
Station X Linux Machines - infodroid
https://stationx.rocks/
======
kkarp
Next reseller of the same OEM laptop ordered somewhere in China.

Check the right side of this laptop:
[https://stationx.rocks/products/spitfire](https://stationx.rocks/products/spitfire)

and compare with Galago pro:
[https://system76.com/laptops/galago](https://system76.com/laptops/galago)

sides:
[https://screenshots.firefox.com/0I2YsDmIvbKuYbr3/stationx.ro...](https://screenshots.firefox.com/0I2YsDmIvbKuYbr3/stationx.rocks)
and
[https://d1vhcvzji58n1j.cloudfront.net/assets/products/galp3/...](https://d1vhcvzji58n1j.cloudfront.net/assets/products/galp3/ports-
right_1280-32d6cdd4b5.jpg)

and I've seen this model at least on two other resellers.

~~~
jrimbault
A reply from System76:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5umefi/system76_refr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5umefi/system76_refreshes_ubuntu_linux_laptops_with/ddvcx45/)

~~~
iuguy
So am I right in thinking that System76 are working on firmware and drivers
for clevo/sager laptops, but then not committing them upstream? Or are they
simply not open sourcing them at all?

~~~
joosters
..." _we put in the effort to file the bugs, track them, write the code, and
get it upstreamed._ "

------
ulkesh
The reason these look similar to System76 is because they are the exact same
Clevo chassis. The bezels are awful, but I give credit to System76 and Station
X and any other that works to sell and maintain Linux machines.

My next Linux laptop may be from one of these companies if they can work with
Clevo to stop making the screen bezels so horrendously large.

------
qubex
Aside:

 _Station X_ was the wartime codename for the Bletchley Park facility where
(amongst others) Alan Turing worked on breaking German Enigma-enciphered
traffic and Tommy Flowers built the Colossus electronic calculator for
breaking encrypted teleprinter codes ( _Geheimscriber_ ).

All the laptops are named after WW2-era fighter planes. The desktop is named
after a long-range wartime strategic bomber.

------
caterama
Looks similar to [https://system76.com/](https://system76.com/).

I got the 17" Kudu for work. Honestly, I'm now aware that a 17" screen on a
laptop is just too impractically big, but the hardware has been great.

~~~
alex_duf
14" is perfect size for me. Not 13", not 15" but 14". I hope it will become
easier to find in the future.

~~~
yoodenvranx
I said it before and I will say it again: a 14" display in 4:3 aspect ratio is
the best choice for a programmers laptop!

It's tall enough so that you can see a lot of text but narrow enough that the
laptop does not get too bulky.

If there will ever be a new 14" machine with a 1400*1050 display I will be
first in line to buy it!

~~~
vram22
>I said it before and I will say it again: a 14" display in 4:3 aspect ratio
is the best choice for a programmers laptop!

Interesting. How do you measure the aspect ratio? By actually measuring the
height and width of the visible part of the display with a ruler or measuring
tape, or via some software utility / command? I have a 14" display laptop, and
would like to know the aspect ration, hence asking.

~~~
zamalek
Pixels for computers are approximately square, so you can simply derive it
from the native resolution of the panel.

[1]:
[https://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1400%3A1050](https://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1400%3A1050)

~~~
vram22
Thanks.

------
edent
Entroware also resell these laptops - at a better price -
[https://www.entroware.com/store/laptops](https://www.entroware.com/store/laptops)

All I want from my next laptop is to be powered via USB-C. I'm sick of
dragging around multiple different chargers for my gadgets.

~~~
larelogio
Powered by USB? Isn't that a different class of machine? Apple has the
Book/Air but not the Pro.

------
Coding_Cat
Price-wise they seem quite competitive on paper. I'm curious as to what the
build quality & peripherals are like. In my experience the real difference
between a regular and top-of-the-line laptop is in the small things.

They're also lacking a 4k laptop, which I would highly recommend to anyone
used to working on the road. (or who has to show of work to clients in
person).

~~~
mnw21cam
Price-wise, I got a zenbook for 2/3 the price, with a 3200x1800 screen
(instead of 1920x1080), a slower CPU, same RAM, larger SSD, most other details
the same. It's a better fit for my needs, and runs Linux perfectly. I agree
completely about the screen - a decent HiDPI screen is quite wonderful.

