Framework has had a big week, announcing a brand new “Pro” variant of its excellent Laptop 13 design. Rebuilt from the ground up and featuring top-of-the-line Intel and AMD options, the 13 Pro still has the company’s fully repairable, upgradeable ethos at its core. That’s the kind of thing that turns heads in the FOSS world, and indeed the company says the Ubuntu variant is outselling the Windows variant.
To be clear right off the bat, this info is coming from a promotional tweet put out by Framework. Taking the company at its word, the only real information we have is that it’s selling quickly by Framework’s internal metrics, with six batches of the Intel version of the laptop already sold out. “Also nice validation of our approach, the Ubuntu configurations are outselling the Windows ones!”
That’s not really surprising, for a few reasons. One, if you’re buying a Framework laptop, you have a good reason to order it without an OS, even if you want Windows 11. It’s easy to get it free or cheap elsewhere. (Framework says it’s not counting the “None (bring your own)” option in these Ubuntu numbers.) Two, there are precious few places to order a new laptop with any kind of Linux pre-loaded—you’ve got Framework, a few smaller vendors like System76 and Slimbook, and a few models from Dell. Lenovo sold Ubuntu-loaded laptops at one point, but I can’t find any on the site right now.
So, yeah, we’re talking about an already-niche design, and an expensive one that’s laser-targeted to users who know both their hardware and software inside out. “The Macbook Pro for Linux,” indeed. But having said all that, selling more Linux than Windows on any platform is still a big deal. Even in the cherry-picked gamer data of Steam, where the Steam Deck skews the results perhaps more than anywhere else in mainstream consumer electronics, Linux users only recently hit a huge milestone with five percent of the market.
Perhaps it doesn’t hurt that Microsoft and Windows are currently on a bit of an apology tour. After a couple of years of pushing hard on “AI” features that no one wants—not even the people who do want “AI” want the Copilot flavor—Microsoft is pulling back its integration into everything and now promising features that Windows has been missing ever since Windows 10. Even I’m using Linux (Mint) on my laptop now because there’s nothing I really need to do that demands a Windows license anymore. Things are looking pretty peachy in penguin land, and Framework’s Laptop 13 Pro is poised to become the status symbol of that userbase—if it can stick the landing.
The new laptop designs should arrive in users’ hands in June, at least if they got an order in early.
