Is this an issue for Ubuntu specifically or all distributions? Read somewhere that they recommended Fedora 35 for the best driver support at the moment, though that'll probably change after the next releases of 22.04 and F36.
Awesome that you're switching your whole team to Frameworks - my next work laptop will for sure be a Framework too :)
The main reason for this is that the drivers are in the kernel, and Fedora ships new kernels regularly. Ubuntu and many other distros will stay on the same version they initially ship with. For example if they start with 5.14.2 then even a couple years later it will be 5.14.86-200. Fedora tends to ship new major versions of the kernel within weeks of them being released upstream, so you're constantly getting bug fixes and new drivers. I prefer the ubuntu approach for servers (which is how RHEL/CentOS do it) but for desktop it's great to see it continually get better.
If you build/install the latest kernel (or a newer one) on Ubuntu I would expect a similar experience to Fedora (although Gnome and wayland versions can make a difference on some things.)
Linux laptop battery life issues are a constant, right? This has been a problem across laptop brands, across Linux distros, across many, many kernel versions. I just want to temper anyone's false expectations that they can just update from a 1-year-old kernel to one released last week and it'll fix these long-existing issues.
I've taken to having a Fedora 35 install on a bootable USB SSD. I don't prefer it for daily use (Ubuntu/Pop for me) but if I'm ever in doubt when debugging a suspected Framework issue I boot into Fedora 35 as that's the semi-official/supported distro and version.
Generally speaking I haven't found it to be any better than my Framework optimized PopOS 20.04 NVMe boot setup:
- Rock solid Intel wifi (mostly thanks to Pop providing kernel 5.15.15)
- Fingerprint reader works (custom fprintd/libfprint debs, kind of hacky but works)
- PipeWire PPA for better bluetooth audio support
- Suspend-then-hibernate for battery drain issues
- Probably some other stuff I'm forgetting ATM
- Quickemu
- Still basically Ubuntu LTS for the occasionally goofy/proprietary stuff I need to run requiring it
You'll still have a battery drain issue for Fedora 35 (1-2%/hour while in suspend). Like some other commenters, I went through the extra hassle to set up a swap partition and sleep-then-hibernate. I genuinely enjoy the laptop now that I've resolved the standby battery drain.
Ubuntu 21.04 on Framework won't resume from standby. I have to force-shutdown with a power-button long-press each time. I haven't tried an A/B test, but I read that this behavior is due to the volume being LUKS-encrypted. I don't understand why this would be the case.
Awesome that you're switching your whole team to Frameworks - my next work laptop will for sure be a Framework too :)