
        | firmware/bios-a...
 
| fancy_pantser wrote:
| A thread from two weeks ago gave me pause; I will wait a couple
| iterations until considering a Framework laptop to see if at
| least the software issues can be resolved and observe how the
| team navigates the waters.
| 
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29806430
 
  | COGlory wrote:
  | That thread does not mirror any of my experiences at all, and
  | I've been using the laptop since it was launched.
 
  | nrp wrote:
  | We took that feedback and wrote step-by-step guides on setting
  | up a few popular Linux distributions, calling out what items
  | work out of the box and what needs manual workarounds. For now,
  | we recommend Fedora 35 as the best distro to use where
  | everything works out of the box, and Ubuntu 21.10 as a second
  | option that works though requires some workarounds.
  | 
  | *
  | https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Fedora+35+Installation+on+th...
  | 
  | *
  | https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Ubuntu+21.10+Installation+on...
 
| floatboth wrote:
| Ooh, they use chromium ec, nice. Where is its serial console
| accessed? :)
 
| yuuta wrote:
| Good news for learning as well. I had never seen an open source
| EC firmware before, and I'm curious about what's inside that.
 
  | quesera wrote:
  | See also:
  | https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform/ec
 
| akomtu wrote:
| I wish frame.work offered CUDA compatible GPUs and/or AMD CPUs.
 
  | prophesi wrote:
  | On the bright side, there have been reports of people getting
  | their Framework to work with an external GPU.
 
| ohazi wrote:
| I've been so happy to see what Framework has been doing lately,
| and really want to support them, but I already have a desktop as
| my primary computer and two Thinkpads that are already set up
| nicely, but that I rarely use. I moved from 15" laptops to 14"
| when Lenovo added the numpad on the larger variant, and 14" is
| about as small as I want to go.
| 
| I kind of want to buy a framework though, just to support them?
| But I have no use for another laptop, let alone a small 12" one!
| Should I get one anyway because, what the hell, why not? Should I
| wait and then jump on one if/when they release a larger model?
| 
| Anybody else have similar feelings?
| 
| Edit to add:
| 
| I also have one of the last Thinkpad models that support S3 sleep
| (T480 -- within a model or two, I think?), which is currently
| super critical for Linux... I need to be able to close the lid
| and come back after a week.
| 
| It's easy to blame the manufacturers for this, but the consistent
| answer seems to be "Intel's Tiger Lake _platform_ does not
| support S3 sleep, " and all of the system builders base their
| work on what Intel's reference platform does. So short of going
| to extreme effort to hack it together themselves (something that
| is likely not their specialty), reasonable sleep behavior is not
| going to be an option unless Intel brings S3 back, or does work
| to improve the S0ix states.
| 
| I absolutely do not want to support the no-more-S3 clusterfuck
| right now.
 
  | gtsop wrote:
  | Similar feelings, yes. I don't mind the size at all. It's just
  | that I've got a sweet thinkpad x13 already. My next laptop
  | though, surely a framework (if they are still around)
 
  | joelthelion wrote:
  | Sell your Thinkpads and buy one of their laptops?
 
  | mmastrac wrote:
  | Adding my vote: I'll definitely jump on a Framework 14+" here.
  | My eyes cannot work well w/a 13" without glasses. If I had
  | better near vision (will be all over the lens-softening eye
  | drops) it would be a different story.
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | staindk wrote:
  | FWIW I don't think you should buy a laptop from them just to
  | support them.
  | 
  | Just adding to e-waste down the line, and I'm sure they are
  | selling enough units.
  | 
  | In the future when you do actually need/want a new laptop of
  | course it would be great to support them then. And advocate for
  | them when a friend asks about what laptop to buy.
 
    | ohazi wrote:
    | Completely agree about e-waste, and as a result, I try to
    | take good care of my laptops and use them for as long as I
    | can (I used my previous one for about a decade, and it's
    | still perfectly usable plugged in / for light tasks).
 
  | imiric wrote:
  | From reports I've read the Framework laptop has poor build
  | quality. This comment from here actually:
  | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29807585
  | 
  | I'd like to support their cause, but like you, I have way too
  | many machines that already work well enough, that I can't
  | justify another purchase unless it would offer a substantial
  | improvement over my current setup (old ThinkPads). Plus I
  | really can't function without a Trackpoint ;)
  | 
  | So I'm holding out a generation or two to reconsider. I hope
  | they improve.
 
    | vaylian wrote:
    | > From reports I've read the Framework laptop has poor build
    | quality.
    | 
    | Sources please. That's news to me.
 
      | cptskippy wrote:
      | Yeah, the cited source doesn't rea mentioned build quality.
      | It's mostly software bugs, muffled speakers and fan noise.
      | 
      | None of that is build quality.
 
        | ask_b123 wrote:
        | From the cited source:
        | 
        | > Build quality is clearly a step down from my old
        | Thinkpad X1 Yoga. The hinge doesn't feel as strong, some
        | keys are mushy/creaking and I'm skeptical my Framework
        | will survive as many falls as my old laptop.
 
        | sangnoir wrote:
        | That is not the same as saying the build quality is poor
        | though: it's clearly a comparative statement. "The Tesla
        | Model S is cheaper than the Model X" does not imply "The
        | Model S is cheap".
        | 
        | Replacing "Model S" in the sentence with a beat-up '97
        | Honda civic and it may be true, but there is not enough
        | evidence contained in the sentence to support an absolute
        | statement.
 
        | xvector wrote:
        | If a "hinge doesn't feel strong" and the keys are "mushy
        | and creaky" that 100% indicates poor build quality.
        | 
        | Perhaps our individual thresholds for quality differ, but
        | either one of those two statements are dealbreakers for
        | me.
 
        | imiric wrote:
        | I would categorize the laptop not turning on for 2 weeks,
        | poor speakers, fan noise, mushy/creaking keys, and weak
        | hinge all to be part of build quality. And yes, software
        | issues are also a problem.
        | 
        | We can argue about how subjective all of those points
        | are, and if a single report has any merit on its own, but
        | it was enough to disuade me from making the purchase.
        | 
        | If I could test the laptop locally before buying it, I
        | would do that. Otherwise I don't want to risk it on a
        | first gen product, since I _can_ wait for gen 2 and 3.
 
    | neurotrace wrote:
    | I've had my laptop for a while now and haven't noticed any
    | build quality issues. It definitely feels nice and light but
    | it seems sturdy enough. I'm not in the habit of dropping my
    | laptop on the ground but I do chuck it on to the bed from
    | time and to time and it doesn't seem any worse for wear.
 
