Ask HN: What do you think of System76?

I have used PopOS and I like it for the features and stability (coming from macOS).

I agree about their focus - however the laptops just look and seem out of date for the price. I see myself going down the Dell Precision or even XPS line and putting Pop or elementaryOS on it.

I've purchased a number of their laptops for my employees, who prefer them over Dell XPS 13s.

I love everything about them except their sub-par laptop hardware. They are apparently working on their own design (instead of just re-branding Clevo), but they need to get that thing out already. I’m waiting as long as I can to buy a new laptop, but I can’t wait forever.

Subpar, overpriced hardware that is whiteboxed from another manufacturer. Too few options, barely considered design, fundamentally underwhelming overall.

Not really a fan personally, but it looks like a lot of the new-to-linux crowd that used to orbit around Ubuntu has migrated toward PopOS.

I bought an ARM server (no longer available, now they only sell Xeons unfortunately) and a friend bought one of their laptops.

I was very happy with the server, it’s been an easy and convenient way to get a decent ARM board.

The laptop is unusable due to the keyboard, the space bar broke almost immediately. The speakers are really bad.

We immediately installed Debian, so we can’t judge the hardware support in PopOS.

Their Thelio desktops are awesome, and I hear good things about those new keyboards - although I haven't tried one yet. They manufacture their desktops and keyboards in Denver, which I like. Awesome people too. I've never used their laptops so I can't speak to those.

All their laptops are limited to 1920x1080 display resolution. Do you like sharp fonts when you're going to be reading and typing text all day? You can get a Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu preinstalled and a 4K 3840x2160 display. Way higher DPI than a MacBook M1 "retina" display and noticeably sharper fonts. You can also get a Thinkpad X1 Carbon with a 4K display and Linux preinstalled.

  1080p 13": 169 dpi
  4K 13": 338 dpi
  Laser printer: 600 dpi
  Photo printer: 1200 dpi

I have an Oryx Pro as my employer-provided workstation. That's their top-end laptop, 8-core 10th gen i7, NVIDIA 2070 GTX discrete GPU, 2 TB NVMe. The firmware works well, I've never had any issues with any peripherals and I use a lot of them. External monitor, bluetooth headsets with mic, WiFi, smart card reader, all works fine.

It does look and feel a little cheaply made. The keyboard is crap, but I mostly use an external wireless keyboard anyway. It's bulky, the fan is loud as hell, everything is crappy plastic. Integrated monitor is only 1080p. But it performs fine.

I also have an identically spec'd, literally same processor, GPU, and storage, MSI Creator, and it is much nicer, thinner, sleek looking, much better looking and solid feeling keyboard, 4k display, extremely quiet fan.

The difference is pretty obvious. It's an even bigger step down from a Macbook. I feel like System 76 is worth supporting as the only vendor out there focusing on Linux-first laptops, and they're the only OEM offering high-performance workstation laptops with Linux pre-installed. But I hope the switch building their own brings them up in quality. They're a big step down from similar Windows and Mac laptops. Linux itself is the only appeal. It actually is a tiny bit cheaper than the MSI and way cheaper than a comparably-spec'd Macbook, though.

But I would only recommend this for work since it is supported and extremely stable and pretty reliable. If you want a high-performance workstation laptop with Linux and are willing to put some upfront effort into self-configuring, get something like the MSI Creator, wipe Windows, and put Arch on it.

It is hardware that just works with Linux. I like that. A modern Dell with Linux, fex, has had a number of driver/hw issues. The system76 didn't have those issues.

Sturdiness is a bit lacking tho. Could stand to have more weight and metal.

N.b., I don't really care about "modern design", it's a way of extracting money from buyers without added capabilities. :)

I've had an oryx pro for about 8 months now. I've spent zero time trying to get Linux working correctly. You can go from zero to programming, playing games, etc, in about 5 minutes.

I am typing on a system 76 laptop that I have had for a few years. The hardware is fine, the manufacturing of Clevo is subpar though. I have had to replace a keyboard, my display is falling out of the casing, and the display itself has a number of dead pixels. The power supply has died. The encasement around the power port is broken.

Replacing the keyboard was a hassle, and I ended up ordering from overseas having to wait months to receive it.

Still, there is very little about a System76 laptop that is actually from System76.

Would I recommend System76 laptop? I am not sure why, as they are essentially a store front for other brands. Would I recommend a Clevo? Absolutely not.

I've had a couple, the keyboard fails. Just get some reliable or repairable hardware and throw linux on it.

