System76 AMD-Only Laptop Returns | Hacker News Reader

System76 AMD-Only Laptop Returns

system76.com

231 pointsbananicorn287 comments

This might be the first Ryzen 6800U Linux laptop, which is cool, but it's a bit hard for me to get too excited about it...

* One of the biggest selling points of Ryzen 6000 is the chip's USB4 support, but looks like the Pangolin won't have it. It also only has 1 USB-C port, which is a bit of a headscratcher in 2023. Does it support PD even? (Not mentioned)

* 16:9 FHD display (no brightness specified) - high refresh is nice, but again, weird that it's not 16:10 in 2023 and IMO, QHD would be better for a 15-16" display.

* soldered memory (32GB at least)

* Numpad keyboard. This will be a positive for some, but I'm in the centered keyboard camp

* Only a 70Wh battery and still not so light (1.8kg)

While it's running an older chip, if you're not going to have USB4/TB4, and the points I listed are important, I think the Tuxedo Pulse 15 Gen2 is still a better 15" option atm (5700U chip, but lighter, bigger battery, better (still 16:9) display, Ethernet, SODIMM slots). There are some Ubuntu certified ThinkPads that are an option too (they have Ryzen 6000U chips but also no USB4), although almost all the models are w/ soldered RAM on ThinkPads now, which is a bummer.

If you want USB4 on AMD, the best (Linux friendly) options right now are probably the Asus G14 GA402 or a ThinkPad Z16. The HP EliteBook G9s are an option as well, although you need Linux 6.0+ to fix a broken HP BIOS update (HP support is also aggressively indifferent to Linux users) and I've seen lots of complaints about the fan curve and the SureView displays so I'm hesitant to recommend it...

There is already the ThinkPad P14s G3 AMD with the 6850U PRO.

I have the G2 with the 5850U and it performs very well.

Yep, basically same here with a T14s G3 also with the 6850U PRO.

Agreed on preferring a bright 16:10 display. It might seem minor but that was on of the factors that pushed me over the edge to buy a ThinkPad X1 Nano instead of a Lemur Pro a couple of years ago.

I'm also not into numpads on laptops. Not that they aren't useful sometimes, but the they push the alpha cluster and trackpad off-center which is uncomfortable to type on which is hard to justify with how little I personally need one — a standalone numpad that I pull out of a drawer during tax season or whenever makes a lot more sense. Ultimately I think 15"+ laptops should offer keyboard options with and without numpads.

I’m holding out hope on System76 designing truly custom hardware and we reach the fabled “MacBook of Linux” someday. As of now their Clevo rebadges don’t appeal to me, though their “custom” desktops do.

I think Framework is the closest thing to that.

It’s idealistic but I do like System76’s Linux first approach.

While the Framework maybe isn't 100% Linux first, Linux is definitely treated as a "first class citizen": https://frame.work/linux with active (dedicated) first party support: https://community.frame.work/tag/linux

(Matt Hartley, the new Linux Support Lead was formerly providing technical support at System76)

I ended up going with a Framework last year as an upgrade since I liked the display (3:2 HiDPI 400nit+ 13.5") and form upgradability, but also because the official Framework forums was by far the best Linux laptop forum I've seen online. As long as you can deal w/ 5-6h of battery life, I can highly recommend it as one of the best Linux ultraportable laptops (although I'm really hoping that there's a Ryzen 7040 motherboard upgrade coming...). My review/notes on the 12th Gen Framework w/ Arch Linux: https://github.com/lhl/linuxlaptops/wiki/2022-Framework-Lapt...

I mean, it wouldn't even be hard for them to partner with someone like ASUS, Acer, etc to produce semi-custom hardware.

The strict Clevo-based hardware will always turn me away from buying from them when I can get multiple AMD 6000-based laptops from Asus that run Linux fine (after a wifi-card swap, the MediaTek's they use are useless); and have superior build qualities.

They did partner with HP I think.

why don't they get rid of DC charging? two USB-C ports is what I want!

Did you not bother to look at the product page before commenting? https://us.starlabs.systems/pages/starfighter-specification https://us.starlabs.systems/pages/starfighter

In fact, it has two USB C ports, and both of those are USB 4 and Thunderbolt 4 and having DisplayPort Alt Mode. They also have three USB A ports (3.2 Gen 1), a MicroSD slot, a 3.5mm jack port, and an HDMI port.

There is even a photo with both USB C ports shown. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2059/5897/files/StarFighte...

What's more, even the charger supports both USB C and DC jack cables interchangeably. You just chose either cable type in configuration, or you buy both cables.

https://us.starlabs.systems/collections/power-cables

I was referring to the StarBook, the 14" version https://starlabs.systems/pages/starbook

The HP Dev One is what you're thinking of: https://hpdevone.com/ - it's a well reviewed developer laptop that comes w/ Pop!_OS preloaded and is very reasonably price - Ryzen 5850U (Zen3) - basically a rejiggered EliteBook 845 G8 w/ full Linux support (System76 has a repo w/ hardware support that can be used for fan speed and additional battery info: https://github.com/pop-os/hp-vendor). It's US-only and uses a SureView display (but has a 30-day return policy), so worth checking out for anyone in the market I think...

A word of warning for Asus laptops, while the asus-linux.org has being doing great work (and the G14s are known to work well), I was never able to get suspend working properly on a 2021 M16. And if anyone's trying to get a Ryzen 6000 ultralight like the Zenbook S 13 working, I think they're going to be in for a battle...

* https://zentalk.asus.com/t5/zenbook/linux-on-zenbook-s-13-ol...

* https://zentalk.asus.com/t5/zenbook/linux-support-on-zenbook...

* https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/yk8nmk/asus_...

Most laptop brands work with/own various ODMs - instead of OEM brands like Asus, Acer, think ODMs like Pegatron, Wistron, Iventec, Compal, Quanta, Clevo, etc - these companies co-design/manufacture laptops for almost all the major OEMs, but most do exclusive designs and niche brands like System76 are probably too low volume to be able to get priority/afford custom design w/ most of the Tier 1 ODMs, hence the prevalence of "white label" friendly ODM designs.

Star Labs is making what you're looking for with their StarFighter laptop, although you'll be paying MacBook Pro like pricing for it (and delivery would be in March at the earliest): https://us.starlabs.systems/pages/starfighter

starblabs look great. Great specs, coreboot, support for many linux distros....but I'm still waiting on my starbook mk VI since about last sping. It's frustrating, but I know they've had problems in the supply chain.

I'm happy to support a company like that obviously, but it's still frustrating.

This does look amazing.

System76 should work with these guys as they are doing what System76 should be doing with their laptops.

I wish they'd get rid of the DC charging jack. I'd rather have 2 USB C ports

they (starlabs) charge via usb-c and have two usb-c ports.

No magsafe.

5 years of updates is lower than macOS (I am on 7 on my MBP 2015).

The recent MBPs sport 5 nm ARM and MiniLED display.

Looks like they do a lot of things right though.

Magsafe is patented and will be for a while. Don't hold out too much hope.

Looks like it will expire in 2025, so not too long.

Patents are too damn long in tech. I wish USB-C had shorter magnetic connectors

Just get some of these magnetic attachments for your USB-C [1]. I use them on all my USB gadgets now.

[1] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004883987830.html

The MBP is designed and manufactured by the richest company in the world. You'd expect their quality and polish to be better - and on the hardware side it is. On the flip side, the OS/software seems to get worse with each release, markup on storage and memory are absurd and you aren't able to upgrade or repair any components, and you trade any quality of life wins with ever-increasing anti-consumer lock-in/policies... So the trade-off is up to you.

That's 5 years of updates to the firmware. Not the OS. You configure it with something like Ubuntu LTS and you're good until 2032 with regards to OS security updates. And I wouldn't be surprised if the 32.04 LTS ran on it too whereas a comparable MBP will have been dropped by a couple years prior.

The Thelio is quite nice

There will never be a MacBook of Linux or Windows unless the OS is optimized as much as MacOS is to the underlying hardware. Windows is optimized to a high degree and still cannot match the standby/resume times or battery life of MacOS, and thats without M1.

Linux is not even in the same ballpark. System76 apply some tweaks but its still Ubuntu and as a desktop OS its lacking in many areas.

On the screen - after using 3:2 and 16:9 laptops, I'll never go back to 16:9 again, so it's a definite deal breaker for me.

I absolutely cannot go back to 16:9 after the last few years with various 3:2 laptops. What's funny is that I rock a 32:9 for my desktop PC at home.

Why is 3:2 better?

The extra vertical space is better for reading stuff, and looking at code. It also allows for smaller laptops with the same usable screen space - they don't need to be as wide.

I think you have that backwards. Wider screen formats allow for a proper size keyboard (and speakers) without having to have a massive palm rest and very tall screen.

