
System76 Galago Pro [video] - herman5
https://system76.com/laptops/galago
======
2bluesc
As a previous gen System 76 Galago and now a proud Dell Precision 5510 owner,
I wish them luck!

I traded my previous gen System76 Galago Pro after 2-3 years of being
disappointed with build quality, battery life also piss poor BIOS support for
a company priding themselves on supporting the hardware (i.e. UEFI had to be
hacked in from the identical Clevo, next to no options, no TPM, etc). We need
more competitors in this area for the Linux fanbois (admittedly myself most of
the time) who try to provide solutions to Macbook "refugees".

The Dell XPS 15 / Precision 15 are amazing machines and for the first time in
years I have a laptop I can recommend without reservation since the Thinkpads
fall from grace (the Carbon was close but doesn't have a real processor
processor last few times I checked, just the U series). I hope this new
System76 Galago approaches the Dell level of quality and I welcome the
competition. From what I've seen, they are aimed in the right direction.

For those interested in more details on the laptop, here's an interview with a
System76 person at SCaLE 15x by the Linux Action Show discussing the new
Galago and hinting at more details:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMbQoNz2GP8&t=21m18s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMbQoNz2GP8&t=21m18s)

~~~
Freak_NL
Four year plus owner of a Gazelle here. The only thing that is 'wrong' with it
is the battery (dead). Since I use the laptop on power exclusively this
doesn't bother me. I could have replaced it though. All in all it is a very
powerful and very nice laptop.

Every time I look at a future replacement for this one I get stuck with this
dilemma:

System76.com:

\+ I know that the laptop I buy will work with Linux; no painstaking research
needed

\+ configuring the laptop the way I want it is a breeze. 32GiB RAM? No problem

\- Import tariffs and shipping costs (I live in the EU)

\- So-so build quality

Dell:

\+ Local representation, no tariffs

\+ Easier to get support here in the EU

\- Minimal configurability

\- Actually finding an XPS with Ubuntu in their shop

This last point seems trivial, but I just can't figure out why Dell's website
is so completely unusable and stuck in the nineties! Searching for the XPS
with Ubuntu gives me a list of XPS laptops that differ in subtle ways. Some I
can configure bits of, some are a fixed configuration. There is no simple way
to filter their offerings, and on-line I find references to XPS configurations
that mysteriously aren't available in the Netherlands — what a mess.

Compare that with System76 to see the huge disparity there.

~~~
2bluesc
> \- Actually finding an XPS with Ubuntu in their shop

Problem is that you're looking for XPS, I think they only do XPS + Ubuntu
under their Sputnik program. If you look-up the Precision line, Ubuntu 16.04
from the factory is an option with a $101.50 discount over Win10 Pro. [0]

[0]
[http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=xctop5...](http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=xctop5520hwus&model_id=precision-15-5520-laptop&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04)

~~~
brudgers
What is offered online probably varies by country. But the Precisions are
supported on Linux in the US.

------
chrsm
Over the past 4 years, I've bought two System76 machines (FD: work paid for
them). Each time, I maxed out what I was able to get from them.

Initially I had wanted to support a company that sells Linux-supported
devices.

My first machine - a Gazelle (laptop) - had numerous issues on arrival. It'd
randomly crash. Keypresses would get stuck and repeat. It was annoying. After
sending it in, I still had random issues until I installed Debian, presumably
it was a kernel issue - but for it to be shipped like that..was just bizarre.

My newest machine, I purchased a Leopard (desktop). It had been a few years,
and I figured perhaps they'd gotten better at things. I was wrong. They
shipped this machine, knowing full well how long it takes to boot - again, due
to some kind of kernel issue - it took over 2 minutes to go from cold boot ->
login screen, USB devices would randomly not work, just weird stuff.. I put in
a ticket, but nothing ever came of it. I didn't want to send this machine back
like I had sent my laptop (TWICE), so I ended up switching OSes again, using
an updated kernel, and things seem fine.

I get that they don't really have control over the kernel that comes with the
OS they ship. I'm not naive. It's just a bit silly that they'd be comfortable
shipping a new machine with those kinds of issues to the point where the
machine is either unusable or stuff randomly stops working.

As far as the "physical quality" of the machines go, I'm still happy with both
of them. They are well-put-together machines, IMO.

However, I know that my next machine is NOT going to be from System76. It's
significantly cheaper to just get a nice Dell or something.

