I don't understand why these boutique Linux system vendors all end up gravitating towards rolling their own distributions -- Pop!_OS (ugh) for System76, PureOS (https://www.pureos.net/) for Purism, etc.
I've been running Ubuntu on my machines for something like a decade now, and have experience with Debian and Red Hat/Fedora from before that. I know what to expect from these distributions. When you tell me you've rolled your own distribution, I have no idea what to expect, which turns me off from your product. And if the answer is "you can expect exactly the same as what you'd get from Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora/whatever," then why bother rolling a new distro in the first place? Why take what should be a simple sales pitch and make it more confusing?
They seem to think the idea of learning my way around Yet Another Linux Distribution is an enticement. It isn't -- especially when the only community around the distribution is a single small company, which means that anything I do learn is unlikely to be useful beyond using that company's products. As soon as I buy from someone else, or that one small company goes out of business or loses interest in maintaining the distro, I can take all that knowledge and toss it in the bin. No thanks.
(Weirdly, the only company in this space that seems to really get this is Dell. I feel like I'm living in the Mirror Universe.)
I couldn't agree more. Rolling your own distribution is in general a bad idea, unless you have lots of resources to develop and maintain it. Plus a very good reason to do so!
But Dell often also screws it up. I ordered a really expensive workstation from them (>$15k), configured with Ubuntu as OS. However, it was not vanilla Ubuntu as advertised but a patched Ubuntu of the latest LTS. The machine always got stuck in an infinite loop after setting the timezone and entering user details within one of the welcome dialogs. Totally unacceptable.
I installed the very same Ubuntu LTS version, just a vanilla one, and everything worked fine.
I suspect it's because in the end all they're really selling is a barely differentiated commodity. Sure, they might spec one bluetooth chipset vs another etc with their contract manufacturer to get the needed driver support. But once that's done, it's a pretty bog-standard PC with the main value add being not including and charging for a Windows license. Rolling their own theoretically different, but really largely just a re-branded, distro gives them a way to differentiate even though it's largely a distinction without a difference. If all they shipped was a vanilla distro on top of the hardware, they'd really only be offering configuration and tech support services for competitors who will just ship a PC with the same hardware configuration for a few bucks less and point them to the same vanilla distro.
I assume it's because they think it builds brand loyalty.
That is, they believe that the ppl who opt into Pop OS over vanilla Ubuntu, are likely to fall in love with Pop OS and therefore purchase more System76 machines down the road.
The downside is perceived to be limited since new customers can opt out of Pop OS.
Without inside knowledge around customer retention and top of funnel conversion rate, it's hard to know whether it's a good or bad business decision.
I guess they want to cater to people who think a product works best if the hardware and software are both made by the same company. And many people think so probably because of Apple products.
Ubuntu have dropped Unity support and OEMs couldn't anything about it. Suddenly user experience changed and transition Unity-> Gnome wasn't smooth. This was breaking point.
OEMs wasn't happy about it and to make sure they don't have to be same situation again they have made their Ubuntu flavors/distributions
They aspire to be another Apple w/iOS, or another Google w/Android.
Embracing GNU/Linux and the free-software ecosystem is the shortest path towards achieving this goal. These companies aren't necessarily concerned with supporting libre software in reality. It's just the most convenient option for the moment, what realistic alternatives are there? They aren't pursuing control over the access to and deliery of apps without any intention of leveraging it should they succeed in acquiring sufficient market share.
Personally I'm in favor of continuing to support independent operating system vendors and paying hardware manufacturers for standardized hardware we can use with any standards-compliant operating system of our choice.
It's unfortunate that the more GNU/Linux matures, the more it enables the proliferation of vendor-specific distributions competing for control over the software their users consume.
I've never had a good System76 experience - over a decade of System76 use. I've repeatedly asked to have them purchased, merely to help the community, and every single one has disappointed.
The build quality is such rubbish, and you begin to feel it almost immediately. I'm careful with my kit, not terribly hard on anything and I manage to flake bits of plastic or metal off each System76. They've always been in neoprene cases within a laptop backpack - because I'm that paranoid. They're just rubbish.
At this point Ubuntu (or Mint, or Debian!) on Alienware is my laptop of choice, and I run those Kingdel desktops.
I want to chime in a contrasting opinion here. I had an old Galago that I adored. Came with Ubuntu, swapped that to Arch then stayed happy with it for years! It was a plastic frame, but it was tough enough to shove in a backpack and take longboarding. After 3 years, the Ethernet port's spring clip finally snapped off (user error), but still worked. I also accidentally bent the audio jack, but it still worked. It finally "died" when my pup knocked it off the couch with the charger still plugged in. The charger plug, still in the port, hit the floor at just the right angle to snap the port's inner prong off making it impossible to charge. I didn't notice until the next day when the battery used it's last bits of juice then shut down.
