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Comment by cmm | Hacker News Reader

Things some people (ahem) learn only _after_ investing in System76 hardware: most of the premium goes not toward Coreboot development (S76 employs all of one full-time firmware guy) but rather toward a largely-pointless rewrite of Linux desktop in Rust. Welp, lesson learned

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Things I learned after buying one of their machines: I now have a nice usable laptop that has great hardware compatibility with every Linux distro I've tried. They can spend the money however they like, if you ask me.

I'm actually very happy to see this.

I like S76's additions to GNOME, and I'm happy to see them moving to a place where they'll no longer be stuck on GNOME's whims and wishes.

They've been positioning themselves to have a more put together and unified stack as time goes on, and this is just one part. On top of that, it seems to me that a DE is a very good place to get memory safety, so I'm glad to see someone moving that direction.

How many people do you realistically need for working on Coreboot/firmware stuff? I guess that one full-time person is just all that's needed?

And I bet that many System76 users don't actually care about all of this either. Some do, but I'm not so sure the majority do. It's certainly not something that actually sells significant amount of machines in the mainstream market. Having a usable functional desktop does.

> I guess that one full-time person is just all that's needed?

Emphatically not. I mean, just look at the bug tracker. Or how about this data point: my Lemur Pro (lemp11) could not suspend at all when shipped -- the model started shipping in Summer IIRC, but the relevant workaround/fix was only finally released in November. So yeah, the Coreboot/firmware field is very understaffed.

I certainly care a lot about having a Linux desktop that works well with the hardware I bought for it, and has a company with a vested interest in keeping it that way. I admire how Apple controls their entire stack and is able to do interesting, smooth integrations with all of their offerings.

That is why I went with System76.

A year ago I asked on my local Linux mailing list for some hardware recommendations, and I mentioned I would like to buy something w/Linux pre-installed. A lot of people got upset with that idea.

I am done installing OSes. I never learned anything from it, and I buy a system to use it, not to configure it.

> Welp, lesson learned

Yes go to HP/Dell/Lenovo/Apple where no one works on open firmware, i don't understand your mindset....

I wonder what's worse: not supplying open firmware at all, or doing it at the S76 level. You get laptops that don't suspend as shipped, you still cannot remove of disable Intel ME, but yay another desktop shell!

Are these S76 level bugs, or issues from their suppliers?

The leap in scale from using Clevo designs with S76 software to designing your own hardware is massive.

They worked with HP. But if you are expecting Apple MacBook Pro level devices in the Linux flavour, I think it's going to take a few more years of buying what they are selling to achieve that scale.

I am still kicking myself for not scooping up the Dev Ones when they were $200 off. They had a keyboard nipple dammit!

The DevOne is a really interesting and unexpected product. I hope they iterate and follow up with a new one eventually.

>You get laptops that don't suspend as shipped

They have not suspended the laptops during shipment?

>you still cannot remove of disable Intel ME

Yeah right? Another good point for open firmware.

Can't upvote you enough.

You'd think they'd have clear priorities, yet they don't seem to understand firmware matters, and that there are enough Linux desktops already.

I don't like the idea of supporting a Linux distro or DE I won't use or ever care about.

Every vendor that seems to say they care about coreboot implementation seems to just be doing it to capture the eyes of people like us who actually care about it. But then as you stated, they'd rather spend their time/money to write their own DE than give a shit about open firmware.

If I was going to buy a coreboot laptop it would likely be a higher end Chromebook that mrchromebox has a hack for.

I'm curious to know who you would suggest supporting instead.

MNT Reform is one too ;)

https://mntre.com/

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