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Comment by symlinkk | Hacker News Reader

Never understood this company. Lenovo and Dell sell computers with Ubuntu or Fedora pre-installed, that have been tested and are guaranteed to be fully compatible with Linux. Why would you go with System76, which is selling rebranded Clevo laptops with a markup, and PopOS, which is an Ubuntu derivative?

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1) To support a linux-first vendor as oppose to multibillion dollar manufacturers throwing the community bones. 2) Commitment to open source and privacy, with open source firmware, their attempts to counteract Intel ME, etc. 3) Gaming and 3D ready laptops 4) Integration with their own distro 5) Actual professional customer support for linux (how capable or even human would Dell and Lenovo’s customer support be for their linux computers?)

I actually can’t think of a good reason outside of price to not get a computer from a linux first vendor like S76.

I've had the best Dells and Lenovo's for Linux and it's still not as good as my System76 integration. With my 76, I just use it and upgrade it, with the others I always have little things that don't quite work unless I cast a magic spell and turn around 4 times.

100 percent of my 76 laptop works, not just 99 percent like the others.

MNT Reform is the only "Linux laptop" I'm aware of that is designed from scratch and isn't based on common OEM hardware. I'm sure System76 offers value to their customers though. I'm personally not too interested in their offerings but it's good to see they're still around. And growing, it appears from a distance.

Many laptops are rebranded from ODMs. PopOS has some nice touches over Ubuntu. Plus you get official, dedicated support.

It comes with a premium because they're a small OEM, but it's not THAT bad of a deal.

Honestly I believe at this point it's partially inertia and brand recognition. In the past, when Linux support was more hit-or-miss, and the likes of Dell and Lenovo had no linux support, I think it made more sense.

More charitably, they do some work on custom firmware, and according to themselves, "work with" Clevo on making hardware decisions. What exactly that means seems vague to me, but again, charitably, System76+Clevo are at least trying to avoid problematic hardware, while Dell and Lenovo ... don't so much?

> Never understood this company. Lenovo and Dell sell computers with Ubuntu or Fedora pre-installed, that have been tested and are guaranteed to be fully compatible with Linux.

This hasn't always been the case. System76 has been around since 2005.

> Why would you go with System76, which is selling rebranded Clevo laptops with a markup, and PopOS, which is an Ubuntu derivative?

To support a company whose entire purpose is to provide hardware running Linux, as opposed to one which does it as a small niche within their much larger Windows-based business.

> Lenovo

Does Lenovo have something with Ryzen + Nvidia discrete GPU at the moment, with ThinkPad build quality?

They ship with coreboot, right? Could be for the free software + firmware

That's Librem.

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