I'm Spoiled by Apple Silicon but Still Love Framework
Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago
simonhartcher.comTechstoryHigh profile
calmmixed
Debate
70/100
Laptop Battery LifeApple SiliconFramework LaptopLinux Power Management
Key topics
Laptop Battery Life
Apple Silicon
Framework Laptop
Linux Power Management
The author discusses their love for the Framework Laptop despite being spoiled by Apple Silicon's efficiency, highlighting the challenges of achieving good battery life on Linux laptops.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Very active discussionFirst comment
6m
Peak period
121
0-12h
Avg / period
32
Comment distribution160 data points
Loading chart...
Based on 160 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Sep 22, 2025 at 9:03 AM EDT
3 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Sep 22, 2025 at 9:09 AM EDT
6m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
121 comments in 0-12h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Sep 29, 2025 at 11:00 AM EDT
3 months ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
ID: 45332859Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 8:09:59 PM
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
As soon as Asahi supports TouchID, I think my M1 will become a linux laptop...
And according to use reports battery life seems quite awful compared to macOS?
Not really, actually. ARM isn’t terribly more efficient to decode than x86, and both are converted into micro-operations that are internal to the CPU.
The real strength is Apple’s custom ARM cores; as evidenced by the failure of Qualcomm and MediaTek to make anything quite like it, even with the same manufacturing nodes.
[1]: https://github.com/Zephkek/Asus-ROG-Aml-Deep-Dive
[2]: https://triangulatedexistence.mataroa.blog/blog/i-uncovered-...
It's still significantly slower than the M4 but you can at least meaningfully compare them nowadays which is a strong come back from where they were when the M1 was introduced.
We are likely to see improvements now that Microsoft buys Arm chips for their Surface laptops. I guess it was hard to justify the investment before.
The result is that in more typical usage where the machine isn’t under a constant load, battery life is much better. When it’s sitting there idle displaying a web page it’s barely consuming any power at all, where most competing laptops at minimum are pulling at least 2-3x as much power between the CPU not being able to scale down that far and constantly getting woken to perform poorly scheduled tasks.
Exactly. Apple's way of doing things is about vertical integration of the stack, which is the polar opposite of how the PC market developed and largely still works.
The vertical integration approach (where you control all the layers beneath the customer facing product) has the benefit of allowing you to optimize that customer experience by tweaking things anywhere in the stack.
Power management in digital systems mostly comes down to being able to slow or turn off clocks when appropriate. Doing this well can be complicated, but you can tell that Apple has put a lot of energy into doing it.
The downside of the vertical integration approach is that components cannot be sourced or replaced with off-the-shelf components, as the interfaces are not really standard, they are tailor made for the use case.
For the Framework folks to pull off something like the M1's power sipping, they'd have to invest a lot of engineering time (a.k.a. money) and have strategic partnerships with hardware vendors and standards bodies to move the commodity chip market forward to support better power management.
The thing is, one of the strengths of the Framework is that the hardware is commodity, making their devices easy to repair. Also, any work that the Framework folks do to move things forward also benefit their competitors, which can shrink the potential reward for doing so.
Sleep/Hibernation works fine on the Framework under Windows. It's just Linux that has this problem.
I use MacOS because of this - I'm never going to use a Windows laptop, and I'd prefer Linux but power management just isn't there.
Like you can make an x86 computer that is not a PC. PS4 is one example: https://fail0verflow.com/media/33c3-slides/#/22
But when you make a PC, you are stuck with multiple layers of legacy crap, any of which can prevent proper low power states or suspend.
I have a Surface Laptop 7 with a Snapdragon CPU on Windows 11 and it's been awesome so far. Insane battery life, especially in standby. I can reopen it after 48 hours and it only lost 3% of battery, while it stayed connected to WiFi and received notifications all along.
The Mac Desktop is vastly inferior to the Linux world (for power users) but the hardware is so, so good.
For me it is about having a completely silent setup. It is so, so hard to go back to noisy fans.
I really hope Asahi Linux keep going so I can have the best of both worlds.
I have to use Mac, Linux, and Windows desktops in my work.
They all have their pros and cons, but I can’t say I’d ever argue that the Mac desktop experience is vastly inferior to the Linux desktop experience.
