11 ms·

System76 Thelio: A Review

142 points by FunnyLookinHat 8y ago

_ananos_ 8y ago
seems a bit overpriced. Other than that, it's a decent workstation.
- Finnucane 8y ago
  I wouldn't balk at paying a little more for a build-to-order system over an off-the-shelf thing; I'd expect that. It would be okay as long as the charge is not too egregious and you're getting a decent build for it. And it sounds like you do.
mark_l_watson 8y ago
After the busy work of using Linux and making a hobby of configuration (I think I started in 1992 with Slackware), it was so nice buying a System76 laptop last fall and having everything ‘just work.’
- acomjean 8y ago
  I have the laptop too. It does just work in a way that made phasing out my Mac book pro easier than expected. It’s not perfect but I haven’t had to spend much time on dealing with the os which is what I wanted and their “value add”. I don’t do much Linux system work, I just want to develop. For a desktop I’d expect replacing Linux would be easier, but if it’s like their notebooks having a easy to support system it probably worth the premium. That being said, what’s wrong with larger desktops that support 3.5 inch drives. I like cheap slow storage, but I work in bioinformatics.
  - SirensOfTitan 8y ago
    How's the battery life? I'm deeply considering a non-Apple laptop as my next purchase, but have read that System76 laptops just don't last battery wise.
    - TuringNYC 8y ago
      You need to compare apples to apples though...The MBP doesnt have a high-end NVIDIA card. My System76 lasts about an hour w/o power. However you can shut off or reduce the power on your GPU and it will last longer.
      - chrisseaton 8y ago
        Wow that’s more like a desktop with a UPS than a laptop.
        TuringNYC 8y ago
        I work at a GPU-powered in-memory DB startup. So well...fast GPUs and memory are pretty important :-) So in that light, the System76 is a lifesaver. It is nicer than a desktop as many of us take the laptop home. Also, for light lounge usage and workshops/presentations, we usually turn off the GPU for longer life.
      - acomjean 8y ago
        I can get 2-3 hours on my system 76 if I switch to the internal intel graphics. The machine I have requires a restart to do this. It’s one of the more annoying things because it won’t drive an external monitor without the Nvidia stack. So it’s more like a portable workstation than a “work at the coffee shop all day” kinda of note book
    - ZeroCool2u 8y ago
      I went this route, but I went with the Dell XPS 13 Developer edition, which comes with pure, supported, Ubuntu. Great battery life. Even the track pad is solid.
    - truncate 8y ago
      I use Dell XPS (2015) 4k model with Linux installed. I'm super happy with the laptop so far. I bought a refurbished i7 model when I was student, it still is the best laptop investment I've made so far. The issues I've had with it: 1. I had to change my power adapter twice. I dunno why it has such low life. But an original new one is just costs around $20. 2. Since, it was non-developer edition came with broadcom wifi card, I switched it to Intel which has much better Linux drivers IMO. I think they now use some "Killers" wifi module. I've no idea how they are. 3. After 3 years, it stopped charging because the power socket was damaged. I think it wasn't unexpected because of my rough use, and often bending the cable there. I got it fixed for around $130. In hindsight, it probably wasn't hard thing to fix, as long as I can get the part from eBay. 4. After 3.5 years, the battery life got really bad (like < 2 hours on 4k). I bought an original battery from eBay and replacing it was pretty easy. Now I think I get like 7 hrs on 1080p, and maybe little less than 5 on 4k. 5. Using 4k resolution on GNOME is kind of laggy. I think its mostly software issue than hardware. Unity used to work great, and I think Windows was smooth too. The body is still solid, and I think I can use it for another couple years for all my development needs. I really like the carbon fiber finish. Its usually pretty warm and comfortable (when you first open it), unlike aluminium bodies which gets chilly.
- TuringNYC 8y ago
  I use a high-end System76 for work (~10+hrs a day) and love it. The only problem seems to be multi-monitor support. The screens go into strange resolutions. They flick on and off. I've never had strange issues on other system with 2 or 3 monitor support (currently do this at home w/ a Lenovo + 3 monitors and with my wife w/ a MBP + 3 monitors.)
  - acomjean 8y ago
    I haven't had this problem with my "Oryx". I'm running the laptop monitor, a dell 24" vertical and old dell "Dual link dvi" 30 monitor. Sometimes I plug into a hight dpi 28". Thats hit or miss depending on the applications. There are a few that don't scale well at all. The only problem I have sometimes is the apple thunder (lightning?) adapter sometimes doesn't wake up, so I have to unplug the usb cable thats powering it.
- markbnj 8y ago
  Agreed, that was my experience buying a gazelle laptop a couple of years ago. I still use it daily and have never had an issue with the software. They also make it trivial to reinstall by providing all needed drivers in installable packages. Now if they could just get the build quality where it needs to be it would really be a great experience. With mine, generally, the software was the high point and the hardware was the low point.
blueboo 8y ago
