The machine hasn’t shipped yet, and won’t until July. Framework has a page for downloads of their BIOS updates for their various generations of mainboards, and for Linux users all firmware can be updated by LVFS via fwupd as far as I’m aware.

I have my preorder in for the 13 pro, and I know full well there may be some firmware growing pains with the new chip architecture, but I think 6 generations in, they’ve proven themselves capable of addressing any issues that arise.

You know, I’m not entirely certain. The American repair service is a partnered business, so I would assume it would be in valve’s best interest to partner with such companies regionally.

And if you watch some video tutorials of these repairs and feel like it’s outside of your skill level, valve’s repair service is accessible through customer support. They provide a shipping label, and when it gets there they assess the cost of repair, inform you of the cost and ask if you want it done or not. If not they’ll ship it back as is. I believe I paid about $135 USD to have buttons replaced and machine cleaned out internally. It’s an option, if you lack either the time or gumption to fix it yourself.

There’s a reason valve has an absurd amount of money.

Oh well that’s great news. I would still do a little legwork, like searching “DistroOfChoice on Intel Mac” just to make sure you don’t run into any unforeseen issues.

If you’re on an M-series chip, Apple silicon as opposed to the older intel based Macs, your only viable option is Asahi Linux, which is specifically made to run on Apple silicon. If you would like to try this out, I have no promises that you won’t brick your machine. I highly recommend you watch some tutorials and read some documentation about the Asahi install process to see if it is something you’re willing to attempt.

So, the other poster is correct. You need a new non-Apple device if you intend to use Linux freely like the rest of us.

There’s good news though. Linux runs wonderfully on older hardware. Depending on what level of gaming you intend to do, you could get a decent used gaming laptop with a discrete GPU, or even a Thinkpad with integrated graphics for fairly cheap. Carefully consider your hardware choices based on your needs. If you take this route, the world is your oyster, and I highly recommend doing some distro-hopping in your first year.

Linux mint is a great place to start. As far as I am aware the only proprietary software involved is multimedia codecs and Nvidia drivers, but you would want those on any distribution, because the user experience without them is severely lacking.

Fedora is great, but it won’t install the multimedia codecs for you like Linux mint will. You’ll need to start learning how to use the terminal straight away. I consider Fedora to be an intermediate level distribution, unlike Linux Mint or Ubuntu which are very beginner friendly. Fortunately there are plenty of step by step guides and support forum posts to help you through things if you’re willing to do the work.

Arch based distros like CachyOS, EndeavourOS and the like, will challenge you. But that challenge will teach you a lot. I would say after getting comfortable in something like Linux Mint after a few months, give EndeavourOS a try if you want to develop your knowledge.

That brings me to an important point. Back up your files. With either a secondary SSD, or an external HDD/SSD, literally drag and drop the files you can’t bear to lose. Linux is very easy to wipe and reinstall, and hopping from distro to distro until you find your home can be a lot of fun, but having a safe backup so that you can do so without any worry of losing data, is extremely important.

Recommending Omarchy, or any distro based around a tiling window manager to a beginner is probably the best way to make sure they don’t use Linux. I can’t believe I have to keep saying this.

You’re not even trying to help, you’re just saying “I use Omarchy BTW”

I very much agree. I think that this aligns with the spirit of FOSS. As the neofetch decays on the forest floor, the fastfetch rises in its place to fill its role in the ecosystem. This how our ecosystem stays fresh and moves forward.

I’m currently running CachyOS, where I installed Hyprland and ML4W dot files (basically a well refined set of config files for Hyprland) alongside KDE Plasma. ML4W (MyLinux4Work) has great YouTube videos detailing their installation process.

Hyprland, like i3, is pretty amazing to use once you get used to it, but sometimes it can break, so having the option of rock solid KDE right at the login screen is a nice bit of insurance.

CachyOS is based on Arch, so you’ll need to get cozy with updating and installing software, both from the repository and flatpak, via the terminal. If you’re not already comfortable with that, it’s a great opportunity to learn.