Edit: Getting a lot of downvotes but most of the comments are about someone’s highly customized Linux desktop compared to completely vanilla Mac desktop. I’m referring to apples to apples comparison where they’re either some standard out of the box version or when customized with available tools and mods. Comparing your highly customized Linux desktop to a completely uncustomized Mac setup with no attempt at other tools or utilities isn’t an interesting comparison because it’s not apples to apples, it’s just a statement about your current preference.
While there are several apps to create custom keyboard commands, only yabai+skhd come close to what's available on linux, and it's not even that close tbh.
Linux Mint with Cinnamon is bliss. Or well anything else, you are absolutely spoiled for choice with Desktop Environments in Linux. There is the perfect one for everyone. At least if you use X11, wayland is still a turd.
I found the Mac Desktop absolutely unusable for any development work as it comes out of the box. You need a metric ton of third-party extensions for simple stuff like proper alt-tab support or custom shortcuts. An configuration is supper limited.
And it will get so much worse with the whole glasses ui thing.
This is one of my go-tos when I need a VM, so I’m familiar.
> I found the Mac Desktop absolutely unusable for any development work as it comes out of the box.
But why are we comparing vanilla macOS to an extreme customized Linux setup as if they’re the same thing? Why one set of rules for one platform but those criteria are suspended for Linux, where we get to assume some specific set of perfectly configured everything?
This is the hyperbole that I can’t really take seriously. Calling it “absolutely unusable” just isn’t something I can take seriously.
I understand that some people like to customize their environments to the Nth degree and can’t live without their personal set of customizations, but that’s personal preferences. Calling other platforms “absolutely unusable” or “vastly inferior” is just an exaggeration when millions of devs use them just fine.
Your assumption that these Linux setups are "extremely customized" is wrong. Personally, I hate configuring or customizing much at all. The appeal of Linux is that there are distros that come configured out-of-the-box pretty much as I like it, whereas MacOS and especially Windows requires configuration and constant upkeep and maintenance. (MacOS doesn't even come with a decent terminal, for starters.)
For me, my main problem with MacOS is that it's full of looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong animations that you can not disable or remove. Disabling animations (or setting them to be <10ms long) is one of the few configurations I like to do. But this is not even an option on Apple's operating systems. It's like running through molasses in a dream-- it's so damnedly and artificially slow.
defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool true
That is quite simply false.
Apple is at this point maliciously incompetent...
When I first started using a mac for dev at my current job, I tried their virtual desktops implementation as a workaround for macOS's lack of alt-tab support. That desktop switching animation is so long it's honestly really funny, I just sat there for a minute switching around and laughing my ass off in disbelief at how slow it is. Unfortunately it does also make the feature completely unusable, so we're just stuck with one desktop and a gimped alt-tab. Just an absolute usability train wreck going on over at Apple.
My Linux Mint installation is actually barely customized. It absolutely works out of the box. I disabled a few animations and selected a different theme and added like three extra shortcuts but that is it. Nothing that would take more than ten minutes.
I was comparing the vanilla experience.
And yes, I should have specified that I am talking about my needs. I totally believe that the Mac Desktop might be better for the average user but that is no me.
You are trying to use macOS like your other favorite OS(s). This is not how macOS has ever worked, and the macOS approach is more than fine for millions of people.
This doesn’t seem like a fair way to evaluate MacOS given the effort involved in configuring a Linux installation
That is both a pro and a con. For someone offering tech support or writing documentation it's a pretty big negative.
It brings up a list of applications in most recently to least recently used order, so two apps switched to/from will constantly switch places.
I don't recall the difficulty you mention happening with Safari.
"Applications" is the problem. I want to switch between windows.
Windows (and most Unix WMs, I don't know where it actually originated) style alt-tab maintains a stack of recent windows. So you can hit alt-tab repeatedly to swap between the two most recent, or hit alt-tab-tab-tab to bring up only the 4th most recent window, etc.
Maybe this used to make sense when apps were single purpose but I do basically everything in a web browser or a terminal so not being able to bounce between the previously selected window(of whatever kind), as I can with Alt-Tab on linux or windows, is frustrating.
Also Command-` switches to the next window, not the previous one like I would expect.
MacOS removed subpixel antialiasing, honestly for understandable reasons, making rendering on low-ppi displays blurry, but high-ppi displays are still super expensive. I got a 32" 4k monitor(~140ppi) at Costco for $250. A >200ppi display of the same size costs 20x that amount.
You can add Shift to both Command-Tab and Command-` to move in the reverse direction.
