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System76 – Pangolin

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> Display: 15.6″ 1920×1080 FHD, Matte Finish

I really wish system76 would start giving options for 4k displays. I have a FHD display from them, only a few months old, and it's noticeably worse than my old macbook pro display.

> 1920×1080 FHD

Not even a 4:3 display! 1080 vertical is almost useless for coding. Seems much of their target market of Linux enthusiasts would have a lot of coders wanting better than that.

Works pretty fine / well with a tiling window manager.

Sure it can work, but it’s certainly not for me since I believe it’s a poor choice of default screen size for anything but primarily watching movies, as the aspect ratio limits the vertical viewing area significantly.

I like the way one blogger describes a 1440p vs a 1080p: “A 1440p monitor will give you 3x code windows side by side and 76 lines of code. This is a pretty big deal. You might not realize it until you’ve tried it for a while but being able to comfortably have 3 editor files open and being able to view about 50% more vertical lines of code at a glance is huge.” ( https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-monitor-fo... )

Though someone else mentioned they have 4K version, not just a 1080 version! That can work better with the right scaling. The rest of the laptop looks nice.

I also use a mac pretty regularly and a 1440p desktop. I was getting at the aspect ratio issue, which it seems like you were talking about first, before now talking about resolution (?). Yes, a higher resolution can fit more pixels. The absolute actual size in inches also matters though for how big the text ends up appearing.

The cow has long, long left the pen on that one. I haven't seen a 4:3 laptop in years.

I love that expression! I only knew about the ship that had already sailed...

Other fun related idioms:

"The genie is out of its bottle."

"The horse has left the barn."

"You can't unring a bell."

Thanks! I saw this over a week later.

Too true, for 4:3 at least. Though the Microsoft Surface is 3:2. Macbooks are 16:10, which gives 10% more vertical.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FRPL763/?coliid=I3UN9SRZOFDBAD&...

There you go. 3000x2000 on a 13.9" screen with a reasonably current processor. They have a few updated variants out there. (Was shopping for a 3:2 laptop when Dell finally got around to shipping a 16:10 7" display)

Pretty much every IDE now assumes wide screen and default to a layout with a central editor and navigation/tools sidebars on the sides. And it actually works out great!

I don't think a majority of linux enthusiasts codes mainly in vim or emacs anymore.

No idea. I still use emacs because it's still the most programmable editor. I had some hopes for Atom, but after Microsoft bought GitHub... seems dead-ish.

I'm not convinced on this.

Both Vim & Emacs have hardcore followings and buoyant communities.

Neovim + coc.nvim is massive these days... I know a lot of people who've moved from VSCode (or other big IDEs) over to terminal-based editors...

It would be nice to have the option.

But given that Linux still doesn't have perfect support for display scaling (compared to macOS, for example) and the fact that it's a 15" screen, I would still probably opt for the 1080p if given the option.

I use Fedora on a 4K 15" display with an Intel GPU, and the scaling works fine. However, the Intel GPU is a tad underpowered for the task.

I use a Skylake on a 4K laptop with a 4K external monitor above it. It is plenty fast, with no tearing. Under Qubes, where app VMs don't get to use the GPU, mpv plays full-screen 1080p video using 3 cores.

(Oddly, the external monitor will do 4K only at 30 Hz. I don't know if that is a limitation of the laptop or of the monitor.)

The 30hz thing might be because of an older hdmi version, like 1.4. I have had the same issues and it was a hardware limitation

Pop!_OS (their own Linux distro) has DPI scaling built in. I can actually turn on x2 scaling, and while it's huge on the poor 1080 display, it works perfectly.

Also a lot of the big linux distro's now have support for this. I know Manjaro and Ubuntu can do it with minimal effort.

I have a 13" HP Spectre from mid-2017 with a 4k display. It's noticeably sharper (and brighter) than the 1080p alternatives. Prior to that, I had a QHD laptop from circa 2013. No font size issues on Linux that affected my work.

Actually Linux has my favorite display scaling --- if you just have one screen.

I spend all day with Firefox, terminals, and emacs in XMonad and they all scale perfectly with no raster UI elements. (XMonad's pixel boarder I didn't bother to scale.)

On Windows and MacOS last I checked, there was a lot more resized raster bullshit.

Even with multiple displays it's not that difficult - just pass the scale you want for a given display when calling `xrandr` and things generally just work as long as you're downscaling from the "native" dpi you have X using.

I can never get it to work properly with multiple displays. I have a 4k monitor and two 1080p monitors. Using 192dpi with 2x scale (param passing to xrandr), all kind of display errors popup (wrong color, weird fonts etc).

You can only do integer scales though this way, can’t you?

As for me: I haven't figured it out yet, sometimes a fractional scale works, sometimes you get vague errors. In any case what I have noticed is that quality drops significantly if you use fractionals.

For my set-up at home (1080 - 4k - 1080) I have a simple script, that really was more of a `write once - use always`-experience. E.g.

    xrandr --output HDMI1 --auto --scale 2x2 --pos 0x0+0+0
    xrandr --output eDP1 --auto --scale 2x2 --pos 7680x0+0+0
    xrandr --output DP1 --auto --mode 3840x2160 --scale 1x1 --pos 3840x0+0+0 --primary

So basically what I do is, I virtually up-scale my other screens up to 4k, such that system-wide zoom settings are (more or less) consistent and enjoyable.

If you want fractional scaling I’d suggest you look into wayland.

No, with `xrandr` you can scale to any fractional amount. For example, I had 2 24" external monitors (full-hd, not 4k), and a 13" thinkpad (chromebook, booted into linux). Obviously, the respective DPI's were way off.

Just a quick calculation in a repl, then called xrandr with the right scaling number, and presto, I had them exactly the same.

Then, with precise lining up of the displays, it was basically one seamless "sheet of paper". If I had a long web page or pdf spanning the displays (the laptop was directly under the monitors), then scrolling through it was quite "trippy".

I think because this was now a unified display where the bottom 1/3 was tilted differently to the top 2/3'rds (think of a curved ultrawide, but in portrait mode)

Honestly, it really was that simple.

My configuration panel only has 2 options for scaling: 100% or 200%. Needless to say neither option is very helpful.

There should be a slightly hidden custom option if you're using windows. (Not in the drop-down)

You'll have to relog for the scaling to take effect with custom numbers for some reason

If in Gnome, fractional scaling is possible but not enabled by default. I use 125% and it has been fine. I did it via Gnome-tweak, or you can manually enable it [1].

[1] https://www.linuxuprising.com/2019/04/how-to-enable-hidpi-fr...

It's 2020, we can make rockets land on self-driven barges, and somehow we're still forced to use xrandr manually...? This is the sort of thing that keeps me from going back to the Linux desktop.

You don't have to. Ubuntu 20.04 and Gnome desktop provide a fine hidpi experience. There are a few warts, but it all generally works. If you start dabbling with other desktop environments like xmonad or i3, it gets tricky.

Yeah, I wanted to configure hidpi on linux recently, when I had to work on FHD 14" screen without external monitor for a while. I found no config options in UI, and guides involving xrandr and fifteen different steps on the internet. I thought hell no and abandoned that idea altogether, cranked font size in the terminal and worked like that. And I actually "can" work in Linux and configure easier stuff. As far as I'm concerned at least some distros/DEs have non-existent hidpi support right now.

How do you use xrandr in Wayland?

You don't want to. Wayland-based GTK and Qt should to do per device DPI. XRandR cannot.

Is there any end in sight for the pixel doubling hacks? Why do we even use them any more? Apps should have had plenty time to adapt to higher DPI displays by now, and X11 has supported per display DPI since the 90s and a scale factor on top of this seems obviously wrong.

And for the niche case where you have a big disparity in DPIs of multiple displays + apps that can't adapt to DPI on the fly, scaling up is surely the wrong solution, you should be scaling down no the smaller screen.

I'd guess in Wayland the compositor would be responsible for handling such issues.

I could readily see different filter profiles for different applications. Some of which render, and take input ques, at scaled resolutions.

What I hate a LOT more are games and applications that make any sort of connection between Pixel Aspect Ratio and a display resolution.

I've tried looking a bit into this at one point and my understanding is that it's more a toolkit issue than an app issue.

QT has an option to adapt the size of the widgets according to the reported screen resolution, which seems to kind of work. I don't use that many QT apps, so not sure how this turns out in practice.

However, GTK just doesn't care.

All this is on X11, I hear the situation is somewhat better on Wayland.

I recently got a 2020 Mac mini and I can tell you without hesitation: Linux+Wayland has far superior scaling support than macOS.

macOS only allowed me to run my 3440x1440 display at lower resolutions, but no _actual_ scaling support. The font is around 3mm tall.

Meanwhile, wayland scaling work wonders. The big issue being that xorg-only apps are blurry (it’s recently been fixed in master though).

Ubuntu Unity, which I still use today, has working fractional scaling (in 12.5% steps) for ages now. In fact, I'm pretty sure it had that before even Windows did. Gnome seems to have finally caught up as well, even with Nvidia drivers. Like it or not, 4K is the current standard and going backwards makes no sense.

The MacBook Pro display is better in many more ways than just resolution. It's also has a wide gamut, excellent factory calibration, good contrast, and an effective antireflective coating on its glossy panel. I'd prioritize each of these over increasing the resolution from 1080p.

It’s also actually higher res too! My Late 2013 13” Macbook Pro has a resolution of 2560x1600. I wish more manufacturers would remember that there are specs between 1080p and 4K.

This is true for dektop monitors as well. I had to scout around for a 2560x1440 display for my desktop Ubuntu box. You would think they would be relatively common, but as you say everything was 1080p or 4k, at least when I was shopping in-person pre-covid. I ended up with an AOC gaming monitor that I really like that I bought online.

Couldn't disagree more (writing from MacBook display). I'd take mate FHD pver Macbooks smudgy, glossy retina any time of the _day or year_. Glossy displays in laptops should never have been a thing to begin with and I'm not sure how apple managed to convinced world that this should continue.

I used to think this way too, up until this summer when I spent a lot of time at my parent's house working from the garden.

My personal pc is a 2013 MBP, so glossy screen. My work pc is a hp probook 430 g5 (~2 years old) with a matte screen.

The one that I would take out in the garden when it was sunny was the mac. Sure, I could see myself in it, I had to set the backlight to 100%, but it was possible to focus my eyes such that the text on screen was actually readable. Of course, this implies black text on white background and to sit in such a way as not to have too contrasty a background.

The matte screen of the HP was completely useless. It was just a big blotch of white, it was next to impossible to see the text. I even took out an actual external monitor once to try it out, a Dell P2415Q with a backlight that's blinding inside. Same problem.