Yes, because I also have a desktop PC, not to mention a dock for my Steam deck. Sure, I could keep using my old Xbox controller on the PC, but the Steam controller creates perfect continuity between my deck, pc, and deck docked.

I guess I just don’t expect most beginners to want to read the breaking changes. Like when firmware packages recently changed, pacman paru yay and octopi don’t tell you about those breaking changes. You just get an error when you try to update. If you read the notes, you know to uninstall the old package, install the new ones, problem solved. What about using meld to merge pacnew? I don’t expect someone in their first week of Linux to figure it out. Even if they can learn it, I don’t expect a lot of users to want to.

Maybe I need to have more faith in people? I stuck to Ubuntu derived distros for about a year before I took on Fedora, and then eventually EndeavourOS where I learned the ins and outs of managing an Arch based system. I learned a lot, and I learned it gradually, which worked well for me, so I don’t try to throw other new users in the deep end of the pool.

I am a cachy user, and this is the worst possible advice. Arch based distros are not for brand new Linux users.

I second everything above. If you use Fedora be sure to follow a post install guide, there’s plenty more of them out there. Otherwise, Mint, Ubuntu, and Pop!_OS are great options.

If you want a little more challenge, EndeavourOS and CachyOS are great introductions to Arch. Avoid Manjaro.

I’m really sick of everyone suggesting Bazzite non stop. I’m a serial distro hopper because I love learning about various distros as they grow and change, and bazzite and other immutables have always been problematic and janky for me, and their immutability makes it difficult to problem solve with tried and true resources and methods.

And that my friend is the primary caveat to Linux. More work. For the day to day user browsing the web, checking email, etc, it typically just works.

Certain use cases will require a lot more tinkering, and thus more work. If you have patience, and enjoy the work, enjoy the learning, it’s not a bad thing.

If you have an AMD GPU, corectrl is a graphical application for controlling your GPU and CPU, works great, but make sure you know what you’re doing.

ckb-next is a reverse engineered solution for controlling RGB on Corsair peripherals. I’m not certain what other functionality it may have but it’s worth checking out.

It looks like there are a couple of apps in development for the streamdeck, python-elgato-streamdeck and streamcontroller. Both of these may require some education to utilize.

I’m not sure which Vortex you’re referring to, is it the mod manager? If so, you’ll likely need to dig up some other means of using mods.

Wine and proton used through steam have done a phenomenal job of making gaming accessible on Linux. Unfortunately, making other windows software work as if it were native is very touch and go with wine.

When anyone switches to Linux they really have to think about all of the caveats and potential deal breakers that may crop up. A dedicated Linux user will go out of their way to acquire hardware that they know to be directly supported by either the kernel itself or another reverse engineered kernel module. For instance, I use Razer peripherals, because openrazer and polychromatic do an incredible job of making them work without any loss of functionality.

I hope some of this is helpful

I’m not recommending Nvidia. I’m making a point by giving an example of the procedure for installing drivers for the most common GPU (by a wide margin, amd and intel market share accounts for single digit market share) being far more difficult on Debian than other distributions that are more beginner friendly.

Did you even bother to read the thread?

I get so frustrated hearing this take over and over again.

https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers

This is the process for installing the DKMS Nvidia GPU drivers on Debian.

The process to install said drivers on Ubuntu, Pop, Mint, etc, is literally clicking an icon.

Yes, following the manual is easy for you, and easy for me. It’s not easy for the tech illiterate elders in our lives. And it’s not easy for me to drop in weekly to solve their problems either.

I’ve ran Fedora on and off for years, by my measure, it’s not old man proof.

I run CachyOS with Hyprland, after using EndeavourOS for quite some time. I definitely recommend either one, if you’re willing to learn to do things via terminal.

After a fiasco with my 72 year old father in law’s laptop, I no longer recommend Linux Mint to people. On a fairly new Asus, multiple attempts at installing were needed to get it running, and he had constant issues that pushed him away from it. Installed Ubuntu for him, no issues over the past year. Sure it has snaps. He doesn’t know the difference and everything seems to be working fine. The goal is no IT support calls from the old man and Ubuntu achieved it.