14 ms·

Thelio – System76

684 points by secure 8y ago

rauhl 8y ago
It looks really, really cool (very nice specs, and attractive too). I wonder how well it’ll run Debian stable. A lot of folks like Ubuntu, and no doubt System76 are doing a fine job with Pop!_OS (gosh that’s an odd name though), but I’m happiest with a system I can set up exactly as I like.
undoware 8y ago
Was excited AF until I read this: "Perfect with Pop!_OS Pop!_OS by System76 and Thelio together form the perfect platform to create and discover. Thelio is optimized for maximum performance. Pop!_OS provides tools and development platforms that are always up-to-date and just a single click or command away. " Forgive me but I'm just not interested in running an obscure custom Linux. I feel the same about Amazon's AWS Linux distro. Give me one of the following, in order of preference, and we'll talk: - Arch - Ubuntu - Debian - Fedora - RHEL
- undoware 8y ago
  Oh wait they offer Ubuntu 18 as an option. OK excited again
  - shrewduser 8y ago
    pop_os is pretty good, you might be out of the loop on that one it's gaining a decent amount of traction
  - faissaloo 8y ago
    Trust me you want Pop, it saves you alot of setup.
- smacktoward 8y ago
  You can get it with Ubuntu 18.04 at no extra charge. Check the configurator.
- yogeshgirdhar 8y ago
  I was pleasantly surprised by Pop!_OS. It's basically Ubuntu + nice theme + drivers specifically tested and configured for the System76 hardware. No more pain and suffering because of nvidia drivers.
  - mmirate 8y ago
    Does this mean that anyone wanting to run anything non-Ubuntu-based on a System 76 product, gets to take upon themselves the joyous tasks of extricating these drivers from Pop!_OS, monitoring Pop!_OS for driver changes, and re-extricating new versions of drivers when they arrive?
    - sitzkrieg 8y ago
      I have ran fedora on a system76 machine with zero issues, but the machine is almost 2 years old now , and a pretty no frills intel laptop so who knows
  - sliken 8y ago
    I regularly install the current ubuntu LTS on about 5 desktops, all with nvidia. Generally it just works you either have to click on (settings -> drivers -> nvidia) or just do an apt-get install nvidia-<current version>. When there's a kernel upgrade it "just works", presumably with DKMS or similar. What pain are you seeing with nvidia?
  - Koshkin 8y ago
    Yeah, but the name... Ugh.
    - briandear 8y ago
      Ubuntu isn’t exactly a catchy name either. Sounds like the name of a miscreant troll.
  - thinkloop 8y ago
    On windows and mac, because there's no choice, things like this are offered as software to install. Would doing the same on linux more likely cause "pain and suffering"?
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wmf 8y ago
Related discussion from the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18342744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18342744 Personally I find this industrial design to be a refreshing change from other PCs but I'm sure the wood grain will be divisive.
- sliken 8y ago
  That discussion was pre-release though, so pretty scant on actual details.
- Koshkin 8y ago
  The wood finish is not "industrial design."
  - deleted 8y ago
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  - nkoren 8y ago
    Indeed it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_design
  - briandear 8y ago
    You are thinking about “industrial style” that looks like “industry.” Industrial design is the art and science of designing products — it has nothing to do with a specific look or style.
rdtsc 8y ago
Really well done. I like the design, the wood finish the look, configurability. Up to 40TB storage, 4 GPUs (I tried to configure a Thelio Major), lots of RAM.
blinkingled 8y ago
Sweet! Pricing seems competitive for what they are offering. But what's up with the 2.5 SATA drives? I was looking to replace my Z620 which has existing 3.5" drives - looks like I can't repurpose those. 2.5" drives are also considerably costlier than their 3.5" counterparts - never mind they also handle heat better.
- acomjean 8y ago
  I thought that was only on the smallest machine, but I checked and they all have 2.5" drives. I'm not sure why in desktop they would choose to go that route.
  - freeone3000 8y ago
    SSDs are either m.2 or 2.5" form factor. There's no need for a spinny drive.
    - blinkingled 8y ago
      You can build one with spinning 2.5 drives that are costlier than the 3.5 ones. So it's not about not needing spinning drives - for lots of redundant storage 3.5" drives are still the most economical choice.
- ccarse 8y ago
  I think this is them being forward looking, realizing that 3.5" drives are quickly becoming a relic of the past.
appleiigs 8y ago
A nice change from the LED lighted boxes you often see for high end machines. I’m hoping they do a nice laptop. HN will need to put their money where there mouth is if System76 comes up with a thick laptop with replaceable battery, upgradeable RAM, lots of non USB-C ports and a keyboard with some travel. A niche System76 could really fit into.
- Zaskoda 8y ago
  That is exactly what I want.
  - Lio 8y ago
    Would a small format desktop with a vesa mount for the back of your monitor, like a NUC, be an acceptable compromise? The main problem I've seen eith that sort of thing is that there still aren’t many 5k monitors on the market and I’m not sure the LG one will work with Linux over USB-C. (Would love to be wrong on that if anyone knows better).
- Koshkin 8y ago
  > A nice change The wood finish? Really? A desktop that looks like a trash can, and now this?
  - xienze 8y ago
    My thoughts exactly. A plain black box without any windows or lights is a refreshing change of pace. Wood grain just seems like kind of a joke on a PC.
    - Crontab 8y ago
      I disagree but I recognize this is a subjective thing.
    - onli 8y ago
      The Fractal cases (apart from the Meshify C) are already like that, in fact, there is a whole design trend providing elegant black boxes without gamery LED stuff. Look at the Define C for example, or the Thermaltake Suppressor F51 as one of the clones.
IMTDb 8y ago
Those computer seems actually reasonably priced. You can get a better deal building them yourself but as a hassle free solution it seems pretty good. Event if you end up installing windows on it. I am quite impressed.
- sliken 8y ago
  Dunno, they seem pretty huge. The smallest is 14 liters and limits you to 32GB ram? What is this.. an Apple? Seems pretty insane to charge prices like this ($2,500 for a modest i7, 32G ram, and 256GB SSD) and not make it expandable enough to handle the more challenging uses.
  - appleiigs 8y ago
    There are different versions. Thelio Major and Massive. Major is up to 128. Massive up to 768.
    - onli 8y ago
      Yeah, but there is a hole between those categories. A Ryzen processor happily supports 64GB ram with a 4-slot board, and that is something they do not support. If you take the Major version you are bound to get a more expensive Threadripper processor. But my current default build would be much cheaper and support up to 64GB ram, see https://www.pc-kombo.com/share/mORbPdR4 https://www.pc-kombo.com/share/mORbPdR4. And that's also in a small case.
  - cyphar 8y ago
    The small one only has 2 DIMM slots, hence a limit of 32GB (which has a base price of $1k). The more expensive ones you just mentioned have a maximum of 128GB and 768GB.
- illumin8 8y ago
  Me too. These look incredible. Does anyone know if you could also turn them into Hackintosh or run Windows 10 on them for gaming? If so, I'd pick one up in a heartbeat. I'm a little concerned that the custom I/O daughterboard might make them only compatible with Linux or the PopOS (custom Ubuntu) that System76 offers.
MattyRad 8y ago
It's really refreshing to see such a clean design, especially from a committed open source vendor. I don't even really have a need for a desktop right now but it could be nice having an "anchor", so to speak, instead of being mobile all the time.
Jeaye 8y ago
I've been using my System76 Oryx Pro for two years and I love it. It's a powerful laptop and every piece of it is well supported by Linux. I run Arch, since I'm not a fan of their Pop! OS, but it's a great piece of hardware for a Linux user. However, I've been really craving something more powerful, for gaming, rendering, and compiling, which still has the Linux-by-design support and quality build. It looks like System76 has delivered precisely that series... and at a reasonable price. Thank you guys!
- quantumhobbit 8y ago
  How is the battery life on the oryx?
  - acomjean 8y ago
    I have this year oryx pro from this year. The battery life is ok to poor and honestly is one of the weaker attributes of the machine. (You have to switch to intel graphics, with nvidia on be plugged in). right now I'm at 40% battery and it says I have 2:20 minutes left, but honestly I'm browsing the web.. under load I think I get 2-3 hours with a full charge. That being said I really like the machine.
  - Jeaye 8y ago
    I leave it plugged in almost all day, so I can't answer that.
  - jmunsch 8y ago
    Got a 17" Oryx pro last week. So using it with integrated Intel graphics, power saving on and screen brightness low, it's about 4.5 hours. I noticed if I adjust the screen brightness like even 10% it can add an extra 30 minutes. I'd assume it might be even longer for the smaller screen oryx versions. Now im wondering if there are a few other kernel governing tweaks that'd increase the time.
