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Ben Christel edited this page Nov 25, 2023 · 32 revisions

This page documents the pain points I've run into using Linux Mint on a Framework laptop. These are all fairly minor issues—most features work perfectly out of the box. If you are setting up Linux Mint on a Framework, you might find this page a useful resource for fine-tuning your machine.

The issues are categorized roughly by cause—hardware, OS, or application. Where issues are caused by the intersection of two technologies, I categorized them according to the fix I applied: if I fixed the problem with software, it's categorized as a software problem. I chose to categorize the issues this way so that this page might still be of some use if, e.g. you're installing Linux Mint on a different brand of computer, or using a different distro with a Framework, or running different applications.

Framework Laptop Hardware, Firmware, BIOS

  • Issue: trackpad right click is awkward
    • Fix: switch to two-finger right click in touchpad settings
      • Issue: holding two fingers on the trackpad and clicking with your thumb isn't recognized as a right click
        • Fix: Kludge a physical trackpad button
          • Issue: paper sucks; need wood/plastic and proper double-sided adhesives
  • Issue: power supply light is always on when the laptop is plugged in, which is annoying when I'm trying to sleep
  • Issue: power cable is hard to unplug
    • Possible solutions:
      1. Just wait; it will probably loosen up over time
      2. Buy an Apple USB-C power adapter, or another third-party adapter?
        • Not sure this would help. USB-C cables are probably pretty standardized.
        • Update: I tried an Apple USB-C cable. It was also hard to unplug. I think the port is just tight.
      3. Try plugging the straight-connector end of the power cable into the laptop.
      4. Pay someone to 3D-print me a magsafe connector! https://community.frame.work/t/full-power-magnetic-charging-card/10113
    • Fix: Time.
  • Issue: headphone audio output beeps when sound starts or stops playing

Linux Mint, Cinnamon, Linux Kernel

  • Issue: tap-to-click detects my palm when I'm typing
    • Fix: disable tap-to-click - DONE
  • Issue: keyboard repeat is too slow
    • Fix: keyboard settings - DONE
  • Issue: trackpad two-finger scroll is inverted
    • Fix: touchpad settings - DONE
  • Issue: UI is awkwardly large
    • Possible Solutions
      1. use fractional scaling
        • Issue: causes screen tearing, evident when moving windows around quickly.
          • Fix: wait for Cinnamon to implement fractional scaling.
      2. change display resolution to 1600x1024 or 1400x900 and set user interface scale to normal / 1x with gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.interface scaling-factor 1
        • Issue: the display is letterboxed
        • Issue: pixels aren't as sharp
    • Decision: change resolution to 1400x900. Once Cinnamon implements proper fractional scaling, use that.
  • Issue: Graphics stuttering: sometimes the video output takes hundreds of milliseconds to update, making it look like keyboard input is delayed. Rapidly opening/closing the Cinnamon menu results in part of the menu appearing before the rest, maybe 10% of the time.
    • Similar to this issue. I also have an Intel Iris graphics card: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=361238
      • Possible solutions:
        1. As suggested in the forum post linked above, I could upgrade to the 5.14 kernel (I have 5.13 currently) by running sudo apt install linux-oem-20.04d. SMG suggested running journalctl -b | grep FIFO before upgrading. Not sure why, but here is the output: May 21 09:49:41 lyra systemd[1]: Listening on Device-mapper event daemon FIFOs. It outputs only this single line.
    • Fix: upgrade to kernel 5.14 with sudo apt install linux-oem-20.04d
  • Issue: can't use macOS text navigation shortcuts (alt-arrows to move by words, super-arrows to fling)
    • Possible solutions:
      1. Just tolerate the Linux shortcuts. On the Framework laptop, they're not too different. Fn+arrow is like cmd+arrow on a mac. Ctrl+arrow is like option+arrow. The downside of this solution is that the resulting chords are not as comfortable/easy.
      2. Use xkeysnail or similar to remap the key combos. This has the downside that super and alt are physically swapped compared to Mac keyboards, so a solution that works with my muscle memory on the laptop keyboard will not work if I plug in an external Mac keyboard.
        • Fix: buy an external Windows keyboard instead of using my current Mac keyboard.
    • Decision: keep the Windows key mapped to Super. If I swap Windows and Alt it's too confusing because the labels on the keys don't match the keysyms. Also, this way, if I really want my Mac muscle memory to work, I can just plug in a Mac keyboard. I am using xkeysnail to map super+arrows to fling and alt+arrows to move by word.
      • Update: I added desktop shortcuts to quickly switch between swapped and unswapped Super/Alt keys. Also, xkeysnail is dead; long live Autokey.
  • Issue: can't bind super+space to open the Cinnamon menu
    • Possible solutions:
      1. Use a different keybinding?
      2. See this (partial?) fix: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/607728/linux-mint-20-cinnamon-how-to-disable-superspace
      3. Use alt+space and disable "window menu" shortcut in System Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Windows > Activate Window Menu
    • Fix: Just tried to set super+space as the shortcut and it worked. It's possible that upgrading to the 5.14 OEM kernel fixed this, though that seems implausible. I am worried that this fix might not be reproducible. For the record, here is the relevant config in ~/.cinnamon/configs/[email protected]/0.json: 
      "overlay-key": {
  "type": "keybinding",
  "description": "Keyboard shortcut to open and close the menu",
  "default": "Super_L::Super_R",
  "value": "<Super>space::"
},
  • Issue: no Times New Roman or Verdana fonts
    • Possible solutions:
      1. install fonts-arkpandora
      2. install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
    • Decision: I used ttf-mscorefonts-installer, which has the actual fonts.
  • Issue: Clock uses 24h time format by default.
    • Fix: set to 12h format - DONE
  • Issue: When you open a new window in most apps, the new window is often placed exactly on top of the existing window, making it hard to access the old window.
    • Fix: change "Location of Newly Opened Windows" to "Automatic" in System Settings > Windows > Behavior.
    • Possible solutions:
      1. There is a "window placement" option in ccsm, which can be set to Cascade. That's probably what I want.
      2. No, the fix is to change "Location of Newly Opened Windows" to "Automatic" in System Settings > Windows > Behavior
  • Issue: Cursor changes to move-nsew when scrolling in GTK apps. It shouldn't change.
  • Issue: Scrolling with the cursor over a select box / combo box changes the value.
    • This likely can only be fixed in GTK
    • It's possible that setting gtk-touchscreen-mode = TRUE would fix this, though it might have bad side effects like suppressing tooltips. I haven't figured out where to set this (or perhaps I just haven't figured out how to get GTK to pick up the new value). /etc/gtk-3.0/settings.ini is where I tried to set it. Maybe the value has to be true (TRUE in the docs might refer to a C macro or something)