I rock a 55" curved 4k TV (16x9) on my home desktop. To watch TV I move the desk chair and sit on my couch on the opposite wall. I can't explain how efficient this setup is in a small apartment.

It might seem like nitpicking but I'm actually on your side here, as a consumer.

It's been a struggle to find a 1440 AMD laptop, I have one that I'm happy with for travel. (Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Carbon Gen 6)

I also don't want it to be too big, for travel, so numpad is out for me.

The Slim 7 feels like a toy, but it's actually just very, very light, and made of plastic. It creeks, yes, but it's very, very light. This is more important to me when it's on my back, than being out of metal.

Tuxedo Computers sells the Pulse 15 with a centered keyboard, 1440p 165Hz screen, and AMD CPU+iGPU. Pretty nice laptop, except the integrated microphone is a bit shit.

These are also Clevo rebrands and I find mostly pretty poor user reviews.

The Pulse 15 Gen 2 is actually a refresh of the Tong Fang (not Clevo) PF5NU1G (that fixes most of the major complaints I had with the original version (multi-monitor support, better & brighter display, dual M.2 slots). I was quite happy with mine, as were almost all the user reviews I read (Here's mine: https://github.com/lhl/linuxlaptops/wiki/2020-MECHREVO-Code-...).

They sold it, the Tuxedo 15 gen2 has a full sized keyboard, too big for me.

Check out the Asus Rog zephyrus g14 [1]. I have the 2021 version (which is only FHD) and it's quite light and runs cool.

1. https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-zephyrus/rog-zephyrus-g14-2...

Very impressive, but too much gaming focus for my needs. I work mostly in devops.

It is a gaming laptop, but you don't have to use it for games - I rarely do. In my experience, though, gaming laptops have the best build quality after business ones like ThinkPads (which were above my budget). They used to be very heavy and unwieldy, but that's changed now.

I have a 14” QHD laptop (framework) and it’s really awkward without fractional scaling. I don’t know that 20-25% more screen space would really fix that.

Agreed. Love the size and aspect ratio, I just wish it was a bit higher resolution so I could use 200% scaling.

I just don't scale anything on mine. Obviously not ideal for everyone, but I tend to want to cram as much into the screen as possible.

Alas my eyes aren't that good :)

16:10? That's a dead format. It was seeing some popularity around ~2006 but quickly died out as 16:9 took over.

21:9 is the popular ultra-widescreen option. 16:9 is the popular regular option. Acting like 16:10 is the direction the industry is going is just bizarre.

There has been a very recent (last year or two) mild resurgence in 16:10 in some segments of the market. For example, while the Thinkpad T14 is still 16:9, the T14s, X1 Carbon, some of the P line are 16:10. The most recent XPS 13 and 15 are also 16:10.

I prefer 16:10 to 16:9 by far. While the difference might feel small, the usability improvement from seeing more lines of code is very noticeable for me.

I'll give a good faith reply to this, many laptops in recent years have moved to a 16:10 aspect ratio. MacBooks have used it (infamously) since the late 2000s, while brands like Dell have recently shifted (some of) their XPS laptops to 16:10 displays. My understanding is it's become very popular across "macbook like" ultraportables in all the major brands for its greater vertical resolution.

Thank you for the response. I mostly stick to the desktop space, and haven't seen it for over a decade, nor did I see it when shopping for laptops recently. But that's interesting if they are.

> Acting like 16:10 is the direction the industry is going is just bizarre.

The industry is moving to 16:10…

The last 3 laptops I bought are all 16:10. The 2022 Dell XPS 15 I got last year is 16:10.

It’s bizarre you’re unaware the industry is moving in this direction…

Dead format??? Lol im not sure where youve been these last couple of years to not notice it, but 16:10 screen on laptop is definitely on the rise.

Personally I'm super happy to see FHD@15" make a return. I have pretty ok eyesight, but QHD@15" is unreadable without fractional scaling (which will probably be usable… right around the same time as Wayland and fusion energy).

Would it make sense to change the title?

I read it to be about people who bought AMD-only laptops from System76, needing to return them to System76 for some reason.

Same here .. I think we need a comma.

E.g. "System76 AMD-Only Laptop, Returns"

No, that would actually be less correct and less clear.

"System76 brings back AMD-only laptop" would be an extremely clear way to phrase the title. I'm not even sure the "only" is even that helpful; it could probably just be "AMD laptop".

Perhaps, but it would continue to allow the poster their own choice of words .. which I think is important.

No... it's less clear too. The verb is never isolated from the rest of the sentence by a comma, but a list of nouns will be isolated by commas, even if the conjunction is missing for brevity in a title. Separating "returns" like that makes it appear even more to be a noun, which is the thing that the original comment was confused by. Correct interpretation of the title relies on the reader realizing that it is a verb in this context, and the comma does not help with that.

Given the ongoing mess with the AMD 7900 XTX GPU vapor chambers, I initially interpreted the title to mean there was some problem with AMD laptops, so System76 was offering returns only for those laptops with AMD chips. That is not the case.

Person holds excessively strict ideas about English grammar, posts.

I think clear communication is important, and I initially tried to avoid digging into grammar until they doubled down on a weird use of a comma.

There are two verbs in your example, so it’s simply not a relevant example since the second verb is forming a separate sentence. It’s just connected with a comma in order to inform the reader that it is reusing the context of the previous sentence. In this specific example, that really makes it a broken sentence fragment, but it is often acceptable if it is being done poetically, which it arguably is there.

I phrased my previous comment carefully. The verb is never isolated from the rest of the sentence by a comma. “Posts” is the complete sentence; it just has an implicit subject and object.

It’s possible there are nuanced counterexamples somewhere that I’m somehow overlooking, but none of them are relevant to whether putting a comma between “laptop” and “returns” would make the title clearer.

But, if you’d like to try again with only a single verb…

> I think clear communication is important, and I initially tried to avoid digging into grammar until they doubled down on a weird use of a comma.

You're going to upset people if you don't consider their opinions.

You're also incorrect.

"Rule of thumb: a comma indicates a pause in speech." [1]

[1] https://site.uit.no/english/punctuation/rules-for-comma-usag...

That rule of thumb doesn’t really contradict anything I’ve said, and a rule of thumb is not to be relied upon anyways. If we want to consider the rule of thumb, just extend the sentence. If the pause would be there, then it would also be there even if the sentence were longer. “System76 AMD-Only Laptop Returns to Market”. I certainly wouldn’t pause between “laptop” and “returns”. But again, a rule of thumb is a general guideline, and it will be wrong in many cases.

The real, specific rules that are listed after also don’t contradict anything I’ve said, as far as I can see. Can you please point to the specific rule on that page that says a comma would be useful here?

A comma does not fix this title.

I’m not claiming to be the single best person in the world at English grammar, but I have tried my best to learn a thing or two about it over the years. I have also tried to clearly explain the relevant grammar to the best of my ability. I have apparently failed to explain it well enough, so I’m done here, since trying more won’t make a difference for such an irrelevant diversion from the main topic.

First: Read the original title out loud.

Next: Read the original title (including the additional comma) out loud, pausing slightly in place of the comma.

Which makes _more_ sense?

The one without the comma, absolutely.

You're only lying to yourself.

But you said "never"!

Too nuanced and pedantic, understood.

In headlinese, your sentence would be short for "Person holds excessively strict ideas about English grammar and English posts". Not a great example to make your point.

You've completely ignored my point.

Take a step back and think about your style of communication.

It could be improved.

I ignored your point… about adding a random comma to preserve the original title’s word choice? I’m confused how that’s relevant. If the comma makes things less clear to the majority of readers, then it would not be an improvement.

Based on the distribution of downvotes and upvotes between your original comment and my original comment (which is at +13), I think most people on this post overwhelmingly agreed with me, for whatever that is worth. Good communication requires figuring out what works for most people, not just one person, and short of running some focus group testing, the vote distribution is the best available proxy for that here, in my opinion.

> It could be improved.

Communication can always be improved, and I’m always trying. I agree there is still room for improvement. I’m sorry if it isn’t good enough yet.

Could also be "The Return of the System76 AMD-Only Laptop"

How about "The Return of the System76 AMD Laptop"?

"Reintroduced"

I think "reintroduced" makes sense.

I thought there were factory problems, a page with information about product returns, and possibly a story around that.

I don't think so, it made perfect sense to me on first reading.

Same

Ditto. I assumed it would be an article about some catastrophic hardware fault with an AMD-only laptop, necessitating a recall.

Yeah... Imagine "Jedi Returns"

Jedi invest wisely!

"The Return of the System76 AMD-only Laptop"

'System76 AMD-Only Laptops Return' would do it.

that's what I interpreted it as too - I thought it was going to be about chip failures.

"New AMD Ryzen System76 laptop coming soon"?

