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System76 and LVFS

blog.system76.com

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Re: System76 and LVFS

#21

Post by craftyguy »

jimnotgym wrote: post #17
craftyguy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, there's Purism ( https://puri.sm ), who actually take security and build quality seriously. Edit: looks like the system76 downvote brigade is hitting this discussion.

The cheapest Purism seems to be $300 more than the cheapest System76. Is the purpose of your comment to say that more expensive laptops are better?

> Is the purpose of your comment to say that more expensive laptops are better?

Uh, no. The purpose of my comment is to point out there's a company that builds and sells Linux laptops that are of higher quality. They've put in a lot of work to support Coreboot, disable ME, and have a working TPM. They are trying to reduce their dependence on non-free software.

It's a coincidence that in this case you 'get what you pay for'.

Re: System76 and LVFS

#22

Post by JepZ »

Btw. regarding the Dell XPS advice found in the original post:

Three years ago I bought an Dell XPS 15. After a few month the touchscreen was broken (did not respond to any input). As I didn't really need it, it took me a few weeks before I contacted Dell. Their support tried to fix the devices remotely for nearly an hour (flashing firmware updates), the touchscreen was still broken. So they send a technician who tried to repair the device in my kitchen. Sadly he didn't have a replacement screen with him, so a few days later another technician came and replaced the screen.

Afterwards the touchscreen worked again. But a few weeks later the Screen started to flicker occasionally. At first I wasn't sure if it was related to the battery level or some software error, as it just happen from time to time and I wasn't using the device that often anyway. But after searching online for the issue and having used the laptop with Windows and Linux for months I am confident that it is another hardware malfunction. Sadly the warranty is long time over.

I liked the effort the support put into fixing the device, but I am a little disappointed to have had so many hardware issues for a device with such a high price. And while I had very few driver issues, the overall quality of the product didn't convince me to recommend it :-/

Re: System76 and LVFS

#23

Post by twblalock »

slededit wrote: post #18
kentt wrote: post #8

Just don't touch system76. They're just low quality rebranded Sager laptops with a crap version on Linux. You can just buy the same laptop and if you really like their horrible version of Linux, then put that on there.

The Linux community really does eat its own. For a long time the question was - when will there be a Linux supporting laptop. Now a company comes and does it and the complaint is they aren't bespoke enough.

This particular complaint is that they are just rebranding OEM hardware, so you might as well just buy the OEM hardware.

Re: System76 and LVFS

#24

Post by jackpot51 »

twblalock wrote: post #23
slededit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Linux community really does eat its own. For a long time the question was - when will there be a Linux supporting laptop. Now a company comes and does it and the complaint is they aren't bespoke enough.

This particular complaint is that they are just rebranding OEM hardware, so you might as well just buy the OEM hardware.

The OEM hardware does not have our custom firmware, our WiFi and drive selection, our testing, or our support.

Those things may not all be perfect, but they do make a big difference.

Re: System76 and LVFS

#25

Post by smacktoward »

slededit wrote: post #18
kentt wrote: post #8

Just don't touch system76. They're just low quality rebranded Sager laptops with a crap version on Linux. You can just buy the same laptop and if you really like their horrible version of Linux, then put that on there.

The Linux community really does eat its own. For a long time the question was - when will there be a Linux supporting laptop. Now a company comes and does it and the complaint is they aren't bespoke enough.

As someone who uses Linux on a laptop (ThinkPad) and would love to support a Linux-first laptop vendor, the question I've always had about System76 specifically is: what value exactly do they add?

System76's pitch is that they add value by ironing out all the compatibility issues Linux can have on laptops, so they "just work" the way macOS does on MacBooks and Windows does on ThinkPads and Dell XPSes. But they're maddeningly vague about precisely what compatibility issues they're ironing out, at least in their public-facing marketing materials.

Those make their pitch instead on the quality of their hardware -- a front where they are inevitably doomed to lose to deeper-pocketed OEMs like the ones mentioned above -- and on their coming with a custom flavor of Linux called "Pop!_OS", which as far as I'm concerned is an anti-feature. I don't want to be locked into some hardware vendor's custom Linux ghetto just to get hardware compatibility; I want to run mainstream distros like Ubuntu, Fedora or Debian. You can get a System76 machine with Ubuntu, but if the hardware "just works" with Ubuntu, why muddle the message by trying to get me to convert to a whole new distro? And if it doesn't "just work" with Ubuntu, why offer that option in the first place?

It's all very confusing, and leaves me with the vague feeling that they're talking about just about anything they can talk about other than what specifically they're doing to improve Linux's compatibility with laptop hardware. And that makes me worry that they're just taking generic hardware from some Chinese factory and installing Linux on it.

If that's what I wanted, I could do it myself, you know?

Note that I'm not saying here that they aren't doing important work improving compatibility. What I'm saying is that, if they're doing that work, they're doing a really good job of hiding it from potential customers. Which is mystifying, since that is the one thing their potential customers would actually care about.

Re: System76 and LVFS

#26

Post by busterarm »

jackpot51 wrote: post #24
twblalock wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This particular complaint is that they are just rebranding OEM hardware, so you might as well just buy the OEM hardware.

The OEM hardware does not have our custom firmware, our WiFi and drive selection, our testing, or our support. Those things may not all be perfect, but they do make a big difference.

Aren't you the same fellow who suggested to me a few months ago that Redox was a realistic, superior alternative to running OpenBSD in production?

Re: System76 and LVFS

#27

Post by iel99 »

acomjean wrote: post #14

This is the whole open source community destroying (edit: maybe better term would be "damaging") itself. Basically it starts civilly about finding the one best way to do something. They agree to disagree. Then there 2 standards...Then 4, then 8 all not having the effort exerted to make each solution great. Then one party writes something like "don't buy this it not free/ doesn't do this". And in the end 99+% of peopl…

Hyperbole

Dozens of projects have gone this way and the open source community still exists

It’s almost as if the notion of one size fits all is a utilitarian idea to simplify production of physical goods

We need to maybe look at why we keep trynna force that on more ephemeral ideas

I’m not obliged to speak English any one why. Why bother with making sure everyone runs the same code or manages only one or two key projects collectively?

Cause Big Corp? Meh.

Re: System76 and LVFS

#28

Post by rossdavidh »

kentt wrote: post #8

Just don't touch system76. They're just low quality rebranded Sager laptops with a crap version on Linux. You can just buy the same laptop and if you really like their horrible version of Linux, then put that on there.

My main laptop is a System76 "Lemur" (economy model) that I've had for a couple years now, and it's served me well, for programming or otherwise.

Re: System76 and LVFS

#29

Post by driverdan »

craftyguy wrote: post #12
kentt wrote: post #8

Just don't touch system76. They're just low quality rebranded Sager laptops with a crap version on Linux. You can just buy the same laptop and if you really like their horrible version of Linux, then put that on there.

Alternatively, there's Purism ( https://puri.sm ), who actually take security and build quality seriously. Edit: looks like the system76 downvote brigade is hitting this discussion.

Unfortunately they only offer lower res screens.

Re: System76 and LVFS

#30

Post by jackpot51 »

busterarm wrote: post #26
jackpot51 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OEM hardware does not have our custom firmware, our WiFi and drive selection, our testing, or our support. Those things may not all be perfect, but they do make a big difference.

Aren't you the same fellow who suggested to me a few months ago that Redox was a realistic, superior alternative to running OpenBSD in production?

I never said anything of the sort, and would be surprised if you could provide any evidence of this.

Redox is not ready for production and I am not hesitant to admit so.

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