A Look Back at Manufacturing Linux Hardware | Hacker News Reader

A Look Back at Manufacturing Linux Hardware

blog.system76.com

167 pointsjseliger56 comments

The blog post reads like an attempt to finally distance themselves from the the old reputation of being the Clevo rebranders they were.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17039414

Edit there is an article from Linux magazine published a few months ago that states that system76 is still primarily a Clevo rebranded, and that they build just a single product from their whole product line: the thelio.

https://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/System76-To-Desig...

Everyone has to start somewhere, I guess. I believe they're tackling making their own laptops next.

It sounds like it.

> As we move into manufacturing laptops, the factory will provide an ideal environment for research and development. We now have the resources to create more accurate prototypes in-house to get an up close look at various materials, chassis builds, keyboards, and more, empowering us to create a computer fit for the incredible creators, makers, and builders of the world.

I'm trying to work out why they think manufacturing their own laptops is going to be a profitable business. Margins on consumer hardware are razor thin even for the big players like Dell who have the advantage of scale. So far just being open source friendly has not been nearly enough of a market differentiator.

That said, I wouldn't mind considering a system76 laptop for my next workstation, except that they don't support one thing that Dells do exceptionally well: driverless docking stations. (And no, USB and Thunderbolt docking stations don't work well under Linux and I have no reason to believe they ever will.)

This blog post accurately describes my semtiment:

https://drewdevault.com/rants/2020/02/18/Fucking-laptops.htm...

I like Drew on the blog post use a Thinkpad X200, and it more than suits my needs for a laptop, and I even shelled out the money for one of the 51nb x2100s. If System 76 bucks the current trend and makes a laptop in the style of an old thinkpad (To quote Drew: "The integrated GPU, Bluetooth and WiFi, internal sensors, and even the fingerprint reader can all be driven by the upstream Linux kernel. In fact, the hardware is so well understood that I have successfully used almost all of the laptop’s features on Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Minix, Haiku, and Plan 9. Plan fucking 9. It can run coreboot, too. The back of the laptop has all of the screws (Phillips head) labelled so you know which to remove to service which parts. User replacable parts include the screen, keyboard (multiple layouts are available and are interchangeable), the RAM, hard drive (I put a new SSD in one of mine a few weeks ago, and it took about 30 seconds) — actually, there are a total of 26 replacable parts in this laptop. There is a detailed 278-page service manual to assist you or your local repair tech in addressing any problems that arise.") I think they could easily charge a very healthy premium and get a lot of people to line up for it (myself included).

I have both a System76 Oryx Pro (laptop, for the past 3 years) and a Thelio Major (desktop, for the past 6 months). Both have run Arch most of the time and both are the best laptop/desktop I've owned, for development and for gaming. Excellent Linux support and powerful hardware, unlike the Purism machines.

I can certainly recommend System76 to anyone needing a powerful setup running Linux. I have no affiliation.

I bought a Purism machine over a year ago, and I'm pretty happy with it. I looked at System76 but they didn't look great back then. What's the basis of your statement?

The best Purism laptops ship with a Core i7 7500U (Kabylake) dual core processor. I've been using at least quad core processors in laptops for literally over a decade, so that just doesn't cut it.

My statement wasn't against Purism's quality, principle, or anything other than the fact that their laptops and non-laptops (Purism server) are weak sauce compared to what you can get with System76.

I believe (and I could be wrong) that the reason Purism lags behind the leading edge of processors is because they're busy disabling Intel Management Engine.

Does this figure into your estimates at all?

If I could give one feedback to system76, or even better, to all laptop manufacturers: please start making 15 inch laptops without numpad. I was considering buying a system76 in the past and this was what prevented me to buy one.

I have switched to a keyboard without a numeric keypad for my desktop machine, really don't need one for a laptop.

I go the other way. I wish all laptop manufacturers would stop making 15in laptops with numpads. The way the keyboard is offset makes it terrible in my opinion. Of course I don't do a lot of stuff that requires me to make use of a numpad either.

That is exactly the same thing the parent post said...

You're reading too quickly! :)

GGP wants numpads, GP wants no numpads.

Edit: Nope, I'm the one reading too quickly, oops.

Projection! GGP doesn't want numpads either. Based on phrasing, they might be okay with some laptops offering it, where as GP wants them eliminated.

GGP: "start making 15 inch laptops without numpad"

GP: "stop making 15in laptops with numpads"

He said he don't want no laptop that isn't without an absence of numpads.