Still only 1920x1080. Come on, give us decent resolution screens already!

Honestly, the difference between 1080p and 1440p on a 14in screen is barely perceptible to me. I'd rather have the extra battery life.

I run my 1440p screen at 1080p because my portable monitor is 1080p and I don't want to try and setup different scaling on different screens in X or move to Wayland. I'm happy enough.

Not sure why you're getting down voted. This seems like a valid point. I'd also note that if you are connected to a larger 1440p external display, 1080p on the smaller one keeps the dpi closer so you don't have to use different scaling settings.

I've tried it. Don't do it.

I run 4 different screens with different resolutions in X with no problem, no setup. Is there a specific error you run into?

It's not the resolutions, different resolutions is fine. It's the scaling. 1440p at 14" requires scaling because everything is too small (for me, anyway). But the portable monitor doesn't need scaling. I couldn't get it to work nicely without running two different X servers (one for each display).

I am pretty sure it's a limitation in X, the dpi setting is global, not per output. Wayland seems to have solved this, but it has other problems for me (forced vsync being the major one). So I just live in a lower resolution.

I don't really care, like some of the other posters in the thread, the lower resolution annoys me less than a 60hz refresh rate (laptop monitor is 144hz). Luckily X can handle different refresh rates for different outputs.

Try Chinese in smaller font sizes...

Thank you for a lesson in empathy.

I would be satisfied with a taller 1920x1200 display but maybe you still wouldn't be.

I find it highly noticeable in a 13 inch screen

But this is not a 14" screen...

> Display 15.6″ 1920×1080 FHD, Matte Finish, 144 Hz

It is a 144Hz display, which makes it significantly more interesting than an average 1080p display. 60Hz just feels so stuttery these days.

But, I agree that a higher resolution would be nice, and if I'm being completely honest... I would want OLED. Tons of affordable OLED laptops have come to market over the past year.

Why does 144hz matter to you if you aren't playing games? This is not a gaming machine. You absolutely will not notice the difference for non-gaming tasks between 60hz to 80hz/100hz/120hz/144hz/244hz.

> You absolutely will not notice the difference

If you make absolutes like that, then everything I could respond with is automatically “wrong”, so that’s not a great conversation opener.

My smartphone is not a gaming monitor either, but 120Hz is hugely noticeable. My windows desktop is using a 144Hz monitor. I had a 120Hz MacBook Pro for awhile. I’m familiar with how I experience high refresh rate on different types of devices.

You may not care, and that’s fine, but what’s the point of asking why I care and then telling me in no certain terms that I won’t? And how do you know if I would be gaming on this or not? Valve has put immense effort into making Linux viable for gaming. If you’re instead trying to say the monitor’s response times suck, how do you know that already?

I absolutely do notice when my laptop screen defaults back to 60hz, instead of 144hz after some interactions.

Yeah, I jump between 60hz, 120hz, and 240hz screens several times a day and while the difference in smoothness is very visible, if I'm not gaming I forget about it very quickly. Personally for work machines I find high density (preferably integer scaling friendly) preferable over extra frames.

I agree, I would say higher resolution screens always pay dividends in coding (crispness, and real estate). I've been downgrading a 144hz monitor to 100hz in gaming and haven't noticed too much difference. I think I'd have to jump to 244hz for my own perceptibility to notice the difference in games.

Seriously, if I could get a 21+ inch e-ink monitor even with a refresh rate on the order of 2 Hz, I'd still take it over a 144Hz @ 1080p. The added density and reduction of eye strain make it much more useful for textual work.

Trust me, there are people who notice the difference. After having tried a good 120Hz display for work I now go out of my way to not need to work on 60Hz displays. It’s more tactile, responsive and immediate. Smoother. Helps focus.

I absolutely notice if my monitor runs at 60hz for whatever reason instead of 144hz, even while just doing desktop tasks. Have you used a 144hz screen for any significant period of time?

Just go to a place where they sell iphones and compare the 60 Hz to the 120 Hz model. Open the settings menu and just scroll up and down. The difference is so very noticeable. I don't know why people try to claim that it's imperceptible, or that you can't tell the difference between a 1080p and 4K display.

I'm 100% fan of high refresh rate on smartphone, because smartphone UI is aimed for scrolling forever. Difference between 60Hz vs 120Hz is night and day.

So then I replaced a PC monitor from 60Hz LCD to 144Hz 4K LCD, I expected such difference before buy. After setup, I can find difference but don't find much difference like smartphone. I don't scroll so much on bigger screen PC, and maybe I'm too used to Windows' crappy scrolling. Anyway my mouse has classic wheel so non-smooth scroll is fine unlike touchscreen/trackpad case. Mouse cursor isn't smooth but it's just that. Finally I bought second 60Hz 4K LCD after that because it's cheaper, it's fine.

If you haven't used high refresh monitor. You probably won't notice the difference. But after you do it once, there is no way to go back. Just like high resolution monitors.

Mouse and scrolling feels so much more smoother on a high refresh rate monitor. To the point if windows messed up the refresh rate, you can instantly feel it.

I have screens running at both 60Hz and 120Hz right now.

For mousing, I can see it but I don't care. I even used my main screen at 30Hz for a while, and mousing was fine.

For scrolling, I scroll at the click rate of my mouse wheel, which is usually 6-20. With no smoothing applied, because I don't want it, scrolling looks the same on both screens.

It's really only games where I care.

So don't be so sure about how universal your own preferences are.

> I can see it but I don't care.

Then you are still able to know the difference since then.

You just don't care about it in that use case. (Neither do I. My second monitor is 60fps, and watching video or developing web page on it are totally fine to me)

The argument `people won't be able to tell the difference about 60fps and 120fps` only makes sense if you don't have experience about using a high refresh rate monitor.

But your argument was "after you do it once, there is no way to go back".

Unless "go back" was "not know there is a difference, unrelated to whether you care"?

Because in the comparison to high resolution, I would never want to go back to 1080p. But refresh rate is whatever to me outside of games.

I personally use smooth scrolling because I find no smoothing more confusing to use. So yeah, scrolling will look different for some people.

Agreed. 1080 is probably a good proportion, but I'd prefer 4k resolution at 200% than native 1080.

Interestingly, it looks like System76 has 4k options for their Intel machines. Hopefully that's a sign of things to come on their Ryzen line?

I am a CJK user, and I can definitely say 4K at 200% is much more better than standard 1080p.

Standard 1080p only looks good for English alphabets. Complex Chinese characters like `國` looks blurry(or even s**tty) on that resolution. Reading chinese charaters on a hidpi monitor is really a much better experience.

Or at least 1920x1200. It's amazing how much 16:10 helps on a small screen.

I have one (the previous one with AMD Ryzen 5700u). I've been using it for work the last 6 months coming from an 2015 macbook. Its been great for developing. The battery lasts pretty well (forgetting my power supply when working from home I got almost 7 hours), its fast (I've done some genetics blast runs which take hours, where those extra cores really help). Its pretty quiet too (you can hear the fan when it spins up, but its very reasonable). Returning to a Mat screen has been nice.

I really like AMD on the notebook. Compared to my 4 year old Oryx pro (intel 8th gen), which had poor battery life (esp when using the Nvidia graphics) and required a reboot initially if I wanted to switch to intel graphics. This one is much nicer, but it won't game nearly as well as one with dedicated graphics.

The first thing I see is a 16x9 screen, think "pass", and close the page. There have to be other LCD panel makers out there. Either their customers don't care and/or the company doesn't care to make a better laptop.

Interesting. For me the screen needs to be 16:9 or 16:10 to be even considered.

that's the same for me. I tend to have "two" windows open at most times and that works well for me on my 15" laptop (ancient by most HN standards). I've looked at the ultrawide and 4:3 screens and I'm good with the current "standard" form factor when I can't get to my 3 monitor setup at home.

> The first thing I see is a 16x9 screen, think "pass", and close the page.

I like 16x9. What do you want instead?

Not OP but I guess 4:3 or 3:2. Some people prefer those to widescreens, having more vertical space is better

MS Surface Books are 3:2 for example (2256 x 1504 on 13,5" / 2496 x 1664 on 15"), or some Thinkpad X1 models are 4:3 (probably just the Fold?). The Framework laptop is also 3:2 (2256 x 1504 on 13,5")

He probably meant 16:10.

Yes, I meant 16:10, though 3:2 is also good. 4:3 is really only for tablets or < 12" screens.

Looks like it’s been longer than I realized since I last paid attention to displays. That’s wonderful that alternatives to 16:9 are rising again.

I recently started using a 1280x1024 display in a 5:4 ratio for my retro PC. I really like it. It's more square than 4:3 and feels very utilitarian.

On the other hand, I still prefer 16:10 over 16:9 for modern displays.