Then you are deliberately handicapping yourself, this isn't something you can blame on the OS. It's like complaining that a car has bad fuel economy because you always stay in first gear.
As for the displays, you are comparing apples to oranges. You can get a high DPI monitor which is smaller than 32 inches for cheap. Which is plenty of screen for the distances where DPI differences are important.
The classic "You're holding it wrong" defense. Especially when the alternatives don't have this problem.
But other than that? Most macOS apps are now inferior to browser-based analogs. Calendar, contacts, email, iMessage, Music, TV - they all just suck.
It’s the dumbest thing apple has ever done and hats off to betterdisplay dev. Best money ever spent on a desktop tool easily.
These don't matter as much when you have high PPI. But they're a lifeline on low PPI displays (and there are a lot of those).
So CMD+TAB+SHIFT cycles in the opposite order of from CMD+TAB, etc.
Perhaps you missed the parent's "(for power users)"?
So here's an apples-to-apples comparison: customizing Mac desktop for one's preferences compared to Linux.
I've been on Mac for 10 years because of Work. Before that I was on Linux, using the AwesomeWM tiling window manager.
I dearly miss AwesomeWM. I've tried most 3rd-party window managers for Mac, and nothing comes close to the snappiness and functionality of Linux's tiling managers like AwesomeWM. Nowadays I just use window-movers like Rectangle [1], and I feel handicapped.
The simple fact of the matter is that Mac does not allow the level of customization that Linux inherently does. MacOS' UI hooks are through the Accessibility framework, and in my user experience, it's just a slower, jankier emulation of what a more deeply integrated WM can do. As a specific example, the author of DisplayMaid [2] has complained elsewhere on HN that macOS does not provide reliable identifiers for the displays, so they had to implement their own heuristics. Side-note: for a system so inherently dockable as macbooks, it's a tragedy that I have to rely on a 3rd-party app to re-position my windows for one of my 2 regular work setups.
I'm sure Apple could implement the hooks for better WM customization, they've certainly done their few updates with Spaces and their own poor-man's tiling, but the years with no update to integration demonstrate that they consider the Accessibility hooks to be Good Enough.
[1] https://rectangleapp.com
[2] https://funk-isoft.com/display-maid.html
People are comparing them to vanilla Mac setups because Macs don't really let you have a non-vanilla experience.
Asking out of curiosity, why is this? What's the functionality you miss on Mac?
Like proper alt-tab, better keyboard configuration, Finder is the worst file manager I have ever used, a classical task bar and so on.
You can manage but the defaults are really bad for power users.
Honestly Apple just needs to let me install a proper Desktop Environment like KDE on it. The unix base is decent, just give me more freedom.
you usually also need a bunch of extensions. And 50% of them are broken due to various if you try to use KDE builtin extension thing.
It is so sad that apparently no one else bothers to tune their fans properly. It is such a killer feature for me.
1. No delete button. I know you can do Fn delete but It is more problematic. And I do use delete often.
2. System keeps important system stuff in Library directory in home. Do not do remove any directories.
4. Os x doesnt quit apps and then expects me to go through all apps in windows switcher.
5. The spaces dont wrap around.
6. Finder is always in your alt +tab? Causes issues with switching.
7. Corners are round. How to Disable it control the roundedness
8. Alt +Tab doesnt automatically restore minimized windows.
9. App store is quite weak compared to archlinux
10. There is no spaces pager (a small bar at top where I can immediately see which desktop im in)
11. It seems that I cannot have windows of same app in multiple spaces.
12. Same app has only one window. Apple mail for example. Cannot copy text from email to settings.
13. How to Disable HTML display in apple mail.
14. Kmail has much better interface for signing
Both for viewing rhe signed emails and for deciding which key to use
15. Opening a new windows from spotlight is not possible
16. Download multiple wallpapers at same time is not possible
17. All operations related to an app should be inside an app. Alt+w for tab and ctrl+tab for switching makes me move two fingers instead of one.
18. Spectacle is so much better than screen shot on MAC os
19. Ramdisk on mac os x
21. Threads view in emails isnot possible in apple mail
22. Application specific power optimization (for good battery life) on OS X
23. Better security and access on OSX for apps.
23. Switching between apps of same windows on OSX does not bring up a visual aid..
24. Long press leads to accents which is very cool but also I didn't use it.
Indeed. I would love it if I could name spaces too. Amazing how little details improve productivity.