~~~
jaredandrews
I bought a System 76 desktop a couple years ago. I had extra $$ and like you,
I wanted to support a company selling Linux devices.

Previously, I had used Ubuntu on multiple laptops that did not have "hand
picked" hardware. I was used to having to fix things randomly after updates
and just running into hardware issues from time to time.

I assumed that the selling point of System 76 was that because they chose the
hardware with Linux in mind these things wouldn't happen.

Maybe it's a QA thing but I found that I was running into just as many issues
on my Sys76 machine as my old laptop. Manageable, but really puts the value
prop into question. It became difficult to justify the purchase over building
my own PC or buying a pre-built machine from someone else.

~~~
chrsm
Absolutely a QA thing. I don't see how either of the devices I purchased got a
seal of approval to go out to a customer.

I just don't see why I'd pay _extra_ for something I'm going to need to
reconfigure myself, anyway. Might as well buy parts or generic prebuild and
throw a better distribution on it.

------
bachmeier
I've considered buying a System 76 laptop for years, but it's _really hard_ to
find satisfied customers. I'd be concerned if the reviews were largely
positive but included a few from people with bad experiences - I don't want to
be one of the unlucky few. That's not the case at all. There's almost
unanimous agreement that these are poor quality machines.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
I am a satisfied customer of System76. I own a Lemur laptop which I basically
maxed out. I've had it since December, and am very pleased with the build
quality, the keyboard, and the battery life.

My suspicion is that a lot of people don't know how to configure a Linux OS
for optimal laptop use. I imagine that even if one were to keep the Ubuntu
installation that comes with the unit there are many further optimizations
that can be performed to improve battery life.

~~~
cwyers
Why on Earth would you want to buy a laptop from a specialty Linux laptop
vendor (at more expense for the same specs than a standard Windows OEM laptop)
if you just need to optimize the installed Linux to get good battery life?
Isn't that supposed to be the value-add of buying from a vendor that
specializes in Linux laptops?

------
xophishox
I can say from my experience dealing with system76, they are hands down one of
my favorite machine producers, for both laptops and desktops.

I am trying to get some server units ordered from them for an upcoming test
deployment for a new architecture we are working on and hope I can get buy in
from the company to support someone other than dell or hp.

~~~
8draco8
If you don't want to deal with HP or Dell just go to smaller server re-seller
like [https://www.ixsystems.com](https://www.ixsystems.com) or buy Supermicro
machine (which is basically what Dell is using) from someone like
[http://www.rackservers.com](http://www.rackservers.com) . Don't go with S76,
they are just re branding machines, and not even high quality machines
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13777649#13779002](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13777649#13779002)

------
digikata
Other than that power button on the side, that laptop looks pretty interesting
as a Macbook air replacement. Here's hoping maybe it's not a power button,
that it's a hard power shutoff for camera/mic peripherals.

~~~
TenOhms
Yes, very silly place for a power button if you ask me. It will get pressed
accidentally by virtually everyone who picks it up and moves it, or uses it,
or bumps it into the side of something.

~~~
Freak_NL
You can configure the power button to do whatever you want it to do of course.
I think the default behaviour in Ubuntu's Unity is to show the shutdown menu
(shutdown, reboot, suspend, or hibernate), not simply suspend the laptop right
there and then.

Plenty of laptops have a power button on the side now. Lenovo's Yoga series
does this too.

------
gamache
There's basically no detail to the video, so I'll just join the chorus of
disappointed former customers here. I had a System76 netbook ~6 years ago, and
it is truly one of the worst pieces of hardware I ever encountered (and I had
a PowerBook 5300c).

Sure, Linux ran on it, but the keys were awful, the build was flimsy, the
trackpad was atrocious, and the battery was at once underwhelming AND
protrusive. Nothing to recommend them by.

------
mikecarlton
Heads up -- auto-playing audio and video.

