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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

#301

Post by pkolaczk »

mmrezaie wrote: post #92
dagw wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It exists, it's the Thinkpad T-series. Does Optimus work the way I'd expect it to these days?

I had bumblebee on my precision 5520, and it works fine. You need to meddle with it a little bit, but after that everything works fine. Actually, I loved it since I could have my X11 memory space controlled by Intel and my Cuda application development wouldn't have messed up the X11 while running. Something you expect to not happen, but happens all the time. Bumblebee and optirun can be better, but it is usable right…

Does it allow to connect external displays? Last time I checked bumblebee worked almost fine, but it didn't notice I connected an external display to DP hardwired to dGPU, and dGPU stayed powered-off. I got through a few workarounds for that, and even managed to get something incorrectly displayed, but nothing really worked like it should, so I gave up and I'm using this ugly nvidia-prime thing and just remember to set it in "performance mode" before using my laptop with external displays.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#302

Post by i336_ »

GlennS wrote: post #297
sacul wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting how many people here are asking for trackpad quality. I always use my laptops with a mouse plugged in, and disable the trackpad (and pointless touchscreen on my work computer) as one of the first things I do. I would love to have a laptop with no trackpad at all (or maybe just one of those tiny nubs), leaving more space for a better keyboard.

Well, I'm typing this on an X61 (the laptop type). Yeah, vintage :)

It at least ships with a draft-n-capable Wi-Fi card, so you could use it for remote desktop? :P

T9300 (2 @ 2.5GHz); 4GB; Intelgrated GM965; 2xMiniPCIe (1 for Wi-Fi); 1024x768 :(

(For reference: I push mine WAY too hard. This is tab 406... I do use The Great Suspender, but, um. It does great (genuinely does hold up) with <15 tabs though, and the GM965 handles 1080p through mplayer and 720p in Chrome really nicely.)

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#303

Post by DanCarvajal »

bo1024 wrote: post #172
sacul wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Completely agree, and would add another favorite feature of MBP - 16x10 aspect ratio rather than 16x9.

16x10 is the ideal laptop screen ratio. I'm very disappointed in it's general lack of availability.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#305

Post by brianwawok »

rhizome wrote: post #262
brianwawok wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Thinkpad X1 Carbon 5th work well with Linux? Linux is pushing me towards the XPS 13 Also looks like the X1 is capped at 8GB ram? 16 GB is a minimum, and you can easily get on an XPS 13.

Doesn't the XPS13 only go to 16GB? My understanding is that you need DDR4 to get 32GB RAM in a laptop.

16 is OK I think for a ultrabook.

My goal is to have a 16 GB ultrabook for when away from my desk, and a 64 GB workstation when at my desk.

I always try to find the beefy laptop to replace both, but I am never that happy in either place. Too heavy for the road, too slow for the desk. Been trying for like 10 years, and sad every time at the laptop I end up with.

* In theory the CPU in the XPS-13 supports 32 GB says Intel, but I have never seen a true Ultrabook with 32 GB. Which is a bit sad of course...

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#306

Post by ashark »

michel-slm wrote: post #241
maerF0x0 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At previous jobs we were just very generous with the chargers. Everyone having a single charger connector (MBP) is super valuable . This is good because then you dont bring a charger with you, because you know each meeting room has one or more chargers. Each seat in the office has a charger etc. Companies sometimes say "Yeah but $90* X is too much" ... But it costs a lot to have people wiring/unwiring chargers all th…

We do that at work. Things get complicated with the latest-generation MBP of course - now we have the old MagSafe charger, ThinkPad chargers, USB C chargers, as well as HDMI, DP, and USB-C Thunderbolt video connectors.

Our first few USBC MBP users in our office are having a ton of "fun" with that. Also the "which monitors do and don't work with this thing? Which adapter(s) do I need for this one again? Damnit that didn't work, lemme try this other one..." game. TONS of fun.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#307

Post by ashark »

gh02t wrote: post #192
lvh wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears you're contradicting an ancestor's lived experience :) Is it really so ridiculous to suggest that sometimes, people who use Linux (let's call them technical) travel a lot? Is the idea of a programmer who flies around the world to present their work at conferences really so ridiculous? (There are lots of other archetypes, like consultants, SME owners that are still very technical themselves, et cetera.)

I'm an engineer that travels a lot for conferences and I use Linux almost exclusively... I'd love a svelte laptop with long battery life.

A lot of Apple's battery life success seems to be due to the software—both iOS and MacOS. Android's only just now starting to kind of catch up with iOS on power management, and MacOS doesn't beat other laptops because they use giant batteries or something. I'd expect it to take 7-8 figures of focused investment in the Linux kernel and probably some significant mountain-moving to get peripheral projects (windowing system, init maybe, various driver vendors) coordinated and going in the the right direction to improve Linux's power management much.

Hell, even the Apple browser is more respectful of battery life than its competitors. Power draw seems to be considered carefully at every level at Apple, and it shows in their results.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#308

Post by EthanHeilman »

solatic wrote: post #217
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 of people who want something rugged/durable/functional are already taken care of by the Thinkpads. Are mostly unhappily taken care of by the Thinkpads. The brand has gone downhill since IBM sold to Lenovo, which has steadily eroded the level of quality that can be expected from a Thinkpad-branded laptop. Modern Thinkpads aren't nearly as serviceable or as durable as the Thinkpads of IBM's era. People who…

I use Thinkpads for Linux as they are well built and trusted brand that has yet to disappoint me and are well supported by Linux. Plenty of room for System76 to just do a Linux-thinkpad better by focusing on the Linux laptop segment of the market.

Edit: I just popped over to System76 to look at their laptops and I must say I really prefer the way Thinkpads look when compared with System76. I realize that this a dumb reason to choose a laptop but I have encountered no better judge of build quality than how a laptop looks. Every stupid looking laptop I've ever bought has been a disaster (parts break off, camera dies, weird crashes), whereas laptops who had a physical design which I liked (macbooks, thinkpads) have held up much better.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#309

Post by JudasGoat »

ghostly_s wrote: post #231
sithadmin wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Thinkpads >the enterprise support is still relatively solid That's not the experience I've had with my own company's support requests with Lenovo, and the lousy support relative to Dell is a prime reason why most clients I work with are dropping Lenovo for Dell.

Seconded. We are a major enterprise customer of Lenovo's and have been deeply disappointed with the level of service particularly vs. what we used to get with Dell (~6 years ago).

Maybe some PC company will get the idea to hire retired IT people to do tech support remotely. I think it would be competitive to off shoring.

Re: System76 is moving product design and manufacturing in house

#310

Post by pkolaczk »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #278
adamc wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, what I want is a 17" screen (it's not just the pixels, I need the fonts to be big enough for my aging eyes) that is not crazy heavy.

I don't understand the recent trend of very-high-resolution devices that strongly recommend you not adjust their 250% default scaling. OK, you have lots and lots of pixels that are too small to see individually or in combination. Put in a cheaper screen with the same functional resolution. Lower price, same quality.

The quality is not the same. Lower resolution + anti-aliasing makes the text blurry.
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