7 ms·

System76 Will Start Designing and Building Its Own Linux Laptops in January 2020

142 points by mroche 7y ago

freejulian85 7y ago
Please don’t have a bezel.
nepeckman 7y ago
Awesome news. I bought a Darter Pro back in March and the experience has been great. I was a little hesitant at first because I'm not a Linux expert, but their team puts a lot of effort into making sure stuff with Pop_Os "just works." It might not be quite as polished as a macbook, but it's a comparable product at half the price, plus I get to support open source. Thelio looks amazing and I'm excited to see what they can do in the laptop space.
- panpanna 7y ago
  I still feel they should've used those resources to improve an existing distro instead of creating their own. Hardware companies trying to write software usually ends in disaster. (Yes Lenovo, I'm looking at you)
  - Finnucane 7y ago
    >I still feel they should've used those resources to improve an existing distro instead of creating their own Since Pop_Os is derived from Ubuntu, you could argue that this is just what they did.
    - panpanna 7y ago
      The point is, now there is yet another distro out there as its own island, stealing resources and not contributing to the rest of the community (including Ubuntu)
      - Finnucane 7y ago
        Stealing resources? How do you steal that which is given away for free?
      - uncletaco 7y ago
        Are you positive they aren't contributing anything upstream?
        pkulak 7y ago
        They absolutely are.
      - CivBase 7y ago
        What's stopping Ubuntu from just taking back the parts of Pop!_OS they want? Assuming they actually want anything from Pop!_OS to begin with. To address your original point, I suspect it's more expensive and slower (at least, in the short term) to add features to someone else's distro than to fork it and keep building it out yourself.
        isantop 7y ago
        > What's stopping Ubuntu from just taking back the parts of Pop!_OS they want? Nothing. Everything we create here at System76 is open source, either GPL or some form of permissive license. (Edit: To be clear, I'm just answering your rhetorical question, not insinuating anything about the tone of your post for sure.)
        CivBase 7y ago
        Woops. I re-read my comment, and the "assuming they actually want anything from Pop!_OS to begin with" bit reads like an insult to Pop!_OS. My bad! I just figure Canonical probably has a specific vision for Ubuntu (just like System76 surely has for Pop!_OS), so they don't necessarily want to pull in every feature from every downstream distro. The prevalence of purposed-focused distros is one of my favorite things about the Linux ecosystem. I actually haven't used Pop!_OS yet, but it looks good and it's on my short list of distros to try. I didn't mean to imply anything negative about it.
    - curt15 7y ago
      When bugs get fixed in upstream projects, do they have to first land in Ubuntu and then filter down to Pop_os? Or does Pop_Os point directly at Ubuntu repositories?
      - tlb 7y ago
        /etc/apt/sources.list mostly points right at Ubuntu, so you get fixes immediately.
      - 7thaccount 7y ago
        Honestly not sure, but my POP!OS distro tells me it has new updates almost daily in a little notification at the top.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  > but their team puts a lot of effort into making sure stuff with Pop_Os "just works." I don't personally use it, but I've heard of people actually using it on other hardware just because the system is supposedly so polished. And maybe because it has better support for proprietary firmware? I forget.
  - akhilcacharya 7y ago
    I installed it because it had great support for Nvidia drivers. It was painless when I installed it with my GTX1080 - IIRC I was able to get Keras-GPU working in minutes.
- davidmurdoch 7y ago
  One of the reasons I didn't get a System76 machine was because of how Pop!_os is branded. Everything about its branding, from the name itself to even the footer background on the website looks like a complete joke to me. Of course, maybe there is a demographic that is in to this sort of branding, but I bet it's more of a detriment to overall sales than anything. Is the OS as full of seconds-long bouncy animations and bubble letter finds as the branding and website makes it look? If so, can animations be reduced or disabled?
  - tlb 7y ago
    Change the background picture and turn off animations with gnome-tweaks and it's quite inoffensive.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    That might actually be a reason to get a system76 machine, since I expect that the stock OS can be replaced with very few issues. Debian GNU/Linux is a lot leaner and meaner than Ubuntu or PopOS (which don't seem to differ significantly in their branding anyway). (Even Fedora or CentOS are not nearly as comfortable to use in my experience, although they might be preferable in other ways!)
  - 7thaccount 7y ago