Any thoughts on the LG DualUp [0]? It looks quite interesting for portrait mode work, but I've held off from purchasing due to the... unusual aspect ratio and the fact that it'd be rather difficult to use for watching video content.

[0]: https://www.lg.com/uk/monitors/lg-28mq780-b

It looks really interesting! I found using a different aspect ratio (5:4 in my recent case) changes how I view and interact with the computer. It just feels refreshing to use something different after years of 16:9 and 16:10. Your window layout might be different, which may or may not benefit your workflow.

I agree video content might look a little strange unless it was kept on either the top or bottom, and not full screened.

I can't imagine it makes the most sense unless you got two of them side-by-side--though that would depend on the nature of your work. I use a 43" 4k 16:9 monitor and don't use the full height, leaving part of the top and bottom edges empty. Moving your eyes/head that much vertically just doesn't seem very natural or ergonomic.

I'm not OP but 16:10 or 3:2 are great aspect ratios for laptops.

16:9 demands true full-screen for viewing 16:9 content. 16:10 leaves a little room for toolbars if you just want to maximize a window and look at something.

1080p too. Really hard for me to go back at this point.

There's hope that a 4k screen option might exist, but anything between 1080p and 4k will not look good on Linux at this size. Without fractional scaling or funny supersampling tricks, Linux only really looks good at 100% and 200% scaling.

Maybe in time that will change, but that's just how Linux is for now.

Fractional scaling is a 99% solved problem at least on KDE, even with Wayland it seems to work fine for me. Just a few apps are blurry which I don't use.

PopOs - System76 distro supports fractional scaling.

...the GNOME/Apple hacky way, that is rendering at an integer multiple and then downscaling as needed. It works, but it's not optimal, and won't ever be as sharp as it could be.

The Gnome/Apple way is also apps can opt out when they do their own scaling, such as browsers, and can just stream the output directly at 1:1.

The fix, unfortunately, is blame the hardware. Desktop monitors that don't approach standard DPIs shouldn't be still produced in the 2020s, 24" 1080p and 24" 4k are perfectly common and optimal for their intended uses.

And yes, I think 27" 1440p shouldn't exist... it isn't an integer multiple of 1080p (thus a poorly handled edge case of scaling rasterized media resources, ie, videos), but also, if you wish to maintain proper intended DPI scaling for ye average asset, 1440p needs to be 32".

I use xrandr --scale 0.8x0.8 and it seems alright to me.

My screen is 2560x1600 and I use Fractional Scaling (125%) on Fedora/Gnome with Wayland just fine.

Yah I don't get why these laptop manufactures keep shipping garbage screens. I got a 3:2 2160 x 1440, IPS screen on a $200 tablet a few months ago. My laptop has a 16:9 that looks worse, and has lower resolution despite the machine costing 6x as much.

So, please, its hard to call your product "premium" if its screen is worse than a bottom of the barrel tablet.

That sounds nice. What tablet is that? It's pretty sad that tablets seem to be elongating like phones did. Most of them are 16:10 these days.

I think it was this one: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-11-tablet-intel-pentium-4gb-...

it was on sale for $199, or $299 with the keyboard.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-11-tablet-intel-pentium-4gb-...

But only that second link is still in stock.

Its a bit weak on the CPU/RAM front, but for what i'm using it for (ebooks, netflix, and random PCish tasks (largly RDP) when i'm to lazy to get out of bed and grab the laptop) its not a bad device except for the one "issue" which is that it doesn't have a headphone jack. Something I would have probably returned it for had I paid closer to MSRP on it. Its a reasonable upgrade to the chewi windows tablet I was using before, which also has a weak cpu (but more ram) and a screen that isn't as nice.

>Yah I don't get why these laptop manufactures keep shipping garbage screens.

Because they're cheaper.

>My laptop has a 16:9 that looks worse, and has lower resolution despite the machine costing 6x as much.

Right, so your laptop mfgr spent less money on the screen, charged more money, and got a higher profit margin -> win! This lets their execs get bigger bonuses so they can buy better yachts. What's not to like here?

I'm a customer, and I like the 16x9 screen. Works great for my old school workflows and aging eyes. Of course, I don't know what I'm missing.

I've bought a couple of laptops from System76. They charge outrageous prices and and shipping costs for even the smallest part; other than that, getting parts for their rebadged Clevo machines can be a bit challenging because you often have to order from China, so it takes a while.

too little too late.

since 13months ago, HP sells a elite book G9 for 2k, which have the best combo configuration at, gasp, wallmart for 800... eigth hundred dollars.

same cpu, but PRO version. metal and plastic body. scissor waterproof keyboard. usb c charging (system76 is barrel), 2x sodimm ram slots (system76 is soldered, note thay amd zen3+ pro mighty allow ECC ram in a laptop for the first time! so i want slots), the battery have 18Wh less, but it is also 20pct ligther. and all hardware is fully supported with 5.8+ kernel.

I always try to buy from linux-first-vendors, but I still deal with a librem13 that have sevral keys fail on their keyboard and support is ghosting me. even had to super-glue the hinge latelly. so awful :(

800 seems cheap for an elitebook. Is that the 8x0 model?

I have the older g8. It worked perfectly out of the box on linux since new. Recently, windows started being able to use the webcam, too.

But beware the screen. It's absurdly bad. I'd say it's okish for $800. For 2000, it's a bad joke. Some models only have 6-bit screens (at least those have an excuse for being horrible).

The fan is sometimes noisy, too. It seems like it's somewhat off-balance, ever since it was new.

Last time there was a System76 laptop announcement on HN I said I was going to be in the market for a new laptop in the coming year but wouldn't consider a System76 laptop because of the giant logo on the lid. Some people said the logos on their System76 laptops were stickers which could be removed. I contacted System76 and was told that was no longer the case.

If anyone from System76 is here, I am currently looking for a new laptop and will not be buying a System76 laptop based entirely upon the giant logo on them. I don't want to put a skin, a cover or stickers over my laptop. My preference would be no logo at all but that seems to be impossible. If you are compelled to use me for free advertising post purchase, at least make it somewhat discreet.

On my Darter Pro 8 (recentish, not top-of-the-line) laptop, the branding on the lid isn't one sticker, it's a sticker per character, which I could likely remove and leave smooth black metal.

This Reddit thread seems to agree with me that the stickers can be removed, albeit about a different model:

https://old.reddit.com/r/System76/comments/ge0mqz/lemur_pro_...

Looks like it has the same kind of lettering as mine, though.

When I contacted System76 sales last year after others posted their logo was stickers they told me their logo was no longer stickers. Maybe that is only on the upper range but the upper range is what I am interested in.

I think the Purism laptops have no branding, if that is a priority for you.

Now that the two big Thinkpad pointer stick patents have expired I wonder why more laptop makers aren't incorporating them?

Despite the niche love for them on a personal level corporate fleet buyers would still buy DTSN screens if they were $5 cheaper per unit than the regular ones because they are that damn fickle. That is to say their priorities are different.

Corporate fleet buyers purchased a lot of Thinkpads over the years.

Or put that point thing on a mouse. So much better than a scroll wheel. I still miss that mouse.

Non-programmers are not really fond of it, unlike you and me. I actually consider it a ThinkPad underutilized selling point but it takes time to master navigation with the pointer stick and sometimes it gets in the way when you need to type fast.

If this had a Trackpoint I would consider it instead of a new Lenovo Thinkpad. I love the Trackpoint.

In the last month I bought and returned a Darter Pro from them. Almost immediately I realized what some have mentioned already-- these machines are overpriced and lack build quality you'd get with mainstream laptops. The bezel was messed up, causing light bleed on the display. I'd be better off loading Ubuntu onto a Dell XPS for half the price.

+1, System76's build quality is terrible. My company spent lots of $$$ on system76 workstations, only found that GPU card falls off during shipping due to the terrible design they have...

The price and build quality are both bad, but I think you're leaving off the most important one: the software support is bad. I haven't had a Linux machine with unreliable sleep/wake in fifteen years except for my System76 Adder WS.

A bulletproof, "Just Works" Linux laptop would have its place even with System76's other problems. But they trail behind the likes of Lenovo even on their supposed strong suit.

Been a Linux user for 20+ years. Pretty sick that we have companies like this selling Linux laptops with Coreboot. Man, that was a wild dream back in the day.

I'm using a Macbook personally, but this stuff is so sick. To be honest, I never really imagined the future as using Windows + Linux + MacOS without thinking that much about the platform, but about the only thing that sticks out to me is that the command line on Windows is rubbish. Otherwise, it feels very naturally normal to me as I switch between platforms. The web has really changed things.

Only thing that surprises me are the screens. I thought the high res screens like in the Macbook were commonplace now.

You need a better adjective and to try Windows Terminal with a modern shell shipped this millennium. ;-)

I like yori when in a DOS mood.