Now sure, when there's not a high level of ambient light, the matte screen is more easy to use as there are no reflections. But as soon as there's a source of light that shines on it (and there are cases when you can't control it) it's game over.

Protip: clean the macbook screen from time to time. Even if it doesn't look dirty. I wear glasses, so I use the cleaning spray on the screen. It always amazes me how much better it is afterwards.

In general, and for working outside especially, i recommend the Solarized colorscheme. It is optimized for good readability and contrast, while being easy on the eyes. https://github.com/altercation/solarized

Solarized is diarrhea Christmas lights.

Pardon the choice of words, but it is the only effective way I could convey my opinion re solarized and most color schemes.

Most color schemes try too hard to differentiate everything, lack good contrast and do not aid in understanding the code. Many of them and as a good example solarized, lack good contrast. I had so many issues trying to find a good scheme, that I resorted to creating my own for Jetbrain software, and make due with some of the rainglow schemes on VSCode. The themes are mostly black text on white background and the highlights are not obtrusive so as to draw more attention that the core. In the end, I spend more effort trying to mute the loudness of the colours than reading the content.

> It is optimized for good readability and contrast

It most certainly is not. Solarized is a low contrast theme by design and fails accessibility standards for text contrast.

Honest question: what is an example of a good accessible color theme? I'm assuming Solarized is not a good choice for those with color blindness? Please explain, I'm very interested in color and accessibility.

> what is an example of a good

Good for you is the one you enjoy using. Good for me is the one I enjoy using. Even if I didn't have a problem with Solarized's lower contrast, I would still think that its colors are hideous.

The problem for many with low-contrast themes is that they often aren't focusing on keeping contrast high. They're mostly focused on keeping contrast low. They aim to avoid being "too contrasty" without targeting being "goodly contrasty".

> color blindness?

Color blindness is its own set of problems. To the best of my knowledge I'm not colorblind. I just can't easily read poorly differentiated text unless I really crank up my screen's brightness or make the text much larger. The problem I think is mostly one of pupil physics relating to the impact of external light on pupil dilation and how that affects both focus accuracy (pinhole cameras focus perfectly without lenses) and also the amount of light entering the eye (smaller aperture means less total light, less light means less difference between light things and and dark things). Neural color perception is another issue that is related but only sort of. Or maybe there's an analog to colorblindness that we just don't talk about that deals with sensitivity to luminosity variations. IDK.

I have a complete opposite experience. I recently switched from Thinkpad t490s to macbook pro 16". I tend to work outside in the mornings and the glare has been driving me crazy. I'd rather have slightly less bright screen but actually see the content instead of my own morning bed-hair!

The HP is only 208 nits of brightness. 300 nits is considered by many to be the absolute minimum for being outside. The Mac is probably 500 nits.

> smudgy

Could you elaborate on this? Maybe you've enabled font smoothing?

Leaves visible finger prints / marks on screen

Just close your lid to find out! Everytime I open my macbook I'm greeted with a lovely print of my keyboard on my screen! You could call me out on my cheetos fingers but I use an external keyboard... As if the laptop wasn't heavy enough I have to carry a whole cleaning suite to actually see something.

My MacBook Pro screen has less glare, or at least better color than my LG Ultrawide in similar conditions. Even at the worst angles, I can still read everything just fine. I'm not going to be editing photos in an airport, but it doesn't get in my way when coding.

They convinced the world by pumping up the brightness and providing better color than other matte screens.

This heavily depends on the model. My 2017 MBP has a worse (less bright and worse antireflective coating) display than my 2015 MBP.

Yes, but except for the (and here I mean resolution, not gloss), apple laptops are a mediocre choice in general.

I mean, that OS experience, man. It's like people are living in an abusive relationship that hasn't improved since 1998.

Agreed. The displays, speakers, touch pads on Apple products are amazingly good. But the pro laptops have been in steady decline as Apple gears them to the average user more and more over the years, instead of the power user like they were originally built for. I think System76 has the right direction for power users, shiny screens and crisp sound doesn't help me hunt through gigabytes of data and millions of lines of code.

For a 14" display, I think that a 2k display is a better option.

That's only 1k in double-pixel remdering. Much less smooth.

Why would you get a 2k screen and then render a 1k image on it?

The Adder has a 4K display, and the Bonobo has the option.

But both are Intel/nVidia.

I could take or leave 4k, but at least 2k (~2560x1440)? Having their 2020 high-end 15.6" maxing out at 1080p is just ridiculous and I'd probably have bought at least one of their laptops if they had a sub-2kg model with just one step up in resolution.

Anything above 1080p doesn't give you any more usable screen space at that physical size. It's very debatable whether just having richer blacks is worth the battery life hit.

Speaking from experience and having played around with fonts, scaling and DPI, I still feel a bit hampered switching back to my Thinkpad t470s (14" 1080p) from a long time on my t490s (14" 1440p). I do use pretty small terminal fonts.

yes it does. the market clearly wants higher res screens, that's why "Retina Display" has been a major marketing point for Apple for years, and you literally haven't been able to buy a Macbook with a 1080p screen for years. This is not even for tech enthusiasts or professional uses, it's basic tablestakes in the market now.

> you literally haven't been able to buy a Macbook with a 1080p screen for years.

You are technically right, but to be fair, it has been barely more than one year. Apple sold their 2017 model of the 13" MacBook Air, 1440x900, in July 2019:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190708170222/https://www.apple...

No it doesn't. There are mostly PC laptops with 1080p precisely because of people like me who only want 1080p because more pixels are pretty useless. Have you actually shopped for one recently? Top hits on Amazon are all FHD.

> "Retina Display" has been a major marketing point for Apple for years...

Exactly. And that's all it is - marketing, particularly for egoists who want to feel like they're better however they can. The vast majority of the market, mostly those who don't use Macs, don't give a shit.

Eh? It’s not useless and it’s not all marketing, and it’s certainly not all about feeling superior. I feel like you’re projecting.

It’s completely simple: I enjoy reading content on a higher res screen. It’s clearer and easier on my eyes. That’s all there is to it.

Right, because Mac users aren't generally known for carrying around this air of superiority by saying things like "everybody wants what I have with my Retina/M1/touchpad gestures/etc."

If you like the way text looks on a Retina display just say that. Instead you're here on a thread about a PC product that you'll probably never use, acting like anyone that doesn't have a 4k display must be missing out. (You're right, I must be projecting :) Personally, I like desktop rigs with 1080p, a 5 button vertical mouse and 32-64gb of RAM in a quiet private office. I don't optimize for working on planes, trains and in meetings even though I do own a PC and Mac laptop as well...

Look at all the top listings here though- they're all FHD. Nobody cares about 4K on a laptop display - https://www.amazon.com/s?k=laptop&ref=nb_sb_noss

I see two on the top page with 2k. But none with >16GB RAM and they’re all Windows - guess only egotistic people want Linux and 32GB RAM?

Some people do make use of a higher res screen, just because you don’t doesn’t make it useless. I haven’t wanted or owned an Apple computer for 10 years.

> ... none with >16GB RAM and they’re all Windows - guess only egotistic people want Linux and 32GB RAM?

Huh? Hardly anybody sells Linux laptops, mostly not on Amazon either. I think you'll be hard pressed to find many laptops pre-configured with 32GB RAM on Amazon too.

> Some people do make use of a higher res screen, just because you don’t doesn’t make it useless.

Okay, but the person I was responding to said that 4k is "table stakes". It's clearly not. Point being - not everybody wants a 4k screen. I didn't say that they were useless to everybody, I said that essentially "most people don't want or need them".

Most of the market just wants the cheapest thing that will allow them to chat on facebook and watch netflix.

If you are a professional and spend 10 hours a day at your computers, you will realize the quality of the screen matters a lot.

As seen developer with 1080p at 14" inch I cannot stand the ugly fonts you get.

It's not just about real estate. Just out side by side a 1440p/retina screen next to a 1080p and you will see the difference.

It's ok if you value battery, good for you. But saying there is no advantage is ridiculous.

I've been a professional programmer for over 20 years and I have tried many, many different screen resolutions. I have a 2015 Macbook Pro right here next to my Acer E5-575G with 15.6" Full HD (1080p) screen.

Comparing them directly - I have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. Fonts, images and the UI look just as good if not better. I'll say better since I think the Mac UI is hideous.

You're right though - it's definitely not about screen real-estate because with Retina/2k/4k the OS typically has to scale everything up so you basically lose any real-estate that would have been gained in the first place. That's ridiculous IMO.

The only place I use Retina/2k/4k is for gaming and movies and I definitely am not doing either of those activities on a lowly laptop.

It doesn't

Retina display are simply more dense but add nothing to the screen real estate , nobody uses them at 1x I bet many don't even know that every pixel they see is actually 4 pixels on the monitor

Better have a larger monitor than a 13 inches packed with useless and expensive pixels

Yeah, I’ve terrible vision, and I can still tell the lack of sharpness at 15” 1920.

Actually, the lack of sharpness makes it even harder to read.

Apple has never sold a laptop with a 4K panel. Highest resolution of any Macbook was the 2019 Macbook Pro 16" with 3072x1920. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_display#Models

I really do wonder where exactly 4K would begin if more and weirder resolutions were commercially available. Like, the fact that 3840x2160 is considered the canonical 4K resolution means you don’t actually need 4000 pixels, just a number that’s close to 4000. I wonder what would happen if someone dropped a 3800x2000 display just to mess with people.

That is just double 1980x1080, and if you shuffle it a little you get a 4000x2000 pixels, but that would mean your aspect ratio is different than what people are used to.

Yep, kind of a deal breaker for me, which is a bummer because this almost looks perfect for me. It seems this is a weakness across their product range.

AMD integrated graphics needs a bit of explaining to me is this the performance monster variety or Intel graphics is actually faster type of deal. How many external screens can I drive with this setup? My main use case for this would be using Darktable. For the same reason I want a good HDPI screen. Otherwise, this would be a development machine (docker, misc jetbrains stuff, homebrew, some data engineering, and all the usual stuff). So looking for ram and CPU that is faster than what I have today (2018 15" MBP).

My mac book pro is literally falling apart (keyboard) at this point and I'm not eager to jump on the ARM bandwagon yet as it will mess up my tool workflow short term (Java, docker, intellij, homebrew) and cause me compatibility headaches I just don't need in my life right now. I am liking the performance though. All the software that I use runs fine on Linux. So, not a hypothetical option for me. I'd be up and running in a few hours with little to no loss of functionality.