sliken 8y ago
They look nice, are pretty large. Very few specs, I couldn't for instance find anything mentioning the size of the fan. From what I can tell it's a bog standard system, a thin piece of wood (or is it a veneer?), and a custom fan controller on a small daughter card. The integration is pretty nice, presumably all the driver related integration "just works", although I generally get that with dell desktops or newegg systems built from parts. They don't mention much about the actual quality though. How efficient is the power supply? How many fans does it have? Any sound insulation inside? Maybe a aluminum/plastic/aluminum sandwich for sound dampening? Why is the rear fan so far from the rear of the case? Why is the motherboard horizontal which makes the case very wide, especially for a machine with a max of 32GB ram. For $2,500 for a modest i7 system with 32GB ram, gtx-1070, and a 256GB SSD I was expecting more than a custom fan controller and limited ram.
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- chendragon 8y ago
  The rear fan appears to be shared with the CPU fan. This is actually not a bad design in my opinion, many Dell OptiPlexes from around 2002-2009 were built with a similar design. By putting the fan farther from the grille, they can reduce the effects of noise from the blades passing by the stationary grill. The fan appears to point inwards, which seems to make more sense for BTX Dells with the fan at the bottom than this with the fan on top. The site mentions the power supplies are 80plus certified or something with (iirc) 90% efficiency or so. Quality of the case wise it does look like quite some effort was put into it, given the top appears to be one piece and it certainly looks harder to manufacture than a standard PC case. With that said, as much as it is nice, I think it's just more of a standard PC with a nice case.
  - wyclif 8y ago
    I'm curious about how much fan noise there really is. They talk about the Thelio looking nice enough to live on the desktop, but IMO the reason people put their Linux box under their desk isn't necessarily because it's ugly: it's to mitigate the fan noise. I don't care much about walnut or maple; I just want quiet fans.
nwah1 8y ago
The exciting part is not the case, nor the specs, nor the OS. The exciting part is that they are attempting to use open hardware and firmware to the greatest extent they can practically achieve. They have created an open source "daughter board" for this purpose.
- fermienrico 8y ago
  I strongly believe that being able to hire a top-notch industrial designer can change the entire course of the company. With Apple, it was Jony Ive and for Braun it was Dieter Rams. With IBM, they were the executives that had an impeccable taste in design which propagated from top-down. System76 is well positioned to be in this space to shall I dare to say - compete with Apple? Only if they invest in design. It sounds like a stupid non essential thing but design sells. When it sells, boy it sells; it makes the backbone of a company. As it stands, System76 has mediocre branding and design in my personal opinion. Not great, but also not bad. I am not excited about the wooden trim approach integrated in the PC case. But, these things are subjective. If they nail ID, I believe they have a really bright future. When I say, hire a top notch designer - I mean, someone who can change the world type; not someone that they can just hire by posting a job ad. But, it has to start from the owners of the company. If they think Design as a cost center in marketing, forget about it.
  - outworlder 8y ago
    > As it stands, System76 has mediocre branding and design in my personal opinion I don't know, it's looking better now than some generic boxes you see from big name companies.
  - cbsmith 8y ago
    ID is one path to one kind of success. I dare say System76 is charting a very different path.
    - fermienrico 8y ago
      I find this thought process unsettling. For one, ID is not a mutually exclusive endeavor. If a company has A, B, C and D. Adding E, in this case - ID, only adds to the value of the company. Good ID never diminishes it. I am comparing System76 with 70's IBM, Apple and Braun in my original comment. If IBM didn't pay attention to design - sure, they'd be successful probably. But ID has only added to their goodwill and brand name. Unfortunately, it is no longer true with IBM today. :-( Executives that pay attention to ID and its value create a direct unspoken visual link with their customers. Customers notice the smallest details, perfection in every aspect of the product and they realize & get the impression about company's dedication towards other non-ID related things. Stripe does this really well. It is even more critical for a physical product that you touch and feel. ID is sort of like a short-cut of communicating the abstract concept of quality to customers. It works brilliantly as a marketing tool as well as a tool to deliver actual measurable benefits to the customer (ease of use, clarity in operation, aesthetic appeal, etc.)
rkido 8y ago
This looks cool. But why do they keep marketing Pop!_OS as a different operating system? This is confusing to people who don't realize that it's literally just a customized Ubuntu.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > But why do they keep marketing Pop!_OS as a different operating system? This is confusing to people who don't realize that it's literally just a customized Ubuntu. Why do they keep marketing Ubuntu as a different OS? The is confusing to people who don't realize that it's literally just a customized Debian.
  - trengrj 8y ago
    > Why do they keep marketing Ubuntu as a different OS? The is confusing to people who don't realize that it's literally just a customized Debian. Why do they keep marketing Debian as a different OS? It is literally just Linux and some GNU system components cobbled together.
    - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
      Indeed, why don't they actually put Linux front and centre, since by this point in time it should be a fairly well recognised name. They could then say something about Pop_OS in term of their own customisation if they like, but I find the down-playing of Linux a bit odd, especially as they do note the case design as including "the solar system at the time of the Unix Epoch", which is a nice Vingian touch.
      - ryukafalz 8y ago
        Linux is a fairly well-recognized name by this point, but what recognition it does have tends to have "technical" associations. If I suggest running Linux to some of my friends, they'll immediately disregard it as something they wouldn't be able to use, possibly because they know I run it and associate it with being a techie. I suspect I would get a very different reaction if I showed them something like elementary OS without even mentioning the word Linux.
Keyframe 8y ago
Love the 70's design! How's ordering from them from EU? Any experiences?
wpdev_63 8y ago
It's really hard to compete in the desktop segment with enthusiast customers as they are more likely to build their own desktop at a better price. Never the less it presents a great option for people who want open source(freedom) hardware in a complete package. I really hope they continue their open source aspirations with their laptop line as it well be a compelling alternative to the typically macbook dev machine.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  I don't think they are competing for the same market, they compete for those who don't care about building a PC but still want FOSS software as well as for some business customers. There are plenty of people that are developers or Linux users (e.g. data science) that don't know anything about hardware nor do they care to know anything about it they just want something that works, sure they can spend time "researching" it but why bother? famously even Linus said he doesn't install his own linux distro not that he couldn't but even he would actually need to do some research if he would want to build one completely from scratch. So their target market is essentially the person who would buy a Mac Pro or a dell workstation and if they have good support for theirs both in terms of FOSS software and post purchase hardware support they have a market to sell too. I know people that spend 5-10K on a Dell workstation just to have "official" Linux support and decent onsite service, if these would sell outside of the US they would likely to switch.
  - Fomite 8y ago
    This. I bought an expensive machine from Boxx. I could have built it myself. But I didn't for three reasons: 1) I have other work to do. Spending a day tinkering with components instead of writing papers, getting grants, or working on code is not a good use of my time. 2) Ordering a machine is easier in terms of working through university purchasing than ordering parts. 3) If something's broken, I can call someone. All of these have value.
    - P_I_Staker 8y ago
      I'd add to this point, that it's just not interesting to me anymore. I'd get some joy from the act of shopping, and a little from the anticipation of putting things together. Overall, it'd be kinda like doing the dishes though. Ultimately, it'd come down to the cost. If I could save $200-500, forget about it; less and I'd have no problem paying for something high quality.
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tlrobinson 8y ago
Maxing out configurators is always fun... Configuration total $76,783