> You need ... to try Windows

Hard no from many people including myself. It will be a cold day in hell before I give Microsoft any more of my money or personal information after the abuses they've done to me, my information, and my purchases.

Preachin' to the choir buddy. Suggestion was for the grandparent post who wanted a better shell for windows.

This feels like somewhat unfortunate timing, with AMD's 7000 series mobile CPUs just around the corner.

"U" class chips won't be in laptops on the shelves until this summer, if previous mobile CPU releases are good indicators.

Oh and then be ready for months of firmware and kernel patches until the chip is actually usable as a daily driver on Linux.

Getting a 6000 series CPU now that the kinks have been ironed out is not a bad idea.

You really have to do your homework with the new AMD processor rebranding. It's super easy to think your getting the latest and greatest, only to end up with Vega 2 graphics like the 5000 series from years ago. I had to whiteboard it to keep it all straight myself.

When I look at AMD's new mobile lineup for 2023, and I didn't notice anything "new" in the U-series power profile (15 watts tdp). I'd be more than happy with a 6800U in linux friendly packaging.

Let me know if you think there's a specific 7000 series chip I've overlooked.

P.S: about the system 76 teaser itself, the static picture used as a "before and after" comparison for 60hz display vs 144 hz display is comedic gold.

> Let me know if you think there's a specific 7000 series chip I've overlooked.

The 7040 series, which is Zen 4 & RDNA 3 (so not a Rembrandt refresh) should be available for "thin and light" laptops.

You are absolutely right about that[1]. but strangely, on the 7640U the CPU core count drops from 8 to 6 in comparison with the 6800U. Presumably to make room for the new AI cores? I'm not sure that trade off is right for me.

[1]: https://wccftech.com/amd-debuts-ryzen-7045-dragon-range-enth...

The 7840HS is also designed for thin-and-light laptops, according to AMD, and it has 8 cores. It is a "35W" chip, but AMD says it is for ultrathins ("The Ultimate Ultrathin Processor"), and TDP is a relatively meaningless number these days.

That wccftech article is the only one I can find that lists a 7640U (not HS) processor. I think they combined some previous rumors with the actual announced specs by accident. I can't find any indication that the 7640U actually exists.

It's not strange. x6xx = 6 cores, x8xx = 8 cores; it's a lower tier.

Huh, you're right; there's no 7x4xU. But a 15.6" laptop should have an HS processor anyway. System76 is cheaping out by using a 6800U.

Honestly, I disagree. The 6800u has a base TDP of 15 watts - the 6800HS has a base TDP of 35w. The tradeoff in thermals/battery life is not worth the marginal performance increase, at least in my opinion.

I'd prefer a more powerful laptop and let the customer underclock if they want to.

Besides a slight bin the Ryzen U and H chips are largely the same, and you can easily limit power usage w/ a tool like https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj to get similar power consumption. The advantage of having an H/HS laptop though is that their cooling solutions tend to be much better...

"Around the corner" is relative. Last year, the Ryzen 6000U was announced at CES and laptops shipping with them didn't start becoming available until around August. This year, AMD haven't even bothered to announce the U series at CES. I wouldn't expect any non-gaming Ryzen 7000 laptops to be announce before Computex (and ship before back-to-school season?). Anything earlier would probably be 7030 drop-ins, which are just refreshed/rebranded Rembrandt Ryzen 6000 chips anyway.

'15.6″ 1920×1080'

Come on...

Meanwhile people like me think you're complaining about the tiny screen.

I bought a Lemur because of coreboot but I can't tell if this laptop will have coreboot or a closed BIOS/EFI. Admittedly I haven't played around with customizing the coreboot firmware but that was my intention, mostly to avoid long boot times and potentially to try fitting the whole kernel in firmware.

I recently bought a System76 Oryx Pro 9, and I could not for the life of me get Debian to boot from a USB. The same USB booted on my old Galago Pro, so I know it was good. The Oryx Pro runs on some FOSS UEFI or BIOS made by System76 themselves, and it doesn't play nice with anything but Ubuntu and Pop!_OS.

I filed a support ticket asking for help, and they told me they only support Ubuntu and Pop. On one hand, I understand having service desk limits, but their garbage UEFI and lack of support left me no choice but to return the laptop. In fact, I thought this article was going to be about people returning laptops to System76!

I really hope they get their game together and make a pre-boot system that can handle non-Ububtu stuff easily. The previous System76 I had was able to handle a Debian install just fine.

It's a bit judgmental to call their UEFI "garbage" just because it didn't work correctly for you.

I agree it's frustrating they don't support booting other operating systems, but please be fair or provide some more evidence before you call some software "garbage"

They should have gone with AMD from the start and the screen is a non-starter. When researching laptops, screen is probably the biggest differentiator at this point.

I won't be replacing my Galago Pro with another System76 product when that day finally comes.

I am surprised to see that their chosen configuration does not please everyone's contradictory expectations and desires.

All I want is a commitment from the company to provide a couple of qol firmware updates. System 76 has burned me in the past in this regard.

I bought a Xiaomi RedMiBook Pro 15" 2022 edition last summer. On Aliexpress no less. The machine was a steal at 1.2kEUR. I bought the maxed out config which is about 1.5k if you buy it e.g. via the Xiamomi shop instead [1].

There is excellent support for all hardware on Linux (and even a ICC profile) in [2]. I run System76's pop!_OS on it. Everything works dandy. The machine is a beast.

It has a 3.2k (!) res screen. Only 400nits but I find that's plenty for the lighting conditions I use it under. The case is milled from dark alluminum and is frequently mistaken for a macbook. The build quality is top.

It's a Ryzen 6800H APU with built in Radeon and an NVIDIA GTX2050. It has 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD.

It's the first non-mac I bought in a decade after getting disappointed with macOS in recent years.

The only thing that isn't on par is the touchpad on Linux. On Windows it's very close so this is definitely a config issue. I may just have to spend some time with settings.

[1] https://www.xiaomihome.global/xiaomi-laptops/xiaomi-redmiboo...

[2] https://github.com/vrolife/modern_laptop

Try using Wayland and see how the touchpad feels. Should be much better. Nvidia makes it problematic to use Wayland, but it’s a good test to verify the quality of the trackpad hardware.

I've been eying up this laptop. Could you elaborate on your experience with it on Linux? Have the patches in [2] been mainlined? If not, have they worked between kernel releases (e.g. linux-5.x to linux-6.x)? How's the battery life? 3200x2000 @ 15.6" = 242ppi. Are you able to use integer (2x) scaling comfortably?

I used Kubuntu on it before switching to pop!_OS because non-integer scaling was blurry on the Ubuntu desktop.

Kubuntu was totally fine. I always use around 1.5x scaling on this res/ppi.

Integer scaling works fine (and is sharp) on both desktops.

There are no patches in this repo but actual driver kernel modules. I don't think any of them have been mainlined but I may be wrong. Whenever I update the kernel, I run a single script from that repo. But I don't update kernels unless there is good reason for my particular hardware.

I used the 5.17 kernel series until two weeks ago and switched to 6 since then. Everything works perfectly fine.

Feel free to PM me for any other questions about this machine.

An impressive amount of work has gone into that repo! Presumably, loading those modules taints the kernel, but that's a fair compromise for the functionality gained. Some of them e.g. 8852BE appear to be making their way into 6.1.

How's the battery life across different workloads?

I frankly do not know about battery life.

I almost exclusively use the laptop at home when sitting in my super comfy lounge chair all day to code.

The most I traveled while working (text editor, compiling Rust code from time to time) was four hours. I believe to recall half of the battery was left after that.

Needs a 2k screen, wont go back to 1080p...

If 4k is 3840 × 2160, 1920 × 1080 is 2k, FYI

Nope, 1440p is known as 2k because it is twice the amount of pixels as 1080p.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/2k-definition,37641.html

Says that the DCI definition of 2K is 2048x1080, and that 2560x1440 should be called QHD or WQHD. (Quad = 4x, HD = 1280x720).

And this aligns with the usage I am accustomed to.

This is 100% correct.

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

> Another resolution that is often referred to as 2K is 2560 × 1440 (1440p) however that is a common mistake in marketing[12] and is called QHD by the DCI.

It is a mistake to refer to 2560x1440 as 2K.

People calling 1080p "2K" is a pet peeve of mine. 2.5K is a more appropriate name for 2560x1440, if you want to use that naming convention, but I think just saying 1440p is simpler.

I'm upset for such people too. Chinese smartphone manufacturers tend to say it.

> People calling 1080p "2K" is a pet peeve of mine.

Can’t edit now, but clearly I meant to say 1440p in this sentence, not 1080p.

Ooh, it's actually starting to look rather nice, unless these are deceptively flattering angles. Which Clevo is this?

Maybe it's the long rumored locally produced System76 laptop.