I don't care about legacy ports; USB-C dongles are cheap and effective and I have a few in my bag. Likewise with hdmi to usb-c. What I do care about is being able to connect my Thunderbolt USB-C phone, fuji camera, hard drives, external screen, etc. I'm thinking of adding a headphone to that mix. 2 USB-3.2 ports seems like it's limited.

I just picked up a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7. The only thing I can fault it on is the screen, the brightness is a bit anemic and there is some bleed. However, the performance is fantastic. I've been using it for image processing, and the 8C16T gets through my problems at the same speed as my desktop Ryzen 2700X. Similarly the onboard GPU is sufficient for playing Witcher 3, at just a slightly lower performance than my RX580.

It has 2 legacy USB-A ports, MicroSD, HDMI and a USB-C-3.2 which I've used to run a 4K screen at 60Hz.

Price was very reasonable. I'm happy, this has stepped up my laptop CPU performance by a factor of 4, the GPU can now do all the stuff I want from a laptop, and it's compact and has good standby life.

If you need a 4k matte display, consider Purism Librem 15.

https://puri.sm/products/librem-15

I have one, and it's an amazing laptop. However, as Purism are focused on privacy and free (as in freedom) software, they won't put in a gpu.

System76, for me, seems to have a balance between coreboot and as much free software as possible. But also the addition of a proprietary blob full gpu.

Also the system76 cpu specs are slightly higher.

This is MY experience. I have run 4k on my ThinkPad X1 Extreme with Linux. Its not been a good experience for me. I am getting old and having vision issues, so I decided to get the 4k screen because my old MacBookPro 2015 had the high res and worked well with my eyes, it just didn't have the 15" screen.

Display Managers: When Linux boots in a 4k screen, the GRUB menu is impossible to read, so I have it memorized. I have tried many Display Managers, some recognize 4k and adapt with no issue, many do not. GDM and SDDM work well, XDM not so much, fonts are all over the place.

X11 (it has an NVIDIA card) There are some apps which refuse to adapt to 4k if you are running GNOME (and yes I use the QT_SCALE_FACTOR). Then there are apps written in WXWIDGETS. Steam menus and items are unreadable to me. Some Window Managers barely support HiDPI displays (XFCE I am looking at you). It goes on and on, by the end of the day its a very frustrating experience. GNOME (and it's derivatives) do it the best so far, KDE has issues with icon sizes and the panel. XFCE has multiple issues, so much that I gave up on it quickly and can't remember them all (and it looked awful). i3 was a little tricky at first but it can be configured to work well, but you need to adapt all the apps and bars too.

Other OSes: Even MS Windows has frequent problems with the screen magnification. macOS just gets it right, and I never had ANY of these issues, except small fonts in the firmware screen.

For my next laptop I will go back to 1920x1080 and avoid all these problems and start using AMD GPU's so I dont have to turn off secure boot and stop using X11.

> Display Managers: When Linux boots in a 4k screen, the GRUB menu is impossible to read, so I have it memorized.

weird, I have a 4k screen but the bios, grub, etc are just scaled across the screen. A bit blurry of course but definitely readable.

Tip: install Pop!_OS - Nvidia edition. I also have a (1st gen) Thinkpad X1 Extreme with a 4K screen. In addition to that, I have 3 external 4K screens connected to it (so 4x 4K screens in total), and it runs smoothly without having needed any additonal config/customization.

I tried popos, but still have an unreadable grub screen.

Is that the only issue there? Sounds like it's not worth going back to 1080p over.

It can be fixed.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI#Boot_managers

How much work does it take to get Ubuntu to a good state with Nvidia drivers. e.g. equivalent of ease of use of Pop!_OS. I have a Thinkpad X1 Extreme (Gen3) on the way, and I am researching Pop!_OS vs. Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. I am leaning Ubuntu but if you tell me there is something magical in the Nvidia Pop!_OS distribution that is hard/impossible to replicate in Ubuntu 20.04 I would consider it.

If I install Xfce instead of Gnome desktop will I break the magic?

tangent: Who the hell let them name Pop!_OS, such an engineer name.

I’ve tried both. There is no magic except few additional tools to enhance desktop experience like power manager [0] and hi resolution daemon[1]

[0]https://github.com/pop-os/system76-power

[1]https://blog.system76.com/post/174414833678/all-about-the-hi...

Thanks. I’m playing around with popos this weekend.

Fwiw, my default method of managing the NVIDIA drivers on Ubuntu 18.04 is by installing the System76 driver package using the directions from their site. I found that to make it way easier than doing it manually, especially bc I needed to manage two CUDA versions on one machine.

I wouldn't guess that switching away from GNOME would break hardware compatibility drivers, but I could be wrong.

You can change the GRUB loader resolution in config, my dear penguin.

Also, KDE is better in all regards. Ditch gnome.

> Also, KDE is better in all regards. Ditch gnome.

Yup, did that, GNOME looks nice, but... KDE has some issues with HiDPI, like a mouse pointer that is way too small on window controls. Yes I did change the cursor size to 48, but it does not work with what I assume is a kwin issue. So the cursor hops from one size to another all over the place.

This may be a bug in an older KDE version. I'm on debian testing with running the latest stuff from https://www.preining.info/blog/2020/12/debian-kde-plasma-sta... . I'm no longer running into those HiDPI issues in gnome or kde apps (some wxwidgets stuff is still wonky). Nothing ends up the wrong scale when using Plasma Wayland, but there are still other issues that aren't worked out that keep it from being perfect either. You might quickly try the KDE Neon distro on a live usb disk to see if it behaves better and then you'll know if the bugs you're running into have been fixed. https://neon.kde.org/

> You can change the GRUB loader resolution in config, my dear penguin.

But why do you have to? Why doesn't it use a reasonably sized font by default?

Since you are of the opinion that it is a small matter of programming, and it is an open-source project that takes contributions, you should definitely go write that.

Since it has not already happened, you may assume one of the following:

- it is in the works but has not made it to the version you are using.

- nobody else thought of that, congratulations

- it turns out to be harder than just identifying the issue

that's a bit snippy for a response to a fairly reasonable question

Pardon me but that sounds rather entitled.

You can change GRUB and add your own fonts, yes:

   GRUB_GFXMODE=1920x1080
   GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep
   GRUB_FONT="/boot/grub/fonts/DejaVuSans30.pcf"

but you can't change the framebuffer resolution:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/201965/setting-the-...

..or at least if you can, no one has bothered to answer my question on how for several years.

I quite like the QHD ThinkPad displays (2560x1440), very similar to the quality of a Retina.

Using XFCE 4.14-r2 (Gentoo) and things are okish with Intel GPU (Lenovo P71, 17' 4k panel). But I did not use the option "Window Scaling" (currently set to 1x) instead I changed in the Fonts-tab the "Custom DPI settings" setting it to 192.

The only problem that I have left is with Google Chrome & Vinagre: whenever I move the cursor inside their windows it stops being scaled up (therefore it becomes tiny). Used to work fine, changed during some recent update :(

This gets into the technical details more than I am able to, but I agree completely. I also have older eyes, and 4k was just unusable (on a Galago with a 13" screen). I could have scaled down by a factor of two, but that was too coarse.

I exchanged the Galago for a 14" Darter, and 1920x1280 is just right.

The Pangolin looks pretty nice to me.

I'm in the same boat where my eyes were not as good as they used to be and I often run a scaled display rather than 1:1. I'm using Ubuntu 18.x LTS and it comes out of the box with gnome but I primarily use i3wm. I was able to scale my display to be 25% larger and every app by adding this line to my .Xresources:

  Xft.dpi: 125

Same. I use the Xresources and scale factor environment variables for my desktop with its 32 inch screen and I love it. It's great. But for a laptop, you get a little crispness on the text, but in general there's no reason to get a 4K display on a 13~15 inch screen. It's not worth all that effort.

Specifically regarding GRUB:

Add these lines to /etc/default/grub: GRUB_GFXMODE=1024x768x32 GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep

And then run: sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

(see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB/Tips_and_tricks#Se...)

Tip: Check the Arch Wiki's HiDPI page... There is a bit more to it thank QT_SCALE_FACTOR.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI

I agree with some other posters here that I don't need it to be 4k, but 1080p is bad enough to be a deal killer for me. The only reason I don't buy System76 laptops is their terrible displays — I love PopOS (so much that I donate monthly to it) and would buy their hardware in a heartbeat otherwise.

> The only reason I don't buy System76 laptops is their terrible displays

You've never used a laptop with a decent touchpad? Or one without a loud fan? Or one with a good battery capacity?

The displays are not the only lackluster thing about System76 hardware.

4k is overkill at this size. 1440p is better for battery size and you would scale 4k up to 1440p effective anyway.

I agree I would be happy with 2k as well. But this doesn't appear to be offered in laptops for some reason.

1080p == 2K

1080p is 1920x1080 and 2k is 2560x1440

I don't doubt it's used that way, but that makes absolutely zero sense.

For that matter, it's 1080p that's half the (linear) resolution of 4k.

What? Who defines 1440p as 2k?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K_resolution

2K is a generic term for resolutions that have a horizontal resolution of approximately 2,000 pixels. In terms of cinema the DCI standard for 2K is 2048x1080. There is also the flat cropped resolution of 1998x1080 and the cinemascope cropped resolution of 2048x858. 1080p has the same vertical resolution as DCI 2K and it's horizontal resolution is also approximately 2,000. 2560x1440 is 560 pixels more than 2,000 compared to 1920x1080 which is only 80 pixels away. That is 7x further away from exactly 2,000. Calling 2560x1440 2K is too big of a stretch. If you wanted to give it a name based upon its approximate horizontal resolution then you should call it 2.5K.

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

The main problem is that it is low dpi. It means you can't really connect a high external dpi monitor and then use both displays at the same time, because linux can't (or at lest couldn't within the last year) handle displays with different DPI.

All my screens are 1440p and the same model, so there's that.

I bought a Oryx Pro about 2 1/2 years ago to get a laptop with an NVidia GPU. I bought the high resolution version, but sometimes run it at the lower 1920x1080 resolution.

I just looked and they don’t seem to offer the higher resolution right now on that model.

Anyway, it is a fine laptop.

I would prefer 2K res on a laptop. On a 15 inch screen, 4K is overkill - I have to increase desktop scaling to read text, so there's no increase in screen real estate. Higher res drains the battery faster as well.

It's crazy that many laptops are 1080p in 2020. Such low resolution is unacceptable to the majority of users.