Also, I wouldn't want any of the distribution options they offer to pre-load.
And I wouldn't want a pre-loaded OS anyway.

I'm not trying to discourage a worthy goal, but these are some of the issues
that this company has to overcome.

~~~
freedomben
Having done the "buy a Windows laptop and load linux on it" thing for many
years and many generations, I think I'm done. I have now had a Dell preloaded
with Ubuntu and a System76 and I don't think I'll ever go back. The Dell has
special drivers tho for backlight and other things, so loading a different
distro is a little more work than a System76 is.

~~~
majewsky
Does System76 work on upstreaming these special drivers, or are you just stuck
with whatever they slap on the disk if you want all hardware to work?

~~~
freedomben
Yes, they do specifically work on upstreaming the drivers into the Linux
kernel.

I found this post from System76 to be really interesting:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5umefi/system76_refr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5umefi/system76_refreshes_ubuntu_linux_laptops_with/ddvcx45/)

------
rplnt
Why the keyboard layout? End next to up key? Insert above backspace? What's
wrong with the classic 2x3 block?

Another issue I have is with the spacing between F keys. Looks like an
afterthought to Fn+? keys.

Not to mention there is not a single clear picture of the keyboard on the
product page...

[https://stationx.rocks/products/manjaro-special-edition-
spit...](https://stationx.rocks/products/manjaro-special-edition-spitfire)

~~~
robin_reala
Also the slight irony of “We create drop-dead gorgeous machines - designed and
customised to run Linux - and only Linux” next to a photo of a machine with a
Windows key.

~~~
rplnt
Gnome 3 for example uses it by default.

~~~
TheCoreh
Yes, but it doesn't need to have the windows logo printed on it

~~~
rplnt
It doesn't?

~~~
robin_reala
No. The rest of the photos have the brand logo on them, e.g.
[https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2083/3225/products/REVISED...](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2083/3225/products/REVISED_2_big_2048x.jpg)

------
zx2c4
The way to attract Linux users is to tempt them away from their Thinkpads. The
way to do that is to offer a laptop with a trackpoint, this little red dot:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=trackpoint&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=trackpoint&tbm=isch)

~~~
hateduser2
Never understood the appeal of this thing.. tried it once to move the mouse
and it was just so slow and awkward.. hardly seemed to work at all.. why do
people like this? I really don’t get it myself.. is it for something besides
moving the mouse? The thing seems pretty bad for that purpose.. maybe to move
he mouse in small increments? Would love an explanation because I absolutely
don’t get it myself.. pls help!

~~~
jack_pp
Did you try it on an actual thinkpad? I have a dell with a trackpoint and it's
nowhere near as accurate.

The appeal is that your fingers don't ever need to leave the homerow and also
working from your lap on a bus for example is much easier since your hand
doesn't have room to move to get to the trackpad

~~~
dagw
Agreed. Used to have an IBM Thinkpad with a trackpoint and loved it. Then I
got first a Dell and later an HP laptop with trackpoints and could never get
used to either of them. They just didn't work anywhere near as well as my old
Thinkpad. I cannot really articulate the difference, but it was massive.

------
gravypod
The only laptop I would consider upgrading to from my Thinkpad X220 would
either be a modern Thinkpad x270 (just for a hardware upgrade because I like
the form factor) or to something that provides a similar keyboard, docking,
and modern-ish hardware.

Most of my work happens over SSH, my laptop is currently fast enough for
Netflix, email, and web browsing. I'm capped at 2 1920x1080 monitors but this
is livable.

I think if someone took the old X220 generation Thinkpads, upgraded the
internals, and kept the keyboard and docking that they would sell like
hotcakes.

~~~
bitonico
Somebody _is_ kind of doing that:
[https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/](https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/)
. They also mod x220s but the mod is more invasive since they require a
different screen bezel.

