I had some similar concerns before buying my Framework 13. The community here helped me a lot to confirm that this is a great laptop. After 3 months of use I'm still in love with it (got mine on sale).
I had a Dell XPS 13 before that, and tested lots of mainstream brands over the years (Lenovo, Acer, Vaio... and dinosaurs like PB, Toshiba). All within a budget of $1200-$1500. They all did a decent job and the XPS13 was certainly the best, but they all end up going to the trash because of hardware failure after 4 years max.
I wanted to move to a company that cares about Linux and with Framework, hardware issues will not cause death of my machine anymore. I'll be able to have my machine longer, or upgrade it for a fraction of the price of a new laptop.
Also, along my research before opting for Framework, I've heard mostly about starlab, purism, tuxedo, and system76. There's obviously pros and cons for each brand as well as difference in opinions based on individual experience, but a common criticism for these (including Framework) less marketed brands is the price of their machines. Lots of people don't realize that there's reasons for a slightly high price.
You've just entered a rabbit hole that will push the boundaries of your control on your system.
Now, I'm not 100% sure that I've correctly understand what you're looking for. If you're after a file manager for nvim or tmux, then I would second yazi for your terminal as previously mentioned. Or you could go bare bone and use the command line straight with the help of some features like zsh and its competition, call to past arguments, zmv (and glob expression)...
For nvim, you can use the default tree explorer for basic usage. More advanced features can be found with telescope for example. I personaly opted for fzf-lua. Both can be used in other plugins as well to make things very easy and powerful. Just to cite a few, I'm using fzf-lua with obsidian (which, despite the name, doesn't require the tool of the same name) and snacks.
I was about to suggest the framework as well, but I don't have to :)
I would just add that the build quality is at least equal to any mainstream brand like Dell or Lenovo, and you also gain in repairability/upgradability which will make this laptop last forever (every single piece is replaceable) or upgradable for a fraction of the price of a new laptop.
Didn't hear of pimsync before. Thanks for sharing.
I don't think I'm ready to switch yet based on its current limitations, but I'll definitely keep an eye on it.
I've tried a few options, but I've stuck with khal for years now.
It works smoothly [1], supports multiple calendars, syncs with vdirsyncer (details in its documentation), and provides both CLI and TUI interfaces that make events easy to see, edit, and manage.
The CLI interface is especially handy for integrating khal with other apps like neomutt and taskwarrior for example. For instance, I have a keybinding that lets me export calendar invites from neomutt directly into khal.
There's also a list of tools (including one for khal) listed in the neomutt documentation if you're curious.
I use it to manage both my personal and professional calendars, syncing them bidirectionally with vdirsyncer. The only drawback I’ve encountered is that some commands can be a bit cumbersome—but I solved this by writing my own script to make khal’s commands more intuitive for my workflow. That flexibility could be seen as another strength of khal ;)
[1] That's my experience, but others here have reported it can be slow in some cases.
Tiling WMs are incredibly powerful tools for boosting productivity. Over the years, I've tried several: awesome, i3, and dwm. Eventually, I settled on bspwm, which I’ve used for years. It offers far more than you'd expect from a traditional tiling WM—especially thanks to its excellent IPC. That’s why I couldn’t switch to Wayland for the longest time—none of the available options came close to what bspwm gave me.
But just two days ago, I discovered niri, and it completely changed my perspective. It felt like the first time I ever used a tiling WM—like a whole new world had opened up.
Niri fits into the same category as bspwm but takes window management even further. It introduces infinite horizontal scrolling, a novel approach that complements traditional tiling layouts. Combined with a robust IPC (something essential for my workflow), niri allows you to arrange windows dynamically in ways I’ve never seen before—including tabbed layouts that act as a vertical counterpart to its horizontal scroll.
Here’s a short video that only scratches the surface of niri’s potential, but it’s enough to spark your imagination about how customizable and flexible it really is. Personally, I’m deeply grateful to the developers for giving me a reason—and a way—to finally switch to Wayland. I had been desperately waiting for a reliable, robust, and fully-featured tiling WM for Wayland—and what I got was a unicorn I never even imagined.
Not being a developer myself, the wording may not be the best sorry. The take home message was that Mastodon seems more prone to external development based on its protocol and the fact that more than 20 apps already exist (all platforms included).
Outside of using several apps to use Mastodon, I personaly rely on its API only to add Mastodon posts as comments on my static blog.
As far as I know Bluesky protocol is open-source but not its main app. Also, there are several apps available to use Mastodon. Additionally, note that Bluesky uses the AT Protocol (developed by Bluesky) while Mastodon uses ActivityPub (W3C standard) which is more friendly for third-party devs.
As far as federation is concerned it's still mostly centralized with Bluesky while Mastodon is fully federated.
