
System76 Will Start Designing and Building Its Own Linux Laptops in January 2020 - mroche
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/11/20/system76-will-start-designing-and-building-its-own-linux-laptops-beginning-january-2020/#57535bfc3e16
======
basilgohar
I love the concept of System76, full stop.

What has kept me from seriously considering them, however, is the absence of
AMD-powered systems from them. I understand the ubiquity of Intel-based
hardware, but I don't full get why not even an option of an AMD-based system
is available.

If they're going to go their own way in terms of hardware design, I would hope
that they at least opened a line of dialog with AMD to explore that option.
AMD is dying for a good laptop OEM, and System76 has the good sense to make it
into a well designed package all around.

I hope to see something develop in this direction.

~~~
smacktoward
_> I don't full get why not even an option of an AMD-based system is
available._

Intel has been mired in an anti-trust lawsuit in the EU for a decade now, on
charges that they offer deep discounts to OEMs on the condition that they
don't ship products from competitors (read: AMD) in volume. Such a program
would put substantial pressure on OEMs to avoid AMD, since they'd still need
to ship a large number of Intel-based products, and losing those discounts
would mean their Intel-based products would end up substantially more
expensive than their competitors'. The only way to get out of the trap would
be to ship _nothing but_ AMD-based products, and demand for Intel is still
strong enough that doing so would essentially be committing suicide.

All of which would explain why you don't see many AMD-based products from OEMs
on the shelves, despite AMD's clear superiority in the latest generation.

~~~
mcv
> _" AMD's clear superiority in the latest generation."_

IS that true even for laptops? For my new desktop I did indeed get an AMD,
also because of Intel's recent technical problems and backdoors, but for a
laptop I could really not find anything good that used AMD, and I was lead to
understand that for laptops, Intel is still best for some reason. (Do AMDs run
too hot? I don't know.)

------
AdmiralAsshat
I'm pulling for System76 in principle, but I've never been able to take the
plunge on one because their chunkier Clevo/Sager-based designs have always
paled aesthetically in comparison to the Dell XPS 13 line. Maybe that will
finally change when they can design their own.

~~~
bobongo
Did you take a look at these?

[https://system76.com/laptops/darter](https://system76.com/laptops/darter)

[https://system76.com/laptops/galago](https://system76.com/laptops/galago)

I have one of the chunkier ones. The roominess of its insides make me happy
whenever I open it up (e.g. to clean it up).

~~~
PascLeRasc
I love System76 and used to own one of their desktops, but this just looks
awful: [https://artoo.system76.com/assets/products/darp6/keyboard-
on...](https://artoo.system76.com/assets/products/darp6/keyboard-
on-1ae6cee302_1280.webp)

Thankfully the Thelio is absolutely beautiful, so I still have high hopes for
their in-house designs.

~~~
isantop
Beauty is subjective. And luckily, that's not really a perspective you're
often to encounter when using a laptop in the real world.

IMO, the XPS laptops don't really look a ton different when viewed from that
angle.

------
nepeckman
Awesome news. I bought a Darter Pro back in March and the experience has been
great. I was a little hesitant at first because I'm not a Linux expert, but
their team puts a lot of effort into making sure stuff with Pop_Os "just
works." It might not be quite as polished as a macbook, but it's a comparable
product at half the price, plus I get to support open source. Thelio looks
amazing and I'm excited to see what they can do in the laptop space.

~~~
davidmurdoch
One of the reasons I didn't get a System76 machine was because of how Pop!_os
is branded. Everything about its branding, from the name itself to even the
footer background on the website looks like a complete joke to me.

Of course, maybe there is a demographic that is in to this sort of branding,
but I bet it's more of a detriment to overall sales than anything.

Is the OS as full of seconds-long bouncy animations and bubble letter finds as
the branding and website makes it look? If so, can animations be reduced or
disabled?

~~~
zozbot234
That might actually be a reason to _get_ a system76 machine, since I expect
that the stock OS can be replaced with very few issues. Debian GNU/Linux is a
lot leaner and meaner than Ubuntu or PopOS (which don't seem to differ
significantly in their branding anyway).

(Even Fedora or CentOS are not nearly as comfortable to use in my experience,
although they might be preferable in other ways!)

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VectorLock
If they lift everything physical from the 2015 MacBook it will be a runaway
success.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That would be pretty cool.

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geoka9
Please consider adding an Ultranav-like pointing device and an API for the
battery-controlling EC (start/stop charging thresholds - unless you already
have that). FWIW those are the only things that are keeping me glued to the
Thinkpad line.

