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System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

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Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. On a 15.6" 1080p really is sufficient. The upsides of not wasting battery and just performance of not having to push more pixels makes it worth it. Even gaming channels like LTT talk about this a bit. That being said - if you're coming from the macbooks retina it's definitely a downgrade. My guess however is that this device won't have a screen that is that good either way though.

Even gaming channels like LTT talk about this a bit. The major benefit of high-DPI displays isn't for gaming or graphics, it's for text. Once you're used to decent resolution and scaling, reading on anything else looks like a blurry mess.

I think this is the key. I've never used very good or very high-res screens for a sustained period of time, so I haven't gotten used to it. Personally I'm not too keen on jumping on them. My 1366x768 15.6" screen renders text just fine for me.

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#312
post #8

I wish a person could order one of these without the numeric keypad. I deeply hate being off-center to the screen when typing on these larger portables.

I have no idea who thought this was a good idea. The trackpad is even off to the left to accommodate it. I'm not a fan of symmetry for symmetry's sake, but I do think some affordances for the human body might be a good idea. How do southpaws enjoy this keyboard setup? The ergonomics of laptops are bad enough without stuff like this.

Agree, it's easy to carry around a plug-in numeric keypad if you really need one.

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#313
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a custom keyboard I designed, and I configured it so that the tilde key turns the right-hand side into a numpad (ie the yuiohjkl etc keys). It's great, no need for extra unused buttons and very convenient to use (as the left hand is typically not used when typing on the num pad).

I used to have a Sony laptop like this, where NumLock turned the uiojkl keys into 456123, so you could use them (along with 789 above them) as a number pad. It was a clever design and I wish more laptops offered it.

I thought almost all laptop before 2010 is like this though. It was normal back in the day.

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#314

At 2000 usd it is too expensive for me. Is this a normal price for a new laptop? I am in the market for a new laptop and am a linux user.

depends what you want to do with it, I guess.

I have a laptop running Linux that cost me $400 in 2016. Similar spec is $600 now. I'm fairly sure I can get by with what I do (YouTube, streaming, documents, web programming) fairly well with it.

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#315
post #217

Uhh I understand that good Linux support is valuable, but the price premium for that is just too high. For the base variant(5500u, 8gb, 240gb): Pangolin - 1200$ Lenovo Ideapad 3 15 - 430$[1] For a higher-end variant(5700u, 16gb, 500gb): Pangolin - 1542$ HP 15z - 640$[2] I admit these are the absolute cheapest ones I could find(using noteb.com), but even the more premium laptops like Thinkpads are way cheaper(and AFAI…

>but even the more premium laptops like Thinkpads are way cheaper(and AFAIK they also provide very good Linux support). This has not been the case in 5 years.

What isn't the case? They don't provide good support for Linux or they aren't way cheaper? Cos AFAIK both of those are true.

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#316
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thinkpads are way cheaper(and AFAIK they also provide very good Linux support) My own experience with thinkpads has been one of non-stop frustration with battery life. The T495 advertises something like 14h of battery life; the actual battery life I got running stock Ubuntu on it was.... less than 3 hours, and that's with power optimization packages that do things like making USB no longer work installed. I recentl…

My experience too: until I got an X250 (i5, 2 core) earlier this year that lasts around 10 hrs on a charge. Cost $160 in mint condition. Noticeably less powerful than my old T430, but can still do some real work on the go. Screen and keyboard are seriously cramped though, so it gets uncomfortable over long stretches. Still, there's something to be said for small and light. My work laptop is a big heavy Dell workstati…

I've got an E470 with Ubuntu on it, no problems with battery life.

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#317
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> smaller minority that despises the numeric keypad and will never buy a laptop that includes one I'm in this minority! Why don't people use the top-row numbers!?!?

I would prefer a keyboard with out the Top row of numbers. Those are pretty much useless. So much so that I often use AHK to remap the top number row to be other functions.

You find the entire row useless? Do you set up a special modifier for those symbols, or what?

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I come from the split keyboards world. What terrifying place is that? (I'm just poking fun, but seriously: where?)

Generally, hobbyist mechanical keyboards that you assemble by buying or fabricating a PCB, and doing a bit of soldering. Most designs have relatively easy soldering. Some hobbyist shops may offer assembly services. If you don't want to solder, ZSA labs have a "moonlander" keyboard that looks quite nice, for a premium price. If you're not put off by soldering, then some popular split keyboards would be the Corne (also…

Surely the origins of split keyboards are ergo spaces not hobbyist?

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#319
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your browsing habits. I often end up with hundreds of Chrome tabs, which can easily result in 16GB of RAM being consumed by it alone. Thankfully there are plugins to automatically suspend unused tabs which help with that.

I read this workflow a lot and it absolutely boggles my mind how people can have some many tabs open. You can’t possibly be able to make sense of all those tabs at once. And if your not using the tab, why not just bookmark it? Seems the only purpose of 100+ tabs is wasting ram.

I have bookmarks, Pocket for "read one day", Raindrop for more advanced "might be useful one day" bookmarks. I still work on multiple projects, for work or personal, more or less simultaneously ( as in the same week(s)), and until I'm fully finished with something i don't close the tabs related to it. Some things just get blocked/stuck/lose their priority, for which case i do the occasional cleaning.

So just the stuff I'm more or less currently on, plus articles to read "soon", plus mandatory work related tabs (Jira, etc.) and it quickly explodes to 10GB+ of RAM.

Re: System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

#320
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the 4500u with the AMD Radeon RX Vega 6. I know it's not the latest architecture, but I've found it very capable for integrated graphics.

Can you write code and use a terminal and web, two displays? Can you use one big (4k?)

I have a 4800u. I've plugged it into an external 4k display and it had no issue pushing that around, as well as the built-in 1080p at the same time.
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