I wish there was a UK equivalent. We had Station X for a while, but they seem to have disappeared now.

I think System76 have showed that they understand why Linux hasn't gone mainstream with the creation and continued 'mild innovation' of Pop_OS!. I call it mild innovation because none of what they are doing is particularly revolutionary, but it does show an insight into modern users.

UI tweaks, batteries included Nvidia drivers, excellent branding and targeting on the download page (makes it look genuinely attractive to download) and a load of other small things.

At the moment, for these reasons, Pop is being recommended by the Linux Gaming subreddit that offers an easier and better out-of-the-box experience than even previous favourites such as Ubuntu or Mint (which is also based on Ubuntu, as is Pop).

I feel like the only other distro that adds a 'cool factor' is Manjaro, and I feel that even though there are a thousand distros, there is still space in the market for more that focus on design and user experience in the way that Pop does.

I had to livestream my child's funeral. I didn't want to use an iPad, or have an iPhone in someones hand livestreaming to facebook, as I thought I needed to do better, being a techie, so I rolled with my own.

Someone recommended Owncast (should out to Gabe), tried it on my System76 Meerkat that I use for my TV, and it worked a treat. I bought an Asus ZenScreen so I could use a portable monitor (without its own power supply), and just use a single extension cord for the Meerkat. I wanted to keep it as bs-free, and simple as I could.

I had issues getting the monitor to work, even though S76 had something in their FAQ about setting it up. I tried and failed, and with the funeral fast approaching, I emailed their support (months after I had purchased), not only was it answered pretty quickly, but I got a personal call from them with instructions on how to fix my issue, and it worked! Can't rate them high enough - and Pop!_OS is a bloody wonderful OS!

I have nothing but good things to say about them. I picked up a Lemur March-ish, 2020. I had previously stayed away from them because a coworker had an earlier model, not sure which one, but it was just too clunky compared to my Macbook Air. The first things I noticed was I couldn't get used to the feel, Apple really has their HW quality dialed in. However,I bought it at the time Covid was entering the picture so I decided to dial in my home office, dual screens, corsair keyboard, M$ mouse. Perfect for me. When I go mobile, it's back to the Macbook Air. Where System76 shines is their support. Hands down, it's perfect. I had a situation where the bluetooth/wifi stopped working, not sure why, we had just been evac'd so I thought maybe it just needed to be re-seated. nope. Not expecting much, I did something I don't like to do, I opened a ticket, and hands down it was probably the best support experience I've ever had. One of thier engineers called me, sat on the phone with me and walked me through patching different firmwares, upgrading kernels, we went the distance, when we couldn't get it working, they shipped me a new card. I had another situation where the battery started going bad, same positive experience, ticket, handled. Like I said the hardware is not Apple, but I need linux to dev, so I make it work. I'm gonna stick with them, I feel they're on the up.

I'm currently using my System 76 Gazelle from about 2013. I've replaced the spinning disk with solid-state and recently replaced the fans. Had problems with the Nvidia drivers, so I have no acceleration. Other than that, it's just worked.

Their premise seems to be to make up subpar hardware with software and I just don't see that happening. I see their predicament, they can't exactly go and make full laptops themselves, and no one in the business can have the silicon that Apple gets by virtue of paying TSMC billions.

But as it stands, Clevo is a bad partner - they are consistently years behind what even Asus, Lenovo and even Dell provide.

Most of the hardware is whiteboxed from their Chinese manufacturers. There is a hackernews thread where people complain about this and the ceo pops up to defend their practices.

Apparently the newer machines are bespoke for them but the MacBook air lookalikes were for sure just relabeled Chinese machines.

I've had a Darter for a couple of years, and I'm very happy with it. I've been using Pop OS, currently 20.10. No hardware problems at all. I like the keyboard feel, and the touchpad is fine. My only complaint about the hardware is that the speakers are pretty bad.

I like that System76 is putting work into Pop OS, and making sure that it runs well on their hardware. This has been successful, as it is the best distro I've ever used. I have never run into a problem installing or upgrading packages, wifi just works, bluetooth just works, audio just works.

System76 support is fantastic. One problem I've had is that the laptop sometimes shuts down when it shouldn't (lid closed, plenty of battery) and then fails to boot properly. (I have since learned to not shut the lid except when powered off, or with external power.) But each time I've had one of these problems, support has got me back to work quickly, including once on Thanksgiving, on Thursday late afternoon/early evening. Support has also been great on getting me out of self-created problems relating to Linux configuration.