And here am I with the 1680x1050 monitor... I agree though

AFAIK they just resell commodity generic laptops under their brand and they do some System76 specific things to them such as open source bios firmwares. I may be wrong but when I looked into them years back thats what I uncovered. I think if they want to differentiate themselves as a high end ubuntu/developer machine they're going to need the things people want (or don't know they want). My personal needs are high res, bright, color accurate, crisp displays (currently loving my Samsung Galaxy Chromebook) and high quality keyboards. I don't really know of a device that has both.

my galp2 has the 4k display. I'm not sure why they changed. It's been great. .. well, except for tiny grub text.

This is by far the biggest reason I don't buy these.

The marketing is weird on this product.

- named "pangolin" and illustrated with a bull - the bull is disturbingly ugly - the introduction makes no sense to me? Is team red the Democrat party?

I agree it’s a bit weird but I think I’ve cracked it: the red is referring to AMD’s main brand color (“team red”). They are rolling out the red carpet like a matador/torero uses red cloth to bait a raging bull. They are also saying “no bull” as a play on words to say they aren’t bullshitting us by putting out this laptop with all AMD components. As for “pangolin”, I think that’s just them reusing the model name that was previously used for this form factor in their lineup.

Teams:

red - amd green - nvidia blue - intel

The three big CPU/GPU companies are often (between each other, at least) called Team Red, Green, and Blue - for AMD, Nvidia, and Intel.

Among CPU geeks “Team Red” means AMD. If you’re talking about their GPU competition then “Team Green” is Nvidia, and if you’re talking about their CPU competition “Team Blue” is Intel (and in American politics, Team Red generally would refer to the Republicans). I can’t speak to the aesthetics of the Bull or the odd choice of the mammal best known in the West for spreading Covid to humans as the version mascot, but hey, it’s original.

I am in Europe and it's the first time ever I hear about bulls spreading Covid to humans.

Pangolin

The pangolin as an intermediate host between bats and humans is a valid virologist theory, but as far as I am aware there is no physical evidence for these zoonotic jumps, is there?

As far as I've been able to tell, the evidence for pangolins as the vector for Covid is somewhat circumstantial at the moment, based largely on their presence in the Wuhan wet market that has been implicated in early spread, a history of pangolins being found to carry and transmit various coronaviruses similar to Covid-19, and some specifically suspicious test results in pangolins from the market. Nothing specifically causative that I've seen (AFAIK, the link to the wet market as the source rather than an early transmission location isn't even well-established).

I suspect that, given we're a year on from the initial transmission of the virus in humans, unless the Chinese government has more research they haven't made public, we'll likely never know the truth.

> AFAIK, the link to the wet market as the source rather than an early transmission location isn't even well-established

My understanding is that there's really no evidence for it being the source at all; it's effectively a myth. It was an early super spreader, but there's no particular reason to think it was the _source_.

I was referring to the Pangolin, which I had never heard of until 10 months ago. Mascot was probably the wrong word, but I don’t know what else to call the naming trend of “use an animal name that starts with the letter we want”.

Penguin? Most people will run Linux on it anyway

Oh believe me, you won’t be confusing a pangolin for a penguin anytime soon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin

That's not very precise of you.

First time I hear about a pangolin-Covid connection too. As far as the animal angle of the Covid goes the only thing that I can think of, with effort, is the mink, because of Dutch culling them in bulk in recent weeks. Nothing else.

Edit - looked it up. Ah, so that's about the Chinese market trading exotic wild animals that was the ground zero of the outbreak. Never remembered that it had pangolins in the mix and I doubt that very many people do.

I thought it was a bat? Never heard of a pangolin wrt to covid either.

pangolin unheard of until pandemic for sure but made it into household enough to be a starring feature in the South Park pandemic episode I noticed

Yes but if you buy one of these, install Ubuntu 12.04, and set your wallpaper to some of these lovely creatures then you can look at pangolins on Pangolin on your Pangolin. And isn't that what life's really all about in the end?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVt5EZNAqLU

South Park did it. Probably NSFW

The parent was talking about pangolins, although ironically there's data to show that bovines can also contract and transmit COVID-19. What a time to be alive! (or at the very least not yet dead in a pandemic!)

I have to say I cringe a bit when I see terms like this and it's oddly off-putting to me.

It's a little like if you're shopping for a video game console or a phone and can't get a straight answer on anything due to children arguing over which brand's product they like better all over the internet.

I get that it's just terminology but it's always struck me as odd that buyers would affiliate themselves so strongly with a brand in an open, competitive marketplace.

At least between (for example) Android and iPhones there are objective differences that might matter to you in picking one or the other, but for internal components that fundamentally don't impact how the device works it seems odd to have such strong feelings about it.

Surely all I care about as the consumer is if this laptop is objectively better for my use case than my other options in its price range?

I hear these a lot but I've never heard someone self-identify as being on "Team Green" or whatever. They're just nicknames.

> At least between (for example) Android and iPhones there are objective differences that might matter to you in picking one or the other, but for internal components that fundamentally don't impact how the device works it seems odd to have such strong feelings about it.

The choice between AMD and Nvidia has a strong impact on how your device will work - and that is beyond just performance.

> I get that it's just terminology but it's always struck me as odd that buyers would affiliate themselves so strongly with a brand in an open, competitive marketplace.

I feel the same way about politics

I don't think it's necessarily that people affiliate themselves with a specific team, like some do with xBox vs Playstation for example. Team names have been more popular lately due to the comeback of AMD, where a lot of people were rooting for "team red" so that the CPU market wouldn't be as stagnant. However most people still just buy the product with the most performance per dollar, or support for their software.

>At least between (for example) Android and iPhones there are objective differences that might matter to you in picking one or the other, but for internal components that fundamentally don't impact how the device works

There are fundamental differences to AMD vs Nvidia GPUs if you're using them in a professional context. Main one being if the software you need uses CUDA acceleration you need to buy Nvidia because it's their technology and will not run on an AMD card.

> I can’t speak to the aesthetics of the Bull or the odd choice of the mammal best known in the West for spreading Covid to humans as the version mascot

IIRC the Pangolin is already on their laptop lineup since a couple of years.

The thing that confused me was saying no bull in at least two sentences, and having a huge bull in the middle of the picture.

"No bull" in this case being short for "no bullshit" - no misleading, exaggeration, or lies. It's an idiom, possibly an American one but I'm not sure. They're using it here as a pun.

> and in American politics, Team Red generally would refer to the Republicans

Interestingly, this is surprisingly recent. In 20th century Democrats were usually (though not always) red, and Republicans blue, which would approximate UK usage (red for Labour, blue for Tories). Some TV network switched in the 90s, and it just caught on. Apparently 2000 was the first time it was done consistently.

Right. Red is normally for lefties... ("Red" being a reference to communism, I guess).

Wikipedia has a great article on all the different ways that color is used in politics:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_colour

I believe that it's a reference to the colloquialism that references how matadors use red capes to fight bulls:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=seeing%20red

So Team Red -> Seeing Red -> Bull?

Poor old pangolins. Personally I'd heard of them because they're so critically endangered with extinction. They seem like quite timid little creature. Hopefully their involvement in Covid transmission will encourage people to stop eating them or using them for bullshit folk medicine.

No, it’s from the ATI logo which is red and was co-opted by AMD after its acquisition of ATI in 2006. Team red is AMD, team green is Nvidia, and team blue is Intel. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/81r2d9/what_is_red_tea...

It unintentionally may attract various political party fans, as well as other fans of the color red.

Coincidentally, China is associated with the color red, and AMD was forced out of China in 2019 for having a relationship that was too close: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-tried-to-stop-china-acquiri... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD–Chinese_joint_venture

But, team green and team blue have China links as well. For example: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/technology/china-intel-nv... And also possibly relevant (x86): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin

As for the bull- bulls are associated with red for multiple reasons ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muleta in bullfighting, Red Bull caffeinated drink, color of Bulls NBA team jerseys). System76 marketing: “No bull. ...Is it charging? It's charging. Must be all the AMD red. Time to run. No, bull!”

The "democrat" party (actually Democratic, using "democrat" is a Republican party slur) in the US is conventionally blue and the Republican party is conventionally red.

Red has also been used for "workers" parties and organizations, like the UK Labour party and various socialist and communist parties.

I'm pretty sure that the choice of red by System76 has nothing to do with politics.

Corrected, thanks

Yeah IMO they should have hired a different SFX studio to make the bull.

Additionally, the bull is a reference to how bulls are tortured for sport in many cultures, which I found very out of place for marketing material.

Many cultures? Where outside of Spain?

Also, I’d associate the bull with anger and power on the bull’s part, because of the breeding and/or natural selection to favor it. The bull is also angry at being penned and possibly maltreated, before being killed.

Who would breed a bull to be harder to handle?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Fighting_Bull

“During the breeding, in order to preserve their natural characteristics, the bulls rarely encounter human beings, and if ever, never on foot.

...

Some commentators trace the origins of the fighting bull to wild bulls from the Iberian Peninsula and their use for arena games in the Roman Empire. Although the actual origins are disputed, genetic studies have indicated that the breeding stock have an unusually old genetic pool.

The aggression of the bull has been maintained (or augmented, see above) by selective breeding and has come to be popular among the people of Spain and Portugal and the parts of Latin America where it took root during colonial rule, as well as parts of Southern France, where bullfighting spread during the 19th century.

In May 2010, Spanish scientists cloned the breed for the first time. The calf, named Got, meaning "glass" in Valencian, was cloned from a bull named Vasito and implanted into a Friesian host mother.”

> bulls are tortured for sport

and

> The bull is also angry at being penned and possibly maltreated, before being killed.

Related to the GP's point: are any of these things being associated with your brand going to be a good thing?

Is there a segment of the market that identifies with (not just sympathises with) tortured, maltreated animals that are soon to be murdered for sport?

I guess it’s a cultural difference because I don’t associate those things immediately with the word “bull”, even when it’s in the context of “red”.

If someone were to say,”Do you want a Red Bull?” would you get upset?

that's a good point. No, I wouldn't. And I guess that Red Bull's market are not the sympathetic sort ;)

>Where outside of Spain?

Portugal, France, Mexico and Colombia off the top of my head. I'm sure there are other countries in South America as well.

Bull-baiting? Practically everywhere in Europe and North America at one time or another, anyway, I would think.

I'm less sure of how popular bull-torturing was elsewhere, but I would guess quite popular. Blood sports were a big deal more or less worldwide until surprisingly recently.

> Many cultures? Where outside of Spain?

While many countries outlawed this for of torture-as-a-sport, Wikipedia indicates it's also still a thing in Portugal, Southern France, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Peru.

I know other countries use to have this but banned the practice.