Something I personaly like as well with Mastodon is that the feeds don't use algorithms.
Rofi is certainly a great choice, though it relies on scripts to customize it to your needs. These scripts can be anywhere from extremely basic to insanely complex but you have to create them. Personaly I use it as:
an app launcher
a clipboard manager
an infobar to show things like the date/time, memory usage, disk space, battery level, wifi signal…
an omnibar to perform an internet search, quick units conversions
a calculator for simple math
a bookmark manager (list, open, edit, add, remove)
a password/2FA token manager (list, edit, add, remove, autofill internet fields)
I rely on cli tools for a lot of things too. Here's a list:
tmux: terminal multiplexer
zsh (with fzf zsh completion): shell
fzf: fuzzy finder
doas: sudo replacement
bat: cat replacement
fd: find replacement
advcpmv: cp/mv replacement
eza: ls replacement
zenith: htop replacement
trash-cli: trash management
neomutt: email client (notmuch is a most recommended addition)
neovim (and plugins): text/code editor
buku: internet bookmarks manager
tut: mastodon client
ucollage: image viewer
udevil: (un)mounting removable devices and networks without a password
magic-tape: youtube search/download and more
rofi: used with scripts to do a lot of things
pass: password manager
yazi: file explorer
iwd: wireless manager
khal: calendar and webdav sync with vdirsyncer
taskjuggler: complete task manager
newsboat: feed aggregator
fwupd: firmware updater
chawan: web browser
ncmpcpp: mpd-client
duf: disk usage
abook: contacts manager
I have some of them detailed here.
This GitHub also has a long list.
Emacs is a nice one as well. Its approach and purposes are just different. But in my opinion difference has a lot of benefits, so long life to all the editors and a big thank you to the wonderful devs who offer these tools to us (remember to buy them a coffee or more if you can).
I personally started with vim and I'm now using neovim for years. And I have to admit that it's just an editor... But a perfectly optimized one.
It requires some efforts to learn the basic useful features (like horizontal and vertical motion) but I quickly saw its potential. What made me stick to it and willing to invest even more efforts is the fact that you build it to fit your needs like a glove through the interface customization, no limit and powerful keybindings remapping, and a collection of plugins for everything (without making it slow or bloated). With the right plugins, this editor can handle any regular typing or specific coding language, and makes your workflow way more efficient thanks to a great project management approach and/or speedy fuzzy finder file explorer.
I've barely started a series of posts dedicated to this incredible editor. Whether or not you're using a vim or neovim, I'd recommend to stay curious because there's other editors out there to be aware of and one may prefer them. I've tried quite some of themwhen moving to neovim but this one was just the one for me.
I've talked about few plugins I use if you're interested: https://www-gem.codeberg.page/
I'm lacking motivation to write so this list is far from complete but maybe you'll find some inspiration.
I don't own one but I'm looking at the framework 13 for my next machine. It has great reviews and fully support Arch.
Its price is the main criticism against this machine, though there's some arguments to justify it but no need to open a trolling post :)
I don't own one but I'm looking at the framework 13 for my next machine. It has great reviews and fully support Arch.
Its price is the main criticism against this machine, though there's some arguments to justify it but no need to open a trolling post :)
I've looked at the pull requests again and realized that this feature was already requested in June 2024.
In the absence of response to this ticket, the hope to see it implemented is pretty low though :( Not sure how I can fully benefit of this plugin then...
I know it's confusing. This is a neovim plugin called obsidian, not the obsidian software. That's why I put a link to it but I may edit my post to make it more clear. Thanks.
I've looked at the pull requests again and realized that this feature was already requested in June 2024.
In the absence of response to this ticket, the hope to see it implemented is pretty low though :( Not sure how I can fully benefit of this plugin then...
I had some similar concerns before buying my Framework 13. The community here helped me a lot to confirm that this is a great laptop. After 3 months of use I'm still in love with it (got mine on sale).
I had a Dell XPS 13 before that, and tested lots of mainstream brands over the years (Lenovo, Acer, Vaio... and dinosaurs like PB, Toshiba). All within a budget of $1200-$1500. They all did a decent job and the XPS13 was certainly the best, but they all end up going to the trash because of hardware failure after 4 years max.
I wanted to move to a company that cares about Linux and with Framework, hardware issues will not cause death of my machine anymore. I'll be able to have my machine longer, or upgrade it for a fraction of the price of a new laptop.
https://www-gem.codeberg.page/sys_Framework13-1/ https://www-gem.codeberg.page/sys_Framework13-2/
Also, along my research before opting for Framework, I've heard mostly about starlab, purism, tuxedo, and system76. There's obviously pros and cons for each brand as well as difference in opinions based on individual experience, but a common criticism for these (including Framework) less marketed brands is the price of their machines. Lots of people don't realize that there's reasons for a slightly high price.