~~~
eumoria
but it is a fun comic jab at apple. ::zooms in on ethernet port::

~~~
bobcallme
You mean the ethernet port that will break off and the power button that is
not recessed so it does not power on in your bag. Great. Who puts a power
button on the side of a laptop?

~~~
cknight
I have a GS63 from MSI which has the power button on the side. It can't be
activated while the lid is closed, to prevent just that.

Hopefully these guys have done the same thing...

------
johnhattan
Am I missing something with these machines? I just priced generic Acer and
Asus laptops with the same specs to the Lemur, and they both came out $200
cheaper.

Mind you, they come with Windows pre-installed, but the Ubuntu installer will
happily reformat the drive before installing itself. And they're all just
generic laptop hardware (HID trackpad, Intel graphics), so I doubt that
drivers are an issue.

~~~
0x6c6f6c
Larger quantity of sales allows the profit margin to be smaller.

------
devnull42
I ordered a System76 laptop about 4 years ago for work as my day to day
machine. Almost immediately the HDMI port broke and I was pretty bummed out. I
emailed their support hoping to get it repaired but they never actually fixed
it. Since then I have never gone back to them. I want them to be great so
badly but that just hasn’t been my experience.

------
znpy
what is 'pro' about that?

On a ThinkPad I could, depending on the model:

\- have multiple disks in my laptop

\- have multiple batteries

\- hostwap cdrom drives with a hard drive or a battery

\- hostwap batteries

\- have 4 ram sticks (W series)

\- install coreboot/libreboot

\- have nvidia quadro card

\- have multi-core xeon processor

\- have on site, next business day support (parts and labour)

\- have fingerprint reader

\- have hdaps

\- have trackpoint+ultranav

\- have on-board prng

So... What can this thing do, instead ??

------
kentt
I'll join in and say the Galago was one of the worst computers I've had.

------
dorfsmay
No TrackPoint, which makes it unusable for me.

~~~
Freak_NL
Also no serial RS232 port, no SCSI port, not even a floppy drive. /s

~~~
jethro_tell
To be fair, a track point has to go right in the middle of the keyboard to be
of any value. A USB serial is functional as a dongle for the subset of people
that need that. Same for floppy and scsi for that matter.

~~~
abeyer
Given that almost everyone has gone to chiclet keys with space between
keycaps, I'm almost surprised that no one has tried to market a glue-on
bluetooth track point for those who demand them.

------
headcanon
Has System76 improved their product quality? I understand their reputation has
never been any good. If they're able to pull it together I might consider one,
but coming from mac land, its going to be a tough sell, and I'm pretty sure I
would just get a lenovo if I wanted to move away from macbook pros.

------
csdreamer7
HP Laptop 2010: AMD built-in graphics card overheated and AMD cut support for
it while still selling it.

Dell Laptop 2011: USB shorted out, power cord was too short. Nvidia Optimius
was terrible with both Linux and Windows.

Lemur 2012, box-like, RAM was expensive, but it was a work horse. Hardware
keys, very small laptop to mirror an old XP laptop I loved. Kept working even
after I dropped it on it's power plug. Made good use of System76's lifetime
support.