I read all that and still have no idea what the point of it is, nor how performant or usable it is. It reads like an amazon review if someone trying to justify on overpriced purchase to themselves. Meanwhile it looks like this product is targeted at the very people who know how to configure their distros for their hardware, precisely nullifying the value-add, as far as I can tell. > Both of the Thelio’s vents show the solar system at the time of the UNIX epoch. Money well spent (But at least the I/o board is “reliable”!...ok)
- mattkrause 8y ago
  Personally, I thought the solar system thing was a cute gimmick. I wouldn’t buy it just for that, but if I were in the market for a smallish Linux desktop where everything worked out of the box, the rest of the review makes it sound like a decent option. Whether you mind paying a modest premium for that, versus doing the research/confit yourself is a personal decision obviously. Also, the author is a college undergrad writing on her own blog. If there’s ever a time and place for rationalizing something, that’s it!
  - ianai 8y ago
    Their CS department has 2 faculty! I think the math department was 4-5. Must be a pretty small school or I’m missing something.
- rocky1138 8y ago
  I would loved to have seen benchmarks.
samcday 8y ago
> The smallest Thelio, designated “thelio-r1”, stands 32 centimeters tall, 20 centimeters wide, and 28 centimeters deep, coming to only a total of 18 liters in volume, a good deal smaller than even the tiniest commercial full-GPU mITX form factor cases, most of which are at least 22 liters. Wut? https://www.sfflab.com/products/ncase_m1 https://www.sfflab.com/products/ncase_m1 - 12.6L https://www.dan-cases.com/dana4.php https://www.dan-cases.com/dana4.php - 7.2L There's a pretty big community that builds high-end gaming rigs / workstations in these cases. I've built in both. Originally I built in the Ncase but sold it to a colleague when I moved abroad. Recently I just built in the DANcase and wish I had have stuck with the Ncase. The extra 4 liters of volume goes a long way in improving thermals, due to the extra clearance for a CPU cooler. Anyway, just found that line in the article annoying, even a cursory Google search shows that there's a plethora of 7-12L SFF PC cases out there.
- killaken2000 8y ago
  I take commercial to mean lian-li (who made their old cases), cooler aster, antec, etc. Large volume manufacturers. It's probably easier for them to vertically integrate the case into their business than go with a low volume niche manufacturer and deal with the hazards that come with that
  - samcday 8y ago
    IIRC, Lian Li is the manufacturer of both the Ncase and the Dan A4. At the very least I know that the Dan A4 is using a lian pci riser.
  - paavohtl 8y ago
    Fractal Design is a pretty large manufacturer, and their Node 202 case \w full GPU support is only about 10 liters.
kyberias 8y ago
Why put the images on the page at all? They don't provide much additional information being so small.
- ebg13 8y ago
  The problem isn't the images but rather the poor site design that uses large images as tiny thumbnails but then doesn't make the thumbnails clickable. The images themselves are actually viewable much larger if you right-click on each one and open the image in a new tab.
Datenstrom 8y ago
The last shop I worked at had System76 PCs for all the devs and they are great. I have since switched at home also and recently test drove their new PopOS since I needed CUDA and Tensorflow and they package them so it is as easy `apt-get install` and it was also great. I would highly recommend looking at their PCs and PopOS. I just wish PopOS was built on Debian and not Ubuntu.
- chipaca 8y ago
  > I just wish PopOS was built on Debian and not Ubuntu. why?
  - bayindirh 8y ago
    Since Debian is not built with a commercial interest (Canonical is a corporation at the end), the OS doesn't feel like a "freemium product". As a person who uses Debian for a long time, and Ubuntu for throw-away VMs; Debian feels more "pure" from a system perspective, and it's not just skin deep. Debian is set-up to be a leaner OS out of the box. Everything is within reach, and deeply configurable from command line. Desktop environments are add-ons to the system, not integrated (even in desktop versions). I don't find surprising choices or hard to reach configuration stuff in Debian. Even though derived from Debian, Ubuntu "standard" comes with packages from Amazon, et. al., and sends analytics. This is not something that I like. Also, when I install Ubuntu server, I get subtle ads of "Canonical Landscape" and their paid offerings. This signals me that I'm using a freemium product, and as a user, I'm not their primary focus. Debian is of course sponsored by a lot of corporations, but at the end they are independent and they do as they wish at the end. I'm part of the process, and can talk with devs, and my bug reports and commits are not pre-filtered with "commercial" interests before even discussed. These are my feelings and experiences though. YMMV.
    - dleslie 8y ago
      Use Ubuntu MATE and you won't suffer the advertisements, analytics, or Gnome3.
    - suby 8y ago
Theodores 8y ago