> It seems that I cannot have windows of same app in multiple spaces.
Right-click app icon in dock.
For different app windows in the same app, appearing in different spaces: Options->Assign to Desktop->None.
For app windows appearing across all spaces: Options->Assign to Desktop->All Desktops.
("Desktop" here actually refers to spaces, for some reason. And it would be nice to be able to do "All Desktops" at the window level, but nay.)
E.g., in Windows apps, menu items are keyboard-addressable by default. This is brilliant for accessibility, and for accustomed power users. MacOS has no _by default_ equivalent.
E.g., managing virtual desktops in Linux are exactly as flexible and powerful as you want them to be. MacOS does it One Way (more or less), and you’d better like it.
I still love MacOS the most. Some of the things you list are real misses (#1). Some of them, I believe, are things you haven’t found yet (#11, #15, #16). Some are MacOS-specific metaphors which I’ve come to love compared with the alternatives (#4). Some I don’t understand but would be happy to discuss with you (#17).
Cmd-Shift-? (really, Cmd-?)
You can begin using arrow keys from there, or start typing to search the menu items of the foreground app
You can also assign arbitrary hotkeys to any application's menu items in the OS system preferences
MacOS allows easy navigation of the menu, but does not guarantee that each item is hotkey-addressable.
8 - minimize in macOS is more like "get this window out of the way without closing it", and it is related to 4)
15 - because of 4
23 - wat
Personally, once I got used to cmd+tab and cmd+` for window management, I can't go back, but it needs a different mental model than the one on Windows/Linux.
26. No ability to use focus-follows-mouse.
27. Home/End keys send you to the top/bottom of the whole document instead of the start/end of a line. The latter is much more useful to me and I use it all the time. You can change this behavior with a terminal command followed by rebooting, but some programs still do whatever they want.
28. Automatic text replacements change the text you entered into the text that Apple thinks you mean. (Can also be disabled.)
29. Holding down an alphanumeric key brings up an accept/symbol selector, as on iPhone. This isn't compatible with many terminal applications like vim.
30. The dock has a tendency to move automatically to another display when there is a maximized window on that display. (I know how to move the dock by going bottom of the display and moving the mouse down, this isn't that.)
31. The camera notch can hide icons and you have no way to get to them without either connecting and external display or a workaround like https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden.
It has ramdisks (`diskimagetool attach ram://`) and tmpfs.
I’d run kde or even gnome on my work MacBook if it let me without a second thought.
PS just installed ios 26 and what is this? If this low contrast blobby window thing makes its way to the laptop I’ll be very, very not impressed.
You have quite a bit of control over all of these features. Dark mode, contrast controls...
There is a lot there you can tweak to have it look how you want and it stays that way through pretty much all upgrades.
> animations, stage managers and pretty docks.
You can turn all this off for the most part.
Spend as much time and effort customizing your Mac as you do customizing your Linux desktop and a lot of your laments will go away.
I use both often enough to know that linux on the desktop is a much steeper investment if you want it to work for you.
Finder the least flexible file explorer of any OS. There's no location bar. You can't have a dynamically resizing grid of icons, so if you resize your windows, the icons are constantly outside of the horizontal scroll blinds. The view modalities make it difficult to sort and find files. Major system paths (eg. Applications) are locked down and hidden.
The window manager can't be replaced.
Window manager placement hacks exist, but they are not first class. You'll never have first class tiling windows in Mac.
Many of the window manager quirks are forced upon you. You can't change how to cycle and alternate windows. Exposé is flakey...
Tell me how you getting around your system on linux?
Search is and remains a first class citizen on Mac, and is for the most part on Linux. Spotlight still edges out linux choices. Windows has all the "power tools" to root through folders cause its search is such hot garbage.
> You'll never have first class tiling windows in Mac.
No you have ones that work.
Because the moment that you plug in mismatched or non standard monitors into a modern linux distro all bets are off. To make that work your going to end up with some pretty intense setup where your forced into window management rather than a traditional desktop.
Can you do it... You sure can... But I run an out of the box IDE on a basic Mac with a few tweaks for a reason: because playing games with my tools isnt getting work done. I have an arch, ubuntu and windows desktop and I have a Mac laptop. Is the linux box fun. It sure is. Does running it involve doing a lot of chores, you bet it does.