- sigfubar 8y ago
  I hope it comes with a mortgage.
  - appleiigs 8y ago
    "Pay as low as $2580/month".
- OpenBSD-reich 8y ago
  That's more than Raptor Engineering's Talos II POWER9 workstation max-out! :^O Talos is a fully open hardware platform too.
  - xeeeeeeeeeeenu 8y ago
    Neither Talos nor this machine are anywhere near fully open.
    - floatboth 8y ago
      https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/OpenPOWER_Firmware https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/OpenPOWER_Firmware Talos has fully open source firmware, down to the very first POWER instructions that are executed from efuses. That's pretty damn open.
- decasteve 8y ago
  It’s $82,893. You selected the 40 TB HDD storage instead of the 32 TB SSD.
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newnewpdro 8y ago
If you really wanted a blob-free desktop wouldn't you just spend a bit more and get a Talos II Lite? System76 is marketing an aspiration towards a goal Raptor CS has already largely delivered on: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/raptors-talos-ii-lite-brings-power9-to-the-desktop-without-breaking-the-bank/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/raptors-talos-ii-lite-b...
avhwl 8y ago
I think they really missed an opportunity by exclusively supporting AMD/Intel here. Would have been nice to have a competitive and relatively affordable POWER system- open hardware and firmware is nice but kind of mooted by having a mysterious minix black box running at all times in ring -3 (Intel ME/AMD PSP). I guess TALOS is still the only option there.
- classichasclass 8y ago
  Wait for the Raptor Blackbird. They're apparently trying for a very competitively priced POWER9 system with that one, as in sub-$1k.
- shaklee3 8y ago
  Aren't the lowest core power9 still intended for servers? I wasn't aware they had desktop processors.
francoisdevlin 8y ago
It's a cool toy, and obviously I'll be the manliest developer on my team if I had this... But what does it actually do? If I need that much compute for a problem, doesn't renting the capacity on AWS make 100x more sense? There's no way I could actually make use of all that hardware
- dllu 8y ago
  It's a workstation. The following people might make use of all that hardware: * Game development engineer who needs to test games at all graphics settings; * Digital artist who needs to rapidly iterate by creating draft renderings quickly before sending the model/scene to a render farm; * Roboticist developing robotics algorithms that require lots of local data collected in the field that would be infeasible to upload to AWS; * Physicist developing computational models which should be tested on smaller instance locally before sending off to a supercomputer. Besides, if you're planning to use a machine for compute for more than several months, it becomes cost-efficient vs renting an AWS instance.
- cbsmith 8y ago
  "But what does it actually do?" It manipulates 1's and 0's at a rapid rate and high precision. "If I need that much compute for a problem, doesn't renting the capacity on AWS make 100x more sense? There's no way I could actually make use of all that hardware" It's probably not for you then, just like the AWS instance wouldn't make a lot of sense for some guy playing Crysis.
- nurettin 8y ago
  For a web server that has low latency throughout the world, and if you don't know any cheaper provider that has equivalent reliability, yes. aws makes sense. Introducing network dependency and latency to your work environment, not sure how that makes any sense.
arminiusreturns 8y ago
From one of the reddit threads where someone from System76 was active, the cool thing to me is how they are aiming to slowly offload functions from the motherboard onto foss hardware. That has started just with the fan controllers and sata backplanes, but it sure to progress further and further, and that in particular is what I like about where they are headed. I think open hardware is the future, and those who are able to get there first are going to see increasing gains as time goes on. Of course my engineer friends always talk about how you can never verify down to the chip level, but I think there are ways it can be done, the market just hasn't been pressured to do it... yet. Now if we can just start by getting Amd PSP and Intel ME removed! The first CPU manufacturer to do this is going to gain huge marketshare. (hint hint AMD!)
- Cacti 8y ago
  Intel sells 100,000,000 chips a year. The percentage of those chips going to people who care about ME, or for that matter have even _heard_ of it, is so astronomically small as to be irrelevant.
  - arminiusreturns 8y ago
    I disagree. Enterprises make up a huge part of that market share, and with an increase in cpu sidechannels, they could easily start upping the pressure by asking for non-ME/PSP systems. Of course theyll get told no, but somewhere that metric will grow until it gets the attention it deserves. Even if a battle is uphill it doesnt mean its not worth the fight.
    - TheSmiddy 8y ago
      Exactly, end users do not care but people making their purchasing decisions might.
      - ethagnawl 8y ago
        > people making their purchasing decisions might Board members and shareholders might (some day -- hopefully) care, too.
thinkloop 8y ago
Why do they have Pop OS? It's a lot of work building and maintaining a distro and there are tons already. Does it do anything really different?
- macco 8y ago
  It makes a lot of sense for theme, this way the control the whole experience with the product. I was testing it today and it seems to work very well on my desktop. I would say it is the first real innovation in distros in years.
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paultopia 8y ago
That is a sexy machine. Does anyone who understands GPUs know if all the NVIDIA do-linear-algebra-really-freaking-fast drivers that everyone uses for deep learning will run properly on the RTX 2070?
- TheAceOfHearts 8y ago
  I won't claim to understand GPUs, but I've read a LOT of comments from people complaining about NVIDIA cards on Linux. As I understand it, AMD is pushing more open standards, although I don't know how it compares in terms of performance. I actually have a tab open right now with the ROCm [0] docs, since I was looking to learn a bit more about what they were up to. They supports Tensorflow, although I don't think they're first-class citizens like NVIDIA. [0] https://rocm.github.io/ https://rocm.github.io/
- currymj 8y ago
  Yes, definitely. You can see it among the benchmarks here. https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/RTX-2080Ti-with-NVLINK---TensorFlow-Performance-Includes-Comparison-with-GTX-1080Ti-RTX-2070-2080-2080Ti-and-Titan-V-1267/#big-lstm-gtx-1080ti-rtx-2070-rtx-2080-rtx-2080ti-titan-v-tensorflow-training-performance-wordssecond https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/RTX-2080Ti-with-NVLINK... It's the slowest tested obviously, mainly because of limited memory (so you have to put less on the device and compute less in parallel). But it would still be a huge speed up over CPU, like night and day. And "as fast as a 1080Ti" is really, really great. I will add, Pop!_OS comes with the latest NVIDIA drivers and lets you apt install the latest CUDA and even Tensorflow without any rigamarole.
  - paultopia 8y ago
    Cool, thanks!
rburhum 8y ago
I have been looking at these computers forever and am continuously waiting for them to come up with a nice looking laptop. I don't want to buy something that looks like a Dell I had in 2002. I want something that is comparable to my brand new MBP. Also, I hate to be that guy, but if you are trying to compete in this market, why even spend time doing a Desktop computer. It is a super shrinking market... the only folks that still buy these are gamers (where sadly you just have to live with the proprietary stuff to squeeze every cycle for performance) or something hyper niche that doesn't matter anyway. Concentrate on one product (probably laptops) and make something outstanding there. There are some of us that want to buy it.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  The latest Xiaomi laptops are pretty much like Macbooks and you can easily run Linux on them too. As for gamers of course the majority will use Windows but Win10 is such a shitshow that Linux is going to get progressively more popular, especially now that Steam Play/Proton makes it super easy to run Windows games in Linux.
- sontek 8y ago
  I don't play games and have both a Linux desktop and an iMac. When you are doing a lot of distributed systems and large datasets the beefier machines help a lot. I also have two laptops obviously but my main workhorses are the desktop computers. I'll even to shell into them when I'm on my laptop. I don't have any data on it but I feel like the desktop market is getting bigger as datasets are growing and software is becoming more distributed. My 2015 macbook sounds like an airplane taking off when I code on it. The fan is at full throttle 100% of the time.
- whydoineedthis 8y ago
  i think they sell a several laptops that are as beautiful as the macs now.
equalunique 8y ago
System76 should offer some kind of "Steam Machine" edition.
Entangled 8y ago
"...to the solar system at the time of the Unix Epoch, Thelio embodies the character of our company and community." Nice detail.
modzu 8y ago