It is like buying a coach built, hand made automobile rather than a mass produced German sportscar. The former uses some 'crate' engine, probably from the German sportscar but it has notional appeal for people that buy such things. If you do racing on the track and have to fix the thing every weekend then the off-the-shelf mass produced car won't cut it. For most people though the mass produced car with the up to date infotainment is what you want. A 'coach built' tower PC is fine, however, have you seen how the independent manufacturers such as System 76 compare in laptop land? The Dells and the Huawei PCs have bezels around the screen that you have to squint to see, the System 76 type of laptops have bezels wider than I can remember them being in 1993. Then there is the general girth of the things, it is like you need a padded wrist support to reach the keyboard. With autos there are people with rose tinted eyewear products that can remember the good old days when you could fix everything yourself with just a Haynes manual and a set of spanners. They moan about the modern cars that might as well have the bonnet welded shut. I am a bit like this with PCs but when it comes to actually putting money towards a PC I prefer the new and shiny rather than the 'coach built'. Sure I want to run linux but I would gladly risk my chances with those 'Windows only' machines from the likes of Lenovo, Huawei, Dell and HP rather than go with something designed for Linux.
bgorman 8y ago
My principle concern with any boutique desktop systems is that in order for the business model to be viable, they need to add significant mark up to the BOM. However I most enthusiasts can just assemble a desktop for themselves and save hundreds of dollars. One of the easiest ways to save hundreds of dollars I am aware of.
- Finnucane 8y ago
  Doesn’t every manufacturer of anything have to have a markup?
  - inimino 8y ago
    Yes, but there are economies of scale that Dell or Apple enjoy which will never apply to a seller targeting a niche market. Not only do they get lower costs on parts, but they can afford lower margins per unit since they have much higher volume relative to the fixed costs of running the business.
    - Finnucane 8y ago
      So the niche market shouldn’t be served?
      - the_pwner224 8y ago
        What the thread parent (bgorman) saying is that boutique desktop systems (as with any niche product) have to add significant markup. But, for computers, the target market of these manufacturers can also often build a computer themselves and avoid the huge markup. If you sell ultra high quality waterproof headsets to audiophiles for $2500, including a $1000 markup, your customers have only the choices of A) not buying or B) paying the markup. With desktops, they get the 3rd choice of building it themselves for $1600/1700.
        bwat49 8y ago
        What's missing in this analogy though is that computers need to run an Operating system. When building your own system (and running Windows), you can be pretty sure that windows will work without issues. With linux though, it's more of a gamble, which is why a vendor that tests/pre-configures/supports linux can be appealing
cik 8y ago
I've never had a good System76 experience - over a decade of System76 use. I've repeatedly asked to have them purchased, merely to help the community, and every single one has disappointed. The build quality is such rubbish, and you begin to feel it almost immediately. I'm careful with my kit, not terribly hard on anything and I manage to flake bits of plastic or metal off each System76. They've always been in neoprene cases within a laptop backpack - because I'm that paranoid. They're just rubbish. At this point Ubuntu (or Mint, or Debian!) on Alienware is my laptop of choice, and I run those Kingdel desktops.
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  I've heard similar complaints from others. It would be great is someone from System76 could join the conversation and have a spin-less discussion on the topic.
- skidd0 8y ago
  I want to chime in a contrasting opinion here. I had an old Galago that I adored. Came with Ubuntu, swapped that to Arch then stayed happy with it for years! It was a plastic frame, but it was tough enough to shove in a backpack and take longboarding. After 3 years, the Ethernet port's spring clip finally snapped off (user error), but still worked. I also accidentally bent the audio jack, but it still worked. It finally "died" when my pup knocked it off the couch with the charger still plugged in. The charger plug, still in the port, hit the floor at just the right angle to snap the port's inner prong off making it impossible to charge. I didn't notice until the next day when the battery used it's last bits of juice then shut down. Very happy with my System76 purchase. But! I've only ever used the one device.
  - dmead 8y ago
    You're aware they're all relabeled Chinese hardware yes?
    - smacktoward 8y ago
      That's true of System76's laptops, but part of their pitch for Thelio is that it marks a shift towards them doing their own design and manufacturing in the US. See https://blog.system76.com/post/179592732883/system76-on-us-manufacturing-and-open-hardware https://blog.system76.com/post/179592732883/system76-on-us-m... for details.
car12 8y ago
While I haven't used a system76 Thelio, while we're discussing System76, I can speak about a Galago pro that I bought from system76. Noteworthy, because I was one of those Mac refugees who needed a non-mac machine now that I don't like the new macbook keyboards or insane price bump that macs got. I bought a 16 GB Ram, 14" Galago pro with 512 GB SSD with Ubuntu on it. Battery life is around 2 hours. Not too good compared to a macbook. - Keyboard is pretty nice, each key has a comfortable travel to it. - The trackpad is awful or at least compared to what I'd gotten used to using the macbook for last many years. The trackpad feels rough, is not as responsive or smoother as the mac touchpad either. The click buttons aren't too nice to click either. Bottom line is that the next time I need to buy another Linux laptop, I'll be looking to try out the newer System76 to make sure they've fixed their touchpad, if not, I'll go with Dell XPS developer edition, no questions asked. Surprisingly, the touchpad being what it is, I've not seen it mentioned in the reviews of Galago pro all that much, I suspect it's because there are not too many ex-mac owners buying these, the touchpad feels like it belongs to year 2008.