I do this daily with different displays and have no problems whatsoever. I've probably used over 30 different displays over USB-C and HDMI on Linux and have had no problems.
They were all different sizes, DPIs, panel types, brands, etc.
Meanwhile, I can't even do fractional scaling when using macOS lol
I hear this sentiment often, but I think it's missing the main reason why most people prefer Linux, whether that's for work or leisure.
What you call "playing games" to me is actually configuring our tools and environment to function optimally according to our needs and preferences. Yes, we spend an inordinate amount of time doing this, but it ultimately leads to a more comfortable and enjoyable experience, which is well worth it considering we spend most of our day using our machines.
This is not unlike a carpenter who has very specific preferences about their tools, and how they might spend a lot of time organizing and honing them. Sure they can use a pre-built workbench from IKEA, but chances are that they prefer using one they've customized or partly built themselves over the years.
Dealing with jank and the occasional frustration is unavoidable in Linux, but no operating system and machine are perfect. There are always trade-offs. We just prefer the freedom and flexibility over a corporation forcing us to use our computers the way they think we should.
We all have different priorities and preferences, and I'm not saying yours are in any way inferior, but I wanted to clarify the other perspective.
Option 1: View > Show Location Bar (you can right-click or double-click on any folder to interact) Option 2: Option-click the folder name in the Finder Window's title bar to immediately jump to other folders Option 3: If you want to type a location and go there, press Command-Shift-G for Go > Go to Location
> You can't have a dynamically resizing grid of icons, so if you resize your windows, the icons are constantly outside of the horizontal scroll blinds.
Of course you can. Select View > Clean Up By > and choose the option you like best.
> The view modalities make it difficult to sort and find files.
Name a built-in file explorer with semi-spatial (Sidebar off), browser icon mode, hierarchical list mode, gallery, and column view. Bonus points if they have anything remotely like QuickLook.
> The view modalities make it difficult to sort and find files.
What is difficult about Command-1, Command-2, Command-3, Command-4 to switch views? What is hard about Command-J for granular settings?
> Major system paths (eg. Applications) are locked down and hidden.
Applications is visible at the system-wide and user level. Applications folder is listed in the "Go" menu, present in every Finder menubar. Applications is, by default, on the left sidebar of every Finder window. If you want to type, Command-Space brings up any Application at a whim.
Can't find an Application or want to see EVERY app on the system and connected drives? Hold Option while going to Apple > System Information and click the "Applications" listing on the left sidebar.
> Window manager placement hacks exist, but they are not first class.
Moom wants a chat. BetterTouchTool wonders if you've heard of it. Heck, DockDoor is free and excellent, too! They're only second-class in the sense they won't bring down your system when they act up.
> You can't change how to cycle and alternate windows. Exposé is flakey...
This is either a configuration error or not being familiar with how to use it. Exposé works better than any similar system on any other platform I've tried - what do you think is a better example of a systemwide Exposé alternative on another platform? Wait, I don't need one because Mission Control & Exposé are bulletproof.
If they're like 95% of computer users, they use them to check their email, their FB/IG/etc and browse the web. A Chromebook would suit their needs, but in my experience, so would a modern Linux installation + a browser.
The biggest friction in my experience is UI differences, but that is solved by just mimicking Windows/macOS UI in KDE. Put buttons and components where they expect to find them and it seems to just work, in my experience.
I know Linux guys don't mind putting up with the Linux experience but if your family is trusting you as "the techie," you'd be doing them a huge favor by not making them put up with that stuff.
Yes, you will find that most material problems can be solved by buying more stuff. If they wanted to buy a new laptop, they would have done that.
> You'll have to do near zero troubleshooting
That's the case now.
Meanwhile, with the Macs they use, I have to explain that there's a difference between Intel and ARM Macs, that no, their software won't work in MACOS_VERSION because Apple deprecated some API, and no, you can't upgrade to MACOS_VERSION+1 to use something that works, no the hardware they've been using for years won't work because the driver for it is no longer compatible with their Mac/macOS version, the simple thing they want to do actually requires $30 paid software to do, I can't help you when Apple sold you a small hard drive at a premium and macOS takes up half of it, etc.
> I know Linux guys don't mind putting up with the Linux experience but if your family is trusting you as "the techie," you'd be doing them a huge favor by not making them put up with that stuff
Yeah, having a fast computer that just works must be tough lol
Either set it to do upgrades in the background automatically or tell her to hit "Install updates" when she sees a notification about it. Ideally you'd click the checkmark that enables the former.