    | gorjusborg wrote:
    | Are you talking about personal testimonials, or published
    | data?
    | 
    | If it's published data, mind sharing a link?
 
      | imiric wrote:
      | It was a recent thread here on HN. Let me see if I can find
      | it...
      | 
      | This comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29807585
      | 
      | Some of these issues could be subjective, and I shouldn't
      | decide based on that single report alone, but it was enough
      | reason to reconsider the purchase, especially since, like I
      | said, I really don't need a new machine.
 
        | gorjusborg wrote:
        | Thank you for sharing!
 
        | duck wrote:
        | I would say all that is subjective regarding what they
        | specified as "build quality". I'll add my own take to it
        | - I got mine early last month and haven't noticed any of
        | those. That said, I do think the battery is the weak
        | spot, but I think part of that is on the OS side (I'm
        | running Pop!OS).
 
    | stormbrew wrote:
    | > From reports I've read the Framework laptop has poor build
    | quality.
    | 
    | I'm gonna be really honest here and say that people have a
    | very distorted subjective idea of what a 'sturdy laptop' is
    | like. A lot of marketing money has been spent to make people
    | think the only way to have a strong object is for it to be
    | made of a rigid metal or glass material, so people go "oh my
    | god the lid can FLEX this thing will break if I drop it!" but
    | that's not at all how things work.
    | 
    | The truth is you can't really just guess at whether a thing
    | will survive falling or whatever by looking at or touching
    | it. The only thing that tells you anything really is actual
    | experience and/or testing.
    | 
    | (personally, I think my framework laptop feels plenty sturdy
    | for all the subjective anecdata that's worth, it's just not
    | designed in a way that's trying to scream at you "you can run
    | it over with a truck and it will work perfectly")
 
  | adamweld wrote:
  | Can anyone recommend a laptop that gets great battery life on
  | Linux and has a good keyboard?
  | 
  | I've been thinking about selling my current beefy laptop (razer
  | blade 15) since I end up doing all my MCAD/ECAD work on my
  | desktop anyway, and moving back to Manjaro on my laptop which
  | only really gets used for software/firmware anyway.
  | 
  | But, I read so many horror stories about linux firmware
  | glitchyness and poor battery life that I gave up on the idea.
  | If I can just by a used thinkpad from a few generations ago
  | that might be perfect.
 
    | vorpalhex wrote:
    | I get decent but not amazing battery life on my XPS 15,
    | running Pop_OS. About 5-6 hours of actual use time. No major
    | firmware issues but it is using Nvidia.
    | 
    | XPS 15 laptops appear to have an unresolved mouse lag issue
    | that is noticeable under linux (but seems to happen in
    | Windows too). Seems to not happen with external mice.
    | Annoying but not a big deal. There is an open issue for it
    | but no patch yet.
 
    | Beltalowda wrote:
    | My ThinkPad x270 runs perfectly on Linux out of the box
    | (including Bluetooth, webcam, etc.), and with the larger
    | 9-cell battery (+ the smaller internal battery it comes with)
    | it ran almost 20 hours for normal coding usage when new (less
    | with other usage, and of course it's gone down a bit since,
    | but can still work a full day on it).
    | 
    | It should be said I run a pretty minimal system (dwm, st,
    | Vim, stuff like that) and usually throttle the system to
    | "powersave", mostly because the fans will never spin up with
    | it. It's a bit slower, but still plenty fast enough for me.
 
  | alufers wrote:
  | Sorry for changing the topic but does anybody know the reason
  | Intel has removed the seep states?
  | 
  | It drives me absolutely nuts when I open my bag and feel the
  | heat coming out of it, and my laptop is left with 20% charge.
 
    | ohazi wrote:
    | I believe the push came from Microsoft.
    | 
    | Apple has been able to do "clever" things while asleep, like
    | waking up the wifi chipset periodically to check for email /
    | messages / notifications / updates, so that when you wake up,
    | everything magically feels ready to go instead of feeling
    | like you just woke up from 1984 and have reams of crap to
    | download.
    | 
    | But this only works well because Apple does their own
    | firmware for most of the machine, and seems to do a
    | reasonably good job, despite a few issues. They're careful
    | about only doing things that aren't going to obliterate the
    | battery in a way that would be surprising.
    | 
    | Microsoft is jealous of this functionality and knows they
    | want something like that for Windows. They also know they
    | need to cater to the lowest common denominator with system
    | builders, so they asked Intel to put this kind of capability
    | into their platforms, and to _explicitly disable_ the old
    | modes, so that system builders wouldn 't be able to drag
    | their feet. The result is that they've all switched, but the
    | outcomes are generally poor and high variance. Sometimes
    | they're passably okay within Windows, but not always. It'll
    | probably get better, but for now things are crap, especially
    | on Linux.
 
  | khimaros wrote:
  | invest in the company financially
 
    | raybb wrote:
    | It doesn't seem like that's possible right now:
    | https://community.frame.work/t/investing-in-
    | framework/3980/1...
 
| [deleted]
 
| taf2 wrote:
| I'm hoping for a 16" or 15" version and then i'm in
 
| 656565656565 wrote:
| What's with the sticky scrolling on this site? (Safari at least)
 
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  | acknowledging the pop up the problem disappeared even with
  | blocker re-enabled.
 
| option wrote:
| I wish I could get one without Windows
 
  | option wrote:
  | You have to pay for Windows.
  | 
  | Quote from their website: " Base and Performance configurations
  | ship with Windows 10 Home pre-installed and Professional ships
  | with Windows 10 Pro pre-installed. You can also load your own
  | operating system later, like a Linux distribution."
 
    | Shared404 wrote:
    | The DIY Edition has a no OS option.
 
  | m0ngr31 wrote:
  | You can
 
    | option wrote:
    | All configs list Win10. what am I missing? Of course I can
    | buy with Win paying for it and then re-install.
 
      | COGlory wrote:
      | You want the DIY edition.
 
