Just want to add to the chorus, framework is awesome. This thing is so sleek and fancy.
There were a couple of hiccups with the DIY build. An out of position Wi-Fi wire on the hinge, and I wasn’t told to plug it in before turning it on, so I thought I had a dud for a minute or two. But that’s no big deal.
It was the deal that got me, I went with a 7840u, with the 2.8k screen. I bought my own ram, and reused a 2230 512gb nvme from when I upgraded my steam deck. That’ll hold me over until I decide I need more 🤷♂️
It’s only been a few days but so far I couldn’t be happier!
Gotta stop myself from fidgeting with the bezel magnets, it’s fun but I’m gonna break it 😬
Edit: Forgot to mention I’m running Bluefin, based on recommendations here. My first time with Fedora, and immutable/atomic based distros. I’m used to Debian based stuff. So far I haven’t run into too much trouble. Though I AM struggling with my virtual machine.
I have three apps that I need Windows for still, there is no replacement. One of them might run in proton, but it’s updated regularly, and interfaces with a shared database, and I’m just not willing to be the fly in the ointment if my setup breaks something for everyone.
The other is a Windows store exclusive, and that doesn’t work with proton.
And the third I could find an alternative for, I just… It will be a lot of work converting the database over, and I don’t want to right now 🤷♂️
Anywho the problem is the VM, Boxes, won’t run in full resolution. It’s locked at a lower resolution. Seems like a crazy problem, a feature that should already be baked in. I’ve tried SPICE virt-viewer, per some guides, but no dice.
I’ve got a thread up here about it if anyone has an idea? I know there’s at least a few bluefin users here.
Thanks!
Anywho the problem is the VM, Boxes, won’t run in full resolution. It’s locked at a lower resolution. Seems like a crazy problem, a feature that should already be baked in. I’ve tried SPICE virt-viewer, per some guides, but no dice.
This may help. My native resolution is 3840 × 2160 and even with that guide my VM runs at something like 2560 × 1600. So, not full, but acceptable. Out of the box it ran at something like 800 × 600.
This did it!
Specifically, installing the QXL-WDDM-DoD driver did it!
It’s still not full resolution, it maxes out somewhere below the 2.8k of the framework screen. But it’s almost full screen, and 90% perfect.
Thanks a million man!
Edit: To be clear, they have other options for spice manager and stuff, and none of that worked for me 🤷♂️
Glad it worked! Happy to help.
Edit: Honestly thank the person who wrote that documentation. I’m merely the messenger.
Well finding accurate, well written information like that is harder and harder to find in today’s AI slop landscape. So you’re helping out tremendously, even though you didn’t write it.
I’ll find a way to thank the writer if I can 👍
Today, after a restart, I can suddenly make the VM full screen 🤔
The guest resolution hasn’t changed, it’s still less than native, but now boxes is zooming to fill, it seems 🤷♂️
Thanks for this! Those are some options I haven’t come across yet in my research! Looks promising!
I have three apps that I need Windows for still, there is no replacement.
…what are they?
One of them might run in proton, but it’s updated regularly, and interfaces with a shared database, and I’m just not willing to be the fly in the ointment if my setup breaks something for everyone.
Proton is primarily for games, anything else you wanna run in plain old WINE. You can do this with Bottles.
The programs are extremely unique and would reveal more about myself than I care to share, sorry. I didn’t mean to tease, I just wanted it to be clear that I needed Windows, lemmy can get real fired up about ditching Windows 🤷♂️
Thanks for the tip about bottles! I thought that proton, bottles, and lutris all basically used wine at the core. Mix and match your preferred way of setting it up. I’ll look into it.
Pretty sure windows store apps are still a no go though?
I thought that proton, bottles, and lutris all basically used wine at the core.
Ehhh well it’s kinda hard to explain. Proton is like a fork of WINE. Lutris uses Proton. Steam uses Proton. WINE is typically preferred for non-gaming software, but Proton might work for those as well. At least that is my basic understanding.
Pretty sure windows store apps are still a no go though?
I honestly don’t know, I can’t remember ever seeing any apps that were only available as UWP.
Thanks for the information! I guess that makes sense, kind of different flavors and implementations. Some better at some times than others. I’ll have to tinker with it.
I haven’t really had to run a VM for anything but I think Qemu is the main program used by most people for running VMs.
There is also this project I was going to experiment with but I never got around to it. Maybe you could give it a go https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
I’m using gnome boxes, which uses qemu at it’s core. And from what I read, for basic VMs where to don’t need fancy find tune controls, gnome boxes is a solid choice. Unfortunately is giving me trouble.
I’ll dig deeper, maybe I need to get closer to the metal, but that’s hard to do on bluefin.
Winapps looks cool! Thanks! Though it does look like it requires dependencies I may not have and can’t install.
I think you can if you layer them, right? I run bazzite on one if my machines and I had to do that for something I wanted. Should keep it to a minimum but since this a key piece of your workflow it should be okay
Layering! Of course! It’s so obvious now 🤦♂️
While I still hope I’ll find a more bare metal solution, running an ultralight Linux environment in the VM to get the resolution correct, and then virtualizing windows in that, could work. Thanks!!
I’m not on bluefin but I had a display reduce issue a while back and I used virt manager with XML editing to set it manually, but I don’t remember what specifically I changed. I think somewhere in display you set variables called x and y. One thing I’d recommend about the laptop is swapping the wifi for an ax210. The intel ones work much better especially on linux and they’re like $20 (do be carefully with the antenna connectors if you do this, they’re easy to break but apart from that it’s easy). Also I fidget with the bezel all the time and it’s been fine for me.
Hmmm yeah I think virt-manager requires digging deeper into than os than Bluefin allows, but I’ll look into it thanks!
As for the WiFi, I wasn’t aware the mediatek card was that bad, certainly I haven’t noticed any issues yet. But good to know that the ax210 is a cheap and easy upgrade!
My WiFi cables were definitely a little chewed on delivery though.
That’s just the protective heat shrink they put on it thankfully, but still not cool 🤔
I haven’t used bluefin but it’s immutable fedora basically right? Most immutable distros do have a way to install native packages, but I could understand being hesitant to do that. The wifi issues are inconsistent, so you may find a hotel or something where it doesn’t work which could suck. For me, it was my phone hotspot. The cables being chewed shouldn’t be an issue for changing the card, the connectors are just tricky.
From what I read it’s immutable-ish. They call it atomic? But yeah, the whole point is stability, so I’m going to try holding off if I can. If I have to break immutability then I might as well go with a different distro. That’s extreme, but you get what I mean 🤷♂️
That’s unfortunate that the issues are inconsistent. Still, I might be hold off on upgrading. My plan was to wait until I upgrade my router for Wi-Fi 7, and then upgrade my card at the same time.
The whole Wi-Fi 7 arena is still too new for my taste, a few bugs, and expensive. Plus I don’t really need it yet.