The great thing about Debian and Ubuntu LTS releases is that they're rock solid and nothing changes for like a decade or however long they're kept on life support.
No you don't? Why not tell your grandma about PowerPC and Motorola 68000 Macs too while you're giving her pointless information about CPUs Apple used in the past.
We're half a decade into the Apple Silicon transition. Intel Macs are not relevant to anyone except people who purchased a Mac within a couple years before the M1.
> no, their software won't work in MACOS_VERSION because Apple deprecated some API, and no, you can't upgrade to MACOS_VERSION+1 to use something that works, no the hardware they've been using for years won't work because the driver for it is no longer compatible with their Mac/macOS version, the simple thing they want to do actually requires $30 paid software to do, I can't help you when Apple sold you a small hard drive at a premium and macOS takes up half of it, etc.
I... can't even imagine what scenario you could possibly be running into any of this so I don't know how to argue against it.
I was already speaking on the scenario you brought up where this is someone that is gonna be living 95% in their browser. I don't know what weird proprietary software non-techie users are needing that's apparently not compatible with new Macs. Anything beyond web browsing - e.g. word processing, light photo editing, dealing with PDFs, etc - can be done with very high-quality, free software baked right into macOS.
You describe using a Mac like the black and white "before" footage from an infomercial showing that previously the only way to cut a tomato is smushing it with the side of a dull knife. If a Mac is too difficult for someone, Linux is not the solution.
Yes, I do, when Apple advertises new features in macOS and for whatever reason, they just don't work on their Macs. Why? Because some of their machines are Intel-based and Apple chose not to implement certain features they expect on their Intel hardware.
Similarly, I have to do the same for software. While fat binaries are common, sometimes they end up with ARM binaries that just won't work. Similarly, the ability to run their iOS apps doesn't exist on Intel Macs and they don't know why.
> I... can't even imagine what scenario you could possibly be running into any of this so I don't know how to argue against it.
My family member spent thousands of dollars on software licenses for their business. For years, they could use that software on their Macs, until they couldn't. I'm talking about things like Office and tax software.
Similarly, try using an old macOS version that older Macs get stuck on. You eventually cannot even get a working safe browser anywhere, because the APIs Firefox and Chrome depend on change between macOS versions due to API churn, eventually deprecating old macOS versions altogether when it comes to new releases. Eventually, the entire Mac app ecosystem does this and the only solution is to either upgrade your macOS version through hacks or buy a new Mac with an updated macOS version and then experience that again in a few years.
Then there are driver issues. I have family members that have perfectly good music production hardware that drivers no longer work for. For some of it, it looks like 3rd party companies developed paid drivers for new macOS versions. Same thing with touch screens, had to go down the paid driver route for those, too. That's just not a problem on Linux.
> You describe using a Mac like the black and white "before" footage from an infomercial showing that previously the only way to cut a tomato is smushing it with the side of a dull knife
I mean, that's one way to interpret being honest about my experience as tech support for my family's Macs and other computers over the years. The Intel -> Arm transition + Apple's propensity for API and OS churn affects their users who aren't buying new hardware every time a new version comes out.
> If a Mac is too difficult for someone, Linux is not the solution.
I'd stand by the statement that if a Chromebook would suit a user's needs, so would Linux. Both require a curated experience and there should be no expectation of users setting it up themselves. You can make computers running Linux into solid email/Facebook/Zoom/office/web/etc machines a la ChromeOS, and in my experience, that keeps people happy.
Obviously, Linux is not a universal solution, Macs or other software/hardware might be the right solution. I wouldn't subject musicians in my family to Linux, but it has kept my older family members online and safe.
Sometimes powerful tools need sophisticated users that have time to invest in learning to use the tool. "Inferior" might depend on who is trying to accomplish what, but it's hard to argue that if you're trying to do or build the most sophisticated and cutting edge things that computers are capable of doing, you probably don't want to be using macOS or window.
That doesn't mean that it doesn't work marvelously when you have 0 time to invest in learning to use your computer, and all you want is to access web applications and manage a few files on a screen bigger than your smartphone and with a physical keyboard.
Windows has failed them.
Linux Mint/Cinnamon is closer to windows 95 than windows 11 is. It's cleaner, simpler, better.
