A while back I bought a Framework 13 laptop. I have a perfectly good tower pc running Windows, and my reasoning at the time was a few factors.
- My PC had a massive case and tiny parts, and generally felt way overkill for the stuff I did. I'm not a gamer, and rarely (see: not never) play complex 3d games that really demanded my dedicated gpu.
- I'm kind of a shut in sometimes, I feel, and being able to take my computer with me seemed like a great excuse to get out more.
- I really like Framework as a company, and wanted to support their vision.
So, I bought one! And as a machine, it's fantastic. Yes, it's kind of overpriced for the specs you get, but considering the reparability angle and the fact they're a smaller company, I'm willing to look past that.
If you're considering a Framework 13 for productivity and general computer use, highly reccomend!
I also decided to give Linux a try. I was getting sick of Microsofts Ai bullshit and general decline towards smoothing itself over, and I consider myself a pretty techy person, so I figured I wouldn't have too much trouble.
So, I got Debian setup on the laptop, plugged it into a USB-C dock I got, and... it worked! There was some Linux weirdness, and I did some distro hopping (tip: keep your home folder on a storage expansion card, or seperate ssd), but it worked pretty well overall. Eventually some friends wanted to do a game of Lethal Company, and I figured this'd be a good time to test what limited gaming I do.
You'll notice earlier, I reccomended the Framework 13 for productivity and general use. For gaming... yeah, didn't really cut it for me.
Now granted, Lethal Company isn't a well optimized game. But even then, with a bunch of optimization mods and quarter resolution, I was getting a pretty choppy experience. It was totally playable, but considering I had an entire pc right there, it was kind of a hard sell.
So, I put that aside, and just used both computers. My desktop remained at my desk, and the laptop came with me when I went out. And that worked pretty well!
I tossed the idea around of upgrading the mainboard in the Framework, but that would be like $700. If only I could take my gpu, which was more than enough for me, and stick it into this laptop.
Oh, wait, that's a thing!
I did some research and got a cheap eGPU dock from AliExpress, along with a psu to power it. The setup ran me like ~200$. I installed nvidia drivers, plugged everything in, and....
It worked! Like, completely! Lethal Company was running at a solid 60fps on my second monitor. Great! I'll just suspend the computer and get up for a sec-
.... Huh?
It wouldn't wake back up.
What followed was a week of forum questions, realizing Debian just didn't work with the eGPU in this one specific way, and distro hopping some more. I eventually landed on Ubuntu, which seems like the least poplar distro among hardcore linux users, but whatever. I tore out snap and it was fine.
But finally, after weeks of work, it was running. It was... still kinda buggy, being Linux, but I had a weird setup, can't blame it too much.
I booted a game of Lethal Company with my friends, and....
.... it worked. It ran fine, but the fans were blasting hot air onto my arm the whole time. Ok, no biggie, I could get a nice laptop stand or even a moveable arm... and a longer thunderbolt 4 cable, that'd be like $80 total...
... But then, I'd still have the linux bugginess. Ok, I could switch to Windows, I guess....
... But even then, I still had worse performance than on my windows pc.
And at that point the whole thing just kinda, stopped working for me. I was spending a pretty non-negligible amount of time and money trying to make this sidegrade work, and it was quickly becoming a downgrade. If I didn't have the normal pc, still, I'd keep trying, but at this point I was starting to feel kinda foolish about the whole thing. Like, was I trying to do this because it was practical? Or just for the sake of being different about something, to no benefit? I'm no stranger to liking weird shit soley for it being quirky (<-- Playdate owner). But this was crossing a line.
So, as I write this from my pc, the plan is gonna be to keep linux on the laptop, but just use it as a portable machine, or for browsing on the couch or whatever. It's a great laptop and I don't wanna get rid of it, but I'll probably end up selling the eGPU and sticking the new PSU into my pc to replace my nearly decade old one.
But, it wasn't all for nothing. This finally got me to switch to OnShape from Fusion as my CAD software, since the latter doesn't work on Linux, and I consider it a general upgrade. I also got a ton more experience with Linux and different distros. So, silver lining.
I might shift my desktop to Linux, down the line. At the same time, Windows has - for all it's faults - been reliable, and I prefer keeping Linux to a side machine I can tinker with.
So, yeah! Hell of an experiment. tl;dr don't use egpus with linux it's a pain in the ass.