I definitley read that wrong. Whoops! My apologies! For some reason I thought he said Stop instead of Start.

Agree completely. I completely understand, and even appreciate, the utility of a numpad, but I can't deal with the offset keyboard that comes as a result.

Even on desktops, numpads bother me.

alright theres only 1 solution to this; please allow the keyboard to be hotswapped.

Even without a numpad the keyboard is already irritatingly offset. There's just more stuff to the right of the alphas.

A 15" laptop with no numpad and the alphas (not the whole keyboard) centred would be ideal.

>I go the other way.

The comment you replied to is in agreement with you re numpads.

I hope they keep them since I will only ever buy 15" laptops with a number pad. Typing in IP addresses, something I do many times daily in my line of work, is much quicker on a numpad than on the horizontal row of number keys.

Are you looking forward to the future where having a number pad won't help you enter ipv6 addresses? Well, at least it'll make you enter the address slower than if you use the "normal" number row + letters instead of numpad + letters.

System76 has nice gear (I'm on my second System76 laptop now), but I really can't recommend them for anyone not in the US (or perhaps Canada). Warranty and shipping are an issue here in Europe. They really should partner up with a European company to handle the EU market.

Yeah they are definitely not up to speed in Europe.

Even that blog page gives you no choice but to either accept their cookies (whatever they're used for) or not read it.

I don't think that GDPR compliant. Really they should be offering an opt-out.

Forced cookies is a violation of the ePrivacy Directive, not the GDPR.

I have two machines from them. Both laptops. The first is a Lemur and though powerful, the build quality is not good. The second is a GalagoPro and it is excellent. When I replace my workstation next year, it will be a Thelio. Truly looking forward to their in house built laptop.

I have no affiliation with them.

I have a GalagoPro I bought from them about a year ago. The machine died on me at 12 months. After running through some diagnostic steps at home it seemed to need a new motherboard. I didn't address this issue with them until one month after the 12 month default warranty and they were unwilling to work with me on replacing it at a discount so I didn't seek repair because of the cost and I lost faith in their products. I don't expect special treatment but was disappointed the GalagoPro died within 12 months. I would not recommend their products unless you buy a longer warranty or they source their hardware from elsewhere.

On the other hand I have bought 2 used System76 laptops from eBay and they honored the existing original warranty and replaced the motherboard without ever asking me for my proof of purchase (its all tracked by serial #). So yeah I recommend buying the extended warranty, and they are really good about repairs and Linux support.

I have high hopes for System76 and their endeavors on laptops. While I’ve heard mixed things regarding some of their older laptops, I think there’s a lot of room to at least offer truly unique products. I actually considered buying the Thelio, just because it would look nice in the living room as an alternative to my current HTPC setup. (Not exactly rational, but it really does look nice.)

I know support for AMD Zen in Coreboot is currently pretty limited, but for example I’d love to see a mid to high end Ryzen laptop with Coreboot. Though even if it happened, I’d be kind of sad to leave Lenovo and their TrackPoint pointing stick...

Why don’t they include a keyboard with a pointer stick? Seems like a no brainer given their market segment is thinkpad junkies.

Compaq, toshiba, and other companies seemed to be able to include them in 90s laptops by just using a different color bud (like green).

No idea. I’ve never liked any non-Lenovo pointing sticks I’ve tried, though.

One possibility is that none of the manufacturers they’re rebadging from offer this feature.

Keep asking them, I do.

So far they say there isn't enough demand.

I'd totally give it a try right away, well assuming 3 buttons of course!

Does System76 design these machines themselves, or are they rebadged? They might not have control over what the keyboard is.

Until recently, system76 simply rebranded hardware produced by Clevo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clevo

Link to an old HN thread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17039414

Link to an article from Linux magazine stating that System76 are still mainly Clevo (Sager) rebranders.

https://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/System76-To-Desig...

I am in the market for new laptop and my 3 key desires are: AMD Ryzen 5 + pointer stick + USB power connection

The current only option for me is Thinkpad, but I truly wish others would jump into that space.

I hate touch pads.

I also want to see Coreboot shipping on Thelio. To me, OOTB Coreboot has become their prime differentiator. I run their Pop! OS on my Ryzen rig, but UEFI is a nightmare.

I do suspect Coreboot is a less solid option on desktop. Aside from pretty much no desktop Zen support today, desktops tend to have more flexibility for the end user, and the minimal nature of coreboot could perhaps backfire there.