- ludston 8y ago
  I have the same build. Largely I'm satisfied, but I agree with your touchpad woes. I found after I turned the sensitivity of the touchpad up to max, it didn't feel so bad.
- kondro 8y ago
  If anyone knows of a trackpad that's even 90% as good as the MacBook ones I'd love to give them a try. This is honestly one of the biggest things locking me into the Mac ecosystem, I haven't found an alternative trackpad that even comes close. I even like Apple's new MacBook keyboards (even with them breaking all the time… at least they fix them).
  - bwat49 8y ago
    Presently, no trackpad under linux will give an OSX-like experience. This is mostly a software limitation with the linux desktop IMO... e.g. web browsers like chrome and firefox lack basic features like kinetic scrolling under linux: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=763791 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=763791 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1213601 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1213601 And linux desktops don't really have any kind of gesture integration (the only one I'm aware of is gnome on wayland, and it basically only has one gesture available, switching desktops) I prefer using linux on my laptop, but this is definitely a big annoyance
danbolt 8y ago
I appreciate that the author linked to another review if users were coming from an OS X perspective. Or, when a review explains its biases or what is important to the reviewer, it helps make sense of the content for me as a reader.
smacktoward 8y ago
I don't understand why these boutique Linux system vendors all end up gravitating towards rolling their own distributions -- Pop!_OS (ugh) for System76, PureOS (https://www.pureos.net/ https://www.pureos.net/) for Purism, etc. I've been running Ubuntu on my machines for something like a decade now, and have experience with Debian and Red Hat/Fedora from before that. I know what to expect from these distributions. When you tell me you've rolled your own distribution, I have no idea what to expect, which turns me off from your product. And if the answer is "you can expect exactly the same as what you'd get from Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora/whatever," then why bother rolling a new distro in the first place? Why take what should be a simple sales pitch and make it more confusing? They seem to think the idea of learning my way around Yet Another Linux Distribution is an enticement. It isn't -- especially when the only community around the distribution is a single small company, which means that anything I do learn is unlikely to be useful beyond using that company's products. As soon as I buy from someone else, or that one small company goes out of business or loses interest in maintaining the distro, I can take all that knowledge and toss it in the bin. No thanks. (Weirdly, the only company in this space that seems to really get this is Dell. I feel like I'm living in the Mirror Universe.)
- Scarbutt 8y ago
  In the case of System76 they do allow you to choose ubuntu as your OS.
  - smacktoward 8y ago
    Right, I know, but that just adds more confusion. You can get it with Ubuntu, for instance, but if you want it set up with full-disk encryption you have to choose Pop!_OS for some reason. And since Ubuntu is presented as a second-class alternative to the preferred Pop!_OS, when I choose it now I'm wondering if that's going to have consequences should I ever need to try and get support from System76. Are they just going to tell me I should install Pop!_OS? Honestly, seeing as how you can download Ubuntu and install it yourself I think they'd be better off (from a sales perspective, I mean) just omitting the Ubuntu preinstall option altogether. Anyone who wants it could still get it, and it'd take a "wait, what?" moment out of the experience of using their configurator.
wishinghand 8y ago
Has anyone tried a system76 laptop with Elementary OS? I’m curious if there’s any issues. I’m thinking of getting a Galago but just read there’s some multi monitor issues. Curious if there’s any other caveats I might not know.
- rocky1138 8y ago
  If you end up doing it, please make a blog post for people who have the same questions as you do now.
dstaley 8y ago
I was super interested in buying one of these, but the markup is just too much for my tastes. I built out a reasonable workstation (9900K, 16 GB RAM, 500 GB NVMe SSD, 1TB SSD, RX 580) and the cost came out to $2,359 versus the $1,582 it would take to build it myself. I could understand a markup over retail of $100-200, but $700+ just isn’t a good value in my opinion, especially when I wasn’t selecting affordable parts.
jpeeler 8y ago
The greatest draw for me in looking at purchasing a System76 machine is coreboot support. My understanding is that coreboot is supported (sometimes) on older hardware, but not much modern hardware aside from Chromebooks. Ideally I'd like to build a machine myself, but it seems difficult to do at present with recent hardware and full coreboot support. Am I correct?
- sian92 8y ago
  Our Coreboot support right now is very experimental, and doesn't currently support things like UEFI, but we are progressing on it rapidly. We've gotten lots of help from both Coreboot and Intel in getting everything to work. One major downside is that right now the supported models are Intel-only laptops, but in the future it's highly likely that we'll be able to fully support all of our systems.

