Just don't touch system76. They're just low quality rebranded Sager laptops with a crap version on Linux. You can just buy the same laptop and if you really like their horrible version of Linux, then put that on there.
Those things may not all be perfect, but they do make a big difference.
Redox is not ready for production and I am not hesitant to admit so.
But it's nice to know that I can just phrase all of my statements in the form of a question and then I can never be held accountable for stating them.
You may or may not find it compelling, but I don't see the relevance of Redox.
System76's pitch is that they add value by ironing out all the compatibility issues Linux can have on laptops, so they "just work" the way macOS does on MacBooks and Windows does on ThinkPads and Dell XPSes. But they're maddeningly vague about precisely what compatibility issues they're ironing out, at least in their public-facing marketing materials.
Those make their pitch instead on the quality of their hardware -- a front where they are inevitably doomed to lose to deeper-pocketed OEMs like the ones mentioned above -- and on their coming with a custom flavor of Linux called "Pop!_OS", which as far as I'm concerned is an anti-feature. I don't want to be locked into some hardware vendor's custom Linux ghetto just to get hardware compatibility; I want to run mainstream distros like Ubuntu, Fedora or Debian. You can get a System76 machine with Ubuntu, but if the hardware "just works" with Ubuntu, why muddle the message by trying to get me to convert to a whole new distro? And if it doesn't "just work" with Ubuntu, why offer that option in the first place?
It's all very confusing, and leaves me with the vague feeling that they're talking about just about anything they can talk about other than what specifically they're doing to improve Linux's compatibility with laptop hardware. And that makes me worry that they're just taking generic hardware from some Chinese factory and installing Linux on it.
If that's what I wanted, I could do it myself, you know?
Note that I'm not saying here that they aren't doing important work improving compatibility. What I'm saying is that, if they're doing that work, they're doing a really good job of hiding it from potential customers. Which is mystifying, since that is the one thing their potential customers would actually care about.
You can say they aren't working on the right things - or that they aren't doing enough. All fair - but clearly they aren't just installing Linux on OEM laptops.
And as an outsider to this particular corner of the Linux world, what I've seen following this back-and-forth is a fight between System76 and someone from GNOME who says System76 is making his life more difficult. As someone who uses GNOME on all his machines, that is not the kind of relationship between a hardware vendor and the GNOME project that would encourage me to buy their hardware.
But I'm more upset with the people who say just go buy a Clevo that they OEM. A company spends time and money to bring good Linux support and people want to end run around them to save a few bucks. This is why Linux doesn't have great laptop support - nobody will pay for it.
Disclaimer: typing this on my work machine, which happens to be a System76 laptop. Mine came with Ubuntu, and a special System76 PPA for what appears to be firmware reasons.
Also, with a higher-end config I don't recall the Sager/Clevo options I saw being much cheaper, if at all. The comparable ThinkPad was more money, though it did include some things I didn't actually need (mainly something more than Intel graphics) -- could've been nice, might've been annoying per the other Optimus complaints I recall seeing recently.
(Be careful reading the above, sometimes there is something like a fingerprint sensor that is not compatible. Clevo tries to use the same model for many different customers and so sometimes not everybody can be perfectly satisfied)
* System76 came before the Dell XPS (as far as out of the box installed Linux).
* System76 drivers are distributed via private repo.
* Dell's patch work is often upstreamed so non-Dell hardware/customers can benefit.
* When I bought a Dell XPS 13 9160 it shipped with many hardware issues. Keyboard double press issues, screen flicker, and (my personal favorite) a null pointer bug in the WiFi so that if you switched wifi connections it would result in a kernel panic.
* Never had any driver issues or bugs I had to sort out on my own with my System76 and my Galago UltraPro is still trucking.
* System76 support is vastly superior to Sputnik support, the one time I needed System76 I emailed them and they sent a replacement part (ethernet gate). For Dell, at least back when I was actively using it as my daily driver, User forums were the primary support channel.
* System76 (for now) uses Clevo as a thrid-party system provider (just like Sager).
* Dell uses their own manufactured hardware which is often a step above in build quality.
Based on my experience with both and with installing Ubuntu most recently on my Dell Alienware 13, I seriously doubt that Ubuntu "just works" with the hardware. Even on my Alienware where I replaced the Broadcom networking card with an Intel one for better Linux support, I still had to do some tweaking to resolve graphics issues and various other minor annoyances. For reference, part of the changes I had to apply I followed from here:
https://github.com/andrewwakeling/alienware-13-r3-ubuntu-16....
So while, hopefully, the amount of work System76 has to do these days to configure Ubuntu is small, I have no trouble believing that there is still some to be done. In particular hardware integration things like keyboard back light control or proper optimus support probably involves some amount of work.
At the end of the day, System76 came out of the box as a working Ubuntu machine with 0 work or tweaking required from me. And even now my System76 Galago UltraPro is still the only laptop which I have had that 0-configuration experience with (and it's still trucking).
For me, both have their strengths and weaknesses. If I were in the market for a new, Ubuntu pre-installed laptop...I would still consider both.
Edit: looks like the system76 downvote brigade is hitting this discussion.
Uh, no. The purpose of my comment is to point out there's a company that builds and sells Linux laptops that are of higher quality. They've put in a lot of work to support Coreboot, disable ME, and have a working TPM. They are trying to reduce their dependence on non-free software.
It's a coincidence that in this case you 'get what you pay for'.
Tbh, I'm fairly convinced and have been for some time now that someone involved with that group is part of a voting ring on HN.