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Comment by hardwaresofton | Hacker News Reader

If anyone from System76 is reading this thread, I just want you to know that the Oryx Pro is my endgame -- I plan to buy it ASAP replace my desktop and laptop as soon as I can get my hands on one.

I am a stan of your business.

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How well does it run non-Ubuntu distros? I only run Debian these days — been burnt too many times by Ubuntu.

I don't know because I haven't bought one, but I do know they run their own distro called Pop_OS[0] which is improved ubuntu (with likely impeccable support for their hardware).

That in-and-of-itself is a pretty impressive investment to me, but I would probably take it off and put arch on it. Honestly I am not too worried, it seems like I can actually call them for support/file bugs/ask for technical help if I actually came across an issue -- surely someone over there knows something if they want to maintain their own distro.

[0]: https://system76.com/pop

I've been running Pop for about 6 months now and it's been fantastic.

It's the first Linux distro that I've been able to run full-time, after trying the main Ubuntu distro for 6+ years with VMs and dual-booting.

Beyond its stability and compatibility with Nvidia hardware, its design is pretty and touch-friendly.

Thanks for the comments on this, I'm generally skeptical with these things... my only linux desktop is currently running Elementary, which I've liked a lot, but nice hardware support will be great. Still running a late 2014 (iirc) rMBP for my laptop, may swap out late next year or the year after.

I'm tired of the stuff Apple pulls, so would be nice to see a good/supported linux distro for hardware. I've been bitten too many times trying to maintain Linux on a primary desktop/laptop (hackintosh has been easier for me).

The good to hear. I was kind of skeptical at first of it, and the name doesn't really help. But I liked their stated goals for it.

Looks like Gnome3 with a flatter theme. That's fine, but a few of their design choices still grate on me enough to use Mate.

I have one and it's an abdolute beast.

Could you comment on the amount of sound it makes/how notable it is? Maybe with a decibel meter app or something?

I found a review here: https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/review-system76-oryx-pr...

No mention of machine noise, just that the speakers were not impressive.

It varies alot, it's noticably loud when the GPU is enabled, when I'm on integrated graphics it's usually not noticable.

well i would prefer some docking stations instead of what they offer. (and a usb-c loading cable)

I hear this, but honestly the fact that they have enough graphical power and the ports to power two monitors is enough to put the oryx pro in a category of it's own.

I looked around for a bit and no other company had the combination of ports, dual monitor support, OS alignment, ridiculously powerful specs, and price (even if it's kinda high).

The only thing that could possibly put me off is reliability or maybe weight/bulkiness, but it's almost an ultrabook form factor.

>> the ports to power two monitors

That is great but the problem is having to connect Monitor cables, keyboard cables, Power Cables, etc each time you want to travel

a Dock / Port replicator provide all of those things in a Single Cable or bottom mount connection

This it what separates Business Laptops from Consumer Laptops, until System 76 has that they will for ever be a Consumer device not a Business Device.

Yeah but if you leave these cables on your desk, that's like... <5 minutes of connecting/disconnecting every time you want to move. Most good docks will have a disconnect button which you at least have to press as well. Again I agree it's inconvenient to not have this, but if that's what "business device" means I don't think that distinction is important (at least not to me). When I think of "business device" I think of portability and power -- "workstations", not necessarily whether they have docks/port replicators.

I also think that this issue is a knock against the product I'm infaturated with (Oryx Pro) but more the surrounding ecosystem -- surely some vendors will pop up (if not System76 themselves) to remedy this.

>>means I don't think that distinction is important (at least not to me).

and you would be in the minority of business users. We had major issues with Lenovo discontinued the Bottom mount connector and moved to a cable based unit, users complained ALOT about having to plug in a single cable.

>if that's what "business device" means

It is not the only factor but it is a factor

>. When I think of "business device" I think of portability and power -- "workstations", not necessarily whether they have docks/port replicators.

No, portable workstations are a class of unit all to their self, most portable workstations are "business class" however

Business or Enterprise vs Consumer is

Dell Latitude Line (Enterprise) vs Dell Precision (Consumer)

ThinkPad branded (Enterprise) vs Lenovo Branded (Consumer)

Generally speaking the consumer products do not have enterprise features including docks, hardware /driver standardization / deployment packs, cheaper in build quality, and a variety of other things that make them enterprise systems

"<5 minutes of connecting/disconnecting every time you want to move."

Seriously? I'm looking for <5 seconds.

5 minutes was me being very very generous for the sake of argument. Normally it should take an able bodied person <10 seconds to shut a laptop lid and unplug 3 cables that are sitting prominently on the desk.

I think it's safe to say we differ here, and that's fine. No the Oryx Pro doesn't have a enterprise-grade dock/port replicator yet. If that's a deal-breaker then that's that, for now at least.

Speak for yourself. My ThinkPad has 2x DVI, 1x Ethernet, 1x charger, 5x USB, 1x audio connected to the dock. It's a pain and quite a bit more than a few seconds to connect disconnect every time vs pressing the eject button.

> The only thing that could possibly put me off is reliability

I'd be curious to know what the noise is like. One of the ways the MBP spoils you is by being almost completely silent most of the time.

I don't know what you do with your MBP but this is absolutely not the case I've seen on any of our machines at work (if you do any sort of container work). The fans are running 50% of the time.

If you think post-2012 MBP fans are noisy, you should try a Dell - you'd go insane after a day.

As long as you don't run in clamshell mode (which kills airflow) and have reasonably powerful models, MBP fans are usually little more than a gentle whirr when the system is a bit taxed. The big Dell models seem vacuum cleaners in comparison.

I use mostly Jetbrain IDEs, Firefox and VirtualBox, with an external 4k screen, on a late-2016 MBP, and it's silent most of the time.

I am also thinking of getting one as a machine learning laptop. The 1070 8G GPU memory is very adequate.

The reliability from a small company is a concern of mine also, so I intend to purchase the 3 year warranty - a first for me, I have never bought an extended product warranty before.

The specs do look amazing.

While you could get one for machine learning... If you're buying an additional computer just for that I'm not sure a laptop is the most cost effective choice, though this laptop in particular seems like it could handle that just fine. Running GPU intensive machine learning seems like a really good way to find out about reliability issues before anyone else... Make sure it's covered under warranty, I don't know if you can argue that it's normal wear and tear (though I guess it might be identical to someone playing Crysis for hours and hours).

Again, I think the Oryx Pro would be able to handle it, but the use case seems just a tad wrong... Unless of course you routinely do your machine learning on the go.

Thanks for the comments. I have been buying GPU compute from Hetzner, GCP, and AWS. I am comfortable working in SSH shells and running aJupyter server on rented compute, but there is a lot of convenience of just using a local computer.

I really don’t want to be encumbered by a desktop computer, so a sem-portable laptop with a GPU makes sense to me.

In that case absolutely carry on! I didn't want to sound prescriptive since I'm not familiar with wear patterns of GPU-heavy calculations (it's entirely possible that they're built well enough to just run pegged at 100% for a very long time), and I also don't know much about GFX card durability for a card like the 1070 -- I thought it might be a pain to try and replace, with how tight the form factor must be.

iFixit doesn't have anything on the Oryx Pro yet[0] so...

I also didn't know Hetzner sold GPU compute! Is it a package or are you going to market and searching "gpu"?

[0]: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/System76_Laptop

They have a dedicated server with a 1080 GPU, i7, lots or RAM, for about $105/month. A good deal.

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