If you believe getting a laptop crom System76 and from Clevo will get you the same laptop, you're quite mistaken.

No? Sysmtem76 rebrands Clevo machines and offers them with software support & warranty. That's like, their whole thing.

No, actually, they don't. They work with Clevo to make them, and Clevo can sell the hardware, but the firmware is very different, and possibly some of the hardware as well.

see e.g. cassidyjames at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17039414

There were a couple of great threads on Twitter, but it looks like Jeremy Soller isn't on anymore. (https://twitter.com/c4software/status/1322954098711400449 is one guy realizing too late that they're not the same, that likely precipitated https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremy_soller/status/132295496454... still in Google cache saying "A reminder that you shouldn't buy Clevo's and expect them to work like System76's"

My 2014 RMBP is finally ready to go to the great messenger bag in the sky. Apple no longer provides updates and the battery is swelling. I'm not excited about the new MacBook offerings. The hardware is neat but the OS really turns me off. Apple is on a crusade to make MacOS unusable and the lack of stability in the environment is too much for me.

I'm ready to make the leap into a Linux desktop environment just for the sake of stability but I want well supported hardware. Is System 76 a good option? The advice that makes sense to me is to "use what the devs use". Does an AMD-only System 76 check that box?

As far as support goes. System76 would be your best bet. You can also checkout HP Dev One (which comes with System76's Pop!_OS).

Do you game? Asus Zephyrus G14 is also AMD-only(mobile 6700 or 6800 graphics), premium build quality, and is available with a QHD display.

But is it well supported by a mainstream Linux distribution?

Ryzen 6800U: https://www.amd.com/en/product/11591

It's a Zen3+ with embedded RDNA2 graphics.

Not the state of the art as of CES announcements, but I'd happily get a laptop with one of these if I needed a laptop right now.

It's good System76 is offering such an option, because it makes them a candidate.

I would not currently consider a laptop that's based on Intel or NVIDIA hardware, due to vastly inferior performance/watt and lack of open documentation, respectively.

I own a LemurPro 9. Love it but the arrow keys are a crime against humanity. It appears they have fixed this (maybe even sooner) with the Pangolin.

System76 if you here can you switch chassis :) ?

I have trouble understanding why every Linux-friendly laptop vendor insists on this godawful arrow key layout. It was a bad idea when Apple did it, and it was a bad idea when you copied them. Apple has even backtracked on this terrible design, but the copycats never got the memo.

I'm never, ever buying a laptop with full-height horizontal keys but half-height vertical keys.

Nice lappy. I would also like to see max amount of RAM supported. I normally buy laptops with the least amount of RAM and then add max amount that I could buy way cheaper elsewhere. Same with SSDs.

OK, let's look and analyse what they have in detail:

    Operating System: Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS or Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Do they offer any custom software that are only available on these distributions and would be a struggle to find on other? Sone other Clevo resellers have for example custom software to control the fan intensity that's Ubuntu only (and Ubuntu 20.04 only). It's not clear why they restrict it to only these distributions. Also, why did they even bother to develop their own distribution? Every Linux in existence is a combination of 1 DE (Gnome, KDE, XFCE or other), 1 package manager (apt, pacmanm etc...) and some kernel params. Is it really worth spending their time on a custom Linux instead of on hardware/firmware? Speaking of firmware, does it have Coreboot or stock Clevo BIOS? Does it have a fingerprint reader and does it work, can you control the fan speed from anywhere? Nowhere to find answers to these questions...

    Processor: AMD Ryzen™ 7 6800U: 2.7 up to 4.7 GHz - 8 Cores - 16 Threads
    Graphics: AMD Radeon™ 680M

This is great! my opinion is this is the best laptop processor reasonably available on the market right now. But if you're not desperate to switch your laptop and can wait until the middle or end of this year, buying the next generation Zen4 processor is astronomically better.

    Display 15.6″ 1920×1080 FHD, Matte Finish, 144 Hz

Not bad, not good either, 1440p would have been ideal. They do not specify the sRGB % coverage. Is it 90, 95, 99? The difference between 90 and 95 is definitely noticeable and you would do yourself a big disservice if you don't go for 95% at least.

    Memory: 32 GB LPDDR5 @ 6400 MHz

Yes, amazing, the future is now! But is it 4x8 or 2x16? And is it ECC? What brand?

    Storage: 2 x M.2 SSD(PCIe NVMe). Up to 16TB total.

No problems here, I assume PCIe 4.0, but would be great if they specified. Don't want to accidentally discover it was PCIe 3.0 after the purchase has been made. Also, what brand of SSD do they provide? Brands are important so you can look at benchmarks.

    Expansion: 3 × USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1 × USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, SD Card Reader

3 USBA, 1 USBC? Why not 2 and 2? In the future we will need less USBA and more USBC. Look at macbooks, they have all USBC and everybody eventually copies macbooks anyway (regardless if it's a good or bad decision). The more USBC you have now the better for the future.

    Input: Multitouch Clickpad, Single-Color Backlit US QWERTY Keyboard

Is 100% of the surface area clickable on the clickpad, or is it one of those awkward ones where you have "mouse buttons" at the top/bottom, and you can not press onto the top, only tap? Need more information!

Keyboard wise it's great! a 15 inch laptop without a numpad is a waste of potential, as a numpad is immensely helpful when doing any sort of finance work. I definitely would not buy a laptop this big without one. Still some more information non the keyboard layouts available would be nice.

    Networking: Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2

All perfect here!

    Video Ports: HDMI 2.0, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C w/ DisplayPort

I'm assuming this is the same single USBC that they mentioned above. Is it DisplayPort 1.4, or 2.0?

    Audio: Stereo dual-driver full-range speakers, 1× Headphone/Microphone Combo

This is their biggest flaw. If you look at the chassis, you will see, the speakers point DOWNWARD. Speakers are supposed to point towards the listener, not away from them. Also, from previously owning multiple Clevo laptops that I've bought for work purposes, sound quality is so bad, you can simply assume you have no speakers as you'll be using headphones or a conference speaker. If you buy this thinking you'll be able to enjoy any kind of video/movie out of working hours without purchasing and carrying extra peripherals you will be extremely frustrated and disappointed. Low maximum volume, poor quality sound, no base, and pointing away from you; every flaw imaginable. More that 4 people in a conference room and wanting to dial in from one laptop to share? Forget about it, you will be embarrassed to even try as the combination of laptop's built-in speakers and microphone quality will make the whole experience terrible. This is an area where macbooks excel, great speakers and great microphone, and that's why people love them so much, you can actually enjoy the audio interaction. There is no reason for non macbook laptops to be this bad at audio. All they have to do is copy macbooks, like they eventually do anyway... just put in better speakers and microphone, it's that easy. Cost wise it's not an issue either since a machine like this is going to cost in the same ballpark as a macbook anyway, why be cheap on something so insignificant for the overall price but so important for the user experience?

    Camera: 1.0MP 720p HD Webcam
    Security: Kensington® Lock, Hardware Camera Kill Switch

A camera cover is better than a camera kill switch in my opinion, good to have at least I guess.

    Battery: Li-Ion - 70 Wh
    Charger: 65 W, AC-in 100–240 V, 50–60 Hz

Why not 99Wh? (the maximum allowed at airports) This is not a macbook, it's a beefy, thick laptop no matter how you look at it, why not outfit it properly?

Overall: at least it's guaranteed to run Linux... but from the points I raised above I guess you can see there is no point for me to get excited about this model in particular. Price wise it's going to be over the "expensive" threshold anyway, so might as well find something that ticks most checkboxes. Unless, of course I'm desperate for a new machine, in which case I could settle for this for a while.

I'm more hopeful for this vendor instead for higher quality devices: https://starlabs.systems/pages/starfighter

To respond to your first part about operating system: I bought a computer with Pop!_OS but I promptly reformatted the disk and installed openSUSE on it. No issues at all. I did notice that in their preinstalled OS they did some customizations (enabling GNOME fractional scaling for example) but nothing that's not available in other distros. They have a nice Pop!_OS shell that's friendly to those new to tiling window managers, but that's also something you can install on other distros. I have previously mentioned on HN how I like that shell: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33295421

This user in another post here has encountered issues. It looks like you were the lucky one.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34363615

I've put Gentoo on all of mine but the gaming one. I've not enjoyed any problems with the hardware compatibility.

The chassis looks great and is made of magnesium - if it weren't for the tenkey I would be seriously considering this. A smaller thinkpad-esque machine would probably be really popular.

I waited so long to get a new laptop, and System76 was my top choice, except for their awful screens.

Finally bit the bullet on got a Macbook Pro 14" instead...

Are new S76 laptops still Clevo or some other ODM?

I'm on the Serval 76 with a 2070.

I don't really care if they are going team red again. I'll be trying a different manufacturer next time.

this is in addition to intel, so what's your point? You don't like system76 hardware at all and will be switching?