Very happy with my System76 purchase. But! I've only ever used the one device.
I've heard similar complaints from others. It would be great is someone from System76 could join the conversation and have a spin-less discussion on the topic.
After the busy work of using Linux and making a hobby of configuration (I think I started in 1992 with Slackware), it was so nice buying a System76 laptop last fall and having everything ‘just work.’
I use a high-end System76 for work (~10+hrs a day) and love it. The only problem seems to be multi-monitor support. The screens go into strange resolutions. They flick on and off.
I've never had strange issues on other system with 2 or 3 monitor support (currently do this at home w/ a Lenovo + 3 monitors and with my wife w/ a MBP + 3 monitors.)
I have the laptop too. It does just work in a way that made phasing out my Mac book pro easier than expected.
It’s not perfect but I haven’t had to spend much time on dealing with the os which is what I wanted and their “value add”. I don’t do much Linux system work, I just want to develop.
For a desktop I’d expect replacing Linux would be easier, but if it’s like their notebooks having a easy to support system it probably worth the premium.
That being said, what’s wrong with larger desktops that support 3.5 inch drives. I like cheap slow storage, but I work in bioinformatics.
Agreed, that was my experience buying a gazelle laptop a couple of years ago. I still use it daily and have never had an issue with the software. They also make it trivial to reinstall by providing all needed drivers in installable packages.
Now if they could just get the build quality where it needs to be it would really be a great experience. With mine, generally, the software was the high point and the hardware was the low point.
While I haven't used a system76 Thelio, while we're discussing System76, I can speak about a Galago pro that I bought from system76.
Noteworthy, because I was one of those Mac refugees who needed a non-mac machine now that I don't like the new macbook keyboards or insane price bump that macs got.
I bought a 16 GB Ram, 14" Galago pro with 512 GB SSD with Ubuntu on it.
Battery life is around 2 hours. Not too good compared to a macbook.
- Keyboard is pretty nice, each key has a comfortable travel to it.
- The trackpad is awful or at least compared to what I'd gotten used to using the macbook for last many years. The trackpad feels rough, is not as responsive or smoother as the mac touchpad either. The click buttons aren't too nice to click either.
Bottom line is that the next time I need to buy another Linux laptop, I'll be looking to try out the newer System76 to make sure they've fixed their touchpad, if not, I'll go with Dell XPS developer edition, no questions asked.
Surprisingly, the touchpad being what it is, I've not seen it mentioned in the reviews of Galago pro all that much, I suspect it's because there are not too many ex-mac owners buying these, the touchpad feels like it belongs to year 2008.
If anyone knows of a trackpad that's even 90% as good as the MacBook ones I'd love to give them a try.
This is honestly one of the biggest things locking me into the Mac ecosystem, I haven't found an alternative trackpad that even comes close. I even like Apple's new MacBook keyboards (even with them breaking all the time… at least they fix them).
Our copywriter was force-switched to a new Darter for several days (he was previously a Mac user too) and said he really loves the trackpad on it, so that's definitely work looking at. He cited things like the finger tracking and the smoothness of the surface as top reasons. That, combined with the 6-7 hour working battery life make that a really compelling machine.
I have the same build. Largely I'm satisfied, but I agree with your touchpad woes. I found after I turned the sensitivity of the touchpad up to max, it didn't feel so bad.
The last shop I worked at had System76 PCs for all the devs and they are great. I have since switched at home also and recently test drove their new PopOS since I needed CUDA and Tensorflow and they package them so it is as easy `apt-get install` and it was also great. I would highly recommend looking at their PCs and PopOS.
I just wish PopOS was built on Debian and not Ubuntu.
> The smallest Thelio, designated “thelio-r1”, stands 32 centimeters tall, 20 centimeters wide, and 28 centimeters deep, coming to only a total of 18 liters in volume, a good deal smaller than even the tiniest commercial full-GPU mITX form factor cases, most of which are at least 22 liters.
There's a pretty big community that builds high-end gaming rigs / workstations in these cases. I've built in both. Originally I built in the Ncase but sold it to a colleague when I moved abroad. Recently I just built in the DANcase and wish I had have stuck with the Ncase. The extra 4 liters of volume goes a long way in improving thermals, due to the extra clearance for a CPU cooler.
Anyway, just found that line in the article annoying, even a cursory Google search shows that there's a plethora of 7-12L SFF PC cases out there.