theyre designing and manufacturing aluminum and they've got a software team doing POP_OS, a great start... now solve the trackpad! do whatever you have to do to get it done, and ill sell my macbook :)
syntaxing 8y ago
Pricing isn't bad compared to a Boxx desktop. I was interested until the GPU offering. I mean I know I can install the GPU myself but it's weird to offer RX550/580s without offering NVIDIA alternatives like the 1070/1080...
- onli 8y ago
  Not that weird actually. The GTX 1070/1080 are in a category above the RX 580, the direct competitor is the 1060. They do have the RTX 2070 as a replacement for the 1080, that category is served. And of course a company favoring open source would lead customers to buy AMD, the free drivers are way better than what Nvidia is offering. So they set AMD where it is sound and Nvidia where AMD has no alternative on the market, and where for ML you'd currently want a Nvidia gpu anyway.
- floatboth 8y ago
  It's weird to see an open source focused company offering any NVIDIA at all. The FOSS world should keep the middle finger up until novideo starts releasing actual detailed documentation and collaborating with the nouveau community.
rs86 8y ago
Now I we can run chrome!!
sho 8y ago
> And to offset environmental impact, every Thelio sold plants a tree with the National Forest Foundation. In other words, they donate a dollar. Not that I'm against it, I guess. There's just something about the "buy our product for $X and we'll donate $(X/1000) to Y on your behalf" marketing ploy which rubs me the wrong way. I mean I guess it's better than them not doing it, but... it just feels bordering on sleazy. I'd much rather see "We donate N% of our profits per year to planting trees". It's a subtle difference, but instead of a marketing technique, it feels more like a genuine company principle.
- sverhagen 8y ago
  Isn't the question you want to ask: to what extent did the one tree really offset _the_ environmental impact, then we know whether the statement is true or a true lie. Oh no, we won't, because it didn't have the word "the". That was for us to assume, while they could tell us they meant "some", if ever pressed on it. Nice. Got it.
cobbzilla 8y ago
While I don't have a use for their desktop systems, I've very much been enjoying my System76 laptop; I just bought a Meerkat (mini PC) for my new home-theater system. I've had good support experiences and in general with S76 everything "just works", which is really nice for a Linux distro/system. I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 but the new Meerkat will be 18.04 and I'll probably upgrade my laptop to that soon.
cobbzilla 8y ago
Off Topic: I love my S76 laptop, and just bought a Meerkat (mini PC) from them. I'm a fan. Hardware "just works" and I like that they respect my software freedoms. No disclosures, just a customer.
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johnchristopher 8y ago
> "I like your computer," she said. "It looks like it was made by Indians or something." > Chia looked down at her sandbenders. Turned off the red switch. "Coral," she said. "These are turquoise. The ones that look like ivory are the inside of a kind of nut. Renewable." > "The rest is silver?" > "Aluminum," Chia said. "They melt old cans they dig up on the beach cast it in sand molds. These panels are micarta. That's linen with this resin in it." For the twenty years of Idoru they could have sown some discrete references to Gibson :).
- Lio 8y ago
  This is exactly what I was thinking about. :D It’s been a while since I read it but I seem to remember Chia was able upgrade her system. It would be nice to see a System 76 offer logic board upgrades for the case too. I mean you can get motherboards from anyone but if you get them from System 76 you know it’s got good Linux support.
Paul_S 8y ago
That is Apple level of expensive.
Heliosmaster 8y ago
My only hope is that they would ship things from within Europe, so we could avoid the hefty (20+%) customs...
eecc 8y ago
Looks like a loudspeaker... IMHO they could have fully adopted that approach, adding a cloth covering a front grille for added airflow (and a fan perhaps?) Anyhow, nice
drewg123 8y ago
It is a shame they don't offer ECC memory for the Ryzen and Threadripper based systems. I built myself a Threadripper 2990WX based system a few months ago, and the hardest part of the built was ECC support. In particular: 1) confirming ECC support on the mobo was not disabled by the mobo vendor 2) finding "reasonable" speed ECC UDIMMs (ended up w/2666) in a high enough density to reach at least 64GB. I would have been happy to pay a premium to a company like system 76 in order to save days of research into different parts.
- kevinherron 8y ago
  Want to share what motherboard and memory you ended up with and where you got them from?
  - drewg123 8y ago
    I have the older ASRock X399 Taichi. The BIOS is this odd mashup of glitzy OC features I'll never use combined with stuff they took directly from AMD without touching. There is even mention of the AMD XGBE SOC NICs in the BIOS (and they are not wired up). The worst thing about the BIOS is that I have some Micron U.2 NVMe drives whose option ROM causes the BIOS to hang about 9/10 times. If I disable legacy option ROMs, all is good until the next time the board loses power, when that setting is lost. Asrock's answer was 'reinstall windows' (which would be nice, but I have FreeBSD installed). I ended up getting Crucial CT16G4WFD8266 dimms. Crucial was painful to deal with, and kept cancelling my order because they "could not verify key information". I finally just ordered the mempory from provantage.com, for slightly less. The underlying micron part number from dmidecode is: 18ASF2G72AZ-2G6D1 If I was doing this today, I might wait for 2933 or even 3200 memory..
grappler 8y ago
I think I'm in the market for something at least very close to what System76 is doing. But there's a niche that I'm not finding in their product lineup (or anyone else's, so far). The open hardware part is extremely appealing, and the reason I started paying attention to System76 in the first place. What's missing for me is form factor. Rather than a desktop tower, I want to rackmount a machine in an AV cabinet and put it in my living room alongside other devices like an ethernet switch, UPS, maybe an AV receiver, set-top box, or other bits of AV/smarthome type gear. Like those home stereo racks people had in the 80s and 90s (tape deck, cd changer, receiver, record player, amplifier). But with actual rack mounting hardware like you get in modern server rooms. I already shopped around for, and have, a suitable cabinet: https://www.salamanderdesigns.com/racks-stands/hampton-317-rm/ https://www.salamanderdesigns.com/racks-stands/hampton-317-r... So when I look at their 'servers' page I see machines that belong in some company's server room, away from humans. The small height (1U or 2U) says "compute density" (which is one of the metrics emphasized on their product page) and also means small fans which need to move a lot of air, which means noise. The servers offered go up to 28 or even 31.5 inches deep. The shallowest is still 22 inches deep. My aforementioned cabinet has 16.5 inches of depth from the front rails to the back rails. So while the rackmount hardware is the same standard 19 inch width with vertical hole spacing measured in U's, there is a distinct difference between what is built for a server rack and what is built for an AV-style cabinet in someone's home. A chassis with 4U or more of height would allow larger, slower 120mm fans suitable for a quiet living room. I want something like that on sliding rails so it can be easily pulled out like a drawer for component changes. That would be a great bit of design for a home server, I think. And if System76 or a similar vendor were offering this as a product category, I'd be asking them to take my money :)
hlandau 8y ago
This site is full of misleading or false claims. >Open hardware licensed to give you rights >Thelio, Thelio Major, Thelio Massive, and Thelio Io are >OSHWA certified open source >hardware. The case might be. The mainboard, i.e. the actual computer, sure as hell isn't. Insofar that they're selling "Thelio" as a computer, a reasonable person would interpret this to mean the computer with all parts therein as sold, for which this statement is wholly false. As for the mainboard, my understanding is that it's both designed and manufactured by Gigabyte outside of the US, and the schematics aren't theirs to give. >Designed and Manufactured in Colorado >US-sourced wood and aluminum are formed, finished, etched, and built by artisans in our >Denver, Colorado factory. Premium components from around the world are then assembled to >your final specifications. The case might be. The mainboard certainly isn't. "Premium components from around the world are then assembled to your final specifications." is pretty ambiguous. I wouldn't normally consider a mainboard a "component", it is the damn thing. This is at best highly misleading. Moreover, according to [1], the company is "chipping away at the proprietary bits until it's 100% open source." This is, like Purism, stating vague ambitions which cannot plausibly ever be achieved; Intel and AMD platforms will never be blob-free. [1] https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/system76-announces-american-made-desktop-pc-open-source-parts https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/system76-announces-amer...
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684 points by secure 8y ago

