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System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

blog.system76.com

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Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#141

Post by nol13 »

ooqr wrote: post #84
noir_lord wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that buying 6mths behind just under the state of the art gets you 90% of the performance often for half the cost. I've been custom building my desktops since the 90's and I can't remember the last time I had an issue with hardware, I think it was a Geforce MX440 so ~2003. The driver story on desktop hardware for Linux is absolutely great (in my experience) if the hardware has been out 6mths or more or uses a c…

Unless you want your PC to sleep and wake back up. That still takes a while to get resolved with every GPU apparently.

Such a simple thing, (as far as a user is concerned) yet also a complete show stopper when it doesn't work right.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#142

Post by ruben_varnish »

aortega wrote: post #15
SunShiranui wrote: post #10

It's nice to see this - I'm definitely interested in seeing computers built and designed for Linux. I must say, however, I don't see that need for desktops. Custom desktops are relatively easy to build, even for customers. 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.

Pretty much all lenovo Thinkpad laptops works perfectly fine with Linux. Source: I have about 5, different models.

I have been on the X2XX series for over 10 years, counting 5 laptops.

EVERY single thing has worked with Ubuntu (every single six months release, since 12.04 only used LTS releases) and required little to no effort.

As for a "Desktop" I haven't touched one at work since 2004. TBH I believe only gamers care. And gamers like to build/adapt their own hardware. Unless you can differentiate heavily and have something unique (something like building a RED camera or a super fast Electrical car) how is that going to fly in a marked that is in decline?

Keep yourselves to building a super high end laptop that can rival a Lenovo X series model and we will look into that.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#143

Post by artursapek »

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,…

I don't know enough about laptops to do it, but I've pondered that someone could probably make good passive income by building a website that takes in a request like this and recommends laptops (like the 8 sibling responses to you are)

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#144

Post by bitwize »

nol13 wrote: post #141
ooqr wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you want your PC to sleep and wake back up. That still takes a while to get resolved with every GPU apparently.

Such a simple thing, (as far as a user is concerned) yet also a complete show stopper when it doesn't work right.

ACPI is a busted-ass standard. OEMs are free to, and do, do pretty much whatever. Again, the only relevant standard from an OEM's perspective is "does it work on Windows".

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#145

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

The posts comparing various laptops to the Dell XPS 13 and calling them similarly sized are missing a key point: the XPS 13's lack of bezels. It is a 13" screen, but due to the lack of bezels, it basically fits in an 11" chassis.

I think that's an often overlooked detail and one of the pieces of "sexiness" that makes it very difficult to want to switch away from an XPS 13: it's so damn portable.

System76 needs to come out with something comparable to that before I can switch. The market of people who want something rugged/durable/functional are already taken care of by the Thinkpads. The market that is still untapped is that of the Linux ultrabooks. Developers and other Linux enthusiasts basically just want a MBA/MBP that runs Linux natively. Do that, and people will flock to it.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#146

Post by ruben_varnish »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #128
d0vs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple build overpriced low-end perf laptops with high build quality, I'd rather have performance at a way lower price.

The "build quality" means it looks nice, but it sure isn't durable. If you spill liquid on an Apple, it's a dead machine. If you drop an Apple, it's also dead. Thinkpads can survive a hell of a lot more abuse.

Every time a friend or colleague asks why I use "that" I simply thrown my laptop to the floor, pick it up and continue working on it.

Then I ask them to try the same with their Apple laptop.

That normally makes them never ask such questions again.

I learned that from an IBM (and later a Lenovo) sales person when presenting the X series. It's designed and built to tolerate real use. And some abuse :-)

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#147

Post by Keyframe »

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?

Big Enter key master race on the physical front! Most (all?) European keyboard layouts have big physical Enter key.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#148

Post by hysan »

Does this mean that they'll finally offer alternative/better keyboard layouts on their laptops?

> Laptops are more complex and will follow much later.

Oh... I guess not.

Custom desktops aren't all that interesting. Especially not with the KickStarter / other funding platform culture that caught on with the custom desktop case community. I really don't see System76 being able to outdo enthusiast communities in terms of what people want (SFF, quietness, form factor, etc.). Their best bet is to work with enthusiast communities, take the cases people are supporting/testing, and create verified + supported Linux configs for those systems. I think they'll have far more success in creating truly unique and useful systems going that route.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#149

Post by recursive »

Majestic121 wrote: post #96
cmdrfred wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In business not really, the majority of home users are on WiFi though.

On laptop, sure. But on desktop? I've never met anyone using something else than plain old RJ45

Hello! Nice to meet you.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#150

Post by ruben_varnish »

brightball wrote: post #110
kayoone wrote: post #85

System76 gained some popularity from the frustration about the latest MBP, so i guess this is their response to that. I don't really buy the text about their vision and goals though, in the past they have not really been well known for great build quality or good design. They basically sold pre-installed Linux on rebranded chinese laptops. Their new goals are ambitious and sound too ambitious but i wish them best of…

Right now the biggest thing that they have going for them is a fairly well known brand in the market, which is a big deal considering who they are up against. It's a real growth opportunity if they can really differentiate themselves with a quality experience.

One of the most well executed marketing stunts ever seen must be the "Powered by Ubuntu Linux" stickers that System76 provided back in the day when your OS was still relevant and people thought Ubuntu would be the next big thing in the desktop/laptop space.

I have personally learned so much from that experience that it is very difficult to overlook when thinking of brand hacks.

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