Applications

Firefox

  • Issue: pressing alt opens the window menu in Firefox, and this interferes with keyboard navigation of text (alt+left and alt+right)
  • Issue: two-finger scrolling isn't smooth in Firefox, even with "smooth scrolling" turned on in Firefox's settings. This is most apparent when scrolling slowly.
  • Issue: Firefox uses 200% CPU to play a YouTube video, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxE9jTx9BK4. I hear this depends on the codec. There's some kind of sandbox for the video decoding process that can be removed with an environment variable?
    • Fix: upgrading the kernel (sudo apt install linux-oem-20.04d) fixed this.
  • Issue: super-minus and super-plus don't zoom in Firefox
    • Fix: map them to ctrl-minus and ctrl-plus
  • Issue: Firefox doesn't fully paint a newly-opened window. The new window appears to have a screenshot of the desktop as its background.
    • Fix: in Firefox settings, uncheck "Use recommended performance settings". Then uncheck the "Use hardware acceleration when available" box that appears.
  • Issue: The laptop battery's name in the "battery" system tray menu is "NVT Framewo"
    • Fix: go to the "Power Management" pane in System Settings. On the Batteries tab, you can change the battery name. I changed it to "Framework Laptop". (Note: if you have battery-powered peripherals like a mouse, their battery levels will also show up here)
  • Issue: super+alt+arrows doesn't switch tabs

Docky

  • Issue: System Settings shows up in Docky as the Desklets icon. The title displayed in Docky is also "Desklets." Why?
    • Fix: Added System Settings to the dock (by dragging the desktop launcher).
    • I wonder what would happen if I deleted Desklets.desktop from /usr/share/applications.

Visual Studio Code

  • Issue: Pressing alt in vscode focuses the menu, interrupting text navigation (I use alt-arrows to move by word).
    • Fix: there's a vscode config fix for this. Add to your settings.json: 
      "window.titleBarStyle": "custom",
"window.customMenuBarAltFocus": false

Nemo (A.K.A. "Files")

  • Issue: Super+Backspace should move files to the trash in Nemo
    • Fix: bind Super+Backspace to Delete in xkeysnail

GDebi (package installer)

  • Issue: The package installer window displays "same version is already installed" after I install a package, which is confusing. It could be something like "this software is installed"
    • Fix: Fork GDebi and see if they'll accept a patch.

XScreenSaver

Problems of my own making

These issues aren't caused by Mint or the software it ships with, but by my customizations to it. If you'd like to have these problems too, check out the GitHub repo attached to this wiki.

Icon Theme

  • Issue: Software Manager shows up in Docky as the generic "Application" icon, not the App Store icon. Why?
    • Fix: I found the icon name in the desktop launcher for Software Manager, and added that as an alias of the app store icon.
  • Issue: Cursor changes to move-nsew when moving a window. It should be the grab-hand (as it is in some of the built-in cursor themes).
  • Issue: 16x16 icon for Settings is illegibly tiny
  • The icon for applications-other is inconsistent with similar "applications" icons
  • the pointer-hand cursor rendered in Chrome is wrong when I use the macOS cursor theme (but is correct when I use Adwaita). What cursor names am I missing?
    • BUT interesting: the text (xterm) cursor in Chrome is nice. I'd like my theme to inherit that if possible.
  • icons shown in "places" sidebar in nemo are inconsistent. Update all the symbolic icons to the Mac style.
  • printer and software update panel icons sometimes flash the old version for a second (while searching for printers/updates?)
  • panel icon for external drive is not consistent with the theme

GTK styles

  • treeview in "places" sidebar in nemo has vertical lines
    • Fixed in 984c16c20cde41769aab8a40f689ade3e19525c2

Custom Keybindings (xkeysnail)

  • Issue: super+w closes the entire window in Firefox; it should close just the current tab.
  • Issue: xkeysnail doesn't work right with multiple users logged in
    • Only one xkeysnail process can run at a time. xkeysnail maps keys based on its owner's active window. So if the owner of the xkeysnail process has a terminal window active, all users will get terminal-specific keymappings.
    • Fix:
      • Use autokey instead of xkeysnail. Installable with apt install autokey-gtk
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