It looks really, really cool (very nice specs, and attractive too). I wonder how well it’ll run Debian stable. A lot of folks like Ubuntu, and no doubt System76 are doing a fine job with Pop!_OS (gosh that’s an odd name though), but I’m happiest with a system I can set up exactly as I like.

undoware 8y ago

Was excited AF until I read this: "Perfect with Pop!_OS Pop!_OS by System76 and Thelio together form the perfect platform to create and discover. Thelio is optimized for maximum performance. Pop!_OS provides tools and development platforms that are always up-to-date and just a single click or command away. " Forgive me but I'm just not interested in running an obscure custom Linux. I feel the same about Amazon's AWS Linux distro. Give me one of the following, in order of preference, and we'll talk: - Arch - Ubuntu - Debian - Fedora - RHEL

undoware 8y ago
Oh wait they offer Ubuntu 18 as an option. OK excited again
- shrewduser 8y ago
  pop_os is pretty good, you might be out of the loop on that one it's gaining a decent amount of traction
- faissaloo 8y ago
  Trust me you want Pop, it saves you alot of setup.
smacktoward 8y ago
You can get it with Ubuntu 18.04 at no extra charge. Check the configurator.
yogeshgirdhar 8y ago
I was pleasantly surprised by Pop!_OS. It's basically Ubuntu + nice theme + drivers specifically tested and configured for the System76 hardware. No more pain and suffering because of nvidia drivers.
- mmirate 8y ago
  Does this mean that anyone wanting to run anything non-Ubuntu-based on a System 76 product, gets to take upon themselves the joyous tasks of extricating these drivers from Pop!_OS, monitoring Pop!_OS for driver changes, and re-extricating new versions of drivers when they arrive?
  - sitzkrieg 8y ago
    I have ran fedora on a system76 machine with zero issues, but the machine is almost 2 years old now , and a pretty no frills intel laptop so who knows
- sliken 8y ago
  I regularly install the current ubuntu LTS on about 5 desktops, all with nvidia. Generally it just works you either have to click on (settings -> drivers -> nvidia) or just do an apt-get install nvidia-<current version>. When there's a kernel upgrade it "just works", presumably with DKMS or similar. What pain are you seeing with nvidia?
- Koshkin 8y ago
  Yeah, but the name... Ugh.
  - briandear 8y ago
    Ubuntu isn’t exactly a catchy name either. Sounds like the name of a miscreant troll.
- thinkloop 8y ago
  On windows and mac, because there's no choice, things like this are offered as software to install. Would doing the same on linux more likely cause "pain and suffering"?
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wmf 8y ago

Related discussion from the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18342744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18342744 Personally I find this industrial design to be a refreshing change from other PCs but I'm sure the wood grain will be divisive.

sliken 8y ago
That discussion was pre-release though, so pretty scant on actual details.
Koshkin 8y ago
The wood finish is not "industrial design."
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- nkoren 8y ago
  Indeed it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_design
- briandear 8y ago
  You are thinking about “industrial style” that looks like “industry.” Industrial design is the art and science of designing products — it has nothing to do with a specific look or style.

rdtsc 8y ago

Really well done. I like the design, the wood finish the look, configurability. Up to 40TB storage, 4 GPUs (I tried to configure a Thelio Major), lots of RAM.

blinkingled 8y ago

Sweet! Pricing seems competitive for what they are offering. But what's up with the 2.5 SATA drives? I was looking to replace my Z620 which has existing 3.5" drives - looks like I can't repurpose those. 2.5" drives are also considerably costlier than their 3.5" counterparts - never mind they also handle heat better.

acomjean 8y ago
I thought that was only on the smallest machine, but I checked and they all have 2.5" drives. I'm not sure why in desktop they would choose to go that route.
- freeone3000 8y ago
  SSDs are either m.2 or 2.5" form factor. There's no need for a spinny drive.
  - blinkingled 8y ago
    You can build one with spinning 2.5 drives that are costlier than the 3.5 ones. So it's not about not needing spinning drives - for lots of redundant storage 3.5" drives are still the most economical choice.
ccarse 8y ago
I think this is them being forward looking, realizing that 3.5" drives are quickly becoming a relic of the past.

appleiigs 8y ago

A nice change from the LED lighted boxes you often see for high end machines. I’m hoping they do a nice laptop. HN will need to put their money where there mouth is if System76 comes up with a thick laptop with replaceable battery, upgradeable RAM, lots of non USB-C ports and a keyboard with some travel. A niche System76 could really fit into.

Zaskoda 8y ago
That is exactly what I want.
- Lio 8y ago
  Would a small format desktop with a vesa mount for the back of your monitor, like a NUC, be an acceptable compromise? The main problem I've seen eith that sort of thing is that there still aren’t many 5k monitors on the market and I’m not sure the LG one will work with Linux over USB-C. (Would love to be wrong on that if anyone knows better).
Koshkin 8y ago
> A nice change The wood finish? Really? A desktop that looks like a trash can, and now this?
- xienze 8y ago
  My thoughts exactly. A plain black box without any windows or lights is a refreshing change of pace. Wood grain just seems like kind of a joke on a PC.
  - Crontab 8y ago
    I disagree but I recognize this is a subjective thing.
  - onli 8y ago
    The Fractal cases (apart from the Meshify C) are already like that, in fact, there is a whole design trend providing elegant black boxes without gamery LED stuff. Look at the Define C for example, or the Thermaltake Suppressor F51 as one of the clones.

IMTDb 8y ago

Those computer seems actually reasonably priced. You can get a better deal building them yourself but as a hassle free solution it seems pretty good. Event if you end up installing windows on it. I am quite impressed.

sliken 8y ago
Dunno, they seem pretty huge. The smallest is 14 liters and limits you to 32GB ram? What is this.. an Apple? Seems pretty insane to charge prices like this ($2,500 for a modest i7, 32G ram, and 256GB SSD) and not make it expandable enough to handle the more challenging uses.
- appleiigs 8y ago
  There are different versions. Thelio Major and Massive. Major is up to 128. Massive up to 768.
  - onli 8y ago
    Yeah, but there is a hole between those categories. A Ryzen processor happily supports 64GB ram with a 4-slot board, and that is something they do not support. If you take the Major version you are bound to get a more expensive Threadripper processor. But my current default build would be much cheaper and support up to 64GB ram, see https://www.pc-kombo.com/share/mORbPdR4 https://www.pc-kombo.com/share/mORbPdR4. And that's also in a small case.
- cyphar 8y ago
  The small one only has 2 DIMM slots, hence a limit of 32GB (which has a base price of $1k). The more expensive ones you just mentioned have a maximum of 128GB and 768GB.
illumin8 8y ago
Me too. These look incredible. Does anyone know if you could also turn them into Hackintosh or run Windows 10 on them for gaming? If so, I'd pick one up in a heartbeat. I'm a little concerned that the custom I/O daughterboard might make them only compatible with Linux or the PopOS (custom Ubuntu) that System76 offers.

MattyRad 8y ago

It's really refreshing to see such a clean design, especially from a committed open source vendor. I don't even really have a need for a desktop right now but it could be nice having an "anchor", so to speak, instead of being mobile all the time.