So I like System76 a lot. Best computer vendor I've dealt with. I know that I've been lucky with their hardware, and I hope that they start building their own laptops, to improve quality and reliability. But even with their current products, I would happily bu another laptop from them when I need one.

I’ve had a darter pro for two years now. I bought it because I wanted a “just works” Linux laptop, and because speccing it up with additional RAM and hard drive space was very reasonably priced compared to competitors.

It’s been an excellent machine, and I’m very happy with it. The build quality and battery life are not Apple level, but it’s been fine for me.

I run a maxed out Lemur I picked up two years ago.

I run all the Jetbrains stuff on it, brave, chromium, chrome and firefox, discord and slack. I usually have it plugged in via a single USB-C cable to a large monitor and full size keyboard.

Created htmx and hyperscript on it.

It has been reliable and, for the most part, just works. Not as smooth as the Macbooks I came from, but good enough and I was sick of apples behavior.

Can't speak to their hardware, but Pop!_OS is far and away the easiest Distro I've found to install and just start working with, especially with Nvidia hardware.

The only reason I would use a different distro on desktop is if I'm going to use something other than systemD (most of my machines).

It is interesting to read this thread, as a person who recently switched from macOS to Pop OS.

I can't speak to the hardware; I tried to buy a big beefy workstation from them, too, but they don't ship big stuff to Japan, so I commissioned a modern workstation build from a local PC builder instead.

Pop OS installed as easily as everybody says, supporting the NVIDIA RTX 3060 video card, Intel Core i9-11900K (of course), and a recent-model PCIe 4.0 SSD that reads 7GB/sec.

I couldn't figure out how to make it drive a 6K display over Thunderbolt, though — it might be possible, but I "solved" the problem by getting an older Dell 8K display (the real old one that needs two DisplayPort cables). That works great.

TL;DR is that I love it, Pop OS is nearly as polished as macOS or Windows is these days, and it is way faster than any Mac for daily programming, building node apps, reading this site and stack overflow. (I'm coming from an iMac Pro and and M1 Mac Mini, and it is much much much faster than both of those. I think the M1 would feel more competitive if I could use ARM-native Node 16, but most of my work involves Node 14 which runs (slowly) under Rosetta on the M1.)

That would all be true if I just installed Ubuntu, too, though, and presumably Manjaro or (with more reading and fiddling) Arch.

So why do I like System76 and why did I choose their OS? One, I want to have some company trying to make an OS for people like me, and I want them doing that to make money in a non-gross way. So not like giving me a free Google OS to serve ads to my kids.

I feel like System76 is targeting me as a customer. I am willing to pay a premium for a good machine that somebody designed. Not all of their hardware appeals to me, but they are trying to do that.

Likewise, even though the Pop OS improvements on top of Ubuntu are just a handful, I am happy not to have to pay with my time to set those up. For example, fast disk encryption is absolutely fundamental, I enable that on all my machines from day 1. Yes, I absolutely could google it and do it on other flavors of Linux, but still I appreciate that Pop OS makes it a checkbox during the install (like Mac).

Ditto for the Pop Shop (their app store). It's actually not very good — there is hardly any info about the software and updates. So I am not that happy with that aspect, but still I am happy that they are trying to do that.

So I feel like System76 is trying to serve customers like me. I don't really want to allocate my time to tweaking Linux and comparing tiling window managers.

I want somebody with good taste to give me a well-thought-out set of defaults. And preferably that should be a company with a commercial incentive that is also aligned with my personal interests.

I don't think I am like, way happier than I would have been just installing Ubuntu — it's about the same. I'd still be happy. But Ubuntu doesn't seem like they are aiming to please users like me. I am just one of many user demographics they target, and I am also not their customer. I don't pay them, and if I did it would be a donation and be weird.

So Ubuntu, while I appreciate its existence, doesn't give me that little tingle of "wow, cool, these guys are trying to make products for me."

Which is why I ordered their ludicrous made-in-Colorado keyboard. Ultra-configurable keyboard made from heavy slab of metal, with full RGB lighting and multiple USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports in both Type A and C flavors? Yes!! Sign me the fuck up! That is precisely the kind of keyboard I want.

So basically, I think System76 is appealing to users who want to use Linux, but want it to kind of 'just kinda work' like a Mac. They seem to be a scrappy little company you can root for, too, not a huge (and therefore, inevitably, increasingly evil) megacorp like Apple.

So I "like" System76 because the image they've projected via their website, reddit, etc appeals to me. I want them to keep trying to...

Just checked their website. Do they have a lower end laptop?