      | skrtskrt wrote:
      | Pretty sure from other discussions I have seen that it's
      | only the DIY version that has an option for no OS, then you
      | install Linux yourself
 
      | zmk5 wrote:
      | This is the version you are looking for:
      | https://frame.work/laptop-diy-edition
 
  | pantalaimon wrote:
  | You can even get one without a drive
 
| kop316 wrote:
| Does the Framework support coreboot? IIRC it does not, and I was
| sort of surprised to not see that in this announcement.
| 
| Their github also doesn't have any mention of coreboot:
| https://github.com/FrameworkComputer
| 
| And it isn't here either:
| https://doc.coreboot.org/mainboard/index.html
 
  | nrp wrote:
  | We called out "We're continuing to invest in open source
  | firmware development, with the goal of replacing other
  | proprietary firmware we're currently stuck with in the future
  | too." in the blog post. Coreboot is something we're very
  | interested in and have done experimentation around. We went
  | with an off-the-shelf proprietary BIOS/UEFI to derisk launching
  | the Framework Laptop on time and satisfying the core goals on
  | it (getting a high-performance, thin, light laptop into the
  | world that is fully repairable and upgradeable), but an open
  | BIOS/UEFI solution is absolutely in line with our philosophy.
 
    | mjg59 wrote:
    | Are you planning to ship systems that don't have Boot Guard
    | enforcement enabled? I've done a couple of Coreboot ports
    | (I'm typing from a laptop that's running my build) and the
    | Framework is an extremely interesting target, but if Boot
    | Guard is turned on then that becomes pretty difficult.
 
      | nrp wrote:
      | We haven't finalized our plans around this, but one path we
      | have explored is a signed shim loader.
 
        | mjg59 wrote:
        | Ah, so a signed firmware bootblock that runs something
        | user signed? I wrote the original version of the boot
        | Shim that Linux distros use for bridging from the
        | Microsoft root of trust to the distro one, so let me know
        | if there's any way I can help out here.
 
  | kitsunesoba wrote:
  | IIRC they said that it was a point of interest but not
  | something they'd started work on yet.
 
| trwired wrote:
| This is not related directly to the announcement, but touches on
| a thing that infuriates me to no end - for some reason the site
| assumed that because I live in the EU and relatively close to
| German border, I speak German and presented the site in that
| language. Despite my high-school teacher's heroic efforts, I can
| at best understand a few basic phrases. I didn't even know what
| to click in the cookie pop-up to kindly ask them to not track me.
| 
| Language auto detection^W assumption is such an anti-feature.
| 
| /rant
| 
| edit: I see I am not alone, who got hit by this.
 
  | TillE wrote:
  | Google is particularly bad about this, they basically make it
  | impossible to get normal English-language results if you're in
  | another country, unless you mess with the URL parameters
  | (gl=us).
  | 
  | Like if you're in Germany, you can set Google's language to
  | English, but you're gonna get mainly German results for any
  | search. A bizarre choice.
 
    | kzrdude wrote:
    | It's myopic by google. I speak more than one language,
    | "belong" to more than one country, but google makes it very
    | hard to find relevant results that are not narrowed-down to
    | the country I'm in right now.
 
    | terhechte wrote:
    | I'm German, I live in Germany, and I too hate this behaviour.
    | I rarely want out of date badly translated variations of the
    | original US topics.
 
  | uoaei wrote:
  | I'm surprised things like "preferred language" aren't built
  | into HTTP yet, seems to have a natural home in the user-agent
  | corner of that world.
 
    | nightfeather wrote:
    | Actually there is a header for this purpose [Accept-Language
    | on MDN](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
    | US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Ac...).
    | 
    | But some sites just don't care about it and try detect this
    | base on other information.
    | 
    | edit: formatting
 
      | dskloet wrote:
      | I believe Google (used to?) ignores it if it's set to only
      | English because that's too often the default. If that's the
      | case, the work around is to set a second preferred
      | language.
 
    | U1F984 wrote:
    | There is the Accept-Language header:
    | https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
    | US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Ac...
 
    | [deleted]
 
    | dskloet wrote:
    | I guess this is sarcasm but if not:
    | 
    | https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
    | US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Ac...
 
      | uoaei wrote:
      | Surprise! Not everyone on HN is in webdev. I don't know
      | much about how this all works but surveyed my user-agent-
      | switcher utility and found no such language options.
 
        | 4cao wrote:
        | No need for any add-ons or extensions, you can set it the
        | browser directly, although most websites these days
        | ignore it anyway.
 
        | banana_giraffe wrote:
        | It's actually controlled by the Languages setting in your
        | browser. Both Chrome and Firefox let you set the list of
        | languages sent in the header, along with the order.
        | 
        | Doesn't exactly do a lot of good. Sites tend to ignore
        | it, at least from what I've seen.
 
        | uoaei wrote:
        | The first thing I do on any new installation is peruse
        | the settings and tweak to my liking. It seems I missed
        | that option, being privileged to have English as a mother
        | tongue.
 
        | dskloet wrote:
        | The option should be in your OS or browser settings.
 
    | [deleted]
 
    | oever wrote:
    | Accept-Language: fr-CH, fr;q=0.9, en;q=0.8, de;q=0.7, *;q=0.5
    | 
    | https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
    | US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Ac...
 
    | AcidBurn wrote:
    | I believe HTTP has had this feature since 1999 as the Accept-
    | Language header defined in the HTTP/1.1 RFC[0].
    | 
    | As for why it does not get used, MDN suggests[1] it's because
    | changing it may lead to fingerprinting but there are likely
    | other historical reasons.
    | 
    | [0]:
    | https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2616#section-14.4
    | 
    | [1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
    | US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Ac...
 
  | 4cao wrote:
  | It's not because you're close to the German border. Apparently
  | anyone anywhere else in the EU except France gets redirected to
  | the German website. (France is the only other EU country where
  | Framework decided to open sales.)
 
| temp12913231 wrote:
 
| chrsw wrote:
| It's getting harder to resist buying one of these.
 