seems a bit overpriced. Other than that, it's a decent workstation.

Finnucane 8y ago
I wouldn't balk at paying a little more for a build-to-order system over an off-the-shelf thing; I'd expect that. It would be okay as long as the charge is not too egregious and you're getting a decent build for it. And it sounds like you do.

After the busy work of using Linux and making a hobby of configuration (I think I started in 1992 with Slackware), it was so nice buying a System76 laptop last fall and having everything ‘just work.’

acomjean 8y ago
I have the laptop too. It does just work in a way that made phasing out my Mac book pro easier than expected. It’s not perfect but I haven’t had to spend much time on dealing with the os which is what I wanted and their “value add”. I don’t do much Linux system work, I just want to develop. For a desktop I’d expect replacing Linux would be easier, but if it’s like their notebooks having a easy to support system it probably worth the premium. That being said, what’s wrong with larger desktops that support 3.5 inch drives. I like cheap slow storage, but I work in bioinformatics.
- SirensOfTitan 8y ago
  How's the battery life? I'm deeply considering a non-Apple laptop as my next purchase, but have read that System76 laptops just don't last battery wise.
  - TuringNYC 8y ago
    You need to compare apples to apples though...The MBP doesnt have a high-end NVIDIA card. My System76 lasts about an hour w/o power. However you can shut off or reduce the power on your GPU and it will last longer.
    - chrisseaton 8y ago
      Wow that’s more like a desktop with a UPS than a laptop.
      - TuringNYC 8y ago
        I work at a GPU-powered in-memory DB startup. So well...fast GPUs and memory are pretty important :-) So in that light, the System76 is a lifesaver. It is nicer than a desktop as many of us take the laptop home. Also, for light lounge usage and workshops/presentations, we usually turn off the GPU for longer life.
    - acomjean 8y ago
      I can get 2-3 hours on my system 76 if I switch to the internal intel graphics. The machine I have requires a restart to do this. It’s one of the more annoying things because it won’t drive an external monitor without the Nvidia stack. So it’s more like a portable workstation than a “work at the coffee shop all day” kinda of note book
  - ZeroCool2u 8y ago
    I went this route, but I went with the Dell XPS 13 Developer edition, which comes with pure, supported, Ubuntu. Great battery life. Even the track pad is solid.
  - truncate 8y ago
    I use Dell XPS (2015) 4k model with Linux installed. I'm super happy with the laptop so far. I bought a refurbished i7 model when I was student, it still is the best laptop investment I've made so far. The issues I've had with it: 1. I had to change my power adapter twice. I dunno why it has such low life. But an original new one is just costs around $20. 2. Since, it was non-developer edition came with broadcom wifi card, I switched it to Intel which has much better Linux drivers IMO. I think they now use some "Killers" wifi module. I've no idea how they are. 3. After 3 years, it stopped charging because the power socket was damaged. I think it wasn't unexpected because of my rough use, and often bending the cable there. I got it fixed for around $130. In hindsight, it probably wasn't hard thing to fix, as long as I can get the part from eBay. 4. After 3.5 years, the battery life got really bad (like < 2 hours on 4k). I bought an original battery from eBay and replacing it was pretty easy. Now I think I get like 7 hrs on 1080p, and maybe little less than 5 on 4k. 5. Using 4k resolution on GNOME is kind of laggy. I think its mostly software issue than hardware. Unity used to work great, and I think Windows was smooth too. The body is still solid, and I think I can use it for another couple years for all my development needs. I really like the carbon fiber finish. Its usually pretty warm and comfortable (when you first open it), unlike aluminium bodies which gets chilly.
TuringNYC 8y ago
I use a high-end System76 for work (~10+hrs a day) and love it. The only problem seems to be multi-monitor support. The screens go into strange resolutions. They flick on and off. I've never had strange issues on other system with 2 or 3 monitor support (currently do this at home w/ a Lenovo + 3 monitors and with my wife w/ a MBP + 3 monitors.)
- acomjean 8y ago
  I haven't had this problem with my "Oryx". I'm running the laptop monitor, a dell 24" vertical and old dell "Dual link dvi" 30 monitor. Sometimes I plug into a hight dpi 28". Thats hit or miss depending on the applications. There are a few that don't scale well at all. The only problem I have sometimes is the apple thunder (lightning?) adapter sometimes doesn't wake up, so I have to unplug the usb cable thats powering it.
markbnj 8y ago
Agreed, that was my experience buying a gazelle laptop a couple of years ago. I still use it daily and have never had an issue with the software. They also make it trivial to reinstall by providing all needed drivers in installable packages. Now if they could just get the build quality where it needs to be it would really be a great experience. With mine, generally, the software was the high point and the hardware was the low point.