I recently got an x62 and it's great, although you must put some effort into
making linux work smoothly on it and making the screen brighter. But all in
all I am extremely happy with it.

~~~
gravypod
Where do you go about buying this?

------
partycoder
I dislike the website. The reasons are:

1\. "Beautiful machines" is the first point being made. This is superficial.

2\. "All distros welcome". Turns out that installing a distro is the least of
my concerns when it comes to a laptop.

3\. The first thing you notice is this video with the multiethnic group of
people from which one of them is at the front as well as happier/dancing. This
is inconsistent and weird. What is the message being communicated with this?
How is it relevant? Sell me a goddamn laptop instead. Put a picture of a
laptop or something.

In order to be constructive, what I would rather emphasize is: laptops are
hardware. The intended audience here are tech enthusiasts. I would rather
speak about hardware specs, or something distinctive about the hardware,
compatibility, the ergonomics... post a benchmark. Something that is actually
better than "beautiful laptops" and a awkward video. This is common sense.

This is how a system is sold: [https://www.apple.com/imac-
pro/](https://www.apple.com/imac-pro/) . Note: I do not own one and I am not
affiliated with that company, just making a point.

Then... just a reminder: most laptops are potentially a Linux laptop.

~~~
toyg
_> Turns out that installing a distro is the least of my concerns when it
comes to a laptop._

Man, how times have changed. Linux working half-decently on a laptop used to
be the holy grail of opensource fans. Nowadays, thanks to Ubuntu and friends,
chances are that most of it will just work, regardless of hardware. This is a
massive achievement and it's not really as promoted as it should be.

~~~
partycoder
Well, true. It can be challenging to install some distros, especially if the
default configuration doesn't give you a working network interface. And while
it can be solved, it's by no means a desirable first Linux experience.

------
bwindels
> We create drop-dead gorgeous machines - designed and customised to run Linux
> - and only Linux.

Only linux? Seems like a weird limitation... or am I understanding this wrong?

~~~
8draco8
One more thing:

> designed and customised to run Linux - and only Linux.

But super key still have Windows logo.

~~~
fabiomargarido
You can customize the sticker on the super key during checkout, choosing from
many distro logos or other Linux related logos. Windows is also an option.

~~~
8draco8
It's cheap, it's sticker! How company can sell "laptops and all-in-one
powerhouses meticulously crafted to run Linux." and put a sticker on one of
the keys because they couldn't "meticulously" prepare keyboard designed for
Linux users.

> No Windows or Mac here, folks

So they are lying on their main page. Great!

~~~
fabiomargarido
Yeah, I hear you... Their design is far from "drop-dead gorgeous" for my
taste.

I was just pointing out that you're not really tied to Windows.

------
jabl
> We are Linux advocates who believe in providing you the most free and open
> devices to create your most important work.

Does that mean they have a disabled/cleaned ME like the purism machines? Or
what does "free and open" mean in this case?

~~~
Shelnutt2
On the "free and open" front, their "B-29 Superfortress" linux desktop only
has options for Nvidia graphics cards. Would have been nice to see some AMD
options in support for their open source work.

~~~
madez
The "free and open" part is lying for the sake of PR.

------
dre85
Are they intentionally trying to optimize bezel real estate? Like for people
who add a lot of post-its to the side of their screens?

~~~
snorremd
If Linux people are known for anything it's their love of post-it notes on the
side of their screen /s. But yeah. If I wanted a "gorgeous Linux laptop" I
would buy a Dell XPS 13". Dell actually puts some work into making their own
hardware and they upstream drivers and other stuff so the XPS actually works
pretty well with Linux.

~~~
dre85
I actually have a xps13 dual booting Ubuntu and Windows. It's gorgeous, fast
and portable. The only thing that sucks is the track pad, but I mainly just
dock it anyway so it doesn't annoy me too often.

------
lerie82
Just buy and powerwash a Chromebook.

~~~
52-6F-62
Seriously I wonder why not this? I understand if you're looking for a portable
workstation or something of that performance why not... but for an ultra-
portable little dev machine. And it would be far cheaper, too, no?

(I've liked what System76 has done, but even then I probably wouldn't spring
for the Galago as opposed cheaper Chromebook unless I were jumping up to one
of their other workhorses)

------
linopolus
> _Gorgeous_ Linux laptops

First thing I noticed on these pictures, was the ugly sticker left side
underneath the keyboard. Sorry, but such trifles got nothing to do with
gorgeous. Also, black camera frame, huge display bezel, and non-centered
touchpads are, imho, a nogo if you wanna call it gorgeous.

~~~
dingo_bat
I prefer the touchpad not to be in centre. It does not make any sense. It's
like putting your mouse in the middle of your desk, instead of the right or
left where you can actually hold it properly.

------
osullivj
I had been planning to replace my faithful 5yr old Samsung Ultrabook with a
Dell XPS. But I like the idea of buying from a UK supplier based in Bletchley
Park and using a lot of WWII branding. I do need a win32 dev env, but I guess
I could run Windows inside a VM.