I take commercial to mean lian-li (who made their old cases), cooler aster, antec, etc. Large volume manufacturers.
It's probably easier for them to vertically integrate the case into their business than go with a low volume niche manufacturer and deal with the hazards that come with that
I appreciate that the author linked to another review if users were coming from an OS X perspective. Or, when a review explains its biases or what is important to the reviewer, it helps make sense of the content for me as a reader.
I was super interested in buying one of these, but the markup is just too much for my tastes. I built out a reasonable workstation (9900K, 16 GB RAM, 500 GB NVMe SSD, 1TB SSD, RX 580) and the cost came out to $2,359 versus the $1,582 it would take to build it myself. I could understand a markup over retail of $100-200, but $700+ just isn’t a good value in my opinion, especially when I wasn’t selecting affordable parts.
Has anyone tried a system76 laptop with Elementary OS? I’m curious if there’s any issues. I’m thinking of getting a Galago but just read there’s some multi monitor issues. Curious if there’s any other caveats I might not know.
I read all that and still have no idea what the point of it is, nor how performant or usable it is. It reads like an amazon review if someone trying to justify on overpriced purchase to themselves.
Meanwhile it looks like this product is targeted at the very people who know how to configure their distros for their hardware, precisely nullifying the value-add, as far as I can tell.
> Both of the Thelio’s vents show the solar system at the time of the UNIX epoch.
Personally, I thought the solar system thing was a cute gimmick. I wouldn’t buy it just for that, but if I were in the market for a smallish Linux desktop where everything worked out of the box, the rest of the review makes it sound like a decent option. Whether you mind paying a modest premium for that, versus doing the research/confit yourself is a personal decision obviously.
Also, the author is a college undergrad writing on her own blog. If there’s ever a time and place for rationalizing something, that’s it!
It is like buying a coach built, hand made automobile rather than a mass produced German sportscar. The former uses some 'crate' engine, probably from the German sportscar but it has notional appeal for people that buy such things. If you do racing on the track and have to fix the thing every weekend then the off-the-shelf mass produced car won't cut it. For most people though the mass produced car with the up to date infotainment is what you want.
A 'coach built' tower PC is fine, however, have you seen how the independent manufacturers such as System 76 compare in laptop land? The Dells and the Huawei PCs have bezels around the screen that you have to squint to see, the System 76 type of laptops have bezels wider than I can remember them being in 1993. Then there is the general girth of the things, it is like you need a padded wrist support to reach the keyboard.
With autos there are people with rose tinted eyewear products that can remember the good old days when you could fix everything yourself with just a Haynes manual and a set of spanners. They moan about the modern cars that might as well have the bonnet welded shut. I am a bit like this with PCs but when it comes to actually putting money towards a PC I prefer the new and shiny rather than the 'coach built'. Sure I want to run linux but I would gladly risk my chances with those 'Windows only' machines from the likes of Lenovo, Huawei, Dell and HP rather than go with something designed for Linux.
The greatest draw for me in looking at purchasing a System76 machine is coreboot support. My understanding is that coreboot is supported (sometimes) on older hardware, but not much modern hardware aside from Chromebooks. Ideally I'd like to build a machine myself, but it seems difficult to do at present with recent hardware and full coreboot support. Am I correct?
Our Coreboot support right now is very experimental, and doesn't currently support things like UEFI, but we are progressing on it rapidly. We've gotten lots of help from both Coreboot and Intel in getting everything to work.
One major downside is that right now the supported models are Intel-only laptops, but in the future it's highly likely that we'll be able to fully support all of our systems.
My principle concern with any boutique desktop systems is that in order for the business model to be viable, they need to add significant mark up to the BOM. However I most enthusiasts can just assemble a desktop for themselves and save hundreds of dollars. One of the easiest ways to save hundreds of dollars I am aware of.
There is some value in having a vendor who can provide some assurances that this specific combination of hardware and software will actually work when it's all put together.
Enthusiasts don't mind spending hours trying to figure out why their new system won't POST, but most people by far are not enthusiasts and see that as frustrating and tedious. Charging those people a markup to work all that stuff out for them in advance isn't unreasonable.
I wouldn't balk at paying a little more for a build-to-order system over an off-the-shelf thing; I'd expect that. It would be okay as long as the charge is not too egregious and you're getting a decent build for it. And it sounds like you do.
The problem isn't the images but rather the poor site design that uses large images as tiny thumbnails but then doesn't make the thumbnails clickable. The images themselves are actually viewable much larger if you right-click on each one and open the image in a new tab.