blueboo 8y ago

I read all that and still have no idea what the point of it is, nor how performant or usable it is. It reads like an amazon review if someone trying to justify on overpriced purchase to themselves. Meanwhile it looks like this product is targeted at the very people who know how to configure their distros for their hardware, precisely nullifying the value-add, as far as I can tell. > Both of the Thelio’s vents show the solar system at the time of the UNIX epoch. Money well spent (But at least the I/o board is “reliable”!...ok)

mattkrause 8y ago
Personally, I thought the solar system thing was a cute gimmick. I wouldn’t buy it just for that, but if I were in the market for a smallish Linux desktop where everything worked out of the box, the rest of the review makes it sound like a decent option. Whether you mind paying a modest premium for that, versus doing the research/confit yourself is a personal decision obviously. Also, the author is a college undergrad writing on her own blog. If there’s ever a time and place for rationalizing something, that’s it!
- ianai 8y ago
  Their CS department has 2 faculty! I think the math department was 4-5. Must be a pretty small school or I’m missing something.
rocky1138 8y ago
I would loved to have seen benchmarks.

samcday 8y ago

> The smallest Thelio, designated “thelio-r1”, stands 32 centimeters tall, 20 centimeters wide, and 28 centimeters deep, coming to only a total of 18 liters in volume, a good deal smaller than even the tiniest commercial full-GPU mITX form factor cases, most of which are at least 22 liters. Wut? https://www.sfflab.com/products/ncase_m1 https://www.sfflab.com/products/ncase_m1 - 12.6L https://www.dan-cases.com/dana4.php https://www.dan-cases.com/dana4.php - 7.2L There's a pretty big community that builds high-end gaming rigs / workstations in these cases. I've built in both. Originally I built in the Ncase but sold it to a colleague when I moved abroad. Recently I just built in the DANcase and wish I had have stuck with the Ncase. The extra 4 liters of volume goes a long way in improving thermals, due to the extra clearance for a CPU cooler. Anyway, just found that line in the article annoying, even a cursory Google search shows that there's a plethora of 7-12L SFF PC cases out there.

killaken2000 8y ago
I take commercial to mean lian-li (who made their old cases), cooler aster, antec, etc. Large volume manufacturers. It's probably easier for them to vertically integrate the case into their business than go with a low volume niche manufacturer and deal with the hazards that come with that
- samcday 8y ago
  IIRC, Lian Li is the manufacturer of both the Ncase and the Dan A4. At the very least I know that the Dan A4 is using a lian pci riser.
- paavohtl 8y ago
  Fractal Design is a pretty large manufacturer, and their Node 202 case \w full GPU support is only about 10 liters.

kyberias 8y ago

Why put the images on the page at all? They don't provide much additional information being so small.

ebg13 8y ago
The problem isn't the images but rather the poor site design that uses large images as tiny thumbnails but then doesn't make the thumbnails clickable. The images themselves are actually viewable much larger if you right-click on each one and open the image in a new tab.

Datenstrom 8y ago

The last shop I worked at had System76 PCs for all the devs and they are great. I have since switched at home also and recently test drove their new PopOS since I needed CUDA and Tensorflow and they package them so it is as easy `apt-get install` and it was also great. I would highly recommend looking at their PCs and PopOS. I just wish PopOS was built on Debian and not Ubuntu.

chipaca 8y ago
> I just wish PopOS was built on Debian and not Ubuntu. why?
- bayindirh 8y ago
  Since Debian is not built with a commercial interest (Canonical is a corporation at the end), the OS doesn't feel like a "freemium product". As a person who uses Debian for a long time, and Ubuntu for throw-away VMs; Debian feels more "pure" from a system perspective, and it's not just skin deep. Debian is set-up to be a leaner OS out of the box. Everything is within reach, and deeply configurable from command line. Desktop environments are add-ons to the system, not integrated (even in desktop versions). I don't find surprising choices or hard to reach configuration stuff in Debian. Even though derived from Debian, Ubuntu "standard" comes with packages from Amazon, et. al., and sends analytics. This is not something that I like. Also, when I install Ubuntu server, I get subtle ads of "Canonical Landscape" and their paid offerings. This signals me that I'm using a freemium product, and as a user, I'm not their primary focus. Debian is of course sponsored by a lot of corporations, but at the end they are independent and they do as they wish at the end. I'm part of the process, and can talk with devs, and my bug reports and commits are not pre-filtered with "commercial" interests before even discussed. These are my feelings and experiences though. YMMV.
  - dleslie 8y ago
    Use Ubuntu MATE and you won't suffer the advertisements, analytics, or Gnome3.
  - suby 8y ago

