Framework Laptop 16 Delivers Great Linux Support & Performance, Excellent Customizability
Framework officially advertises support for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Fedora Workstation 39 on this laptop. But using other modern newer Linux distributions should work too. For all of my testing so far it's been with Ubuntu 23.10 and has been working out well. Framework publishes guides both for Ubuntu and Fedora for going about easily setting up Linux on your own for these devices.
For getting an idea for the performance of the Framework Laptop 16 as the review sample was configured, it was benchmarked on Ubuntu 23.10 with Linux 6.7 and Mesa Git alongside several other recent laptops in the lab at Phoronix:
Framework 13 - AMD Ryzen 7 7840U
Framework 16 - AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS
TUXEDO Pulse 14 Gen 3 - AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS
MSI Prestige Evo 14 - Intel Core i7 1280P
Acer Swift Go 14 - Intel Core Ultra 7 155H
All of the laptops were freshly re-tested on Ubuntu 23.10 with Linux 6.7 across a wide assortment of benchmarks. Looking at the SoC power consumption was also measured during the testing process.
Let's move onto the Linux benchmarking with the Framework Laptop 16.