~~~
Rotareti
Same here. I love to keep my hands on the home row. Nothing can beat a pointer
with a concave cap!

I check the system76 laptops every once in a while only to see if they added a
pointer yet.

------
pkulak
This is such good news. Pop_OS is fantastic, but I've never been super
impressed with their laptop hardware. The world really needs a way to buy a
high-quality laptop that's running Linux, and supported.

------
hardwaresofton
Popping in to note that if anyone is on the fence about the Oryx Pro, it's a
fantastic machine, I love mine! System76 was a fantastic company to deal with.

After some initial troubles with the cooling system (I sent the laptop back
and it was serviced under warranty), I've been chugging along the last few
months.

I should note that the fans _can_ get pretty loud (from what I read on reviews
other laptops like the Lenovo X1 Extreme are even louder), so while it _is_
portable, it might be a little bit intense to use at a coffee shop/coworking
space.

For those interested, shameless plug to where I rambled about the experience,
and getting Arch installed (which isn't an officially supported OS but worked
fantastic): [https://vadosware.io/post/starting-my-journey-with-the-
syste...](https://vadosware.io/post/starting-my-journey-with-the-
system76-oryx-pro-and-arch)

~~~
Fire-Dragon-DoL
What problem did you have with cooling? Mine has been working fine, but i
can't help but feel terrified when looking at temperatures while gaming. It's
been holding for 2 years though, so i guess it's fine...

~~~
hardwaresofton
Mine was DOA -- it would overheat within minutes of being started up, a
cooling unit wasn't starting/working at all.

Yeah, I see high temps while gaming, but nothing crazy actually (~80C).

I actually have a second smaller laptop as a sort of redundancy _just_ in
case, but if it's been good for you for 2 years maybe it's fine. I do have the
newer model they just started making so I assume your model is shaped
different as well.

------
beatgammit
I just want a decent keyboard, non-soldered RAM, and a second battery with a
quality 14" screen where everything works reasonably well out of the box on
Linux. I don't care if it's a bit heavy or thick, I just want to have a good
typing experience with high performance CPU options that don't get thermally
throttled too bad.

Building a sleek laptop is all the rage these days, and everyone seems intent
on convincing us that you can have a good keyboard in a thin package. Go the
opposite way and make the best working experience possible and then work out
how to make it easy to carry. As long as it's not ridiculously heavy (say,
<5lbs or so), I'd consider buying it if it had a better typing experience.

------
funemployed
~2020~ 2021 will be the year of Linux on the desktop

------
jagger27
I have a feeling the chances of them making a 16:10 or 3:2 laptop are slim to
none.

~~~
newnewpdro
Nothing in the forbes article suggested they'd prioritize anything like that.
Talking about wood grains and rounded corners, the priority seems to be more
function following form.

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't expect anything resembling modern classic
thinkpad replacements from system76 at this point. It's more like hipster
machines incorporating wood and leather.

------
kick
Will they be sticking with x86? They seem like one of the few companies that
could get away with releasing a POWER line.

~~~
xxpor
Why POWER over Arm?

~~~
heavyset_go
Outside of the server realm, ARM ISAs aren't standardized and require a fork
of the Linux kernel to support each individual board configuration. The
consumer ARM space is a mess when it comes to Linux support.

~~~
floatboth
There is only one ARM ISA. Well, okay, multiple (32 vs 64 bit, microcontroller
vs unix-capable) but vendors don't change the ISA. (Apple has been allowed to
introduce some extension for using a coprocessor (?) recently but that's it.)

The different crap between vendors is just the various onboard devices on the
SoC, nothing to do with the CPU cores that implement the ARM ISA.

The "consumer" space is indeed not good, but there's only so many SoC vendors
(and most of them rely on Synopsys DesignWare blocks for all the things) and
mainline Linux supports most of them really really well.

The real fun time is for us in the BSD world, we're too small for e.g.
Rockchip to care about us and contribute like they do with Linux :(

~~~
heavyset_go
I got my acronyms confused, when I say ISA, I mean the ARM board equivalents
of the Industry Standard Architecture[1] that preceded PCI.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_Standard_Architecture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_Standard_Architecture)

------
b1gtuna
Good luck to the team on this endeavor. I have never had a chance to use a
laptop / workstation from them, but they must be doing something right since
they have been around for a while now and that the community has nothing but
great things to say about them.

------
mammalutte
Are the designs going to be released with a free license? And what exactly
will they do/don't design?

------
luord
Damn, and I just bought one.

I'll have to buy another I guess =D