Theodores 8y ago

It is like buying a coach built, hand made automobile rather than a mass produced German sportscar. The former uses some 'crate' engine, probably from the German sportscar but it has notional appeal for people that buy such things. If you do racing on the track and have to fix the thing every weekend then the off-the-shelf mass produced car won't cut it. For most people though the mass produced car with the up to date infotainment is what you want. A 'coach built' tower PC is fine, however, have you seen how the independent manufacturers such as System 76 compare in laptop land? The Dells and the Huawei PCs have bezels around the screen that you have to squint to see, the System 76 type of laptops have bezels wider than I can remember them being in 1993. Then there is the general girth of the things, it is like you need a padded wrist support to reach the keyboard. With autos there are people with rose tinted eyewear products that can remember the good old days when you could fix everything yourself with just a Haynes manual and a set of spanners. They moan about the modern cars that might as well have the bonnet welded shut. I am a bit like this with PCs but when it comes to actually putting money towards a PC I prefer the new and shiny rather than the 'coach built'. Sure I want to run linux but I would gladly risk my chances with those 'Windows only' machines from the likes of Lenovo, Huawei, Dell and HP rather than go with something designed for Linux.

bgorman 8y ago

My principle concern with any boutique desktop systems is that in order for the business model to be viable, they need to add significant mark up to the BOM. However I most enthusiasts can just assemble a desktop for themselves and save hundreds of dollars. One of the easiest ways to save hundreds of dollars I am aware of.

Finnucane 8y ago
Doesn’t every manufacturer of anything have to have a markup?
- inimino 8y ago
  Yes, but there are economies of scale that Dell or Apple enjoy which will never apply to a seller targeting a niche market. Not only do they get lower costs on parts, but they can afford lower margins per unit since they have much higher volume relative to the fixed costs of running the business.
  - Finnucane 8y ago
    So the niche market shouldn’t be served?
    - the_pwner224 8y ago
      What the thread parent (bgorman) saying is that boutique desktop systems (as with any niche product) have to add significant markup. But, for computers, the target market of these manufacturers can also often build a computer themselves and avoid the huge markup. If you sell ultra high quality waterproof headsets to audiophiles for $2500, including a $1000 markup, your customers have only the choices of A) not buying or B) paying the markup. With desktops, they get the 3rd choice of building it themselves for $1600/1700.
      - bwat49 8y ago
        What's missing in this analogy though is that computers need to run an Operating system. When building your own system (and running Windows), you can be pretty sure that windows will work without issues. With linux though, it's more of a gamble, which is why a vendor that tests/pre-configures/supports linux can be appealing

cik 8y ago

I've never had a good System76 experience - over a decade of System76 use. I've repeatedly asked to have them purchased, merely to help the community, and every single one has disappointed. The build quality is such rubbish, and you begin to feel it almost immediately. I'm careful with my kit, not terribly hard on anything and I manage to flake bits of plastic or metal off each System76. They've always been in neoprene cases within a laptop backpack - because I'm that paranoid. They're just rubbish. At this point Ubuntu (or Mint, or Debian!) on Alienware is my laptop of choice, and I run those Kingdel desktops.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
I've heard similar complaints from others. It would be great is someone from System76 could join the conversation and have a spin-less discussion on the topic.
skidd0 8y ago
I want to chime in a contrasting opinion here. I had an old Galago that I adored. Came with Ubuntu, swapped that to Arch then stayed happy with it for years! It was a plastic frame, but it was tough enough to shove in a backpack and take longboarding. After 3 years, the Ethernet port's spring clip finally snapped off (user error), but still worked. I also accidentally bent the audio jack, but it still worked. It finally "died" when my pup knocked it off the couch with the charger still plugged in. The charger plug, still in the port, hit the floor at just the right angle to snap the port's inner prong off making it impossible to charge. I didn't notice until the next day when the battery used it's last bits of juice then shut down. Very happy with my System76 purchase. But! I've only ever used the one device.
- dmead 8y ago
  You're aware they're all relabeled Chinese hardware yes?
  - smacktoward 8y ago
    That's true of System76's laptops, but part of their pitch for Thelio is that it marks a shift towards them doing their own design and manufacturing in the US. See https://blog.system76.com/post/179592732883/system76-on-us-manufacturing-and-open-hardware https://blog.system76.com/post/179592732883/system76-on-us-m... for details.

car12 8y ago

While I haven't used a system76 Thelio, while we're discussing System76, I can speak about a Galago pro that I bought from system76. Noteworthy, because I was one of those Mac refugees who needed a non-mac machine now that I don't like the new macbook keyboards or insane price bump that macs got. I bought a 16 GB Ram, 14" Galago pro with 512 GB SSD with Ubuntu on it. Battery life is around 2 hours. Not too good compared to a macbook. - Keyboard is pretty nice, each key has a comfortable travel to it. - The trackpad is awful or at least compared to what I'd gotten used to using the macbook for last many years. The trackpad feels rough, is not as responsive or smoother as the mac touchpad either. The click buttons aren't too nice to click either. Bottom line is that the next time I need to buy another Linux laptop, I'll be looking to try out the newer System76 to make sure they've fixed their touchpad, if not, I'll go with Dell XPS developer edition, no questions asked. Surprisingly, the touchpad being what it is, I've not seen it mentioned in the reviews of Galago pro all that much, I suspect it's because there are not too many ex-mac owners buying these, the touchpad feels like it belongs to year 2008.