Jeaye 8y ago

I've been using my System76 Oryx Pro for two years and I love it. It's a powerful laptop and every piece of it is well supported by Linux. I run Arch, since I'm not a fan of their Pop! OS, but it's a great piece of hardware for a Linux user. However, I've been really craving something more powerful, for gaming, rendering, and compiling, which still has the Linux-by-design support and quality build. It looks like System76 has delivered precisely that series... and at a reasonable price. Thank you guys!

quantumhobbit 8y ago
How is the battery life on the oryx?
- acomjean 8y ago
  I have this year oryx pro from this year. The battery life is ok to poor and honestly is one of the weaker attributes of the machine. (You have to switch to intel graphics, with nvidia on be plugged in). right now I'm at 40% battery and it says I have 2:20 minutes left, but honestly I'm browsing the web.. under load I think I get 2-3 hours with a full charge. That being said I really like the machine.
- Jeaye 8y ago
  I leave it plugged in almost all day, so I can't answer that.
- jmunsch 8y ago
  Got a 17" Oryx pro last week. So using it with integrated Intel graphics, power saving on and screen brightness low, it's about 4.5 hours. I noticed if I adjust the screen brightness like even 10% it can add an extra 30 minutes. I'd assume it might be even longer for the smaller screen oryx versions. Now im wondering if there are a few other kernel governing tweaks that'd increase the time.

sliken 8y ago

They look nice, are pretty large. Very few specs, I couldn't for instance find anything mentioning the size of the fan. From what I can tell it's a bog standard system, a thin piece of wood (or is it a veneer?), and a custom fan controller on a small daughter card. The integration is pretty nice, presumably all the driver related integration "just works", although I generally get that with dell desktops or newegg systems built from parts. They don't mention much about the actual quality though. How efficient is the power supply? How many fans does it have? Any sound insulation inside? Maybe a aluminum/plastic/aluminum sandwich for sound dampening? Why is the rear fan so far from the rear of the case? Why is the motherboard horizontal which makes the case very wide, especially for a machine with a max of 32GB ram. For $2,500 for a modest i7 system with 32GB ram, gtx-1070, and a 256GB SSD I was expecting more than a custom fan controller and limited ram.

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chendragon 8y ago
The rear fan appears to be shared with the CPU fan. This is actually not a bad design in my opinion, many Dell OptiPlexes from around 2002-2009 were built with a similar design. By putting the fan farther from the grille, they can reduce the effects of noise from the blades passing by the stationary grill. The fan appears to point inwards, which seems to make more sense for BTX Dells with the fan at the bottom than this with the fan on top. The site mentions the power supplies are 80plus certified or something with (iirc) 90% efficiency or so. Quality of the case wise it does look like quite some effort was put into it, given the top appears to be one piece and it certainly looks harder to manufacture than a standard PC case. With that said, as much as it is nice, I think it's just more of a standard PC with a nice case.
- wyclif 8y ago
  I'm curious about how much fan noise there really is. They talk about the Thelio looking nice enough to live on the desktop, but IMO the reason people put their Linux box under their desk isn't necessarily because it's ugly: it's to mitigate the fan noise. I don't care much about walnut or maple; I just want quiet fans.

nwah1 8y ago

The exciting part is not the case, nor the specs, nor the OS. The exciting part is that they are attempting to use open hardware and firmware to the greatest extent they can practically achieve. They have created an open source "daughter board" for this purpose.

fermienrico 8y ago
I strongly believe that being able to hire a top-notch industrial designer can change the entire course of the company. With Apple, it was Jony Ive and for Braun it was Dieter Rams. With IBM, they were the executives that had an impeccable taste in design which propagated from top-down. System76 is well positioned to be in this space to shall I dare to say - compete with Apple? Only if they invest in design. It sounds like a stupid non essential thing but design sells. When it sells, boy it sells; it makes the backbone of a company. As it stands, System76 has mediocre branding and design in my personal opinion. Not great, but also not bad. I am not excited about the wooden trim approach integrated in the PC case. But, these things are subjective. If they nail ID, I believe they have a really bright future. When I say, hire a top notch designer - I mean, someone who can change the world type; not someone that they can just hire by posting a job ad. But, it has to start from the owners of the company. If they think Design as a cost center in marketing, forget about it.
- outworlder 8y ago
  > As it stands, System76 has mediocre branding and design in my personal opinion I don't know, it's looking better now than some generic boxes you see from big name companies.
- cbsmith 8y ago
  ID is one path to one kind of success. I dare say System76 is charting a very different path.
  - fermienrico 8y ago
    I find this thought process unsettling. For one, ID is not a mutually exclusive endeavor. If a company has A, B, C and D. Adding E, in this case - ID, only adds to the value of the company. Good ID never diminishes it. I am comparing System76 with 70's IBM, Apple and Braun in my original comment. If IBM didn't pay attention to design - sure, they'd be successful probably. But ID has only added to their goodwill and brand name. Unfortunately, it is no longer true with IBM today. :-( Executives that pay attention to ID and its value create a direct unspoken visual link with their customers. Customers notice the smallest details, perfection in every aspect of the product and they realize & get the impression about company's dedication towards other non-ID related things. Stripe does this really well. It is even more critical for a physical product that you touch and feel. ID is sort of like a short-cut of communicating the abstract concept of quality to customers. It works brilliantly as a marketing tool as well as a tool to deliver actual measurable benefits to the customer (ease of use, clarity in operation, aesthetic appeal, etc.)

rkido 8y ago

This looks cool. But why do they keep marketing Pop!_OS as a different operating system? This is confusing to people who don't realize that it's literally just a customized Ubuntu.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> But why do they keep marketing Pop!_OS as a different operating system? This is confusing to people who don't realize that it's literally just a customized Ubuntu. Why do they keep marketing Ubuntu as a different OS? The is confusing to people who don't realize that it's literally just a customized Debian.
- trengrj 8y ago
  > Why do they keep marketing Ubuntu as a different OS? The is confusing to people who don't realize that it's literally just a customized Debian. Why do they keep marketing Debian as a different OS? It is literally just Linux and some GNU system components cobbled together.
  - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
    Indeed, why don't they actually put Linux front and centre, since by this point in time it should be a fairly well recognised name. They could then say something about Pop_OS in term of their own customisation if they like, but I find the down-playing of Linux a bit odd, especially as they do note the case design as including "the solar system at the time of the Unix Epoch", which is a nice Vingian touch.
    - ryukafalz 8y ago
      Linux is a fairly well-recognized name by this point, but what recognition it does have tends to have "technical" associations. If I suggest running Linux to some of my friends, they'll immediately disregard it as something they wouldn't be able to use, possibly because they know I run it and associate it with being a techie. I suspect I would get a very different reaction if I showed them something like elementary OS without even mentioning the word Linux.

Keyframe 8y ago

Love the 70's design! How's ordering from them from EU? Any experiences?

wpdev_63 8y ago

It's really hard to compete in the desktop segment with enthusiast customers as they are more likely to build their own desktop at a better price. Never the less it presents a great option for people who want open source(freedom) hardware in a complete package. I really hope they continue their open source aspirations with their laptop line as it well be a compelling alternative to the typically macbook dev machine.

dogma1138 8y ago
I don't think they are competing for the same market, they compete for those who don't care about building a PC but still want FOSS software as well as for some business customers. There are plenty of people that are developers or Linux users (e.g. data science) that don't know anything about hardware nor do they care to know anything about it they just want something that works, sure they can spend time "researching" it but why bother? famously even Linus said he doesn't install his own linux distro not that he couldn't but even he would actually need to do some research if he would want to build one completely from scratch. So their target market is essentially the person who would buy a Mac Pro or a dell workstation and if they have good support for theirs both in terms of FOSS software and post purchase hardware support they have a market to sell too. I know people that spend 5-10K on a Dell workstation just to have "official" Linux support and decent onsite service, if these would sell outside of the US they would likely to switch.
- Fomite 8y ago
  This. I bought an expensive machine from Boxx. I could have built it myself. But I didn't for three reasons: 1) I have other work to do. Spending a day tinkering with components instead of writing papers, getting grants, or working on code is not a good use of my time. 2) Ordering a machine is easier in terms of working through university purchasing than ordering parts. 3) If something's broken, I can call someone. All of these have value.
  - P_I_Staker 8y ago
    I'd add to this point, that it's just not interesting to me anymore. I'd get some joy from the act of shopping, and a little from the anticipation of putting things together. Overall, it'd be kinda like doing the dishes though. Ultimately, it'd come down to the cost. If I could save $200-500, forget about it; less and I'd have no problem paying for something high quality.