Mac osx is annoying compared to cinnamon. I hate the empty space around the dock. I hate how Mac windows don't always consume the same amount of space for some reason so I can see the different rounded corners on different "maximized" windows. I hate Mac osx's full screen mode forcing each fullscreen app onto a different desktop. I prefer cinnamons default window tiling/desktop switching/fullscreening keyboard shortcuts and animations.
Finder's default mode of unaligned randomly placed folder icons is so wild. .DS_Store is so annoying. The lack of a system tray meaning you have to use the dock in order to see if you have a DM in slack. Spotlight opening the "spotlight" app when I type the "spot" of Spotify. Idk I just truly prefer cinnamon.
There's things about Mac osx that are great. The central nature of /Applications and of ~/Library is great. Lots of things are great.
Mac hardware is by far best in class but Mac osx is honestly pretty ugly compared to Cinnamon imo. I'm not biased. I paid through the nose for my MacBook. But I like the esthetics of Cinnamon on my desktop much more than osx.
When I put non techy people on mac they end up having a good experience because they learn quickly there is no reason to touch anything except the web browser. I also want to highlight Macs are high end hardware in a premium package compared to Linux where people usually try it on a really old low/mid range device.
That has to be a bug. I have a thinkpad with a Ryzen 7 6850U, running debian, and lose at most 3% per day.
The reason why it works well for Apple is that they control everything. There are limited numbers of parts they have to support, so they can make sure it all works.
In the PC world, there are many… many variables, even from the same OEM. It’s a legitimately hard problem and manufacturers aren’t particularly motivated to get it to work better (particularly with Linux). In fact, at this moment, there’s another post on the front page that talks about this exact issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45288440 . It is about debugging an ACPI bug that has existed for years.
I recommended Framework to someone looking for a laptop a while ago and they were bit by the standby battery drain issue. I felt bad having recommended it to them because I assumed such a basic issue would have been addressed in a laptop that was so highly regarded.
Some other issues remain. Largest I am aware of is independent from the hardware, but an issue with suspend-to-disk & kernel lockdown, which prevents deep sleep.
I’m not sure if this was related to “modern standby” (it was around that time if I recall) but that hasn’t really helped anything. This is a desktop so why they insist on deprecating real standby for everything is beyond me…
* I actually still have it but it became my home server, so now doesn’t ever need to standby, luckily.
If so, I seriously doubt that the lifetime pollution of a Framework laptop is better than an Apple Silicon Mac.
Macbooks tend to last a very long time. I used my Intel Macbook Air for 10 years. After that, I sold it and maybe it continued to get used by the second owner. While you can keep upgrading Framework laptops (parts require shipping/pollution to manufacture), I doubt it'll last a decade or someone wants to upgrade it for a decade to keep up.
Apple also has recycling programs and it seems to do quite well when it comes to using recycled materials. I doubt Framework is big enough to do these things as well as Apple.
Framework laptops are often more than doubled the price of similar spec'ed Windows laptops. They're also quite a bit more expensive than Apple laptops in the same class.
Framework is one of those things that is great for virtue signaling but doesn't make sense in real life.
Edit:
You can buy an M4 Air for $799 on sale frequently.[0] Meanwhile, a similar spec'ed Framework with a slower AMD CPU/GPU is $1,517.00.[1] So the repairability angle just doesn't seem worth it. If the Air breaks, just buy a new one.
Keep in mind that the M4 Air has a better display, significantly faster CPU, faster GPU, significantly more battery life, is fanless, better speakers, much better trackpad, and a thinner profile.
[0]https://www.macrumors.com/2025/08/27/200-off-every-m4-macboo...
[1]https://frame.work/products/laptop13-diy-amd-ai300/configura...
The enhanced repairability is basically insurance in case of a fault. Compared to a MacBook, or insurance for a MacBook, this insurance is overpriced.
As for the environment, the power consumption + larger design with extra parts to make it repairable + how few people ever buy parts makes this a virtue signaling wash.
Actually no. Where I live there is no local Apple Store. I had to take it to an authorised repairer, and it was there for 1.5 weeks.
In the same time, I've had to repair one Gigabyte laptop. The second Gigabyte that needed repair, I trashed and just stopped buying Gigabyte.
That's the problem with Apple. They're build quality isn't that great, but you don't have an alternative.