From a hardware side things are spec'd fine. The issue is on the firmware/ company side. I no longer have confidence in the company to support their products. A couple of qol firmware updates could have fixed that.

Same for me. The Galago Pro (galp5) is quite ok but the firmware has bugs and they are not fixing them. Over the last 2 years I have had the fan running constantly when a USB-C device was connected, the fan going into full turbo mode over night, the screen started to flicker after wakeup on battery and some other issues. And battery life is beyond terrible.

After two years of struggle I have thrown the towel and got a used Macbook for the same price. I am starting to question their engineering priorities. Instead of developing new desktop environments I think they should make sure their devices are rock solid and work perfectly with Linux. That's their USP and they are not delivering on that promise.

I would love for something like this to exist in Canada. Unfortunately import fees make these much less attractive here.

Meh. I won't switch to a Linux laptop until I can get a reasonable resolution on the screen that matches my MBP's output for a reasonable price.

I can't understand why I can't get a reasonably good priced laptop with just Linux that doesn't match the video resolution of a MBP.

This is what kills me. At work, they only swear by HP for some reason. So, I've got a shitty Elitebook that cost, after RAM and SSD upgrades, within 100 euros of a same-size MBP with same RAM and SSD.

But the build quality is uniformly worse. And the screen... it's an atrocity. You don't have to compare it to an MBP (I only have an old 2013 one, and it still wipes the floor with it). Even compared to an older XPS (7th gen intel), it's horrible.

Hah I misinterpreted this headline as “people returning” these laptops

Is this a thin and lightweight laptop? I've been looking for a thin powerful AMD laptop with good Linux support

  Dimensions  14.59″ × 9.76″ × 0.71″ (37.06 × 24.79 × 1.80 cm)
  Weight      3.95 lbs (1.79kg)

I have a System76 galp5. It's fairly thin and lightweight. I have mixed feelings about it. Linux support is good. But Windows support is pretty bad. All available drivers are here: https://github.com/system76/windows-drivers but even after installing everything in that repo listed under galp5, I still have a ton of issues including laptop not going to sleep when lid is closed, touchpad occasionally not working until I toggle it on/off from settings, etc. Getting Windows working from Pop OS using Virtual Box was also a massive, fragile headache. I would get it working, but then sometimes when using Visual Studio from inside virtual box it would freeze and the VM would be permanently bricked unless I had previously saved a snapshot.

All this to say that if you care about Linux and only Linux, System76 could be a good choice. But if you need to use Windows at all, I would steer clear of S76 until their Windows support is a little better (also YMMV - I've just had so many issues with Windows on a galp5, but that might not be the case with other models).

I'd recommend using Windows under a VM, for this and myriad other reasons.

But it really underscores the point that Linux and Windows hardware really are different.

> But it really underscores the point that Linux and Windows hardware really are different.

You mean it underscores the fact that Windows actually has terrible hardware support and the only reason it runs on anything is because OEMs put in work...

Linux runs on most Windows hardware OOTB.

> Linux runs on most Windows hardware OOTB.

"Runs" is in the eye of the beholder. It runs, but very often with small glitches here and there, especially where hardware and software meet (e.g. suspend and resume.) Even Frameworks manages to screw it up, in no small part because they don't support Linux, only Windows. And AFICT, its _very_ hard to fully support both simultaneously.

This is why I only buy System76. I've considered Tux etc and may also. But so far System76 has been the best for me.

Not gonna lie, very underwhelming compared to what's coming out from other manufacturers...

Even a budget brand like Acer is releasing Ryzen 7000 chipsets and pairing it with higher resolution OLED screens, probably will be cheaper as well...

https://www.acer.com/ca-en/laptops/swift/swift-go-14-amd

The Ryzen 7000 mobile lineup includes chips based on Zen4, Zen 3+, Zen 3, and even Zen 2 cpu cores, and using RDNA3, RDNA2, and even Vega graphics! An Acer with a Ryzen 7000 series chip could easily have the same or older cpu core or graphics arch, as the Zen 3+ and RDNA2 in Ryzen 6800U.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/18718/amd-2023-ryzen-mobile-7...

(and honestly, Zen 3 and RDNA 2 are damn good anyway)

The teaser says 8 cores/16 threads so likely will be at least equivalent. With a much better screen. And cheaper.

System76 is a brand for ideologues. They ship laptops with FOSS UEFI. That’s their gimmick.

I mean, I like Linux and am a bit of an ideologue... I want System76 to succeed and want to buy a laptop from them but I also like using nice hardware.

I think you get what you pay for. Nicer hardware = more expensive. Maybe if this is successful the System76 will consider fast-tracking Ryzen 7000.

Except System76 charges premium prices for subpar hardware...

Like they don't have anything built as nicely as a Dell XPS or a ThinkPad Z or X1 Carbon. Even Acers look more premium...

I bought one less than a year ago. I took the budget for a macbook and spent it maxing out a system 76 laptop. Double the memory, over double the storage, ample USB ports, not really sure what's subpar about what I'm using. Best laptop I've ever had by far. Regarding looks, I don't know or care.

Compared to a MacBook I’m sure your battery life is meager. And the memory bandwidth (which may not matter at all for your use cases) will be minuscule compared to Apple Silicon. But those are general non-MacBook issues.

What the heck is their problem?!?! Surely a company 10 times the size of Dell could produce just as nice of a laptop design...

I think a Linux-only laptop is pretty cool, even if it has some tradeoffs.

they're charging more, but I always assumed that's because they're a smaller company based in the US paying US wages. Also a while back they mentioned that they wanted to build everything here in the US. They also support linux, coreboot, etc. I think there are people out there willing to spend money to support something they care about.

If they made a US-built laptop with CoreBoot, a decent keyboard and a 4K OLED screen I'd buy it in a second. Would probably be willing to spend $2500 on it.

Does that really exist? All I see is:

> Pick your perfect Swift Go 14 AMD

> Search for your Swift Go 14 AMD by features or browse the products below.

> Results: 0

I mean, the System76 discussed also isn't available at this exact moment either...

still only 1080p

What makes their stuff so great? I was customizing a gaming rig on their site the other day and it was wildly overpriced. I imagine you can match their specs for this laptop at cheaper prices.

You can. Its for people like me who want a linux laptop, but don't want to go through the hassle of installing it. While I could, I just didn't want to spend the time on it, plus setting up some drivers here and there. Thats the value prop. I got one for home use, (Oryx pro with Nvidia) 4 years ago. It worked well enough and had so few issues I got one for work.

I totally sympathize with the driver compatibility concern, but what is the hassle of sticking in a linux usb drive to install?

In general, how serious are these driver compatibility concerns for modern laptop hardware?

The driver issues still exist if you don't do research ahead of time. There are laptops on the shelf today that still don't fully work out of the box with Ubuntu.

I don't know. I think most machines are pretty well supported. 4 years ago when I first bought one reading through the forums it seemed kinda hit or miss with wifi and sound. especially since my initial machine had nvidia graphics it seemed like a throw money at the problem and avoid headaches. If it was a desktop, I probably would have installed myself.

The machines I have from system76 are rebadged "Clevos" (I got dog hair in the fan and replaced the fan, which necessitated investigating. My AMD one with original fans is NL50NU) https://www.clevo.com.tw/

The POPOS full disc encryption out of the box was another selling point. I'm not sure thats easy to set up on on a new install.

The support is good, when I had issues going up a major version (I think steam installed something newer than what it was expecting) and I couldn't figure how to get the OS to upgrade despite tons of command line foo, I put a ticket and they pointed me in the right direction.

I don't know about popos but when installing Fedora disk encryption is a one-click option.

You'd be surprised by how many software engineers balk at the idea of installing an OS from scratch.

> In general, how serious are these driver compatibility concerns for modern laptop hardware?

If you're not using anything Nvidia related, the process should be smooth as butter. Any Intel or AMD chipset from the past 5-7 years should be well supported by now.

The hassle is the relentless debugging and glitchiness after slapping Linux on a Windows computer. System integration is a thing, and it's hopeless for a random user with zero access to firmware and chip/board documentation.

Also, the support and open firmware.

System 76 has a ways to go in this regard.

My system 76 firm ware feels like abandon ware

Really? That is not my experience with them at all.

I bought a high end serval a couple years ago. I think they stopped producing that line. We never got any firmware updates to address battery life, wifi, sound, bluetooth, trackpad issues. I think they perhaps realized the fu'd, and that product line might have represented a sunk cost for them. I can't blame them if thats the case from a buisness pov, but as a consumer, I'll shop elsewhere for my next 'it just works' linux laptop. Many more options now than a handful of years ago.

Interesting. Good luck then! I'd be interested to hear back about some good ones. I agree, options are good and it's so much better than 20 years ago.