[+] [-] smacktoward|7 years ago|reply
I've been running Ubuntu on my machines for something like a decade now, and have experience with Debian and Red Hat/Fedora from before that. I know what to expect from these distributions. When you tell me you've rolled your own distribution, I have no idea what to expect, which turns me off from your product. And if the answer is "you can expect exactly the same as what you'd get from Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora/whatever," then why bother rolling a new distro in the first place? Why take what should be a simple sales pitch and make it more confusing?
They seem to think the idea of learning my way around Yet Another Linux Distribution is an enticement. It isn't -- especially when the only community around the distribution is a single small company, which means that anything I do learn is unlikely to be useful beyond using that company's products. As soon as I buy from someone else, or that one small company goes out of business or loses interest in maintaining the distro, I can take all that knowledge and toss it in the bin. No thanks.
(Weirdly, the only company in this space that seems to really get this is Dell. I feel like I'm living in the Mirror Universe.)
[+] [-] lazzlazzlazz|7 years ago|reply
Let's not get focused on a red herring because one person decided to shoot out a verbose comment.
[+] [-] nextos|7 years ago|reply
But Dell often also screws it up. I ordered a really expensive workstation from them (>$15k), configured with Ubuntu as OS. However, it was not vanilla Ubuntu as advertised but a patched Ubuntu of the latest LTS. The machine always got stuck in an infinite loop after setting the timezone and entering user details within one of the welcome dialogs. Totally unacceptable.
I installed the very same Ubuntu LTS version, just a vanilla one, and everything worked fine.
[+] [-] everdrive|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blihp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smallgovt|7 years ago|reply
That is, they believe that the ppl who opt into Pop OS over vanilla Ubuntu, are likely to fall in love with Pop OS and therefore purchase more System76 machines down the road.
The downside is perceived to be limited since new customers can opt out of Pop OS.
Without inside knowledge around customer retention and top of funnel conversion rate, it's hard to know whether it's a good or bad business decision.
[+] [-] Scarbutt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PhilippGille|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ascii_only|7 years ago|reply
Ubuntu have dropped Unity support and OEMs couldn't anything about it. Suddenly user experience changed and transition Unity-> Gnome wasn't smooth. This was breaking point.
OEMs wasn't happy about it and to make sure they don't have to be same situation again they have made their Ubuntu flavors/distributions
[+] [-] _bashskids|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shmerl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newnewpdro|7 years ago|reply
They aspire to be another Apple w/iOS, or another Google w/Android.
Embracing GNU/Linux and the free-software ecosystem is the shortest path towards achieving this goal. These companies aren't necessarily concerned with supporting libre software in reality. It's just the most convenient option for the moment, what realistic alternatives are there? They aren't pursuing control over the access to and deliery of apps without any intention of leveraging it should they succeed in acquiring sufficient market share.
Personally I'm in favor of continuing to support independent operating system vendors and paying hardware manufacturers for standardized hardware we can use with any standards-compliant operating system of our choice.
It's unfortunate that the more GNU/Linux matures, the more it enables the proliferation of vendor-specific distributions competing for control over the software their users consume.
[+] [-] cik|7 years ago|reply
The build quality is such rubbish, and you begin to feel it almost immediately. I'm careful with my kit, not terribly hard on anything and I manage to flake bits of plastic or metal off each System76. They've always been in neoprene cases within a laptop backpack - because I'm that paranoid. They're just rubbish.
At this point Ubuntu (or Mint, or Debian!) on Alienware is my laptop of choice, and I run those Kingdel desktops.
[+] [-] ekidd|7 years ago|reply
I would really like to buy another System76 laptop, except for the build quality.
PRO: Linux worked out of the box, the price/performance was much better than a MacBook, and the customer support was great.
CON: IIRC went through 4 keyboards and multiple other part replacements.
Afterwards, I bought a ~2015 MacBook Pro, installed Ubuntu, and it stills runs great.
[+] [-] skidd0|7 years ago|reply
Very happy with my System76 purchase. But! I've only ever used the one device.
[+] [-] DoofusOfDeath|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sgillen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TuringNYC|7 years ago|reply
I've never had strange issues on other system with 2 or 3 monitor support (currently do this at home w/ a Lenovo + 3 monitors and with my wife w/ a MBP + 3 monitors.)
[+] [-] acomjean|7 years ago|reply
It’s not perfect but I haven’t had to spend much time on dealing with the os which is what I wanted and their “value add”. I don’t do much Linux system work, I just want to develop.
For a desktop I’d expect replacing Linux would be easier, but if it’s like their notebooks having a easy to support system it probably worth the premium.
That being said, what’s wrong with larger desktops that support 3.5 inch drives. I like cheap slow storage, but I work in bioinformatics.
