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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

#151

Post by lai »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #145

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 com…

I would also add that if they can also get the same quality trackpad as that of MacBooks, I would also flock to it.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#152

Post by gamache »

haspok wrote: post #139
gamache wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

T450 owner here, running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Desktop. My machine hangs when I unplug it from the Thinkpad dock. X rendering glitches are an hourly occurrence and X crashes weekly. In laptop mode, the trackpad handling is not up to snuff either. (I guess if I wanted all those features, I could just install Windows.)

You will most definitely want a recent kernel (16.04 ships with 4.4 - you want 4.8 or later). Also check the Arch wiki about Intel video to see if you can fix your problems with X ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Intel_graphics ), eg. switching from SNA to UXA.

Thanks for the link -- I'm still hanging when unplugging from the dock, but switching to UXA and disabling 3D accel seems to have quieted the glitches down.

I did try some newer kernels a few months ago, but then my wifi stopped working. But this should not be necessary when running a flagship LTS desktop Linux on extremely common hardware from two years ago! I expected more.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#153

Post by sacul »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #145

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 com…

MBP-quality trackpads and MBP-equivalent battery life. I can't understand why battery life isn't higher on the list of "must haves" for people who want a nice linux laptop.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#154

Post by arcanus »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #145

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 com…

> 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.

You nailed it. I'm someone who only works in Linux but admires (and desires) the form factor of a MBA.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#155

Post by lallysingh »

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.

As they're already tested and setup for Linux, I'd probably just go with one of their systems. It's just one less thing to worry about.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#156

Post by neverminder »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #145

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 com…

This. Plus at least two USB 3.1 Type-C (Thunderbolt/DisplayPort) ports with USB Type-C charging would really make it stand out.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#157

Post by criddell »

lai wrote: post #151
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #145

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 com…

I would also add that if they can also get the same quality trackpad as that of MacBooks, I would also flock to it.

This has bothered me for a long time. Why are PC trackpads so awful? Why don't PC makers just do what Apple does with their trackpad?

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#158

Post by lai »

criddell wrote: post #157
lai wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also add that if they can also get the same quality trackpad as that of MacBooks, I would also flock to it.

This has bothered me for a long time. Why are PC trackpads so awful? Why don't PC makers just do what Apple does with their trackpad?

I think it's patented.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#159

Post by ansible »

stevehb wrote: post #79
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,…

If you're looking for 13 inch, standard HD screen with long battery life, and all you need is browser and SSH functionality, you might think about trying a Chromebook. The SSH functionality comes as a Google-made extension [1]. The CPU and RAM specs are usually lower than you mention, but in my experience the machine runs fine for video calls, Netflix, etc. [1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-shell/…

I switched to an Acer R11 Chromebook for something small and handy and cheap. It runs fast enough for browsing and shell stuff. Keyboard is decent, and it isn't flimsy.

I've also install crouton for a full Ubuntu environment, which I use occasionally. But mostly I'm ssh'ing into my workstation and servers.

My only annoyance is the caps-lock key, which is now the Google search key. You can press Alt-Search for caps-lock, but it is slow and a little glitchy.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#160

Post by [deleted] »

nissimk wrote: post #109
sidm83 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the case always. My first cheap thinkpad worked great, but the 2nd expensive one (T440p) has bad driver support for Wifi (on current and last Ubuntu LTS). Connections are unstable and throughput is ~0.3x of the dongle I use (both 2.4Ghz 802.11n). Hardware - Realtek RTL8192EE PCIe.

Always opt for Intel hardware. They have Linux device driver developers on staff. Sometimes the newest chips are not supported, but they always release something within a few months.

[deleted]
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