I do like 2-in-1 laptops, but I’ve had a pretty rough experience using them with Linux. Automatic screen rotation, deactivating the physical keyboard in tablet mode, summoning/dismissing the on-screen keyboard have all been pretty challenging in various distros I’ve tried. Looking forward to reviews of this – I’m hopeful these sorts of things won’t be a problem with non-proprietary hardware!
Framework laptops are built with the intention of Linux being a first-class citizen. They work directly with distro maintainers to ensure compatibility. There’s even a Framework-specific image for Bazzite.
I’ve had an Acer Spin 5 and Dell Latitude 7440 2-in-1, and with regards to autorotation and keyboard disabling, it has just worked out of the box for me on every distro I’ve used (apart from Arch which needed an extra package for rotation). The keyboard disabling also works in BIOS on both laptops, so perhaps it is done at a firmware level for these laptops. Some of my friends have trouble with the keyboard on their HP 2-in-1s.
Summoning the OSK is okay on GNOME, you just need to swipe up from the bottom of the screen, but the experience with the keyboard automatically popping up is worse on Wayland :(. Generally my experience has been the opposite of yours though, it has been quite good!
Hopefully the framework will drive more attention to this area though, the OSK is a particular pain point I think, Windows 10/11 does a great job here.
Even if they are problems, odds are we will have enough information that someone will fix the drivers (meaning we can fix them), and the other code bugs will be fixed.
If you want to help buy a few and spread to your favorite desktop environment developers. I’m sure KDE e.v. can put you in touch with some student who writes code and would love to get a laptop this nice. (I’m a kde guy so they come to mind first, but I’m sure Gnome or the others can as well)
I do like 2-in-1 laptops, but I’ve had a pretty rough experience using them with Linux. Automatic screen rotation, deactivating the physical keyboard in tablet mode, summoning/dismissing the on-screen keyboard have all been pretty challenging in various distros I’ve tried. Looking forward to reviews of this – I’m hopeful these sorts of things won’t be a problem with non-proprietary hardware!
Framework laptops are built with the intention of Linux being a first-class citizen. They work directly with distro maintainers to ensure compatibility. There’s even a Framework-specific image for Bazzite.
I’ve had an Acer Spin 5 and Dell Latitude 7440 2-in-1, and with regards to autorotation and keyboard disabling, it has just worked out of the box for me on every distro I’ve used (apart from Arch which needed an extra package for rotation). The keyboard disabling also works in BIOS on both laptops, so perhaps it is done at a firmware level for these laptops. Some of my friends have trouble with the keyboard on their HP 2-in-1s.
Summoning the OSK is okay on GNOME, you just need to swipe up from the bottom of the screen, but the experience with the keyboard automatically popping up is worse on Wayland :(. Generally my experience has been the opposite of yours though, it has been quite good!
Hopefully the framework will drive more attention to this area though, the OSK is a particular pain point I think, Windows 10/11 does a great job here.
Even if they are problems, odds are we will have enough information that someone will fix the drivers (meaning we can fix them), and the other code bugs will be fixed.
If you want to help buy a few and spread to your favorite desktop environment developers. I’m sure KDE e.v. can put you in touch with some student who writes code and would love to get a laptop this nice. (I’m a kde guy so they come to mind first, but I’m sure Gnome or the others can as well)