The Democrats are associated with the color blue, it is the Republicans that are associated with the color red. But as other has pointed out Team Red in this context has no political implication.

I agree though that the marketing is indeed weird.

I remember when they would switch colors back and forth between democrat and republican, each election, but somehow those colors stuck one time.

Nothing saying you can't switch them around..

You and I could decide right now to switch them around. Or even assign totally different colors. It might have a slight impact though on our ability to be understood by the the rest of the world.

PS. I haven’t verified this but I’ve heard that the current colors were assigned in the year 2000.

"Democratic" party.

It's such a small thing amidst all the other political noise, but it seems so quaint that George W. Bush actually apologized for using the phrase "democrat majority".

Well, the team red comment is unfair, as literally the next word explains what it means. Context:

> sporting components from team red. AMD Ryzen CPUs team up with AMD Radeon integrated graphics

I can't deal with these 16:9 screens. Especially when almost all models have a plastic "chin" at the bottom of the screen where the missing pixels (to make it a full 16:10 screen) would be - there's clearly room for it, so put it there.

16:9 is optimized for watching video and not much else. Give me back my pixels. Luckily some vendors have finally begun to see the light on this issue (Dell XPS, Huawei Mate, LG Gram - Microsoft even goes 3:2).

Man I would love for 4:3 screens to make a comeback. The way things are going, I'm expecting 10,000,000x1 displays to be common in a few years.

It's astounding to me that nobody is making modern 4:3 screens. I made my Thinkpad T60 last far longer than it should've just because I didn't want to give up the aspect ratio.

I think the closest you can get is 3:2 on the Microsoft Surface line for modern laptops, which is even more vertical real estate.

actually that's slightly wider than 4:3

(1.5 vs 1.33)

doh, thanks

I really like 21x9 on the desktop since you can split it in half and be pretty close to two 4x3 monitors (1.16 vs 1.33).

For laptops, one of the main limiting factors is the "width when in a bag", or simply the "height". Standard 15"/16" is the limit of most backpack widths.

Going to 3:2 or 4:3 would simply mean a narrower screen, if you want to keep the same backpack-ability.

I'm on a System76 Lemur Pro these days and really love it. It's light, keyboard feels good, battery life is great. Echo the desire expressed in other comments here of wanting nicer / higher res screens. But having been on Arch+xmonad/dmenu/i3 etc. before for a while then main-ing mac since then, PopOS on this laptop feels like a good convenience combo (Bluetooth setup etc. works easily) with something like Regolith. The hardware being actually supported the way System76 does it is comforting, esp. with the open source firmware code (I don't ever do anything with that but it's just comforting in some way I guess).

What's the advantage of using Regolith over i3? I'm curious because I have i3 set up, and want to see if Regolith is worth switching to.

I would actually explicitly pick switching from an already-satisfactory i3 setup to a Regolith setup as maybe not worth it (unless you're literally just doing it for kicks, I guess?).

In my case: I've done i3 setups before and then haven't main'd Linux in a bit, then when back on it tried to see how well I could fare with minimum system setup, and Regolith gave me a good-ish i3 config out of the box (along with dark matching GTK3 theme and terminal themes etc.). I did end up tweaking the files though to change up some keybinds and indicate fan speed + thermals in the bar. So it ended up being mostly 1) just a config starter (incl. most bar widgets you'd want) that I can also maybe rebase on if they update upstream in a way that matters 2) a way to get very consistent system theming across i3 setup and GTK.

Regolith is just a software suite like gnome-desktop that attempts to make a coherent i3 system without having to find solutions for the parts of the desktop environment that i3 doesn't manage.

Advantage of using it is you get a set of sensible defaults rather than having to put together your own.

If you're an i3 veteran there is little if any advantage to switch. I was turned off by Regoliths' key bindings which deviate from vanilla i3.Regolith does have some nice features like parsing your config to display a helpful key map.

As a recent owner of a Lenovo Flex 5 14 with AMD4700U, I recommend verifying that USB-C alternate mode / Display Port capability is available. On the Flex 5 it isn't and it's quite annoying that docking for multiple displays, etc. is nerfed.

It's mystifying that there's pretty much no availability of competitive spec'd machines for such a great performing processor / GPU on the market. This Pangolin is slightly amazing for allowing up to 64GB of RAM -- all other options using AMD Ryzen 4XXX I've seen are limited to 8GB of soldered RAM, 1080p display, and 720p webcam. I was somehow lucky and got a 16GB version of the Flex 5 in July. Now it's completely disappeared from the market.

It just feels like dark market forces are preventing good options that people really want to buy.

How can one check what one's usb-c port supports? I have a Lenovo yoga 920 (I think that's what it is... Got it as a warranty replacement for a different device). I have a usb-c to HDMI adaptor from the first device and it doesn't work on this newer device, which is quite annoying.

Just check the device specs on any technical site, and look for USB-C PD (power delivery) and DP (DisplayPort).

I agree it's not easy many times because of all the different modalities of USB-C. And, as a shopper, it feels like many in the industry is preying upon that ambiguity.

"alternate mode" support and "display port" support are the keywords I know to look for. Or alternatively, beware of ones that say "Data and Power Distribution (PD) only"

Seeing it not mentioned in the Pangolin specs doesn't give me hope for this unit -- no mention in the expansion ports section AND no mention in the video ports section. Red flags for me and my desired way of computing.

I have also found this. it always seems to be a spec/display conflict and I think it results from us sitting between two very large markets. Consumer space prioritizes decent displays at the cost of poor quality-control/cheap components to keep costs down because that's what sells, and Enterprise space seems to drive costs down by aiming for better reliability at the expense of display options because the buyers are not the users, so the bad display kind of "doesn't matter" to the buyer and doesn't actually prevent work getting done like insufficient RAM might. The final nail in the coffin is Lenovo et. al, leaving off good display options so they don't cannibalize adjacent or higher product lines. :( Pretty massive first world problem, but annoying nonetheless.

The 4500U and 4700U are a different market segment than the 4700H and 4800H. If you buy a gaming laptop, you can get 32 or 64 GB of RAM, dual SSDs, and a GTX, RTX, or RX GPU.

I agree. But that comes at a cost of weight and bulk. The Pangolin is a 4700U. There should be a great 4700U option that competes with top-of-the-line Mac and Dell Intel SKUs.

The Asus VivoBook and HP Envy x360 try to play in the same space.

> Display 15.6″ 1920×1080 FHD, Matte Finish

It's 2021 ffs...

Can we get a high res display 9 years after apple's first retina macbook?

Every 2 or 3 years I think to myself: maybe this year? I check System and other laptop vendors in their tier. Disappointment.

I'm sure there are a lot of economic issues that I don't understand but here is my request:

. all the ram possible . pretty good CPU w/ lots of cores . a good keyboard (no numpad) . a good 4k-ish screen . a big battery (if you make this laptop, ppl will optimize the software to make it last) . decent speakers . is it too much to ask for a decent GPU?

Overall: please just make a premium laptop and charge a lot. There are more ppl on the Internet like me than you realize.

Things no one cares about:

. thin

I haven’t owned one but wouldn’t the Dell XPS series fit your description?

XPS are great but I would caution about poor thermal management, even after reseating the GPU and CPU cores it doesn't take much to hit the CPU temp limits with full fans.

Yea, I've always had trouble with XPS thermals. I've had two personal ones with thermal and battery issues and decided I wouldn't get another ... and then I got one for work and it has a lot of the same quirks. Not the best Linux machines honestly.

We have XPS in our office and the 15 inch ones with 45W chips and nvidia graphics are a disaster. Over half of them have/had various issues: overheating, constant power/thermal throttling, sleep issues, trackpad issues, charging issues, HDMI issues, keyboard issues. One had its board replaced three times!!!. And we don't even stress them, just windows, IDEs and terminals, no rendering, no gaming.

The warranty experience was great as a tech would always come to our office to perform replacements but I don't get how Dell makes any money on those with so much RMAs.

If their QA is so bad on their most premium line, I shudder to think what the experience must be like with their cheaper devices.

what year/model are those XPS? They seem to have improved a lot in the past year or two.

Interesting, I was on the fence between my MBA and a XPS. I did not expect the XPS to have these issues. Would you happen to know if you use the proprietary or open source Nvidia drivers?

He's very likely talking about older generation devices, but I'm not sure.

What laptops don’t have issues?

Many people seem to think MacBooks have exceptionally high build quality and they have m̶o̶s̶t̶ all of the types of issue you listed:

• Overheating https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2020/06/24/apple-mac...

• thermal throttling

• sleep issues (IIRC they’re hard to keep awake while trying to use them closed and docked to an external monitor in “clamshell mode”)

• trackpad issues (subjective and they do seem to have the largest trackpad fanbase, but some have complained they’re too large and easy to brush while typing; perhaps the palm rejection isn’t good enough for everybody)

• charging issues (they charge differently through ports on one side vs. the other and some have complained they build up charges that can be felt when picking them up)

• HDMI issues

• keyboard issues (butterfly keyboards destroyed by dust, Apple delayed addressing this for years IIRC).

Plus staingate. Plus actively anti-repair design and a user hostile OS.

Edits: bullets and paragraph separation, found the last type of issue (overheating)

> "clamshell mode"

Yeah, that particular phrase kind of irks me. Most people who don't use Apple products simply call that 'with the lid closed.'

You're looking for a mobile workstation / desktop replacement. Some of these care little enough about the "thin and light" to have built-in carrying handles :)

> built-in carrying handles

Sign me up. I don't care if my computer fits in a manila envelope

  Things no one cares about:

  . thin

I won't try to speak for everyone like that, but I for one love having a thin laptop.

Lightweight is good, but how does thickness impact you? I haven't had an issue fitting a laptop into a bag in over 20 years.

Sometimes there are other things to squeeze in a bag besides a laptop.

I guess you adapt to whatever you've got, but at this point I'm spoilt by being able to easily slide my thin laptops in and out of my backpack. Makes going through airport security that much easier.

Nothing commands respect in airport security like a Thinkpad T420.

Aesthetic? That feeling that we're in the future and this isn't grandpa's laptop? Some other intangible quality from which I derive subjective satisfaction?

That you can fit your laptop into a bag doesn't seem to me to be a reason to be happy with thick laptops.

Because thinness tends to correlate with lightness in laptop designs.

Ive had multi sys76 machines...

They were best buy for the buck. Although, appl beat them out on chassis - alum frame is BEST - but the guts of S76 is top notch.

The only thing I am pissed at S76 is, is that they changed their vid interface for screens on the same laptop - so I couldnt replace a dead machine with a good machine based on their screen redesign

and they wanted $90 for a fn power receptacle....