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tlrobinson 8y ago

Maxing out configurators is always fun... Configuration total $76,783

sigfubar 8y ago
I hope it comes with a mortgage.
- appleiigs 8y ago
  "Pay as low as $2580/month".
OpenBSD-reich 8y ago
That's more than Raptor Engineering's Talos II POWER9 workstation max-out! :^O Talos is a fully open hardware platform too.
- xeeeeeeeeeeenu 8y ago
  Neither Talos nor this machine are anywhere near fully open.
  - floatboth 8y ago
    https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/OpenPOWER_Firmware https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/OpenPOWER_Firmware Talos has fully open source firmware, down to the very first POWER instructions that are executed from efuses. That's pretty damn open.
decasteve 8y ago
It’s $82,893. You selected the 40 TB HDD storage instead of the 32 TB SSD.

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newnewpdro 8y ago

If you really wanted a blob-free desktop wouldn't you just spend a bit more and get a Talos II Lite? System76 is marketing an aspiration towards a goal Raptor CS has already largely delivered on: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/raptors-talos-ii-lite-brings-power9-to-the-desktop-without-breaking-the-bank/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/raptors-talos-ii-lite-b...

avhwl 8y ago

I think they really missed an opportunity by exclusively supporting AMD/Intel here. Would have been nice to have a competitive and relatively affordable POWER system- open hardware and firmware is nice but kind of mooted by having a mysterious minix black box running at all times in ring -3 (Intel ME/AMD PSP). I guess TALOS is still the only option there.

classichasclass 8y ago
Wait for the Raptor Blackbird. They're apparently trying for a very competitively priced POWER9 system with that one, as in sub-$1k.
shaklee3 8y ago
Aren't the lowest core power9 still intended for servers? I wasn't aware they had desktop processors.

francoisdevlin 8y ago

It's a cool toy, and obviously I'll be the manliest developer on my team if I had this... But what does it actually do? If I need that much compute for a problem, doesn't renting the capacity on AWS make 100x more sense? There's no way I could actually make use of all that hardware

dllu 8y ago
It's a workstation. The following people might make use of all that hardware: * Game development engineer who needs to test games at all graphics settings; * Digital artist who needs to rapidly iterate by creating draft renderings quickly before sending the model/scene to a render farm; * Roboticist developing robotics algorithms that require lots of local data collected in the field that would be infeasible to upload to AWS; * Physicist developing computational models which should be tested on smaller instance locally before sending off to a supercomputer. Besides, if you're planning to use a machine for compute for more than several months, it becomes cost-efficient vs renting an AWS instance.
cbsmith 8y ago
"But what does it actually do?" It manipulates 1's and 0's at a rapid rate and high precision. "If I need that much compute for a problem, doesn't renting the capacity on AWS make 100x more sense? There's no way I could actually make use of all that hardware" It's probably not for you then, just like the AWS instance wouldn't make a lot of sense for some guy playing Crysis.
nurettin 8y ago
For a web server that has low latency throughout the world, and if you don't know any cheaper provider that has equivalent reliability, yes. aws makes sense. Introducing network dependency and latency to your work environment, not sure how that makes any sense.

arminiusreturns 8y ago

From one of the reddit threads where someone from System76 was active, the cool thing to me is how they are aiming to slowly offload functions from the motherboard onto foss hardware. That has started just with the fan controllers and sata backplanes, but it sure to progress further and further, and that in particular is what I like about where they are headed. I think open hardware is the future, and those who are able to get there first are going to see increasing gains as time goes on. Of course my engineer friends always talk about how you can never verify down to the chip level, but I think there are ways it can be done, the market just hasn't been pressured to do it... yet. Now if we can just start by getting Amd PSP and Intel ME removed! The first CPU manufacturer to do this is going to gain huge marketshare. (hint hint AMD!)

Cacti 8y ago
Intel sells 100,000,000 chips a year. The percentage of those chips going to people who care about ME, or for that matter have even _heard_ of it, is so astronomically small as to be irrelevant.
- arminiusreturns 8y ago
  I disagree. Enterprises make up a huge part of that market share, and with an increase in cpu sidechannels, they could easily start upping the pressure by asking for non-ME/PSP systems. Of course theyll get told no, but somewhere that metric will grow until it gets the attention it deserves. Even if a battle is uphill it doesnt mean its not worth the fight.
  - TheSmiddy 8y ago
    Exactly, end users do not care but people making their purchasing decisions might.
    - ethagnawl 8y ago
      > people making their purchasing decisions might Board members and shareholders might (some day -- hopefully) care, too.

thinkloop 8y ago

Why do they have Pop OS? It's a lot of work building and maintaining a distro and there are tons already. Does it do anything really different?

macco 8y ago
It makes a lot of sense for theme, this way the control the whole experience with the product. I was testing it today and it seems to work very well on my desktop. I would say it is the first real innovation in distros in years.

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paultopia 8y ago

That is a sexy machine. Does anyone who understands GPUs know if all the NVIDIA do-linear-algebra-really-freaking-fast drivers that everyone uses for deep learning will run properly on the RTX 2070?

TheAceOfHearts 8y ago
I won't claim to understand GPUs, but I've read a LOT of comments from people complaining about NVIDIA cards on Linux. As I understand it, AMD is pushing more open standards, although I don't know how it compares in terms of performance. I actually have a tab open right now with the ROCm [0] docs, since I was looking to learn a bit more about what they were up to. They supports Tensorflow, although I don't think they're first-class citizens like NVIDIA. [0] https://rocm.github.io/ https://rocm.github.io/
currymj 8y ago
Yes, definitely. You can see it among the benchmarks here. https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/RTX-2080Ti-with-NVLINK---TensorFlow-Performance-Includes-Comparison-with-GTX-1080Ti-RTX-2070-2080-2080Ti-and-Titan-V-1267/#big-lstm-gtx-1080ti-rtx-2070-rtx-2080-rtx-2080ti-titan-v-tensorflow-training-performance-wordssecond https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/RTX-2080Ti-with-NVLINK... It's the slowest tested obviously, mainly because of limited memory (so you have to put less on the device and compute less in parallel). But it would still be a huge speed up over CPU, like night and day. And "as fast as a 1080Ti" is really, really great. I will add, Pop!_OS comes with the latest NVIDIA drivers and lets you apt install the latest CUDA and even Tensorflow without any rigamarole.
- paultopia 8y ago
  Cool, thanks!

rburhum 8y ago

I have been looking at these computers forever and am continuously waiting for them to come up with a nice looking laptop. I don't want to buy something that looks like a Dell I had in 2002. I want something that is comparable to my brand new MBP. Also, I hate to be that guy, but if you are trying to compete in this market, why even spend time doing a Desktop computer. It is a super shrinking market... the only folks that still buy these are gamers (where sadly you just have to live with the proprietary stuff to squeeze every cycle for performance) or something hyper niche that doesn't matter anyway. Concentrate on one product (probably laptops) and make something outstanding there. There are some of us that want to buy it.

ekianjo 8y ago
The latest Xiaomi laptops are pretty much like Macbooks and you can easily run Linux on them too. As for gamers of course the majority will use Windows but Win10 is such a shitshow that Linux is going to get progressively more popular, especially now that Steam Play/Proton makes it super easy to run Windows games in Linux.
sontek 8y ago
I don't play games and have both a Linux desktop and an iMac. When you are doing a lot of distributed systems and large datasets the beefier machines help a lot. I also have two laptops obviously but my main workhorses are the desktop computers. I'll even to shell into them when I'm on my laptop. I don't have any data on it but I feel like the desktop market is getting bigger as datasets are growing and software is becoming more distributed. My 2015 macbook sounds like an airplane taking off when I code on it. The fan is at full throttle 100% of the time.
whydoineedthis 8y ago
i think they sell a several laptops that are as beautiful as the macs now.

equalunique 8y ago

System76 should offer some kind of "Steam Machine" edition.