How much does coreboot care? It needs to support the specific motherboard+CPU, but after that it's not like coreboot needs to handle most hardware. Excepting of course storage (USB, SATA, etc.), but that should be equivalent to laptop difficulty, and possibly network cards for network booting, which I grant might well be harder in desktops.

But mostly I'd expect coreboot to need fairly minimal hardware support and then just pass off to the real OS with proper drivers.

Coreboot still uses UEFI since that's what the motherboard uses to boot the OS.

Huh?

Coreboot supports multiple payloads[1]. You can in fact run Coreboot without UEFI - for example by using a SeaBIOS or GRUB payload.

When you are running Coreboot, it is virtually the first thing that executes on the processor, probably after some burnt-on initialization code. At that point it can do whatever. I suspect most people using Coreboot are not using it to launch Tianocore, the UEFI payload, but I guess I don’t know.

The only logical reason I can see to need UEFI would be to load drivers and/or option ROMs that need a UEFI environment - but nothing stops you from implementing drivers/initialization yourself, reverse engineering notwithstanding.

[1]: https://www.coreboot.org/Payloads

Other than a distro, what exactly do system76 provides in their lineup?

Their laptops are clevo with different branding.

Thelio doesn't seem good for the price point. I can have someone build me a custom cabinet at that price point (it looks meh) and all other parts are supplied by manufacturers.

What sets their experience apart?

You can get some great stuff from tonfangs, clevo, systempc, eluktronics, etc at a much more reasonable and realistic price.

Imo they dont have much more to offer currently, its just marketing. Some people will have positive experiences with their products but the hardware is just rebranded. They have potential to be more which could develop but I've had poor experience with them, so I won't work with them anymore, though I'm still rooting for them to improve.

You know for sure beyond a doubt that all of their hardware will be Linux compatible, and if something breaks you don't need to reinstall Windows so support can walk you through their script involving re-installing drivers or whatever else.

System76 provides driver support and testing. There's no guarantee that things will work properly 'out of the box' if you just buy a random clevo.

Can you call up any of those Chinese companies on the phone and talk with an actual person if you have questions about their products, or an issue with your order?

That's the same place system76 is buying from. It will be no different. You are saying system76 will have better support service than any of the other companies selling hardware.

You can buy case from NZXT.

PSU and ram from corsair.

Processor from amd.

Motherboard from whichever manufacturer provides great service locally.

SSDs from silicon/sabrent/samsung.

GPU from nvidia or AMD.

And you would still have from 3 to 10 years of warranty on the parts whereas system 76 provides 1 year unless you pay more.

Now again, let's leave self build out of the way.

Why not get it from the other vendors I mentioned which provide the same?

Some of them are American. You can find many if you don't want to deal with assembling/maintainence yourself but most PCs if you buy the right parts will not have any problems.

I've considered buying a Thelio a couple of times, sadly they only ship them to North America right now.

You can use a reshipping service like Shipito if you really want.

I just bought the Adder WS and can't believe the quality of the trackpad. I also own a 2015 MBP and before the Adder I had not found another laptop with a trackpad that can rival the Mac. Overall very satisfied with the whole machine so far.

Seems like an excellent entry point into the world of Hackintosh. I prefer Apple hardware, but it would be nice to have an option if macOS can be made to run well on these System76 desktops. Anyone with experience?

What advantage does System76 have for running Darwin? Or do you just want a hackintosh and like their hardware?

I thought about getting a Thelio to be a mid-level gaming desktop built for Linux, but it was a little difficult to justify economically--when compared against parts I could put together myself and still maximize Linux compatibility (e.g. using AMD processor/GPU to avoid stodgy NVIDIA drivers), it was still about a thousand dollar premium to go with System76. I want to support the Linux desktop, but I don't make enough yet from my dayjob to justify an extra grand.

My hope is that their costs will come down as the manufacturing process gets streamlined.

I don't understand why people keep saying this? Of course you can save money by building your own. This applies to Dell and others just the same. The value of system76 is they do it for you, with the benefit of Linux support out of the box.

Maybe I should clarify. I don't mean "build the whole thing from scratch parts"--I don't have the time or the energy to do that anymore. I meant that even if I'm buying a mostly-built PC with tweaks (ala iBuyPower or other options that can let me switch/upgrade CPU/GPU/RAM parts), there's still roughly a thousand dollar premium for the System76 option.

So yes, I would like to support Linux Desktop development, but I also have finite monies.

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