~~~
toyg
_> using a lot of WWII branding_

Yeah tbh that's the only thing that puts me off a bit. War is war, I'd rather
not glorify it; it might be a necessary evil on occasions, but I'd rather not
be reminded of that every day. Then again, I'm not British.

Still, I would expect the subset of potential buyers for geeky machines not to
massively overlap the nationalistic subset of the British population, so to me
it looks like poor marketing overall.

~~~
osullivj
Being British I love the branding, but I am something of a WWII obsessive.
WWII, the Battle of Britain, "the few", fight them on the beaches etc is a
huge part of national identity in the UK. But it seems to me that WWII
flavoured branding could be a huge marketing mistake in the EU territories
Station X is targeting: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and
the Netherlands.

~~~
jabl
Well, Spitfire, I can understand. But Lancaster? Technically awesome as the
Lancaster was, I wonder what kind of brand marketing genius wants to their
product associated with the firebombing of civilians [1]. Or in the words of
Churchill himself, "a serious blotch on the conduct of the Allies in the war".

[1] Not to disparage the dedication to duty, bravery, and sacrifice of the
aircrews, roughly 50% of which never made it back. Competing with the German
U-boat service for the service with the highest KIA rate, FWIW.

------
jorgemf
"By Linux nerds for Linux nerds." and all the people in the picture are guys
with glasses a couple of man from different nationalities. Thanks for the
stereotype. Women in tech are going to be very proud of this image.

~~~
walsk
I'm sorry (and I'm so called woman in tech, if any), but shouldn't girls worry
about WomenInTech trend?

If everyone makes you a way because you're a Woman, not a good engineer - is
there anything good about this?

Who cares about the picture, if these guys make nice laptops?

~~~
mitjak
I'm not a woman but I think you're misunderstanding. It's about fair
representation, not special treatment because you're a woman. Assuming that's
a promo video, it's under-represented.

~~~
slantyyz
The under-represented party in that video is the hardware.

Humans (regardless of whether they are male, female or other) are _over-
represented_ in that video and they add no useful information to prospective
buyers.

------
phaemon
Is there anyone here who's actually used one of these?

~~~
sspiff
No, but I can tell they're just rebranded Clevo builds.

These machines have very decent specs and are easy to service and upgrade, but
at the cost a of very low quality build with regards to the laptop case
itself.

There are plenty of other brands that offer the same kind of Clevo laptops
with Linux, the best known of which is system76.

Basically, these are just the same Clevo machines you can buy with any Clevo
reseller, but with Linux installed for marketing differentiation, and a
significant mark up in pricing.

~~~
wiz21c
I thought your statement was rather aggressive (you basically say that the
linux brand is used to bump the price), until I saw this :

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

I hope the people from System76 or StationX will be able to show that their
added value is a little more than installing some linux image... (I was
considering buying one of those, but your statement makes me hesitate)

~~~
freedomben
Definitely check out System76's response to your question of showing their
added value. I totally agreed with you, and that post turned me around.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5umefi/system76_refr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5umefi/system76_refreshes_ubuntu_linux_laptops_with/ddvcx45/)

~~~
sspiff
That's interesting, I'd not seen this comment before.

So the good thing about System76 is that they can gather up the Linux users
buying their products, and use the volume of those combined sales to give
Linux users a voice with upstream manufacturers like Sager and Clevo.

------
upofadown
> designed and customised to run Linux - and only Linux.

So no BSD then?

~~~
freedomben
I interpret that to mean, "We only focus on whether this thing works well with
Linux." So BSD may work fine, but YMMV.

------
peterisza
"Battery life: up to 5 hours".

Not a MacBook Pro killer at all.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I read that and came to say the same. Not sure if this is because of Linux
power management or the hardware itself. Either way I don't consider any
laptop with "up to 5 hours" battery life an option anymore. I keep laptops
longer and batteries degrade over the years.