Else, I support them they are like 60% apple evil

Dell Precision 5540 is that laptop

Display resolution is alright for a laptop. What some of us want is more battery life and humongous disk space and ram.

Acceptable yes, but once you get used to "retina" it's hard to go back...

I've seen the retina displays of my colleagues, and while there's nothing bad about them, I don't really see the point. But I have rather bad eyesight and use huge fonts. I care more about the physical height of the screen in centimeters.

If anything, I would prefer to have more battery life and less memory usage than super-minuscule pixels.

I, for one, normally run my 15" laptop in 1600x900 mode when using on my lap (when using as a "desktop" I have two 32" screens at my desk), because of my old eyes, most of the Retina-lovers here must be the younger folks. I do like the feel/look of a Retina screen, but even when I borrowed a hi-res 4k laptop I had it set to something like 300% magnification.

Part of the point of using high dpi screens is that "native" resolution is not a necessity anymore to make it look sharp. I doubt it would be a good idea to run a 4k screen in true 4k if it meant everything became tiny and you needed a magnifying glass.

I think there may be some PC manufacturers doing this completely wrong. I've seen some Dells that are downright ridiculous. A high dpi computer should display large and readable fonts by default without any magnification. Look at any MacBook as an example.

Wouldn't that cut the battery autonomy by 4? Is it really that different having 4K in just a measly 15" surface? (I get it on a 32" screen or a living room TV, but a 15" computer screen?)

Also note the Apple Retina screens were great due to more features apart from just resolution.

Yes. If you use a Retina display for a while, going back is noticeably worse.

Battery life is slightly worse but it’s not linear: the GPU has more pixels to push but usually that’s in a highly optimized rendering path so things like text don’t take 4x as long to render - and on macOS the extra resolution meant it could drop the extra work of subpixel rendering entirely. In the decade since this became common, GPUs and CPUs have become more than enough faster to cancel out the difference.

I get ~10 hours on my retina macbook

16 hours on the new m1 macbook.

Just get a Dell.

System 76 is more of a "lifestyle" brand that targets Linux users. They're one of many resellers that just rebadge Clevo laptops and market to different segments.

Nothing against Clevo, mind you, but there's no reason you should limit your shopping to them versus the more established brands if they don't meet your requirements.

This seems a little disingenuous, especially considering that System76 manufactures their own desktops, rolls their own custom distro that is tested to play well with their machines' hardware, and (I've heard) actively engages with Clevo during the design process since they're both invested in having the end product be as good as possible.

Just seems like they're doing more than slapping a distro on a third-party machine and profiting from the brand, especially considering issues most people seem to have with Linux computers in a practical sense.

Also, Dell XPS doesn't have AMD Ryzen, which is the main news here for System76 device.

They do a lot more work to make the rebranded laptops work well with Linux than just putting a sticker on the case. The reason I purchased one wasn't for "lifestyle" but because even my Dell XPS or Toshiba X1 for work, which work about as good as you can expect of any laptop running Linux, are fucking annoying day to day because of tiny nits. With the System76 laptop, I literally never fuck around with stuff, it just works with everything I have on my desk.

I do admit that in today's world a laptop is almost useless (I have nowhere to go!), and I plan to transition to a real desktop sometime soon, since it's just so much more powerful and useful overall.

Not until the market is willing to pay MacBook prices for white box hardware.

If you're not doing design work (either targeted at print, or for users of high-res displays), I still think 1080p screens are the sweet-spot on laptops. This is different from desktops, where additional pixels can be used to add screen real-estate.

All of those additional pixels require additional battery and CPU power to drive. By contrast, black-levels, backlight-uniformity, color accuracy, and pixel fill can be improved without trade-offs. Most laptops have a lot of room for improvement in these areas, and IMO they lead to a better picture overall versus increasing the resolution. As a bonus, you also get to side-step a ton of unfortunate software weirdness.

And while adding HDR and increasing the refresh rate does come with battery/CPU/software trade-offs, I still think they're more worthwhile upgrades than merely jacking up the resolution on a small screen.

I have no idea whether the Pangolin screens are terrible on these metrics too, I'd just like to see a lot less focus on resolution. It's actually really hard (impossible?) to find an HDR panel that isn't 4K, and IMO that's a shame. We live in a world where Samsung phones run below their native screen resolution by default in order to conserve battery[1], which makes no sense whatsoever. If the native resolution of the screen was lower to begin with, battery life would be even better, and visuals would be improved overall due to lack of scaling!

1: https://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-lowers-default-scree...

I care about text and fonts in retina are much smoother and closer to 'printed text' than in non-retina displays.

I've found that just increasing pixel fill helps with that more than you'd think. I've also found that better contrast (so, black levels, and theoretically HDR) has a much larger affect on readability overall, although that may be partly a result of my personal migraine triggers.

The point is 1600p or 1920p isn't a super-high resolution any more. Nowadays 1080p is low-end. I don't think anyone even produces 15" screens with a resolution lower than this.

200dpi DPI is fantastic for working with text. The clarity you get is more relevant for text than HDR, wide gamut, or even wide viewing angles. I would heartily recommend it even if you only stare at a terminal all day.

1366x768 15" laptop screens are very much still alive, you will find them in a large fraction of sub-$500 laptops.

The difference between 141 PPI and 193 PPI isn't going to be that great for most.

I'm coding on a 17 inch, 4K display laptop for work. It's not necessary but it's really nice since I can shrink the font size and fit more code on one screen while it still stays legible.

I find that I can fit basically as much text as I want on a 1080p laptop display without losing legibility. It's all about using the right font, e.g. https://proggyfonts.net/. Obviously pixellated fonts don't look as good, but it changes from a functional to an aesthetic concern.

No they are not.

I work with text, and the difference is night and day.

I think FHD is plenty fine for subnotebooks (<= 14"). WQHD is ideal for full sized laptops, but the problem is that most laptop vendors have to depend upon what display manufacturers are building.

Most of the display manufacturers are building 4K for marketing reasons (few people outside of gamers really know about WQHD) but those displays consume too much power to replace FHD across the board. An intermediate resolution between FHD and 4K might be more expensive at this point.

LG, which makes their own laptops and displays, did it right with their 2560 x 1600 laptop panels.

It's still 2020 and actually I find 1920x1080 to be plenty sufficient in a 15" laptop.

I went back to using a 1080p screen last year, mainly because a few old programs i use some work well on high res displays. this was on windows. I honestly didn't even think about it until now and even didn't notice when I got the laptop first. maybe if you sit really close to the screen you might notice something

Linux needs good HiDpi scaling support before I'd be willing to by a high res linux laptop.

It is a bit of a PITA to set up, but can be done without too much pain and, once sorted, it's generally good. My daily driver is a HiDPI laptop running Arch & i3 and it works nicely!

I'm not saying it can't be done, it just needs to be better without all the chicanery.

Mine are on Arch & dwm, one with a 4k scaled down 150% (or 133% depending on my mood), for me it mostly works. But it would be much nicer to just not worry about it.

This has half the battery capacity of the more compact XPS 15. Is Dell really that far ahead with in their engineering ability?

Yes. They design the machines themselves, while system76 use clevo.

It's rare nowadays to have end to end ownership. Very sad.

But why is Dell so far ahead of Clevo?

Does Clevo have any competitor?

Dell?

Clevo is a white-label supplier. Manufacturers can't sell rebadged Dells without paying approximately retail.

Clevo is a white-label supplier and other companies rebrand them. Dell has vertically-integrated their supply chain. That just means that Clevo competes with Dell at a specific part of the vertical integration. It doesn't mean they're not competitors.

It's back?

I have a 2013 Pangolin. Not a bad machine - it's still going after several Ubuntu updates, and currently powers the kid's screen time. There were some annoyances that kept it from being my main coding machine - it was bulky, battery life is nowhere near as good as a MBP, the keyboard felt like it was off-center (probably because it, unlike many other laptops, has a numpad), and the trackpad gives next to no feedback. But it's a well-made machine that's kept going.

It disappeared from System76's lineup for several years. I wonder how the new ones compare with the old.

You can have 64gb of RAM but you can't have a 1080p webcam in 2020, AKA the year remote went mainstream

Bought an Oryx Pro a few years ago, had to replace the LCD, keyboard twice. Terrible build quality, poor battery performance. I would not recommend these laptops.

Sadly this is the same experience a friend of mine had with a System76 laptop. When I used it I thought it was fine but not great. The keyboard was usable but didn't feel especially great. Not up there with the likes of a ThinkPad, HP or even the new MacBook keyboards.

The thing that puts me off buying them is that they get quite expensive when you start speccing them up but the quality does not match the $1500+ price tag. On the plus side you can save money doing some after purchase upgrades but that doesn't address the overall build quality issues.

This is notable as one of the very very few 15" laptops that doesn't have Nvidia.

You mean Nvidia or Intel

Lenovo have a few:

https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/t-series/Think...

Low value comment: WTF is with the marketing copy? Red, AMD, Bull, what?!

AMD is colloquially referred to as "Team Red" in computer hardware circles. Intel is "Team Blue" and Nvidia is "Team Green."

The phrase "seeing red" is a fairly common idiom in my experience in American English. This refers to the matador's traditionally red sash used in bull fighting. Red is believed to draw inordinate amounts of bull attention and make them angry.

The use of "seeing red" is a bit strange, as the idiom is typically associated with anger and a pending bull charge, potentially metaphorical.

Thus, AMD -> Team Red -> seeing red -> bulls.

Right now I have an HP Spectre laptop that I'm running Linux on. It's showing its age as my daily-driver for work (only like 4 years old). It can manage to pump out the 3440x1440p60 signal over USB-C thunderbolt that I need, but just turning on youtube or a video call makes it slow to a crawl, it can barely keep up.

I've been eyeing an upgrade to a Dell XPS because it ticks pretty much all the boxes for me, but it's Intel. I'd much rather go AMD, but thunderbolt support is a huuuge plus for me because I have a Dell monitor with USB-C that acts like a KVM. Button on the monitor to switch from my windows desktop to my linux laptop, swaps over all my USB devices at the same time, charges the laptop through the monitor; only one cable to do it all! It's AMAZING.

So I'm wondering what kind of support for Displayport over USB-C this System76 laptop will have. I realize I won't be able to do the whole "one cable to do everything" approach here (omg can we please standardize on USB 4 already so everything can do this? gah!) but if I went in this direction, how much would I need to do to plug in everything?

You probably just need to reapply thermal paste to your current laptop and it will speed up dramatically. The paste only lasts a few years and then it's forced to throttle heavily under high workloads like videos.