Entangled 8y ago

"...to the solar system at the time of the Unix Epoch, Thelio embodies the character of our company and community." Nice detail.

modzu 8y ago

theyre designing and manufacturing aluminum and they've got a software team doing POP_OS, a great start... now solve the trackpad! do whatever you have to do to get it done, and ill sell my macbook :)

syntaxing 8y ago

Pricing isn't bad compared to a Boxx desktop. I was interested until the GPU offering. I mean I know I can install the GPU myself but it's weird to offer RX550/580s without offering NVIDIA alternatives like the 1070/1080...

onli 8y ago
Not that weird actually. The GTX 1070/1080 are in a category above the RX 580, the direct competitor is the 1060. They do have the RTX 2070 as a replacement for the 1080, that category is served. And of course a company favoring open source would lead customers to buy AMD, the free drivers are way better than what Nvidia is offering. So they set AMD where it is sound and Nvidia where AMD has no alternative on the market, and where for ML you'd currently want a Nvidia gpu anyway.
floatboth 8y ago
It's weird to see an open source focused company offering any NVIDIA at all. The FOSS world should keep the middle finger up until novideo starts releasing actual detailed documentation and collaborating with the nouveau community.

rs86 8y ago

Now I we can run chrome!!

sho 8y ago

> And to offset environmental impact, every Thelio sold plants a tree with the National Forest Foundation. In other words, they donate a dollar. Not that I'm against it, I guess. There's just something about the "buy our product for $X and we'll donate $(X/1000) to Y on your behalf" marketing ploy which rubs me the wrong way. I mean I guess it's better than them not doing it, but... it just feels bordering on sleazy. I'd much rather see "We donate N% of our profits per year to planting trees". It's a subtle difference, but instead of a marketing technique, it feels more like a genuine company principle.

sverhagen 8y ago
Isn't the question you want to ask: to what extent did the one tree really offset _the_ environmental impact, then we know whether the statement is true or a true lie. Oh no, we won't, because it didn't have the word "the". That was for us to assume, while they could tell us they meant "some", if ever pressed on it. Nice. Got it.

cobbzilla 8y ago

While I don't have a use for their desktop systems, I've very much been enjoying my System76 laptop; I just bought a Meerkat (mini PC) for my new home-theater system. I've had good support experiences and in general with S76 everything "just works", which is really nice for a Linux distro/system. I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 but the new Meerkat will be 18.04 and I'll probably upgrade my laptop to that soon.

cobbzilla 8y ago

Off Topic: I love my S76 laptop, and just bought a Meerkat (mini PC) from them. I'm a fan. Hardware "just works" and I like that they respect my software freedoms. No disclosures, just a customer.

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johnchristopher 8y ago

> "I like your computer," she said. "It looks like it was made by Indians or something." > Chia looked down at her sandbenders. Turned off the red switch. "Coral," she said. "These are turquoise. The ones that look like ivory are the inside of a kind of nut. Renewable." > "The rest is silver?" > "Aluminum," Chia said. "They melt old cans they dig up on the beach cast it in sand molds. These panels are micarta. That's linen with this resin in it." For the twenty years of Idoru they could have sown some discrete references to Gibson :).

Lio 8y ago
This is exactly what I was thinking about. :D It’s been a while since I read it but I seem to remember Chia was able upgrade her system. It would be nice to see a System 76 offer logic board upgrades for the case too. I mean you can get motherboards from anyone but if you get them from System 76 you know it’s got good Linux support.

Paul_S 8y ago

That is Apple level of expensive.

Heliosmaster 8y ago

My only hope is that they would ship things from within Europe, so we could avoid the hefty (20+%) customs...

eecc 8y ago

Looks like a loudspeaker... IMHO they could have fully adopted that approach, adding a cloth covering a front grille for added airflow (and a fan perhaps?) Anyhow, nice

drewg123 8y ago

It is a shame they don't offer ECC memory for the Ryzen and Threadripper based systems. I built myself a Threadripper 2990WX based system a few months ago, and the hardest part of the built was ECC support. In particular: 1) confirming ECC support on the mobo was not disabled by the mobo vendor 2) finding "reasonable" speed ECC UDIMMs (ended up w/2666) in a high enough density to reach at least 64GB. I would have been happy to pay a premium to a company like system 76 in order to save days of research into different parts.

kevinherron 8y ago
Want to share what motherboard and memory you ended up with and where you got them from?
- drewg123 8y ago
  I have the older ASRock X399 Taichi. The BIOS is this odd mashup of glitzy OC features I'll never use combined with stuff they took directly from AMD without touching. There is even mention of the AMD XGBE SOC NICs in the BIOS (and they are not wired up). The worst thing about the BIOS is that I have some Micron U.2 NVMe drives whose option ROM causes the BIOS to hang about 9/10 times. If I disable legacy option ROMs, all is good until the next time the board loses power, when that setting is lost. Asrock's answer was 'reinstall windows' (which would be nice, but I have FreeBSD installed). I ended up getting Crucial CT16G4WFD8266 dimms. Crucial was painful to deal with, and kept cancelling my order because they "could not verify key information". I finally just ordered the mempory from provantage.com, for slightly less. The underlying micron part number from dmidecode is: 18ASF2G72AZ-2G6D1 If I was doing this today, I might wait for 2933 or even 3200 memory..

grappler 8y ago

I think I'm in the market for something at least very close to what System76 is doing. But there's a niche that I'm not finding in their product lineup (or anyone else's, so far). The open hardware part is extremely appealing, and the reason I started paying attention to System76 in the first place. What's missing for me is form factor. Rather than a desktop tower, I want to rackmount a machine in an AV cabinet and put it in my living room alongside other devices like an ethernet switch, UPS, maybe an AV receiver, set-top box, or other bits of AV/smarthome type gear. Like those home stereo racks people had in the 80s and 90s (tape deck, cd changer, receiver, record player, amplifier). But with actual rack mounting hardware like you get in modern server rooms. I already shopped around for, and have, a suitable cabinet: https://www.salamanderdesigns.com/racks-stands/hampton-317-rm/ https://www.salamanderdesigns.com/racks-stands/hampton-317-r... So when I look at their 'servers' page I see machines that belong in some company's server room, away from humans. The small height (1U or 2U) says "compute density" (which is one of the metrics emphasized on their product page) and also means small fans which need to move a lot of air, which means noise. The servers offered go up to 28 or even 31.5 inches deep. The shallowest is still 22 inches deep. My aforementioned cabinet has 16.5 inches of depth from the front rails to the back rails. So while the rackmount hardware is the same standard 19 inch width with vertical hole spacing measured in U's, there is a distinct difference between what is built for a server rack and what is built for an AV-style cabinet in someone's home. A chassis with 4U or more of height would allow larger, slower 120mm fans suitable for a quiet living room. I want something like that on sliding rails so it can be easily pulled out like a drawer for component changes. That would be a great bit of design for a home server, I think. And if System76 or a similar vendor were offering this as a product category, I'd be asking them to take my money :)

hlandau 8y ago

This site is full of misleading or false claims. >Open hardware licensed to give you rights >Thelio, Thelio Major, Thelio Massive, and Thelio Io are >OSHWA certified open source >hardware. The case might be. The mainboard, i.e. the actual computer, sure as hell isn't. Insofar that they're selling "Thelio" as a computer, a reasonable person would interpret this to mean the computer with all parts therein as sold, for which this statement is wholly false. As for the mainboard, my understanding is that it's both designed and manufactured by Gigabyte outside of the US, and the schematics aren't theirs to give. >Designed and Manufactured in Colorado >US-sourced wood and aluminum are formed, finished, etched, and built by artisans in our >Denver, Colorado factory. Premium components from around the world are then assembled to >your final specifications. The case might be. The mainboard certainly isn't. "Premium components from around the world are then assembled to your final specifications." is pretty ambiguous. I wouldn't normally consider a mainboard a "component", it is the damn thing. This is at best highly misleading. Moreover, according to [1], the company is "chipping away at the proprietary bits until it's 100% open source." This is, like Purism, stating vague ambitions which cannot plausibly ever be achieved; Intel and AMD platforms will never be blob-free. [1] https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/system76-announces-american-made-desktop-pc-open-source-parts https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/system76-announces-amer...

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