I have been buying Apple hardware since the early 2000s (the first thing I own was a 1.5 Gen iPod) and there is almost no product that didn't get an issue. Very often developing early in life because of bad design/engineering. I think the most reliables have been iPhones but that's only if you don't count annoying battery swap and other minor repairs that came for aging (like port replacement).
But they look good and make people feel good, so they get bought.
That's definitely the problem with Apple, if you could run macOS on any machine, they would lose market extremely fast.
The whole thing is fragile as hell; macbooks don't get dents, they turn into dust on impact, just like iphones.
I guess I'm mostly talking about Apple overall.
You're paying a lot more money for self-repairability. Frameworks are generally more expensive than Macs, sometimes 50% - 100% more expensive for a similar laptop. That's crazy.
Macs are tanks. Not a single issue with my 4 year old M1 Air. Even if there is an issue, I can still take it to an Apple Store to get it looked at.
Do you have an example? An 8tb m4 macbook pro runs over 7 grand; the comparable hx370 framework 13 is barely over 3 grand. I bought both within the last couple months and found the macs to be significantly more expensive in the segment i was looking at.
Keep in mind that the M4 Air has a better display, significantly faster CPU, faster GPU, significantly more battery life, is fanless, better speakers, much better trackpad, and a thinner profile.
[0]https://www.macrumors.com/2025/08/27/200-off-every-m4-macboo...
[1]https://frame.work/products/laptop13-diy-amd-ai300/configura...
I have maintained it for years that the base model M-series Air is the best computer for normal people if they plan to keep it for years.
The fact that I can repair it, exchange every part, get every part, upgrade every part, and I never have to use a hairdryer or heat gun to do so.
Keep in mind that the Framework spare parts are generally also pretty expensive.
I like Framework's aesthetics more than MacBook already, and like the little customisablity (i.e bezel, mismatched coloured parts etc). I can accept a lower quality screen (compared to MacBook), speakers and camera no problem.
I'm willing to pay higher than MacBook price for the above package due to superiority of Linux over MacOs and supporting this model in general. However, I draw a line in the sand at battery life, so Mac it is for me for the foreseeable future.
Battery is $60. How much does a MacBook battery cost? How long does a MacBook battery take to repair and how much skill do replace need to replace it? How do you upgrade the storage capacity on a MacBook?
MacBooks had historically tons of design issues with keyboards and GPUs. Which I guess can happen, but the problem with Apple is that they never admin anything until someone drags them to court and the out of warranty repair is always extremely expensive, usually not worth it.
The battery replacement can also be extremely expensive, especially if you live in a country without any Apple Store. Battery replacement for M4 Air is like $340 in my country, which is insane for a $800 machine.
But otherwise, between the Butterfly keyboard, Flexgate, and placing the backlight driver voltage pin next to a data pin on the display connector (Louis Rossmann complained a lot about that one, as debris or moisture could easily cause a short and fry your CPU), indeed Apple does have their fair share of design issues.
What attracts me is:
• Easy (self) repairs, especially OEM battery replacements. If I could carry two - three replacements that could be hot swapped, like old times, that would be acceptable too.
• Easy upgrades of RAM and SSD. I had to buy a new MacBook due to it hanging frequently from RAM filling up, even though rest of it would've been fine for at least three more years.
• Ability to make it "your own". Its a minor thing, but a little whimsy is nice in life. I also like the idea of my main machine being a ship of Thesus that stays with me for a long time, and shows marks of age.
And for me Mac is not an option as I'm not using their crappy OS and I don't want to have the forever struggle of running Linux on their proprietary hardware platform.
IMHO that’s a giant issue. If you can’t hibernate (aka suspend to disk) you will never be able to get that power consumption low. And telling people to not run secure boot or lockdown is not really a good answer either. Especially since the default installer already sets those things up. I get that „Linux on laptops“ is not a priority big enough to get a proper fix for that. And that it’s not an easy issue to fix. But the current state is really really sad.
This is cope. An Apple Silicon Macbook does not need to suspend to block devices to save energy (they only do this when the battery is empty). ChromeOS doesn't offer hibernate at all. The only reason that a Framework can't have good battery life in an operating state is that nobody is paying attention to the details.
If you're claiming it is just an oversight, then please back it up.
For my current laptops i have been ignoring the battery completely. I rather have max performance, so every energy saving thing gets disabled. Most of the time it's connected to power anyway.
365 more comments available on Hacker News