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I love these guys. I sincerely hope that they are successful and
| stick around. Keep up the good work!
 
| donkarma wrote:
| now lets get an open source baseband
 
  | grishka wrote:
  | Osmocom is a thing, but no idea how good it is. I've seen
  | articles about people running cellular networks with it.
 
    | p_l wrote:
    | The real issue is certification and so on. The people running
    | small cellular networks tend to have necessary permissions or
    | operate within certain limits.
    | 
    | For public, general usage baseband, it will need to be at
    | least tamper evident and you won't be able to just run your
    | own.
    | 
    | I'd personally be fine with _auditable_ baseband (i.e. you
    | can always verify what code it runs, then let 's say compare
    | to public code tree and build hashes), with possibly a
    | signature scheme that would link builder and certifications.
    | Then if you went to the trouble of proving you have the
    | necessary qualifications and won't break shit, you could sign
    | with your own certificate and take responsibility.
 
| TranquilMarmot wrote:
| I bought a Framework for personal use and love it so much. I have
| it running Windows 11, if only because it was easier to get
| longer battery life out of it without doing endless tweaks on a
| *nix OS.
| 
| Upsides:
| 
| - Hardware feels VERY premium and nice. It's not too heavy. You'd
| never guess it's the first laptop made by a new company.
| 
| - Keyboard is a pleasure to type on. I did nanowrimo last year on
| it and wrote ~60k words and never had a complaint.
| 
| - Company and its mission are awesome! Support team is very
| helpful and their communication has been great.
| 
| - Guides on the website for opening it up and replacing/fixing
| parts is amazing. If anything I hope I can keep this thing
| running for many many years.
| 
| - Choosing what ports you want via the expansion cards is really
| nice (USB-C charging on BOTH sides of the laptop?!?! amazing)
| 
| Downsides:
| 
| - Battery could be better. I get probably 3-6 hours on Win11
| depending on what I'm doing.
| 
| - It can get HOT. I have the i7 processor; doing light dev work
| with a few Docker images running and VSCode with a medium-sized
| Node project open, it gets uncomfortably warm on my lap and the
| fan occasionally spins up. I played through Inscryption on it
| (awesome indie game, built in Unity) and the fan was EXTREMELY
| loud during the whole thing because it was making heavy work of
| the integrated graphics card. Just browsing the web or watching
| videos it is cool and silent, though.
| 
| - Because of issues with Tiger Lake, S3 sleep isn't supported so
| if it sleeps when you close the lid, the battery will continue to
| drain for a bit and eventually it'll go into hibernation. I set
| mine to just go into hibernation when the lid is closed which
| saves the battery more if I'm on-the-go. It takes around 11
| seconds to wake from hibernation which isn't bad. Not an issue
| with the Framework specifically, I think this affects all Tiger
| Lake processors.
| 
| - Expansion cards are a bit of a novelty for me. I have 2x USB-C,
| 1x USB-A, 1X HDMI and don't see myself changing that any time
| soon and can't really think of any expansion cards I'd need in
| the future.
| 
| Looking forward the question at the top of my mind is "will this
| actually be upgradeable?"... if they ever release AMD or ARM-
| based processors, it'd be great to try them out, but you'd have
| to swap out the whole mainboard which is a bummer (but
| understandable given the hardware constraints). Different screen
| sizes would require a whole new laptop but at least you could
| bring along the internals. A touch screen would be really nice.
 
| alexott wrote:
| Just a suggestion for site - separate language from currency. For
| example, for me it's much faster to read in English, but I'm
| paying in euro...
 
| ignaloidas wrote:
| Side note: the language selection is stupid on the website. No,
| I'm not from Germany, and I don't speak German even if it's the
| closest country to me that you sell laptops in. Also, it's a bad
| practice to associate flags with languages. Or to give options
| that don't work after you select them.
| 
| Otherwise, very nice news!
 
  | schleck8 wrote:
  | Do you have an alternative iconography for language selection?
  | It undoubtedly makes the UX better, especially with many
  | languages
 
  | Beltalowda wrote:
  | They don't have a language selector, they have a region
  | selector which sets the appropriate currency, VAT (presumably),
  | and also language, yes. It's an entirely appropriate usage of
  | flags.
 
    | 3np wrote:
    | It is not. I can be present in Germany and want my laptop
    | delivered there. That does not mean I speak a word of German.
    | 
    | Language and physical location are disjoint. Even worse when
    | I know the original content is in English, my preferred
    | language, but someone decides I only deserve the partial
    | translation.
 
      | schleck8 wrote:
      | You can switch the region then, it takes 3 seconds and
      | persists across visits.
 
        | 3np wrote:
        | Sure, and now I can not select shipping destination
        | "Germany" anymore, as somehow it's an impossibility to
        | match the existing language contents and shipping
        | destinations...
        | 
        | This is such a frustrating trend. Google has already been
        | mentioned as an offender - it is an annoying procedure to
        | keep resetting the language for every fresh session - but
        | at least their texts are mostly properly translated...
        | Going to the Amazon site of my country (a smaller one
        | where I am a native speaker of the language and most but
        | not all products listing are machine-translated), I have
        | to constantly change my language preferences to get the
        | non-machine-translated version of various texts, as
        | "prefer original language" doesn't seem to be a thing.
        | Some things are just so hilariously wrong that doing this
        | is the only way to make sense of everything.
        | 
        | Oh, and they (framework) also force the currency tied to
        | the nation. My credit card is not necessarily in the
        | native currency of either my shipping destination or my
        | preferred language. Just let us set all three
        | independently, please :/
        | 
        | aliexpress and iherb are two sites that do this right.
 
  | redthrow wrote:
  | > Also, it's a bad practice to associate flags with languages
  | 
  | There's even a website for this issue
  | 
  | http://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/why-flags-do-not-re...
 
    | laputan_machine wrote:
    | Disagree, examples in the blog are poo. English comes from...
    | England... why shouldn't be represented with an English flag?
    | Spainish comes from... Spain... why shouldn't be represented
    | with a Spanish flag? There are Spanish speakers in literally
    | every country in the world, what is the solution?
    | 
    | The Hindi argument is not good, Hindi is the _official_
    | language of India. I work with people from various parts of
    | India and they can all communicate with each other because
    | thry all speak Hindu/English (usually a mixture in
    | conversation), even if their main language is Malayalam.
    | 
    | There are issues with flags = languages (e.g. "Welsh":
    | "Gaelic" for instance, or Switzerland (which one?), but for
    | English/Spanish examples, they are not good ones to use
    | 
    | And to end this, just because there is a website for your
    | issues doesn't mean it's correct. There is nothing preventing
    | someone from making a website called flagsarelanguages.com
    | and having poo counter points to the original websites poo
    | arguments. Appeal to authority nonsense.
 
      | polar wrote:
      | > Hindu is the _official_ language of India
      | 
      | Hindi, not Hindu. Also, Hindi is not the only official
      | language of India.
 
