System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house • Hacker News Board

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#61

Post by Johan-bjareholt » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 10:19 AM UTC

wapz wrote: post #51

francis-io wrote: post #48

I hope you guys have lots of success, we really need more options for linux on a laptop. I don't know if I'm the only one, but I really want a 13 inch laptop thats thin/ultrabook format, with low specs and only a HD screen. All I do each day is use a browser and SSH into other machines, I don't need an i5/i7 processor and HiDPI display to do that. My ideal laptop would be an XPS 13 sized laptop, with a 1080p screen,…

Can't you pick up an XPS or thinkpad with essentially your ideal specs and linux? The one thing is you won't get great battery life on the ultrabooks because they usually have smaller 4 cell batteries I believe.

No great battery life on ultrabooks? Have you ever even used one? The XPS has one of the best battery life on the market and other thin laptops like chromebooks have great batterylife while still being thin. The reason why 11-14" ultrabooks have good battery life is very simple: SSDs take up less space and are more efficient, iGPUs take up no space and are more efficient and no DVD drive taking up space.

I love my Chromebook with coreboot and archlinux, but I need a upgrade to a 1080p screen and more than 4gb of ram without having to pay $1000 for a overpriced laptop with a dual-core i7.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#62

Post by Lio » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 10:23 AM UTC

d0vs wrote: post #55

mafro wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted: opinion presented as fact

Compare the cheapest Mac ($1000) to an $800 ASUS: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air https://www.amazon.com/i5-6300HQ-keyboard-Microsoft-signatur... The ASUS has: - a larger screen - a better CPU - a better GPU - as much memory - more storage

That's maybe not a great comparison, it's a different class of product with worse battery life and much heavier. The MacBook Air has been optimised for a different use case.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#63

Post by H4CK3RM4N » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 10:23 AM UTC

d0vs wrote: post #55

mafro wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted: opinion presented as fact

Compare the cheapest Mac ($1000) to an $800 ASUS: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air https://www.amazon.com/i5-6300HQ-keyboard-Microsoft-signatur... The ASUS has: - a larger screen - a better CPU - a better GPU - as much memory - more storage

The MacBook Air is an outdated product.

The closest real comparison is the MacBook Pro to the Surface Pro, in which case the MacBook is better at every price tier(expect for the touchscreen which is totally useful).

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#64

Post by sanswork » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 10:24 AM UTC

d0vs wrote: post #55

mafro wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted: opinion presented as fact

Compare the cheapest Mac ($1000) to an $800 ASUS: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air https://www.amazon.com/i5-6300HQ-keyboard-Microsoft-signatur... The ASUS has: - a larger screen - a better CPU - a better GPU - as much memory - more storage

-disappointing screen quality(size isn't the only thing that matters)

-twice the weight

-1/4th the battery hours

-one of the worst touch pads around

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#65

Post by inimino » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 10:26 AM UTC

Theodores wrote: post #14

Nowadays I use Intel NUC boxes for Ubuntu LTS - stick in RAM and M2 disk and that is it, all done. I don't see myself moving to System 76 unless they bring out an exceptional product. For instance, if they did a desktop that contained two motherboards, one for a 'server' and one for a 'client', then that would really help build web apps where you don't want your 'server' to be slowed down by your IDE, browser tabs an…

If your server is slowed that much by your development environment, it's going to have a hard time dealing with (N>1) actual users. General purpose computers are good enough, it seems unlikely the days of exotic machines and workstations will come back.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#66

Post by trymas » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 10:27 AM UTC

pawadu wrote: post #60

Morgawr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a System76 laptop 5 years ago, still use it today. It's not perfect and I had some issues in the past but it's still going strong. I did buy it with a UK keyboard layout and back then it was an option, I'm not sure if things have changed since then though.

wait, UK and US layouts are not the same?

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

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#67

Post by chrisan » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 10:27 AM UTC

We're all Systems now

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#68

Post by morganvachon » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 10:28 AM UTC

sz4kerto wrote: post #53

yaantc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owner of a Thinkpad X1 3rd gen running Debian (started with Jessie, now Stretch), and my experience is quite different but there are some things to know. Let's trade anecdotes: > - Wifi is flaky (ier than on windows) No problem there, always been rock solid. The chipset is likely to matter, my laptop uses an Intel chipset. Performance wise Intel may not be the best, but the Linux support has always been good in my ex…

> The thing is, a stock Linux distro is made independently of the PC hardware that will run it. There's no integration like any PC vendor does when installing Windows, making sure the Windows configuration is well tuned. You make it sound like Windows needs to be fine-tuned (by the vendor) to provide good battery life. This is absolutely not the case. You install a bare Windows 10 on a random laptop, and battery perf…

> Anecdata, but my desktop Lenovo workstation's suspend function worked well with Linux, but after an update (few months ago) it never resumes successfully. Nothing in logs -- just simply doesn't wake up properly. (4.10 kernel.) These are painful things.

That sounds like my experience with Windows 10 on my gaming PC. I only use that machine when gaming, and while it has a Now, this is on a PC I built, but I used a common motherboard (Gigabyte Z170M) and never had this issue on my previous build, also based on a Gigabyte Z series board. My wife's computer is a mini-PC made by HP, and it started having the same sleep/wake issues during the same week. Something in a recent Windows update has affected sleep states.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#69

Post by restalis » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 10:34 AM UTC

Arnt wrote: post #46

s_kilk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A well designed linux laptop, with no driver issues, good build quality, that doesn't sacrifice performance for thinness? That's what I'm missing. It exists, it's the Thinkpad T-series. I don't get all this hand-wringing over the need for hypothetical great Linux machines when we have Thinkpads available right now.

Which T is closest to a Macbook Air 11"? There are many fine linux laptops in the desk-home type, 14"-17". The selection isn't so fine if you're looking for something that'll fit in your lap on the plane or train, and have 8G of RAM. Or at least 4.

You just trampled over "doesn't sacrifice performance for thinness". And using on my lap in a plane or whatever, like maybe I would when laying on my couch, was never even considered. Are you sure it's a practical measure to judge by a product and isn't just an Apple-tailored one?

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#70

Post by haspok » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 10:37 AM UTC

Arnt wrote: post #46

s_kilk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A well designed linux laptop, with no driver issues, good build quality, that doesn't sacrifice performance for thinness? That's what I'm missing. It exists, it's the Thinkpad T-series. I don't get all this hand-wringing over the need for hypothetical great Linux machines when we have Thinkpads available right now.

Which T is closest to a Macbook Air 11"? There are many fine linux laptops in the desk-home type, 14"-17". The selection isn't so fine if you're looking for something that'll fit in your lap on the plane or train, and have 8G of RAM. Or at least 4.

You want an XPS 13 then.

I just used mine on a Ryanair flight a few days ago, cramped in the middle seat for 3 hours. The XPS 13 fit perfectly on the very small folding table, the top of the screen just sticking under the bottom of the pocket-thing that is always full of useless flyers.

I believe it has the same footprint as a MBA 11. And of course, I'm running Linux on it :)