Hi everyone! I'm stuck in decision paralysis and could use some advice from the community.

I've been through several distros on my Framework 16" (AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, RX 7700S, 32GB RAM) and I keep running into situations where something's missing with each one. I'm a GNOME user—that's where I'm most productive and I don't want to compromise on that.

The core issue: fw-fanctrl and framework-system integrate at the kernel level, which makes them a nightmare on immutable systems or with Secureboot enabled. That's my biggest blocker.

Here's what I've tried:

Arch Linux
I genuinely feel at home with Arch, but I can't quite explain why. The problem is the installation is tedious—especially dealing with Secureboot, fw-fanctrl, and framework-system dependencies. Setup gets old after a few rounds.

Fedora Silverblue
Love the immutable concept—using Flatpak for (almost) everything is clean. I layer Librewolf on top, which works fine. But fw-fanctrl and framework-system? Kernel integration makes it incompatible with the immutable paradigm.

NixOS
Genuinely impressive for reproducible system configs. The catch? Local update management is a nightmare. Hard to understand what's coming in with updates and when. Terrible visibility.

Current setup: I use Distrobox heavily plus a Debian VM running VSCodium with my full dev environment. This stays.

Additional context: I've distro-hopped 2-3 times this year but I really want to settle down for a while. I'm also getting into local LLMs—running and testing models locally—so good GPU support and a stable environment for that would be a big plus.

The real question: Is there a distro that handles Framework's kernel-level tools properly, has solid GNOME integration, plays well with local LLM work, AND won't drive me crazy maintaining it long-term?

artix runit
There is no /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf or basically, most alsa and pulseaudio config files are missing? When I connect headphones it works fine.

/proc/asound/devices returns:
33: : timer

and that's it. The only place I found anything related to the card is if I do sudo lspci -vv | grep -i audio which returns

00:1f.3 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP High Definition Audio Controller (rev 11)
Kernel driver in use: sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl

cat /proc/asound/cards --- no soundcards ---

cat /proc/asound/modules doesn't even give me output.

arecord -l / arecord: device_list:279: no sopacmd list-sourcesundcards found...

and that kind of stuff

pacmd list-sources

1 source(s) available.
* index: 0
name: <combined.monitor>
driver: <module-combine-sink.c>
flags: DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY DYNAMIC_LATENCY
state: SUSPENDED
suspend cause: IDLE
priority: 1000
volume: front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB, front-right: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
balance 0.00
base volume: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
volume steps: 65537
muted: no
current latency: 0.00 ms
max rewind: 0 KiB
sample spec: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
channel map: front-left,front-right
Stereo
used by: 0
linked by: 0
configured latency: 0.00 ms; range is 0.50 .. 200.00 ms
monitor_of: 0
module: 13
properties:
device.description = "Monitor of Simultaneous Output"
device.class = "monitor"
device.icon_name = "audio-input-microphone"

and no other pacmd that i found related gives me anything

pacmd list-cards / 0 card(s) available.

Thanks to anyone that's able to help.

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