        | laputan_machine wrote:
        | Thanks! It was a typo, I've corrected it
 
    | zild3d wrote:
    | Don't think the site is going against these. It says "Choose
    | Location and Language" and offers for example:
    | 
    | - :us-flag: United States [USD]
    | 
    | - :ca-flag: Canada (English) [CAD]
 
      | kilburn wrote:
      | The issue there is that "being in country X" and "wanting
      | to see the site in language Y" is going to be against some
      | users' preferences. Examples:
      | 
      | - Canadians from Quebec may prefer the site in french (but
      | use CAD as a currency and see Canada's taxes where
      | relevant).
      | 
      | - Expats in Thailand very much prefer to use the site in
      | English.
      | 
      | - I'm in Spain and my browser is setup to reflect my
      | preferences (Catalan first, English if that's not
      | available, Spanish last). I prefer English to Spanish
      | because international companies either have a strong
      | presence here (and will probably have Catalan as an option)
      | or their Spanish translation will be worse than the
      | original language in English which I understand better than
      | low effort translations.
      | 
      | Frame.work is going for a locale selector but they don't
      | even support all the official locales of the regions they
      | already operate in (e.g.: they don't support fr_CA). Even
      | if they did, there are always users that would prefer a
      | "non-official" localization (en_TH, en_ES following my
      | examples above).
      | 
      | In the end they would be much better off letting users pick
      | the language, region and currency separately. It's less
      | effort from their part and a better solution for the users.
      | 
      | In that case, flags for languages are bad and flags for
      | regions are fine but can still rub against some users'
      | feelings. Example: pro-independence Scots having to pick
      | the UK flag. Is it really that terrible to have auto-
      | complete and/or select fields for these 3 things?
 
      | kstenerud wrote:
      | What it should offer is two separate options: One for the
      | store location, one for the language. This becomes
      | especially important in Europe because you have so many
      | people who live in a country where they don't speak the
      | associated language natively.
      | 
      | This is such a basic UX rule that I'm a bit surprised to
      | see them fumble on it...
 
  | kingcharles wrote:
  | I agree that flag != language (British Union flag for English
  | being a prime example), but what is the next best alternative?
 
    | amelius wrote:
    | > what is the next best alternative?
    | 
    | This:
    | 
    | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30028593
 
      | looperhacks wrote:
      | This doesn't help the user choose a language. The language
      | my browser sends to the website is not necessarily the
      | language I want to view the webpage in.
 
        | amelius wrote:
        | Then you have to change your browser settings.
        | 
        | https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-lang-
        | prioritie...
 
    | rg111 wrote:
    | Anything but the flag.
    | 
    | Why not use full language names?
    | 
    | I am very tired of seeing one flag represent my language
    | where that is the newer nation using that language as
    | national language. But that language is spoken for a thousand
    | years or more in other regions.
 
      | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
      | > I am very tired of seeing one flag represent my language
      | where that is the newer nation using that language as
      | national language. But that language is spoken for a
      | thousand years or more in other regions.
      | 
      | I'm not disagreeing with your general point, but I'm
      | curious: What language is over a thousand years old and
      | still recognizably the same language?
 
        | 908B64B197 wrote:
        | > What language is over a thousand years old and still
        | recognizably the same language?
        | 
        | Latin.
 
        | rat9988 wrote:
        | Arabic
 
        | badLiveware wrote:
        | Icelandic and old norse perhaps
 
        | Hjfrf wrote:
        | US English comes to mind, not that middle English is
        | particularly readable.
 
        | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
        | I was thinking of English as a _counter_ case when I
        | wrote the comment:) Skimming the history section of
        | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#History ,
        | I don't think I would really describe anything before
        | "Early Modern English" (1500-1700) as meaningfully the
        | same language; if you took a modern English-speaker and
        | gave them a sample of Middle English, they wouldn't be
        | able to read it, and if you stuck them in a room with a
        | speaker of ME neither would be able to understand what
        | the other person was saying.
        | 
        | Although in fairness, it does now come down to a semantic
        | argument about what counts as the same language, and I
        | acknowledge that a reasonable person could disagree with
        | my narrower view.
 
        | a_t48 wrote:
        | "Englischmen theyz hy hadde fram the bygynnyng thre
        | manner speche, Southeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in
        | the myddel of the lond, ... Notheles by comyxstion and
        | mellyng, furst with Danes, and afterward with Normans, in
        | menye the contray longage ys asperyed, and som vseth
        | strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng
        | grisbytting."
        | 
        | This is...difficult to read, but once you realize that th
        | == th, it's semi comprehensible. Looking up some Middle
        | English on Youtube, it's also semi comprehensible. I
        | doubt I could have a deep philosophical conversation with
        | an ME speaker, I think we could make eachother
        | understood.
 
        | runnerup wrote:
        | > Although in fairness, it does now come down to a
        | semantic argument about what counts as the same language,
        | and I acknowledge that a reasonable person could disagree
        | with my narrower view.
        | 
        | I really enjoy Jamaican patois for this. Arriving there,
        | try as hard as I could...I couldn't understand a single
        | word of it, even though it was ostensibly "English-
        | enough" that I should have been able to. The first 5 days
        | spending time in groups speaking the local language felt
        | like anywhere else that I couldn't understand -- Saudi
        | Arabia, Portugal, Guatemala, etc.
        | 
        | Right around the one week mark, something just 'clicked'
        | and I could understand pretty much all of it as if it
        | were regular English except for the true slang. Really
        | felt like "dialect" on the cusp of become "language".
        | Very cool spot for a language.
 
      | KeytarHero wrote:
      | > Why not use full language names?
      | 
      | If I end up on the page in a language I don't know, then
      | how would I find the language selector?
      | 
      | I agree that flags aren't great, but I don't know of any
      | other solution to this problem.
 
    | grishka wrote:
    | I've seen English represented as a flag made of halves of UK
    | and US flags
 
    | [deleted]
 
    | uoaei wrote:
    | We've had two-letter designations for languages for a long
    | time now.
 
      | darrenf wrote:
      | Two letters in the Latin alphabet, I assume - does that
      | assist those who primarily read Cyrillic, Greek,
      | Vietnamese, Arabic, Thai, Tamil, ... ?
      | 
      | Localisation basically never has a simple "we should
      | just..." solution.
 
        | uoaei wrote:
        | I'm sure if Mandarin were the default language, English
        | speakers would quickly learn to recognize the character
        | for "English" and be able to find/click it on a webpage
        | without too much hassle.
        | 
        | Language comprehension is unnecessary when all you need
        | to do is recognize a character.
 
    | flatiron wrote:
    | "Please select your ISO language code" /s
 
    | ignaloidas wrote:
    | Why have flags at all? Just use the native language name and
    | a translation.
 
      | KeytarHero wrote:
      | If I end up on the page in a language I don't know, then
      | how would I find the language selector?
      | 
      | I agree that flags aren't great, but I don't know of any
      | other solution to this problem.
 