Lemur 2016, smooth, thinner, no cd-rom drive, very bright LED to the right,
runs much cooler. The equivalent laptops from HP and Dell are thinner, but I
do not feel like risking $1.5k on a laptop that could be a dud. The plastic
casing does feel cheap and a little twistable, but so did the Dell. I can not
have a metal casing for my work.

~~~
robotbikes
I had a similar problem with a HP laptop that was a nightmare to run under
Linux and almost as bad with Windows. It had a AMD chipset though and Linux
wouldn't run it without blasting the CPU/GPU fan full blast. After countless
hours trying to get a working machine when it came time to get a new laptop I
thought I'd try System76.

I bought a less than year old Galago Pro laptop on eBay and immediately
noticed it had some issues like a weird buzz and random hard drive
disconnects. I contacted support and eventually RMAd it. They replaced the
motherboard and it was covered by the support warranty. They never asked if I
was the original owner. This was my first experience ever getting support a on
a device and I can't complain. I'm using it to this day, while not a dream
machine it works in Linux without tinkering and support was there when I
needed it. It is definitely the best laptop I have ever owned but I have
almost always had second-hand year old models. The i7 processor and haswell
GPU and 16gb of memory and replaceable components, even the battery still has
a few hours of life when I need it.

The HP laptop on the other hand is still being used for games by my step-son
but he has a desk fan leaning on it to avoid over heating.

------
stamps
Had a Lemur 14" about 5 years ago. Out of the box - Ubuntu support was very
good but the battery life was poor (sort of expected at the time), build
quality okay but not comparable to the 2012 Macbook Pro's, and the speakers
were notably quiet.

Otherwise it's still running (plugged in) with an older relative who uses it
to check email and do other simple web tasks.

If they've gotten the build quality right this time I'll give it a shot. I'm
currently using a Dell XPS 13 (2015) running Elementary OS (used to be Arch).

------
symlinkk
> 13" HiDPI display

Hope it doesn't need fractional DPI scaling, because as far as I know there is
no desktop on Linux that supports it, while Windows has supported it for
years.

~~~
cassidyjames
System76 employee (and HiDPI... enthusiast?) here! It does not need non-
integer scaling. It's 3200x1800, which is like 1600x900 pixel-doubled. A great
resolution for that physical size. This is also why you don't hear us talking
about "4K" on that display, because that'd actually be _too many_ pixels and
require non-integer scaling for a usable UI.

~~~
symlinkk
Glad you guys have thought this through. I bought a Dell XPS 13 Developer
Edition in 2015 that was marketed as a perfect Linux laptop and came with
Ubuntu preinstalled. It had a 13.3" screen with a resolution of 1080p, so the
text and UI was almost unusable. Two years later, there's still no fix.

------
dudul
I bought a Lemur 4 or 5 years ago and it served me very well. It still works
and is somewhere in a drawer in case I need a Linux. The only thing I did on
it was replace the battery after 3 years.

However, while I really really want to support a company that does Linux
first, I think my next machine will probably be a Dell XPS. The quality of my
System76 is not top notch, feels very cheap and a little bulky.

------
vladimir-y
Better get ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen5 (latest generation, recently released).
Carbon has 14" screen with a similar or even smaller size (frameless design)
than that bulky 13" System76. It also has 2 Thunderbolt3 ports, I doubt
System76 will have added at least one. Carbon also has a best keyboard on the
market.

------
phaus
Is this something new or is it another rebranded Clevo? The Galago Ultrapro
they released a couple of years ago had amazing specs, but the keyboard had a
design flaw they refused to fix properly.

Some Clevos are OK, but many of them have design defects and/or poor QC.

~~~
shmageggy
If we are talking about the same machine, where the keyboard would just not
register key presses about 5% of the time, they did eventually ship out free
replacement keyboards to all owners.

~~~
CalRobert
Which was surprising, since their support line tried their damnedest to
convince me that I just didn't know how to type. I never took them seriously
after that.

~~~
shmageggy
Yeah they tried to do the same to me (gaslighting, basically), and I already
had a return shipping label in hand, but (un?)luckily they announced the
replacements right around that same time.

~~~
CalRobert
I'd say you were lucky to rid yourself of a company that clearly prefers lying
to their customers over testing their products before release.

------
rdeckard0104
Awful marketing for what is likely to be a continuity of sub-par products.

------
nkkollaw
This is probably the worst product video I have ever seen.

They have to do a lot better than this at this time and age...

------
bedros
got Dell XPS 15" (9550) last summer, and I just upgraded from windows 10 to
Kubuntu 17.04 Beta, supper happy, and everything works perfect.

wifi, sleep/wakeup, power management work right away

if you get 4K screen, you need to go settings and change font size from 96dpi
to 208 dpi

------
danielmain
Please with more than 16gb ram!

My Macbook PRO 2012 had 16gb

~~~
cassidyjames
System76 employee here! Up to 32 GB. ;)

