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The Serval WS from System76: A Linux Workstation Running PopOS

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Re: The Serval WS from System76: A Linux Workstation Running PopOS

#51

Post by 29athrowaway »

chrismorgan wrote: post #45
29athrowaway wrote: post #6

As a former user of System76 laptops: they are not very lightweight and the keyboards are not very durable. You better get a bag with wheels if you plan on having one.

On the keyboard matter: I got a laptop based on the Clevo W550SU-1 in mid-2014 (not from System76, but the same hardware platform); its keyboard was fair when new, decidedly spongy after one year, and very terrible after two (if typing casually, about a third of the time Space wouldn’t activate, and a few of the most regularly-used letters would sometimes not activate either—the workaround is to press the keys more d…

Yes. In my case many keys stopped working and I had to use a separate keyboard instead.

Re: The Serval WS from System76: A Linux Workstation Running PopOS

#52

Post by 29athrowaway »

showerst wrote: post #9
29athrowaway wrote: post #6

As a former user of System76 laptops: they are not very lightweight and the keyboards are not very durable. You better get a bag with wheels if you plan on having one.

Nowadays they have a number of normal weight models. My 2019 darter weights 1.6kg, and it looks like the new lemur/galago are 1.1 and 1.41kg respectively. Not ultralight but fairly average.

How many inches? Mine was 17" and it wasn't very comfortable to carry it around.

Re: The Serval WS from System76: A Linux Workstation Running PopOS

#53

Post by derefr »

Scarbutt wrote: post #23
sscarduzio wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THIS. Plenty of kinda nice Linux laptops out there, but with a terrible, terrible screen. For example, a MBP 13" has 2x resolution than this 15". This is a monumental deal breaker for the majority of people.

Is there much difference when looking at text on an 13" screen between 1080p and 2160p ? assuming both are high quality screens.

Assuming you have good eyes, twice the DPI means you can have your text almost-but-not-quite twice as small without losing readability. Which is effectively the same as giving you almost-but-not-quite twice the screen real-estate.

Re: The Serval WS from System76: A Linux Workstation Running PopOS

#54

Post by julianlam »

noja wrote: post #20
ISL wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a look at the Dell offerings. The Developer Edition of the XPS 13 is a linux-first example: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebo... (This post made from an XPS-13 7390 with a standard-HD display. The standard display is quite pleasant to use. The keyboard is wonderful compared to my crouton Chromebook of the past. The fit, finish, and operation of the device is the nicest I've used.)

Any coil whine?

Yes, it exists. However it is my daily driver and I've all but tuned it out months ago.

It's really not as big a deal some make it out to be.

Re: The Serval WS from System76: A Linux Workstation Running PopOS

#55

Post by nbst »

randmeerkat wrote: post #32

I own this laptop, it’s awesome. The only complaint I have is that the battery really functions more as a UPS. The System76 support is really top notch too.

I got this laptop about a month ago. My two complaints are 1) the fan gets surprisingly loud, sometimes for no reason 2) the webcam is very bad (720p 7FPS?!)

I will say I'm impressed that the fan can't be picked up by the mic, I wonder if System76 did any custom work there. I wear cupped headphones so I don't hear it much myself. Did you have the fan problem though, just curious? Maybe I can decrease the fan speed in the BIOS...

Re: The Serval WS from System76: A Linux Workstation Running PopOS

#56

Post by randmeerkat »

Teknoman117 wrote: post #39
sscarduzio wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THIS. Plenty of kinda nice Linux laptops out there, but with a terrible, terrible screen. For example, a MBP 13" has 2x resolution than this 15". This is a monumental deal breaker for the majority of people.

I am typing this on a Dell XPS 15 w/ a 4K OLED running Gentoo . But more to your point, yes, there are few laptops with good screens that have awesome Linux compatibility. They exist, certainly, but there are not too many of them.

I have to ask, what compelled you to use Gentoo as your daily driver? I haven’t touched Gentoo in many years, but it was not something I would ever consider as a desktop distribution based off that experience. Has something changed?

Re: The Serval WS from System76: A Linux Workstation Running PopOS

#57

Post by randmeerkat »

nbst wrote: post #55
randmeerkat wrote: post #32

I own this laptop, it’s awesome. The only complaint I have is that the battery really functions more as a UPS. The System76 support is really top notch too.

I got this laptop about a month ago. My two complaints are 1) the fan gets surprisingly loud, sometimes for no reason 2) the webcam is very bad (720p 7FPS?!) I will say I'm impressed that the fan can't be picked up by the mic, I wonder if System76 did any custom work there. I wear cupped headphones so I don't hear it much myself. Did you have the fan problem though, just curious? Maybe I can decrease the fan speed in…

The fan isn’t any worse than compiling code on a MacBook Pro for me so I don’t really mind, it’s just something I accept with the form factor of the laptop. Also, it’s a Ryzen desktop CPU in a laptop that doesn’t throttle, so my expectations for the fan being quiet were low.

I use an external webcam with an external monitor most of the time.

Re: The Serval WS from System76: A Linux Workstation Running PopOS

#58

Post by Teknoman117 »

randmeerkat wrote: post #56
Teknoman117 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am typing this on a Dell XPS 15 w/ a 4K OLED running Gentoo . But more to your point, yes, there are few laptops with good screens that have awesome Linux compatibility. They exist, certainly, but there are not too many of them.

I have to ask, what compelled you to use Gentoo as your daily driver? I haven’t touched Gentoo in many years, but it was not something I would ever consider as a desktop distribution based off that experience. Has something changed?

To be honest, not really.

Where I work we run Gentoo on all our servers because we have many changes across the Linux stack and deal with custom, internal hardware. We have build profiles for various system configurations that are entirely reproducible on a binary level. It made sense since we have many similar or identical systems globally and need access to the latest kernel versions.

I installed it on all my personal systems to force myself to learn how to use it. I ran Arch on everything previously. Then I went and did something stupid - I fell in love with Gentoo's package management system. As someone who writes a lot of code on my own time as well, I found Gentoo's package manager (portage) to be the least headache inducing of all the ones I'd used (deb, rpm, PKGBUILD). This is my own subjective opinion obviously.

Re: The Serval WS from System76: A Linux Workstation Running PopOS

#59

Post by holtalanm »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #47
holtalanm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a monumental deal breaker for the majority of people. I highly doubt that a laptop not supporting >1080p on the monitor is considered a 'monumental deal breaker for the majority of people'. 1080p is just fine for laptops. the screen on the Serval WS is 144hz, as well, which is much higher refresh-rate than most HiDpi displays.

I write text documents for a living. 4k at 60hz is what I need and it works perfectly from Ubuntu Mate on a Dell laptop. I'd never go back to 1080.

i write code for a living, so I'm in a similar boat. all my screens are 1080p and I don't have any problems.

my point was that this is actually not a deal breaker for most users. just a deal breaker for some users. I would venture to say they are even in the minority.

Re: The Serval WS from System76: A Linux Workstation Running PopOS

#60

Post by [deleted] »

Teknoman117 wrote: post #58
randmeerkat wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to ask, what compelled you to use Gentoo as your daily driver? I haven’t touched Gentoo in many years, but it was not something I would ever consider as a desktop distribution based off that experience. Has something changed?

To be honest, not really. Where I work we run Gentoo on all our servers because we have many changes across the Linux stack and deal with custom, internal hardware. We have build profiles for various system configurations that are entirely reproducible on a binary level. It made sense since we have many similar or identical systems globally and need access to the latest kernel versions. I installed it on all my perso…

[deleted]
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