        | scj wrote:
        | More problematically, in a character set you don't know!
        | 
        | Iconography is required.
 
    | 908B64B197 wrote:
    | > but what is the next best alternative?
    | 
    | Use the user locale. Expressed as a geographic region (which
    | you can use to compute the best possible region to serve the
    | user from) and a language (used to render the page).
    | 
    | If you do it correctly you can support weird combinations,
    | such as a German speaker living in California (expects prices
    | in USD). Or the country of Switzerland (one territory, 4
    | official languages).
 
    | brightball wrote:
    | Yea, it's always a struggle. UI wise it clearly looks better
    | to use flags and people know what it's for when they see it.
    | There's always people who complain about it though.
    | 
    | I'm of the opinion to not worry about it and just use the
    | flags. It's enough effort to properly internationalize a site
    | and keep it maintained. That it's available at all is a huge
    | effort. Debating flags vs a drop down with languages is
    | nitpicking IMO.
    | 
    | Plus, when the language codes include a country it's a
    | natural UI decision.
    | 
    | EDIT: Supporting multiple languages increases the complexity
    | of the entire development pipeline. Translation teams are
    | brought in, translation tools are brought in to support in-
    | code language as well as translations in the database itself.
    | Every new text snippet needs to be translated to each
    | language to deploy it.
    | 
    | Your search features get more complicated, date formats,
    | number formats, currency, collations. Every language you add
    | increases this complexity. Because of that, you will
    | represent a language with a primary country and not every
    | language spoken in that country. On the chance that a company
    | has opted to go all in to support region specific dialects of
    | languages where 100+ choices will be listed, then no...of
    | course flags wouldn't work. But in most cases you're lucky to
    | get 2 languages at all with potential for a couple more for
    | all but the largest of companies. Virtually every other site
    | is just going to use one and churn out some Google
    | translations or ask you to do that yourself.
    | 
    | After considering all that, yes...just use flags.
 
      | capableweb wrote:
      | > Plus, when the language codes include a country it's a
      | natural UI decision.
      | 
      | Un-natural UI decision then if a language can exists in
      | more than one country, and one country can have many
      | languages?
 
      | anyfoo wrote:
      | As someone who grew up multilingually in Europe but now
      | lives in the US and works for a US company (which seems to
      | get localization right), I have the impression you don't
      | really know the confusion and difficulties that arise from
      | what you are saying.
      | 
      | To explain, let's turn it around. Assuming you also live in
      | the US, imagine a EU company would make the following
      | assumptions that are common (to the point of feeling
      | entirely "natural") in lots of European countries, but
      | wrong in the US, and think about how that could impede you
      | in varying business situations:
      | 
      | * There is only one time zone in a given country.
      | 
      | * VAT and other sales taxes are the same over the whole
      | country (and therefore just included in the display price).
      | 
      | * Every debit card, credit card etc. has a PIN, and a
      | common API to the bank for card/bank-specific verification.
      | 
      | * Every bank account is identified by IBAN, even across
      | countries. Wiring money is always free.
      | 
      | * Decimal separator is universally "," and grouping is ".".
      | (Bonus: Let's instead be in an Asian country where it's
      | common to group digits by 4 instead of 3.)
      | 
      | * Dates are always either in order "DD MM YYYY" or ISO
      | YYYY-MM-DD. In the case the year is omitted, "DD MM" is
      | assumed and no clarification is ever made. Your appointment
      | is 4.5., thanks for doing business with us! Sincerely
      | yours, noreply@example.com.
      | 
      | * Car-related business: You have to be at least 18 to drive
      | a car (and have spent the equivalent of thousands of
      | dollars and many hours of mandatory theoretical and
      | practical training). It is illegal to drive a car more than
      | 2 years without a thorough inspection that forces you to
      | fix even minor things (Autobahn speeds are dangerous), so
      | old cars are uncommon. There are special enthusiast
      | registrations for so called "oldtimers", but that still
      | requires extra maintenance.
      | 
      | * Gastronomy-related: But you're allowed to drink beer at
      | 16 (was at least the case when I was that age), anything
      | else 18.
      | 
      | * You have to use/publish your real name, address, and
      | other information mandatorily in a lot more situations
      | (e.g. when hosting a website of any kind--imagine a
      | business enforcing that for all customers).
      | 
      | You may find that if you want to do business
      | internationally at all, you have to start caring about
      | those things.
 
      | dheera wrote:
      | With flags you also have the issue of how to represent
      | politically disputed regions e.g. Taiwan even when the
      | languages used locally are pretty clear-cut.
      | 
      | In the specific case of Taiwan, if you want to maintain
      | good business relations with normal civilians on both sides
      | of the straits you need to represent Taiwan as a state to
      | Mainland China IPs and represent it as a country to
      | Taiwanese IPs and most of the rest of the world.
      | 
      | I'm not advocating any particular political view, this is
      | just the technological fuss you have to go through to
      | maximize the number of happy customers. So sometimes it's
      | much easier to just forget the flags, state the language
      | and currency directly as text, and skirt around these
      | issues.
      | 
      | As for language selection, I really don't think it's
      | necessary to beautify it UI-wise. Pick based on the user's
      | Accept-Language header and 99.99% of the time you'll
      | present it exactly as the user wanted without them having
      | to select anything. You can then implement a text-only
      | language selector somewhere in a less conspicuous place,
      | such as the footer, than polluting your navigation header.
 
        | temp12913231 wrote:
 
      | galgalesh wrote:
      | Yeah, just use flags and confuse the fuck out of
      | multilingual countries. Belgium has Dutch, German and
      | French as official languages. So what would a Belgian flag
      | mean? What flag should I choose?
      | 
      | If I choose the flag from the Netherlands to get Dutch,
      | I'll probably be confused by a whole bunch of terminology
      | since the dutch of different countries differs vastly more
      | than the English from different countries.
      | 
      | "People who complain about flags are nitpickers" is a
      | perfect way to say "I grew up in a gigantic monoculture
      | where you can drive 5 hours in any direction without
      | encountering a different language, if you ignore the
      | natives"
 
        | brightball wrote:
        | If Dutch, German and French were supported languages on
        | the site I imagine that flags of the Netherlands, Germany
        | and France would be representing the language selection.
        | 
        | As a US citizen I often visit sites that use a British
        | flag to represent English. I don't bristle because
        | there's not a US flag or question whether the US flag
        | should also be referencing Spanish.
        | 
        | It's just a detail to draw your eye that otherwise holds
        | no importance once that is accomplished.
 