------
sandworm101
Any company trying to make it's name in the Linux market has to field stuff at
lower pricepoints. I can buy a perfectly good Acer netbook for 300$ and
install Ubuntu in a matter of minutes. If you cannot do small and cheap, the
thing that Linux can do better than anyone else, you aren't going to win over
many people.

~~~
vidarh
The margins in the low end PC laptop market are so narrow that it's a crazy
place to aim for if you're a small player.

~~~
sandworm101
But people looking to test out a new company/os want cheap. They will come
back later once confidant. Smaller/cheaper generally also means greater
battery life.

~~~
vidarh
But _will_ they come back looking for something more expensive?

I'm not sure there's any money aiming for the market that buys cheap. On the
other hand enthusiast vendors like e.g. PC Specialist in the UK have survived
for many years selling PC's in the price segment these guys are going after,
because frankly for some of the models you could survive as a small company on
a few dozen a month, while you might have to sell 10x-20x as many units to
make similar margins to cover salaries and sales costs for lower priced units.

------
tluyben2
Anyone knows what the real battery life does on these because 5 hours is not
very good and usually a seller is optimistic.

------
lowlevel
Love the video ad but its pretty hard for me to consider buying one of these.
I want on site repair/replacement... not 'user serviceable' try to fix it
yourself... my last three HP laptops were all over $2500 and all needed on-
site service at some point.

------
jlebrech
If any of you visit eastern europe or countries where pirating a copy of
windows is common practice, you can get linux laptops everywhere, sometimes
the same machine is discounted because it's a display unit with freeDOS (who'd
buy a machine you can't test)

------
Too
_" All distros covered "_ = No distro really fully covered.

The world doesn't need another random laptop which you might be able to
install Linux on. What's needed is a Linux laptop that just works(tm) - all
the time, every time, with the most common peripherals.

------
albertzeyer
It says "MacBook Pro killer". Is there an option to have a high-resolution
screen (e.g. 2880 x 1800, like Retina)? All I found was Full HD IPS 1920 x
1080.

------
sneak
A “MacBook Pro killer”... with a 1920x1080 display. Right.

------
ratsimihah
The marketing feels so try-hard. Do you need to shit on Macbook because
there's nothing to sell otherwise? So passive aggressive.

------
dingo_bat
> designed and customised to run Linux - and only Linux.

So have they blocked installation of windows in some manner, a la Chromebook?

------
dorfsmay
I find it funny how a copy of a Mac is necessarily beautiful (and so
original)!

Anyway, no track point so I'll just skip!

------
chillydawg
Screen bezel :(

------
nl
Or get a Xiaomi Mi Air and get a better laptop for less money. Only downside
is the low maximum RAM.

------
karmakaze
Is there an option to have a '\' key where that weird shaped Enter key is?

------
qwerty456127
How are these compared to Purism?

------
jlebrech
what i'd like is a portable "mainframe" you can remote into from older (or
cheaper) machines, something you can still in a backpack along with a
chromebook.

------
snvzz
I had to close within seconds of dealing with this web design, to keep my
sanity.

Adding that to the pushing of one distribution over the others... way to
utterly misunderstand your target market.

I doubt they'll be selling many. Morons, the bunch of them.

------
dajohnson89
is 8gb of ram really enough these days? I know for my development and
multitasking I'd feel underpowered with 16gb, but 16 is at least a decent
baseline.

------
dkersten
Ugh, another wannabe macbook. If I want a mac, I'll just buy one. Please give
me a good quality linux laptop that isn't trying to be a macbook.

------
sleepychu
> Or are we dealing with _a_ an Arch or Gentoo stalwart? Regardless, our
> machines have you covered.

Might be worth fixing your typo :-)

------
jventura
It seems quite good but I'm very intolerant of 16:9 screens. It's a no-go for
me..

~~~
torpcoms
Agreed, I will take the wide-screen ratio god intended (16:10) any day of the
week over 16:9.

------
madez
Intel backdoor included.

------
alvil
It starts to be wrong with Linux.

------
eeZah7Ux
The animation made me cringe.

~~~
shusson
I don't understand who they are targeting with it

~~~
teamhappy
I don't think they understand it either.

------
dirtyqwerty
Wow, so much dudebro. That animated gif is killing me.