[+] [-] markbnj|7 years ago|reply
Now if they could just get the build quality where it needs to be it would really be a great experience. With mine, generally, the software was the high point and the hardware was the low point.
[+] [-] car12|7 years ago|reply
Noteworthy, because I was one of those Mac refugees who needed a non-mac machine now that I don't like the new macbook keyboards or insane price bump that macs got.
I bought a 16 GB Ram, 14" Galago pro with 512 GB SSD with Ubuntu on it. Battery life is around 2 hours. Not too good compared to a macbook.
- Keyboard is pretty nice, each key has a comfortable travel to it.
- The trackpad is awful or at least compared to what I'd gotten used to using the macbook for last many years. The trackpad feels rough, is not as responsive or smoother as the mac touchpad either. The click buttons aren't too nice to click either.
Bottom line is that the next time I need to buy another Linux laptop, I'll be looking to try out the newer System76 to make sure they've fixed their touchpad, if not, I'll go with Dell XPS developer edition, no questions asked.
Surprisingly, the touchpad being what it is, I've not seen it mentioned in the reviews of Galago pro all that much, I suspect it's because there are not too many ex-mac owners buying these, the touchpad feels like it belongs to year 2008.
[+] [-] kondro|7 years ago|reply
This is honestly one of the biggest things locking me into the Mac ecosystem, I haven't found an alternative trackpad that even comes close. I even like Apple's new MacBook keyboards (even with them breaking all the time… at least they fix them).
[+] [-] sian92|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ludston|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Datenstrom|7 years ago|reply
I just wish PopOS was built on Debian and not Ubuntu.
[+] [-] chipaca|7 years ago|reply
why?
[+] [-] samcday|7 years ago|reply
Wut?
https://www.sfflab.com/products/ncase_m1 - 12.6L https://www.dan-cases.com/dana4.php - 7.2L
There's a pretty big community that builds high-end gaming rigs / workstations in these cases. I've built in both. Originally I built in the Ncase but sold it to a colleague when I moved abroad. Recently I just built in the DANcase and wish I had have stuck with the Ncase. The extra 4 liters of volume goes a long way in improving thermals, due to the extra clearance for a CPU cooler.
Anyway, just found that line in the article annoying, even a cursory Google search shows that there's a plethora of 7-12L SFF PC cases out there.
[+] [-] killaken2000|7 years ago|reply
It's probably easier for them to vertically integrate the case into their business than go with a low volume niche manufacturer and deal with the hazards that come with that
[+] [-] danbolt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dstaley|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wishinghand|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rocky1138|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blueboo|7 years ago|reply
Meanwhile it looks like this product is targeted at the very people who know how to configure their distros for their hardware, precisely nullifying the value-add, as far as I can tell.
> Both of the Thelio’s vents show the solar system at the time of the UNIX epoch.
Money well spent
(But at least the I/o board is “reliable”!...ok)
[+] [-] mattkrause|7 years ago|reply
Also, the author is a college undergrad writing on her own blog. If there’s ever a time and place for rationalizing something, that’s it!
[+] [-] rocky1138|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Theodores|7 years ago|reply
A 'coach built' tower PC is fine, however, have you seen how the independent manufacturers such as System 76 compare in laptop land? The Dells and the Huawei PCs have bezels around the screen that you have to squint to see, the System 76 type of laptops have bezels wider than I can remember them being in 1993. Then there is the general girth of the things, it is like you need a padded wrist support to reach the keyboard.
With autos there are people with rose tinted eyewear products that can remember the good old days when you could fix everything yourself with just a Haynes manual and a set of spanners. They moan about the modern cars that might as well have the bonnet welded shut. I am a bit like this with PCs but when it comes to actually putting money towards a PC I prefer the new and shiny rather than the 'coach built'. Sure I want to run linux but I would gladly risk my chances with those 'Windows only' machines from the likes of Lenovo, Huawei, Dell and HP rather than go with something designed for Linux.
[+] [-] jpeeler|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sian92|7 years ago|reply
One major downside is that right now the supported models are Intel-only laptops, but in the future it's highly likely that we'll be able to fully support all of our systems.
[+] [-] bgorman|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smacktoward|7 years ago|reply
Enthusiasts don't mind spending hours trying to figure out why their new system won't POST, but most people by far are not enthusiasts and see that as frustrating and tedious. Charging those people a markup to work all that stuff out for them in advance isn't unreasonable.
[+] [-] Finnucane|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _ananos_|7 years ago|reply
Other than that, it's a decent workstation.
[+] [-] Finnucane|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyberias|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ebg13|7 years ago|reply