        | kmorgh wrote:
        | Except Belgian "Dutch" is called Flemish. And is
        | different enough from the other Dutch to warrant its own
        | i18n.
        | 
        | Belgium is an exceptional case but I'm sure you can find
        | more.
 
        | Insanity wrote:
        | Can't say I recall a moment of really being confused by
        | the terminology used in NL vs BE. But I do agree, a
        | Belgian flag means nothing in terms of language. The flag
        | can be used but only as a prefix to the actual language
        | in text (to visually filter quickly).
 
| philipprk wrote:
| Really hoping for the laptop's next iteration to have a reverse T
| for the arrow keys. Otherwise very solid laptop, would be my
| first non-Mac choice.
 
  | capableweb wrote:
  | Wow, you're right! Didn't understand how you could not have a
  | reverse T for the arrow keys and took a look at the pictures.
  | The up/down keys are split in half?! Why'd you make the arrow
  | keys have different sizes?!
 
    | yurishimo wrote:
    | It was the design on MacBook's for almost 5 years. Apple
    | rolled that change back in late 2020 but it will take other
    | OEM's a while to update their available SKUs to match the
    | Apple of today.
 
      | smoldesu wrote:
      | My ex-boyfriend called me "insane", but I genuinely prefer
      | ye olde 6-key arrow cluster from the Thinkpads of yore. I
      | quickly got used to browsing with pgup and pgdown, now any
      | keyboard without those keys adjacent to the arrows just
      | feels wrong to me.
      | 
      | In any case, the keyboard on the Framework is fully
      | replaceable. If there's significant enough demand for an
      | inverted-T cluster, you can bet there are people who will
      | make the replacement for it (if OEM doesn't get to it
      | first).
 
        | Eduard wrote:
        | And I hate the ThinkPad 6-key cluster because of
        | accidentally hitting the pgup and pgdown buttons. I
        | decapped both buttons because of it. Same with the the fn
        | button next to ctrl.
 
      | bubblethink wrote:
      | So that's where all this comes from. Not surprising. I saw
      | that Dell announced a touchbar product. Guess they'll have
      | to kill that too. This sort of slavish aping of Apple needs
      | to stop.
 
  | varispeed wrote:
  | This is I don't understand. Why laptop manufacturers neglect
  | probably the most important thing that is the keyboard? Almost
  | every single laptop that comes out these days looks like the
  | keyboard is an afterthought. Why can't I have full size cursor
  | keys? Pg Up, Pg Down, Home, End and few others?
 
    | tomtheelder wrote:
    | I suspect majority of users never touch Pg Up/Pg Dn/Home/End
    | and all those other keys over there. For arrow keys, the
    | compacted layout is helpful when designing a space
    | constrained keyboard, and it's totally usable.
 
      | varispeed wrote:
      | Wouldn't that be because these keys are difficult to use in
      | typical laptop keyboard, as in self fulfilling prophecy?
 
        | franga2000 wrote:
        | It probably doesn't help, but it definitely isn't _the_
        | reason. Most people still do their work on desktops with
        | full-sized keyboards and they already don 't use those
        | keys there.
 
        | varispeed wrote:
        | So how they e.g. move around cells in the spreadsheet or
        | documents?
 
        | franga2000 wrote:
        | Mouse. If you're correcting data in a spreadsheet you're
        | probably jumping around a lot and a mouse makes more
        | sense and if you're entering new data most people I've
        | worked with use tab and enter.
 
      | dsego wrote:
      | fn+arrow combo is imho equally as usable
 
  | moondev wrote:
  | In theory you can just buy the keyboard and swap in when/if it
  | becomes available https://frame.work/marketplace/keyboards
 
  | bbojan wrote:
  | Because I'm down the rabbit hole of highly customized
  | keyboards, at one point I did a frequency analysis of the keys
  | I use the most.
  | 
  | Guess what was the most frequently used key? Cursor down
  | followed by cursor up.
  | 
  | For example, cursor down was pressed ~2.5x more times than
  | space, or ~4 times more than letter E, which is was the most
  | frequently used letter.
  | 
  | Guess what are the smallest keys on a Mac-type keyboard (the
  | layout also used by the Framework laptop). Cursor up and down.
  | Madness.
 
    | franga2000 wrote:
    | Keep in mind this is likely unique to CLI users. The vast
    | majority of users have little use for arrow keys - nudging
    | the text cursor a few chars left/right and making tiny moves
    | in graphics software are about the only two I can think of.
 
    | benhurmarcel wrote:
    | Do you scroll with the arrows keys?
 
      | tata71 wrote:
      | You don't?
      | 
      | Either that, or PgUp/PgDown
 
    | walteweiss wrote:
    | I am on a Mac for over a decade and I don't understand what's
    | the issue with the keys. Well, they are smaller, but it's not
    | a problem for me, not at all.
 
| junon wrote:
| Note to the website developers: currency != language. I'm an
| American in Germany. My handle of the language isn't (yet) great,
| thus I still work with English primarily. However, I pay in EUR
| exclusively.
| 
| Just the same (not that it appears to be a problem with
| Framework, though it's easy to make the same mistake), country !=
| language.
 
| marcodiego wrote:
| What is the reason behind closed firmware? I understand that wifi
| devices may operate out of the certification depending on what
| the firmware does, but other devices... why do they have closed
| firmwares?
 
  | HideousKojima wrote:
  | Probably to hide/protect corporate secrets, or if the firmware
  | integrates proprietary code from a 3rd party it would be
  | difficult to open source for legal reasons.
 
    | p_l wrote:
    | To give an example, a huge issue over all of the OpenSolaris
    | lifetime at Sun was reportedly due to third party licensed
    | content Solaris had by itself, which is why OpenSolaris
    | source contained only the very base system and was stripped
    | of certain stuff (including X11 server Xsun, iirc)
 
    | Shared404 wrote:
    | Also in the case of Wifi/Bluetooth it seems like FCC
    | regulations would make having open firmware difficult due to
    | the fact that it would make it easier to allow end users to
    | broadcast on arbitrary frequencies. This way they have
    | deniability.
    | 
    | ...That said, not a subject matter expert so take this with a
    | grain of rock salt.
 
      | kelnos wrote:
      | That feels like a false excuse a manufacturer might make,
      | as it seems plausible enough, but doesn't really hold up to
      | deeper scrutiny. Even wifi chips that have closed firmware
      | usually have a region setting, and there's nothing stopping
      | you from selecting a region that includes frequencies that
      | aren't allowed in your actual region.
      | 
      | Sure, that's not quite the same as allowing completely
      | arbitrary frequencies, but that feels like a distinction
      | that wouldn't matter much when it comes to government
      | regulations.
 