ludston 8y ago
I have the same build. Largely I'm satisfied, but I agree with your touchpad woes. I found after I turned the sensitivity of the touchpad up to max, it didn't feel so bad.
kondro 8y ago
If anyone knows of a trackpad that's even 90% as good as the MacBook ones I'd love to give them a try. This is honestly one of the biggest things locking me into the Mac ecosystem, I haven't found an alternative trackpad that even comes close. I even like Apple's new MacBook keyboards (even with them breaking all the time… at least they fix them).
- bwat49 8y ago
  Presently, no trackpad under linux will give an OSX-like experience. This is mostly a software limitation with the linux desktop IMO... e.g. web browsers like chrome and firefox lack basic features like kinetic scrolling under linux: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=763791 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=763791 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1213601 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1213601 And linux desktops don't really have any kind of gesture integration (the only one I'm aware of is gnome on wayland, and it basically only has one gesture available, switching desktops) I prefer using linux on my laptop, but this is definitely a big annoyance

danbolt 8y ago

I appreciate that the author linked to another review if users were coming from an OS X perspective. Or, when a review explains its biases or what is important to the reviewer, it helps make sense of the content for me as a reader.

smacktoward 8y ago

I don't understand why these boutique Linux system vendors all end up gravitating towards rolling their own distributions -- Pop!_OS (ugh) for System76, PureOS (https://www.pureos.net/ https://www.pureos.net/) for Purism, etc. I've been running Ubuntu on my machines for something like a decade now, and have experience with Debian and Red Hat/Fedora from before that. I know what to expect from these distributions. When you tell me you've rolled your own distribution, I have no idea what to expect, which turns me off from your product. And if the answer is "you can expect exactly the same as what you'd get from Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora/whatever," then why bother rolling a new distro in the first place? Why take what should be a simple sales pitch and make it more confusing? They seem to think the idea of learning my way around Yet Another Linux Distribution is an enticement. It isn't -- especially when the only community around the distribution is a single small company, which means that anything I do learn is unlikely to be useful beyond using that company's products. As soon as I buy from someone else, or that one small company goes out of business or loses interest in maintaining the distro, I can take all that knowledge and toss it in the bin. No thanks. (Weirdly, the only company in this space that seems to really get this is Dell. I feel like I'm living in the Mirror Universe.)

Scarbutt 8y ago
In the case of System76 they do allow you to choose ubuntu as your OS.
- smacktoward 8y ago
  Right, I know, but that just adds more confusion. You can get it with Ubuntu, for instance, but if you want it set up with full-disk encryption you have to choose Pop!_OS for some reason. And since Ubuntu is presented as a second-class alternative to the preferred Pop!_OS, when I choose it now I'm wondering if that's going to have consequences should I ever need to try and get support from System76. Are they just going to tell me I should install Pop!_OS? Honestly, seeing as how you can download Ubuntu and install it yourself I think they'd be better off (from a sales perspective, I mean) just omitting the Ubuntu preinstall option altogether. Anyone who wants it could still get it, and it'd take a "wait, what?" moment out of the experience of using their configurator.

wishinghand 8y ago

Has anyone tried a system76 laptop with Elementary OS? I’m curious if there’s any issues. I’m thinking of getting a Galago but just read there’s some multi monitor issues. Curious if there’s any other caveats I might not know.

rocky1138 8y ago
If you end up doing it, please make a blog post for people who have the same questions as you do now.

dstaley 8y ago

I was super interested in buying one of these, but the markup is just too much for my tastes. I built out a reasonable workstation (9900K, 16 GB RAM, 500 GB NVMe SSD, 1TB SSD, RX 580) and the cost came out to $2,359 versus the $1,582 it would take to build it myself. I could understand a markup over retail of $100-200, but $700+ just isn’t a good value in my opinion, especially when I wasn’t selecting affordable parts.

jpeeler 8y ago

The greatest draw for me in looking at purchasing a System76 machine is coreboot support. My understanding is that coreboot is supported (sometimes) on older hardware, but not much modern hardware aside from Chromebooks. Ideally I'd like to build a machine myself, but it seems difficult to do at present with recent hardware and full coreboot support. Am I correct?

sian92 8y ago
Our Coreboot support right now is very experimental, and doesn't currently support things like UEFI, but we are progressing on it rapidly. We've gotten lots of help from both Coreboot and Intel in getting everything to work. One major downside is that right now the supported models are Intel-only laptops, but in the future it's highly likely that we'll be able to fully support all of our systems.