Hmm. I would, but disassembling this thing doesn't seem like a fun time. But I need the upgrade anyways, I'm bottlenecked by certain aspects (16GB RAM but many of my workloads end up needing more, so my next laptop would need 32GB).

Now that IBM's patents have expired why aren't other vendors making laptops with trackpoints? It would be nice to be able to comparison shop and consider open source systems like this but for now I feel like I'm stuck.

Maybe because many of us hate trackpoints?

It could still be an option.

Many do, just not the white-label manufacturers like Clevo that actually make these boutique Linux laptop brand designs.

They're called different names, but same concept. HP has "PointStick", Dell has "TrackStick", etc.

I've seen HPs and Dells with these but not in recent generations of laptops.

Several current Dell Precisions like the 7740 at least have the trackpoint nubs still. Almost all of the HP EliteBooks do as well -- the exceptions in both lines are the "thin and light" workstations. To your point, it looks like some Dell laptops have ditched the nubs in the 10th gen Intel ones, but up to at least the 9th gen Intel based ones still do, and HP doesn't seem to be giving up.

trackpoints are horrible, even the thinkpad implementations suffer drift issues.

Non-Apple manufactures need to really catch up and implement trackpads that are on-par with Apple

Agreed. If a TrackPoint was offered, then from my wallet money would ejaculate.

> Display 15.6″ 1920×1080 FHD, Matte Finish

They really need to ship a 16:10 or a 3:2 screen. Those are for doing work, 16:9 is for watching movies and is way too short.

So funny, I literally called their customer service about 2-3 weeks ago asking for exactly that. The use case is that for some software that runs psychophysics experiments, the timing accuracy is better on Linux computers running AMD with AMD graphics then on integrated graphics or NVIDIA discrete cards. See e.g. http://psychtoolbox.org/ . Although it's easy to configure such a computer as a desktop, there aren't really any AMD only offers for laptops out there, at least not from big vendors, and especially not running Linux without issues.

I suppose I must not have been the only one asking whether they had such an offering, and perhaps there are other use cases where such a config would be nice.

I once bought a System76 laptop. Spent quite some money on it as a student. It only lasted me 2 years. After that its chasis started to come apart, screen died and a few other things.

System76 really seems like a good idea, but one bad experience is enough for me to spend my 1000$ on another brand. Thinkpad has been a much better experience so far

I am shopping for a laptop in this category. The first thing I look for is whether the touchpad has physical buttons. With every clickpad I've ever used, the chance of "misclick" is too high (and that my hands can't know if it thinks I clicked). And the impact of a misclick is too problematic especially on the modern web.

My XPS 15 lets you choose tap-click or physical click-down of the pad, but to push the touchpad requires so much force that it's painful. So I have to use tap-click and it is a daily frustration. My MBP's touchpad is not so bad until I need to drag something, I've noticed I avoid interactions such as resizing that I do all the time with a mouse or a touchpad that has dedicated buttons.

I know I'm in the minority but I don't even understand why we moved away from separated buttons, because I find them a joy to use.

> My MBP's touchpad is not so bad until I need to drag something, I've noticed I avoid interactions such as resizing that I do all the time with a mouse or a touchpad that has dedicated buttons.

Did you know that you could use a macbook touchpad like it has buttons? I've noticed it with my mother and my girlfriend (separate entities for the record) when I got them a macbook when their windows-based laptops almost died: they couldn't get used to clicking and pointing with the same finger, and fell back to their old habits of having a finger on the bottom left of the pad, and clicking that finger if they wanted to click/drag something.

So it kind-of knows what to ignore and what not to ignore / recognise intent of the user trying to do this.

When you combine this with "bottom right click = right mouse button" you basically have what you want!

A single USB-C port on a laptop is a hard dealbreaker nowadays.

What non free software is necessary to run this hardware? Is there an Intel ME equivalent?

All Intel chips have ME and all AMD chips have PSP. You may want to adjust your expectations.

Purism, for one, disables the ME in their offerings.

https://puri.sm/learn/intel-me/

Yes, all AMD chips [1] after 2013 come with an equivalent to the invasive and vulnerable Intel ME [2].

It's arguably worse, since we have some known ways to reduce the scope of the Intel ME backdoor [3].

But realistically, if you care about security and privacy, both Intel and AMD chips are unusable.

1. https://libreboot.org/faq.html#amd-platform-security-process...

2. https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intelme

3. https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner

I just got an intel System76... what bad timing.

I'm really hoping system76 comes out with an arm based linux alternative to the m1. Its disheartening that the best the linux community has right now in the arm laptop space is the pinebook pro.

Well, first you need to have someone produce a SOC on a par with Apple's. Then you need a motherboard for a laptop, then you need the rest of the owl, and then System76 can sell it.

You can have 64gb of RAM but you can't have a 1080p webcam :facepalm:

I really like their laptops but it seems like it almost costs the same as a macbook pro if I try to match the specs. If it was cheaper I would definitely consider them for my next laptop.

> Camera 1.0M 720p HD Webcam

Seriously are webcams going to ever improve on laptops?

I do wish laptop manufacturers would start making a “no speakers” edition.

The only times I’ve used laptop speakers the last many years were by accident and unintentional. They’re something that I’ve never for several laptops I’ve owned, and just add space, cost and IMHO, bloat.

I’m sure many people who use laptops mostly for work will agree here. Especially if you only use it around other people.

Give me a laptop without speakers, without a camera, native Linux support, AMD CPU and GPU, with usb C charging, support for a fully functional dock with multimonitor support, Asus Zephyrus Pro Duo-style dual screens and, for the love of God, good battery backup. You will have my money.

Open up the laptop and unplug the speakers :) ... unless the speaker connection in newer laptops are soldered on too.

Of course that doesn't address the space issue.

Yeah, I'm thinking more of a laptop engineering without one. That space could either be saved or used for extra battery. It also allows for dropping some extra circuits I'm sure.

With the circuits, you mean an amplifier? Because the Jack out will need the same signal as the speakers, but less amplified.

I'd be happy to see the jack dropped too, TBH. I've had bluetooth headsets since 2008.

Laptop speakers get a lot of use for most people with remote work. It doesn't make any sense from the manufacturer's perspective to sell a laptop with no speakers—the market for such a thing is small and the extra manufacturing variant would add cost.

I'm sure some people have use for it, but, as someone how's worked remotely a lot during the last decade, I've never had a need for laptop speakers.

Just like I've never had a need, on laptops, for optical drives, card readers, and lots of other features.

Sure, there's an audience, but adding bulk+cost+complexity to ALL laptops shouldn't be necessary.

You can have specialised laptops with ethernet+card readers+speakers for people who need extra hardware capabilities, without including this on mainstream general purpose laptops.

Disagree. Sometimes I'm in a call or need to watch a video and I don't have my earphones nearby, or -- rarely -- the bluetooth connection doesn't work properly. I like having the option.

This is exciting. I’m hoping to make my first System76 purchase this year. 1.6lbs is a lot but hopefully a lot of this is battery (I’m only used to mAh as a metric; how much is 49Wh?) I’m also interested to know the refresh rate on the display. An odd name given ground zero for the pandemic, but why not get a head start on rehabilitating the name?

49Wh is very small battery for a laptop, even a light one, which this one isn't particularly. So spec-wise not impressive. Not surprising as it's competing with some pretty big players with a lot of hardware expertise.

For reference the LG Gram 15 has a 72Whr battery at 1.1kg. The current champ in 'battery size to weight ratio'. Most ultraportables have a 50-60Whr battery at around 1.3kg.

Amps * Volts = Watts

Watt-Hours are unambiguous units of energy, Amp hours are ambiguous without knowing the voltage.

since you said mAh (milliamp-hours), I'm thinking you are talking about phone batteries which are typically in the 3.3-3.6V range depending on the chemistry, then 1000mAh would be 3.3-3.6Wh.

As a comparison the Dell XPS 13 has a 52Wh battery, so it's not a very big battery. 49Wh is what the new MacBook Air has, but the Air has a much lower power CPU.

Just to clear things up you mean 3.64 lbs (1.65kg). I saw 1.6 lbs and was like "woah that's well under 1kg for a 15" laptop!"

I think 3.64 lbs (1.65kg) is perfectly acceptable for a 15" laptop, not the lightest but also not the heaviest.

However 49Wh is on the low end for this size laptop imho. Granted it isn't having to put a HiDPI screen and hopefully the Ryzen is more energy efficient than Intel but I doubt it is going to be a show stopper in the battery life department.

Yes, thanks for the clarity. I regret my imprecision.

> how much is 49Wh

Not huge; same as a MacBook Air (a much lighter laptop). For something this size you'd generally expect more.

Was interested in a System76 laptop - no longer. US keyboard only, and "use stickers" for non-US? I'm out.

I'm not American but I've used US styled keyboards forever but I fixed my touch typing a while ago after typing while hunting for keys for 16 years so I use blank keyboards everywhere. Not to disparage the need that you have but you should look into learning to touch type. Practice in the dark without keyboard backlight. It's hard enough to find a laptop that meets our needs these days, I can only imagine how hard it must be to also be looking for i8n.

I believe you're being downvoted for two reasons:

a) While touch typing is indeed a useful skill to have, suggesting that people shouldn't care about a certain feature because you can, in a sense, work around it, is missing the point.

b) Keyboards aren't just different in how they are labeled. I know of the ANSI layout, which is present on this laptop, and the ISO layout, which is used in much of Europe, has a differently shaped Enter key and other differences. There might be other physical layouts I'm not aware of. I can touch type on an ISO keyboard, I can't on an ANSI keyboard. And frankly I'm not willing to adjust to a different layout just for my laptop.

I switch between macOS (US International) and Windows (UK 88 Key), so I like to think I have a few skills. :D

Also, I can touch type already (after far too many years of learning), but that obviates the necessity for allowing others the possibility to use my machine.

Brave, I know...

Hilarious. As if “stickers” will change the amount of keys the keyboard has and the shape of Enter and Backspace, etc.

FWIW though, I do recommend trying out US English International. For programming it’s lovely (once you adapt, which is surprisingly fast), and you can also type German, Spanish and others on a single layout.

It’s also the easiest to find from most manufacturers.

I was recently shopping for laptops in Europe and wished I had gone that route. But instead I learned a different layout (which I am very happy with!) that can only reasonably be used on an ISO keyboard since you need to reach that extra key next to enter all the time.

But laptop manufacturers have seriously started putting physical ANSI layouts and putting QWERTZ (the German layout) on it. There were three machines I would have bought if it hadn't been for the keyboard.