      | p_l wrote:
      | FCC doesn't prevent you from opening the firmware (now,
      | trade secrets inside is another thing) - they just do not
      | allow unlicensed devices i.e. you can't just build your own
      | radio firmware and have it operate legally.
 
        | Shared404 wrote:
        | So open firmware from the manufacturer is fine, but if
        | you were to modify it and re-flash it yourself you would
        | be breaking the law?
        | 
        | I guess that makes sense, thanks for the clarification!
 
        | p_l wrote:
        | Exactly - the FCC certification is that a specific
        | device, despite having purposeful (or accidental)
        | transmitters, operates within the law and rules set by it
        | for use of radio spectrum. The maker of the device is
        | then able to sell it to people who are then indemnified
        | should the device break those rules (and aren't required
        | to have expensive in time and effort radio license
        | themselves).
        | 
        | With significant portion of the regulated behaviour being
        | done in software, things can become a bit problematic if
        | the end user can load any code they want. This is also
        | why "BIOS whitelists" exist, as the certification applies
        | to the whole radio equipment, which means the
        | certification must cover the antenna - and those are
        | built into laptops, meaning you can't certify the cards
        | separately as their exact characteristics depend on the
        | connected antennas.
 
        | treesknees wrote:
        | I don't think that makes sense at all. One major part of
        | Part 15 from the FCC covers this. A device would fall
        | under the category as an intentional radiator in part
        | 15.1. And in part 15.23, considered a home-built device.
        | 
        | SS 15.23 Home-built devices.
        | 
        | (a) Equipment authorization is not required for devices
        | that are not marketed, are not constructed from a kit,
        | and are built in quantities of five or less for personal
        | use.
        | 
        | (b) It is recognized that the individual builder of home-
        | built equipment may not possess the means to perform the
        | measurements for determining compliance with the
        | regulations. In this case, the builder is expected to
        | employ good engineering practices to meet the specified
        | technical standards to the greatest extent practicable.
        | The provisions of SS 15.5 apply to this equipment.
        | 
        | https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapte
        | r-A...
        | 
        | This entire part from the FCC basically states you don't
        | need a license to operate in the frequencies for wifi,
        | bluetooth, etc. You're not breaking a law by recompiling
        | the firmware for your wifi module to fix a bug. You'd be
        | breaking the law if you did so with the intention of
        | operating within licensed spectrum/power levels, for
        | example.
 
        | p_l wrote:
        | The problem starts with the fact that the device doesn't
        | have any way of showing that it was modified, and some of
        | the frequencies involved _are_ license-restricted
        | (especially in 5GHz wifi bands - 2.4GHz is dumping ground
        | free-for-all because of aircraft ovens anyway).
        | 
        | So, let's say you modify something with your own
        | firmware, break rules about ISM spectrum - or worse, mess
        | with SDR hard enough you break some licensed spectrum,
        | and upon investigation FCC certification marks are found
        | and the number. Since certification points to vendor,
        | vendor now has to explain why their device went outside
        | of those limits, and might or might not be able to prove
        | that you ran it with unlicensed firmware.
        | 
        | So an obviously home build device will go under SS15.23
        | easily, but inconspicuously modified commercially sold
        | device won't - without possibly long court case, that is.
 
        | franga2000 wrote:
        | The FCC is very familiar with inconspicuously modified
        | commercial devices - hams have been doing it since before
        | "firmware" was even a word. The fact that it's replacing
        | some code on a chip instead of a shunt resistor on a PCB
        | really doesn't make a difference.
        | 
        | And if this really was really the main issue, it seems
        | pretty easy to just sign the firmware - I'm pretty sure
        | many vendors do it already.
 
        | p_l wrote:
        | Vendors also want to comply with slightly different rules
        | all over the world, and ultimately the easiest way
        | becomes to sign and verify.
        | 
        | The code being secret is more of "trade secrets" than
        | anything legal.
 
  | wmf wrote:
  | For BIOS/UEFI a lot of hardware vendors outsource their
  | firmware to AMI and AMI keeps everything proprietary so they
  | can keep charging money.
  | 
  | (Coreboot is not an option for real computers because it
  | doesn't have menus and various other things.)
 
    | trulyme wrote:
    | I would assume that building an UI with menus and whatnot is
    | the easy part of it? (not an expert, genuinly curious)
 
      | wmf wrote:
      | It may be that writing the code is the easy part but caring
      | enough to actually start on it is the hard part. There's
      | been no visible progress on this... ever.
 
        | bubblethink wrote:
        | Coreboot doesn't deal with that, the payload does. And
        | tianocore does come with a menu for changing boot order,
        | boot devices etc.
 
| ad8e wrote:
| I checked the keyboard debouncing logic [0] and it was fine. Some
| keyboards from other manufacturers, notably Lenovo Thinkpads,
| have absurd debouncing algorithms that scramble keys or add
| delays, so it's good to see Framework has a correct solution.
| 
| [0]:
| https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/EmbeddedController/blob...
 
  | ohazi wrote:
  | I've noticed that I seem to miskey my unlock password
  | immediately after resuming from sleep way more often than when
  | I use that password at other times, or when using an external
  | keyboard (Lenovo T480). I always suspected that something was
  | wonky, but a weird debounce bug would totally explain it,
  | especially as I tend to type that password very quickly.
 
    | ad8e wrote:
    | The scrambling is easy to see once you know it's happening:
    | press k and l simultaneously on your Thinkpad keyboard. It'll
    | always come out "lk" unless you deliberately separate them.
    | 
    | Testing was done [0], but it's not written in an easy-to-
    | understand way. As a summary, Thinkpad keys are scrambled
    | within 15-23 ms. Usually, humans ascribe scrambled letters to
    | their own mistakes, but this time it's the keyboard's fault.
    | Lenovo continues to ignore the issue.
    | 
    | [0]: https://github.com/ad8e/input-polling-test
 
  | poyu wrote:
  | Debounce is an interesting topic[0], I tend to use hardware
  | debounce whenever possible on my own projects.
  | 
  | [0]: https://hackaday.com/2010/11/09/debounce-code-one-post-to-
  | ru...
 
  | nrp wrote:
  | We used the chromium-ec logic as-is (checking git blame), but I
  | believe did tune the debounce timer to match the
  | characteristics of the keyboard itself.
 
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