When I installed Linux on my first PC that was an operation that involved literal days of downloads and a screwdriver. Now it takes 30 minutes and I do it 3-4 times a year at least.

> Its for people like me who want a linux laptop, but don't want to go through the hassle of installing it.

For me, buying from an upstream-oriented Linux hardware vendor is about getting an assurance that on any distro newer than the hardware, everything will just work. I always plan to perform an installation because I have distro preferences.

With System76, a stable, fast, open-source BIOS is also part of the value proposition.

Personally, I'd never get an NVIDIA laptop again, 'supported' or not. At the end of the day, NVIDIA's kernel module will constrain what kernel versions you can use regardless of what any downstream vendor does. That means possible version conflicts with other out-of-tree kernel modules that I actually want, like ZoL.

you are paying for convenience, support the project, and have system that is tested for the ground up and configured by the manufacturer, and branding. I don't feel that is so great, some other laptops and pc in the linux ecosystem are great also, but this is their monetization scheme, high price for niche products. I don't think they can sell for lower price and compete whit companies who doesn't expend the money in developing the distribution, wm, etc.

'support the project'

And what project would that be?

PoP os (flavor of ubuntu), cosmic desktop, and a company focus in desktop and laptop Linux.

Wildly overpriced compared to building it yourself or compared to other PC building companies?

I purchased a Thelio Mira awhile back and have been happier with it than any other PC/laptop I've owned before.

The big value add that System76 is having a Linux desktop that is guaranteed to just work out of the box the same way you would expect and Apple machine to work out of the box. In fact, I've probably had less issues with this machine out of the box than any new macbooks I've had in the past few years.

I've built plenty of my own PCs before and run linux as my primary desktop multiple times, and my Thelio is a wildly better experience than in the past. The build quality is excellent and for the first time I can really use Linux as my primary desktop with no problems.

Building a PC yourself is always going to be cheaper, and for many people that's the preferred path anyway. The point I'm at in my life I would much rather pay a premium to not have to worry about that at all (especially when it comes to hardware on linux).

If anyone is look for a "just works" linux PC, I've found system76 to be a great experience.

Wildly overpriced compared to building it yourself or compared to other PC building companies?

Both actually, the markup is extremely high on their stuff if you try to get a gaming rig from them.

I built all my PCs since I was 13, and I can say it's not as involved as people think. You really kinda screw in the motherboard, pop in a cpu, and a graphics card/ssd (or if you have no need for a discrete GPU and you get one of those CPUs with decent integrated graphics, you are basically only popping in a CPU). There is like two wires that go from your PSU to mobo at best. The thing is pc hardware prices are already absurd since Covid, so when you add in this extra markup on labor, you are just getting something that's way beyond normal prices. You might look at a $1600 price tag and scoff at it as nothing, but its really a $800 dollar machine with all this extra stuff added or marked up. I've seen people look at $2000 pre built machines and just think they are crazy for buying at that price. It's like ... I don't even think its a money thing, it's like a scammy thing. Imagine if I show up and sell you a iPhone 10 at iphone 14 prices. It's the principle of the matter.

You know, there are some afternoons where I don't know what to do with myself. Setting up/building a PC is an hour for me. If it's new to you, it might be an afternoons worth of work. It's not an endless multi day fiasco, I promise.

They spend a lot of that money supporting upstream contributions, maintaining a first-class Linux experience, providing real support, and otherwise putting their money where their mouth is.

Compare to almost literally any other laptop, where uttering the word "linux" gets you nothing more than a voided warranty and a strong YOYOMF, and some fraction of customers will see value in System76's approach.

Pixel for pixel, watt for watt, you could do better elsewhere. But only with a Windows preload and jumping through hoops if you ever have a hardware failure and have to reinstall the preload to run some awful diagnostics before getting an RMA, for instance. Awful experiences like that really take away from the "value" of a cheaper machine, if your time is worth money, as I suspect it is.

Guys, let's not go overboard with the hyperbole. I fully accept you guys wanting to support their PopOS endeavor, I totally get it. But let's not all act like we're all CEOs of megabillion dollar companies with boardroom meetings 24/7 that we can't be bothered to fiddle with some common computer issues.

> maintaining a first-class Linux experience

NVIDIA + Coreboot is not a linux-first experience by any stretch of the imagination. Unless you want to be stuck on POP OS for forever.

> What makes their stuff so great? I was customizing a gaming rig on their site the other day and it was wildly overpriced.

Try customizing an Apple product. It's also wildly overpriced.

System76 provides top-tier support. That alone is expensive.

You can't get MacOS any other way reliably. I'm pretty sure you can get PopOS for free. Plus Apple makes pretty unique hardware. This is a totally unfair comparison.

Compare to this instead:

https://www.lenovo.com/au/en/p/laptops/yoga/yoga-2-in-1-seri...

They also have a list of which of their laptops they tested with Linux:

https://support.lenovo.com/pl/en/solutions/pd031426

Again, System76 doesn't have a price yet for their Ryzen 7 laptop so I can't say if this Lenovo is overpriced in comparison. Maybe, maybe not, but given this Lenovo price, I'm pretty sure System76 ain't going below $2000.

the Lenovo yoga you reference above is explicitly not for sale in the USA.

But for those of you in EU and Australia, this is a nice option. I've considered importing it.

Got a System76 laptop last year because I was sick of Windows and Mac nonsense (if my OS is going to suck, I want it to suck on my terms). The last time I tried desktop Linux was over ten years prior and I was prepared for a hell of obscure configuration and instability, but pleasantly it all Just Works. If you want a full-fledged Linux-based laptop that works out-of-the-box, I can recommend it.

God damn that is one ugly motherfucker. Why in the world is anyone still squeezing useless numpads onto laptops???

> Why in the world is anyone still squeezing useless numpads onto laptops???

Excuse me?! I will never buy a laptop without a numpad! I use numpads every day!

The better question is why is anyone still squeezing a useless touchpad onto laptops???

We can have both. I think we have the tech still. Not sure why OP is angry lol

Well first, I don't believe you.

But let's assume you really do need a numpad for your work or whatever. Wouldn't you rather have one that was... full sized? And wouldn't you rather the keyboard be centered on the laptop, so you can actually use it on a lap?

> Well first, I don't believe you.

No point in arguing what you believe.

> Wouldn't you rather have one that was... full sized?

Yes, I would. But having a numpad is absolutely better than not having a numpad.

> wouldn't you rather the keyboard be centered on the laptop, so you can actually use it on a lap?

I can use my laptop on my lap when the keyboard is not centered. Do you have a disability (there's nothing wrong with having one) which prevents you from doing so?

No, I wouldn't rather suffer the loss of a numpad just to have the keyboard centered. Having the keyboard centered does not improve my usability in any way whatsoever. Removing the touchpad would, however. Disabling the touchpad is the first thing I do; I use keyboard navigation around things instead. It's faster and far less clumsy.

I hate the numpad on my system 76

I refuse to buy any laptop without a numpad.

Just curious, what do you use the numpad for?

I'm not who you replied to, but:

- typing numbers.

- sometimes also: typing really long numbers

- rarely, I'll use the numpad to hold my pinky finger. My control key, arrow key, and backspace key don't like this though.

- I also use the +, -, and Enter keys too.

- Asterisk is handy for multiplication. But slash is definitely not used ever.

- Once in a while I might press the NumLock key. Usually it's pressed in pairs.

But how do you get over the embarrassment of how ugly your keyboard is? or how you have to type on the left side of it instead of the center?

It's a difficult task, but I shift my computer about 1.5 inches to the right.

> how do you get over the embarrassment of how ugly your keyboard is

Step 1: I don't get embarrassed by something that is functional.

Step 2. I don't get embarrassed by something that isn't ugly.

How do you get over the embarrassment of not being able to work and play as fast as the people who have a functional numpad?

I have to do a lot of calculation on the fly. When I'm on a business call and someone gives me up-to-date metrics I frequently have to translate that into numbers that make sense for my business. (e.g. If I'm on the phone with a vendor and someone tells me their unit price is $1.44, I need to add that to my COGS, subtract the current unit price, and multiply by monthly or annual capacity to figure out how that's going to affect costs.) I can do this by touch while I'm talking in 2 - 3 seconds if I have a numpad. If I don't, I need both hands and roughly twice the time per calculation and I need to double-check I typed things right because the numbers aren't aligned quite the same way on each keyboard I use. It becomes a noticeable drag on productivity when I'm performing more complex ad hoc calculations for reports or presentations. I used a macbook for years and won't do it anymore. Linux on a computer with a numpad is the only way for me to go now.

IP addresses and IDs. Very satisfying to quickly bang out multiple numeric strings without error. I don't do this at work as much as I used to, so sometimes I switch to a TLK keyboard for more desk space.

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