I feel ya! I moved to the EU recently, and finding mechanical keyboards is really tough.

There's no lack of vendors -- the issue is the variety of layouts.

After weeks of searching, a found A SINGLE vendor who sold cherry reds with US English layout. (and those two were my only requirements, fortunately).

Glad you found one! Though I am surprised by that, ANSI keyboards are everywhere in Germany. For example you can get one from Cherry itself [0], though it may very well be different in other countries.

[0] https://www.amazon.de/Cherry-G80-3920LWBDE-2-MX-Board-5-0/dp...

I'll admit I had rather specific requirements:

- Mechanical. - Cherry reds. - No number // tenkeyless.

The last item is rather important to me, since it influences my posture a lot and affects ergonomics way more than most people tend to assume.

I'm still waiting for more news on the potential internally designed laptop they talked about last year. Thankfully, I'm pretty happy with the Gazelle I bought a couple of years ago from them, so I think I can keep holding out until they either confirm that new laptop or announce that it has been scrapped.

I've been wanting to buy a System76 laptop for a LONG time now. For me, the increased markup is worth it knowing that I'll be able to get a laptop that runs Linux and plays video games with little to no configuration.

What makes me hesitant is the build quality. I've seen enough comments online (and in this thread) with complaints about parts needing to be replaced.

That being said, I want to note that System76 has great documentation on repairing their laptops. For example, here are the docs for the Oryx Pro 6: https://tech-docs.system76.com/models/oryp6/repairs.html.

It's pretty straightforward to upgrade the internals, replace parts, re-paste the CPU, etc. Repairability is an important factor for me, especially considering the next laptop I buy I'm going to use it for a while (I'm currently using a 2013 T530).

Still, the complaints about needing to replace things makes me hesitate.

It's nice for a machine to be easily repairable and upgradeable, but I don't want to invest so much money in a machine where I'll need to replace parts right away. Also, I imagine most people looking for a new laptop don't own the tools needed to repair nor are they comfortable with opening up a very expensive machine. Heck, I'm only comfortable with fiddling with my T530 because it's so cheap.

What System76 lacks in build quality, they make up for with absolutely stellar support.

I started with a Galago, that had a slight screen defect, (slightly yellow on one side). And I didn't like the 4k resolution. They offered me a choice: repair the screen (they pay shipping) or return for a refund so that I could buy the Darter (I pay shipping). I chose the latter, and I've been very happy. So while there is the occasional lemon, they stand behind their machines.

And software support has been great, supporting me across obscure Linux problems, not-quite-baked OS upgrades, and pilot error.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. I'm this close to pulling the trigger on the Oryp6.

Spat my coffee out. That's not great customer service! They sent you a defective product, and then made you pay for returning it! WTF? Good customer service would be paying to ship the defective product back and then, once they have the laptop, selling you the laptop that you want. Or better yet, shipping you the one you want immediately.

No, I was unclear. Just after I had the problem with the Galago, the Darter came out It way my choice to get a repair, or to return the machine and buy something else. Since I ALSO didn't like the 4k screen on the Galago, I opted for the Darter. I paid shipping, just as would have happened had the Galago screen not been defective.

I was actually in the process of arranging the repair of the Galago when the Darter was released, and they then told me about their return policy.

Also: the yellowing on part of the Galago screen was extremely subtle. It took me a couple of weeks to even notice it. But there were no questions asked, they just immediately said it was a warrany repair.

Go clean up your coffee.

Does anyone know if OpenCL or HIP work properly or with 4700U and Pop OS or Ubuntu?

No mention of an open Bios. I'm assuming this means it doesn't have an open Bios. Not even System76 could load open source bioses on these products appearantly, I imagine they at least tried and failed.

Purism's Librem laptops have Coreboot and neutralized Intel ME.

Can you buy System76 laptops in Europe and what do you do if you need service?

System76 laptops are based on Clevo products, a white label laptop manufacturer. https://www.clevo.com.tw/index-en.asp

You can find European Clevo assemblers such as LDLC in France or Multicom in Norway.

Beware that there could be some differences that can affect the experience: https://twitter.com/jeremy_soller/status/1322954964549824512

Others are Tuxedo [0] and XMG [1] in Germany.

[0] https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/

[1] https://www.xmg.gg/

Not System76 but in the UK I got my Linux built Laptop from Entroware

https://www.entroware.com/store/

I've never had to contact them for support. It's been flawless from the get-go.

Aw man... and I just bought an Oryx Pro. Oh well, I guess this one doesn't come with coreboot and it's not even out yet - plus I think the Oryx Pro has a slightly faster processor?

I wonder how this compares to Xiaomi's MBP clones. The x220 is starting to show its age and modern apps feel crowded on its small screen.

USB c?

> 1 × USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C

There is a section in the tech specs called "Expansion" (I was looking for "Ports" )

"Expansion 1× USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1 × USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 2× USB 2.0 Type-A, MicroSD Card Reader"

which contains a mention of a single USC type C port.

No mention of power delivery or DisplayPort? IMHO makes no sense to buy a laptop in 2020 without those.

It is listed right on the product page: 1 × USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C.

If you are asking if it has the ability to be charged through USB C, then I believe the answer is no.

This is absolutely absurd nowadays.

My friend have a reasonably old Thinkpad laptop, she ran out of battery during a very important meeting, and I was able to help her by plugging my powerbank

Same. I haven’t bought a charger to/from work in years. I just have a very old spare at home that I’ve been using for my work laptops, and leave the original at the office.

I also seldom carry a charger, since most places I go have a USBC charger for me anyway.

Only one which is kinda disappointing for a modern laptop.

If you need it, then you probably should consider https://puri.sm/products/librem-14

Can anyone tell me how’s their experience has been with system76 laptops

I wish it had a 4k screen

I think 4k is a stretch on a laptop screen. I think 2k would fit better, require less powerful graphics card, and conserve battery power.

What do you mean by 2k in a laptop context? (i.e. non-ultrawide)

I think he means 2560 x 1440 (QHD), which is 16:9. 2K is just another way of referring to this resolution.

Yep, sometimes people use 2k to mean 1440p / QHD. But it's a particularly bad name for that resolution. 2K is an existing cinema spec that is much closer to 1920x1080 than anything else.

It's not a stretch. Reading or writing code at 1x resolution is making a huge disservice to your eyes. Minimum 160ppi, the more the better.

In 2020 1080p only makes sense on higher frequencies for gaming, until someone finally releases an affordable 4k >=120hz displays which isn't a "gamer" atrocity.

On a 15"? You're probably going to lose meaningful battery life and increase price for barely noticeable gains.

Fwiw, I have a 13" ThinkPad with a 4k display and get ~4 hours of real battery life or more while working with docker running a handful of containers, browser, vim, spotify, and a few dev tools running.

Nothing amazing by any means, but it's plenty for real world usage and if I stop the docker daemon, I probably gain another hour or two. How often are you working somewhere for more than a few hours without a plug?

Am almost never on battery but always looking at the screen. Won’t ever go back to sub 4k.

My Surface Book has a very nice 13″ 3000×2000 display (28% fewer pixels than 4K). Paired with an i7-6600U CPU and 8GB of RAM, it got 10–13 hours of real battery life when it was new a few years ago—at the time, I think that was not far off being a record for any type of laptop.

I am never going back to 1920×1080. I’m sceptical even of 2560×1440 on a 13″ display. 15″, I’m certainly not going to accept anything meaningfully less than 4K.

I am not convinced by the value System76 adds. I love the idea of no intel me, not that is relevant here, and openboot etc. But the quality of their hardware (and OS) is just really not where it should be to justify the prices.

I’m a system76 customer. The basic value is it’s a Linux laptop that has the least amount of time involved with me trying to get it to work with this hardware or that. I can deal with installing software on Linux, it’s mucking with device drivers I don’t want to deal with. I’ll pay extra for this.

I’ve been happy with it. It updates the os frequently (I’m using their popOS) with no issues.

Yeah, I might have had unrealistic expectations when i bought the darter last year. I was just immediately disappointed with the flimsy plastics, tiny plastic touch pad and excessively bright rgb keyboard. Given that it is not that cheap, especially after importing it to the EU.

From my perspective, I’ve paid 1700€ for a meh laptop with a crappy display and worse sound. That is mac book money..

Edit: and to be fair, it did just work out of the box and boots quick af!

Next time you are looking for a linux laptop you should try to look into EU linux laptop companies. Many fans of S76 recommend doing that instead since importing is so expensive.

I know a lot of people recommend TUXEDO Computers: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/

This is pretty much the reason why I've been looking into S76.

I want to game on my laptop too and it's nice knowing that S76 provides laptops that can game right away without any configuration needed.

Many other gaming laptops I've looked at required a bunch of changes up front in order to work correctly on Linux - even then you may still run into issues.

With S76 you know that you're getting a machine that will work with Linux 100%.

This. Currently I'm stuck on a 4-series kernel because something about my laptop crashes later ones. I wish more laptop sellers tested linux, or shipped with it.

System76 only ship US keyboards, which is a bit annoying, although I guess I could live with one.

But Dell and Lenovo also offer laptops certified to work with Linux, that have Ubuntu or Fedora preinstalled.

true. When I bought Lenovo didn't offer and Dell it was only a couple models of XPS laptops (the website wasn't super clear). Dell seem to have made a better effort at showcasing linux offerings and its great that Lenovo is in the game.

I'd very much like to support companies making systems like this, but the low-res display is a hard no.

The webcam is disappointing.

This sounds like everything I would want in a laptop!

"A laptop to die for"

Why is this on HackerNews?

This laptop looks like it's actually designed for Linux developers instead of designed for Windows gamers and advertised for Linux.

Well that's a good reason, it just didn't jump at me from the page. On HN topics are supposed to be about "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". What would be some reasons how this laptop does that? I'm asking seriously, not trying to argue that it doesn't.

Is this a cruel joke about COVID?

This is actually the first place my thoughts went to when I read the headline. But reading some of the other comments it sounds like this is a model name that's been around since pre-covid (i.e. 2013 at least).

No.

> Display: 15.6″ 1920×1080 FHD, Matte Finish

you no longer see such low resolution screens on phones/tablets

Yes you do and here they are: https://www.kimovil.com/en/compare-smartphones/f_max_r+value...

Huawei Mate 40, iPhone 11 and Xiaomi A3 to name a few.

I'm not in love with the 1080p probably crappy screen. Not with their cpu choice. 8 cores 8 threads is such a gimped offering these days. I found just grab an AMD ThinkPad and have the same crappy screen with a superior keyboard and a range of CPU offerings.

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