Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 276 posts

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#131

Post by sbeckeriv »

isantop wrote: post #89
albertzeyer wrote: post #56

Recently there was a discussion about Huawei MateBook X Pro, which also seems to be a great Linux notebook: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21170765 In that discussion, several other good Linux notebooks were also discussed, including System 76. But it was reported there that the quality is quite bad: > but the quality is reportedly bad (flaky hardware, too-fast power drain, reflash bios to toggle discrete graph…

It's worth noting that stories like this are the extreme minority of cases. We have a great many customers and the overwhelming majority of computers we sell live out their entire (long) lives without any sort of incident, major or minor. However, when someone buys a computer and everything works as expected, that's not really all that notable because there's nothing interesting about that, and so you don't really he…

Yes every manufactured product will have its percentage of issues. I think it is how you handle the failures and the customers that will be important moving forward.

I can not speak to the original quote but my experience as not been amazing. My 4k Oryx Pro has rebooted randomly since the second month I have owned it. I sent it back 3 times already, ran tests per support and even reinstalled PopOs many times. It still has randomly rebooted. My last interaction with support was just past the year mark of when I bought it and I was asked to pay to replace the last item (the battery, just about everything else was replaced).

I love using PopOs. I love the 4k screen I have and the Oryx. I dont love writing this or the response I sent to support about the request for paying for it. It gives me pause when recommending System76 to a coworker/friend and I will be looking around when when the time comes to get a new laptop. Support was helpful when I had a linux issue early on but the rest of year long interaction was about the reboots.

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#132

Post by api »

amdelamar wrote: post #119
api wrote: post #58

I love what System76 is doing, but I have to say that the name Pop OS is just horrible. It just screams "toy" and sounds like a name that would come out of some fly by night junkware vendor. The exclamation mark makes it even worse. It's almost as bad as ending a name with "-ster." Naming is hard, but almost anything would be better. If in doubt I'd go with something bland like "System76 Linux." I bring this up becau…

Agree. Also their webpage for Pop!_OS[1] should show front-and-center what the GUI/Desktop looks like, not the logo of the OS name. They should take note of elementary's landing page.[2] - [1] https://system76.com/pop - [2] https://elementary.io

The Pop page on system76.com is just bizarre. It leads with things that are really niche interests and you have to scroll way down to get to what the desktop looks like.

My 30 second impression is "this is for children who want to program toy robot kits."

I am posting this criticism in the hopes that it's constructive, since I do like what system76 is doing. I use a Mac right now but I'd consider their laptops as one of the first possibilities if I ever abandoned the Mac platform.

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#133

Post by gray_-_wolf »

jackpot51 wrote: post #3

I am Jeremy Soller, Principal Engineer at System76. Let me know if you have any questions. The source for this can be found here: https://github.com/system76/firmware-open There are instructions there for building and testing the firmware in QEMU, you do not need to have our hardware to try it out.

Hi :)

As few people already pointed out, it would be nice to see some laptops with AMD CPUs.

For me personally, I would also love having trackpoint, have it on my thinkpad and did not use touchpad once.

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#135

Post by dorfsmay »

jackpot51 wrote: post #3

I am Jeremy Soller, Principal Engineer at System76. Let me know if you have any questions. The source for this can be found here: https://github.com/system76/firmware-open There are instructions there for building and testing the firmware in QEMU, you do not need to have our hardware to try it out.

Are you familiar with the ThinkPad x210?

Have you thought of addressing the market of people wanting a small (12 to 13 inch), robuste, laptops with trackpoint and no arbitrary memory limitation?

Lenovo has abandoned that market, and there's enough demand for people to create and sell kits for it. Could System 76 fill that gap?

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#136

Post by mfsch »

isantop wrote: post #89
albertzeyer wrote: post #56

Recently there was a discussion about Huawei MateBook X Pro, which also seems to be a great Linux notebook: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21170765 In that discussion, several other good Linux notebooks were also discussed, including System 76. But it was reported there that the quality is quite bad: > but the quality is reportedly bad (flaky hardware, too-fast power drain, reflash bios to toggle discrete graph…

It's worth noting that stories like this are the extreme minority of cases. We have a great many customers and the overwhelming majority of computers we sell live out their entire (long) lives without any sort of incident, major or minor. However, when someone buys a computer and everything works as expected, that's not really all that notable because there's nothing interesting about that, and so you don't really he…

While I have no experience with System76 and the quality of your devices, I doubt you can make any claims about the number of incidents with confidence. I have owned many devices that have had various quality issues that didn’t rise to the level where I felt it was worth going through some warranty procedure that may or may not alleviate the issue after spending an unknown amount of time & money on it. I don’t like the idea that the manufacturers of those devices take the absence of a complaint as confirmation that the computer has lived a long life without any sort of incident, major or minor.

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#137

Post by jackpot51 »

enriquto wrote: post #117
jackpot51 wrote: post #3

I am Jeremy Soller, Principal Engineer at System76. Let me know if you have any questions. The source for this can be found here: https://github.com/system76/firmware-open There are instructions there for building and testing the firmware in QEMU, you do not need to have our hardware to try it out.

is it possible to replace coreboot by the fully free libreboot (without blobs)? what will stop working if you do that?

No, it is not possible to boot a Comet Lake Intel CPU without blobs.

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#138

Post by tadzik_ »

jdright wrote: post #36
jackpot51 wrote: post #3

I am Jeremy Soller, Principal Engineer at System76. Let me know if you have any questions. The source for this can be found here: https://github.com/system76/firmware-open There are instructions there for building and testing the firmware in QEMU, you do not need to have our hardware to try it out.

Why no AMD CPUs? I just don't buy anything Intel and I'm for some time looking at System76, but each time I go build a setup I remember why I gave up the last time around. Also, with the price difference between the two it would be a more interesting hardware using this difference to acquire more RAM.

Can't speak for System76, but I got the AMD Thinkpad (A485), and I'm honestly disappointed as hell and now I understand why you don't see the Ryzens on laptops too much.

The power management is an absolute joke (the thing has two batteries and barely lasts 2 hours total), suspend works maybe 20% of the time, and the OS actually freezes on it every now and then leaving no trace in syslog. I'd much rather get an Intel now if I had a choice.

Re: System76 Will Ship Linux Laptops With Coreboot-Based Open-Source Firmware

#140

Post by franey »

tadzik_ wrote: post #138
jdright wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why no AMD CPUs? I just don't buy anything Intel and I'm for some time looking at System76, but each time I go build a setup I remember why I gave up the last time around. Also, with the price difference between the two it would be a more interesting hardware using this difference to acquire more RAM.

Can't speak for System76, but I got the AMD Thinkpad (A485), and I'm honestly disappointed as hell and now I understand why you don't see the Ryzens on laptops too much. The power management is an absolute joke (the thing has two batteries and barely lasts 2 hours total), suspend works maybe 20% of the time, and the OS actually freezes on it every now and then leaving no trace in syslog. I'd much rather get an Intel…

What distro? I have a T495s and I haven't had any issues with it running Arch.
Post reply on HN