    You can select either Ubuntu LTS or POP!_OS when building a System76 computer. I built one with PoPOS (however you spell it) about 6-8 months ago and absolutely love it. I've previously used Xubuntu, Linux Mint, and Fedora and PoP!OS had a lot of the things everyone installed already taken care of and the UI is useful, but minimalistic.
geoka9 7y ago
Please consider adding an Ultranav-like pointing device and an API for the battery-controlling EC (start/stop charging thresholds - unless you already have that). FWIW those are the only things that are keeping me glued to the Thinkpad line.
- thrilleratplay 7y ago
  I came here to say the same thing about the Trackpoint. That, the ruggedness, and the relative ease of repairs is why I have been using Thinkpads for close to 20 years.
- Rotareti 7y ago
  Same here. I love to keep my hands on the home row. Nothing can beat a pointer with a concave cap! I check the system76 laptops every once in a while only to see if they added a pointer yet.
kick 7y ago
Will they be sticking with x86? They seem like one of the few companies that could get away with releasing a POWER line.
- xxpor 7y ago
  Why POWER over Arm?
  - ChuckMcM 7y ago
    Better performance for the same footprint as x86. Sadly they would not save much money as the POWER support ecosystem is manufactured in lower volumes so it costs more per chip.
    - xxpor 7y ago
      I've heard the power requirements for POWER make it not feasible for a laptop though?
      - ChuckMcM 7y ago
        As with all processors you can underclock it to reduce power demand. And since power is proportional to the square of the frequency you don't have to underclock it very much to get a good benefit in terms of power.
  - peristeronic 7y ago
    POWER is now open source and royalty free.
    - floatboth 7y ago
      Which is great if you're going to design your own high-performance CPU core, which uhhhh very few organizations in the world are capable of. If you're a downstream consumer, especially so far downstream that you're just buying a pre-made chip and putting it onto a board like System76 would, the ISA royalty means very little to you.
VectorLock 7y ago
If they lift everything physical from the 2015 MacBook it will be a runaway success.
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  That would be pretty cool.
pkulak 7y ago
This is such good news. Pop_OS is fantastic, but I've never been super impressed with their laptop hardware. The world really needs a way to buy a high-quality laptop that's running Linux, and supported.
basilgohar 7y ago
I love the concept of System76, full stop. What has kept me from seriously considering them, however, is the absence of AMD-powered systems from them. I understand the ubiquity of Intel-based hardware, but I don't full get why not even an option of an AMD-based system is available. If they're going to go their own way in terms of hardware design, I would hope that they at least opened a line of dialog with AMD to explore that option. AMD is dying for a good laptop OEM, and System76 has the good sense to make it into a well designed package all around. I hope to see something develop in this direction.
- pgeorgi 7y ago
  > I understand the ubiquity of Intel-based hardware, but I don't full get why not even an option of an AMD-based system is available. Because it's hard enough to deal with a single silicon vendor, so they're looking for the one with the most bang for the buck and that was, before Ryzen, definitely Intel. They might be ramping up with AMD now (or not, I don't know), but when you don't have pre-existing business relationships that takes a while before you're even at the stage of building prototypes. That space is rather complicated.
- nullc 7y ago
  At least people know how to largely deactivate intel me, not so for the amd PSP stuff. :(
  - basilgohar 7y ago
    That's unfortunate. I'd love to know more about this.
- markphip 7y ago
  They support Ryzen with their Thelio desktops so ... maybe. That said I recently wanted to get a Ryzen laptop and could not find one that seemed worth buying. I am not sure if AMD really offers a truly competitive laptop chip yet. I wound up building a custom desktop with a 3700x and am running Pop_OS on it. Like it so far ... just cannot travel with it. Would definitely be interested in a laptop, was about to buy the Galaga but decided to build a desktop because I wanted to try the AMD processor.
jagger27 7y ago
I have a feeling the chances of them making a 16:10 or 3:2 laptop are slim to none.
- buzzert 7y ago
  I would buy that in a heartbeat
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  Nothing in the forbes article suggested they'd prioritize anything like that. Talking about wood grains and rounded corners, the priority seems to be more function following form. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't expect anything resembling modern classic thinkpad replacements from system76 at this point. It's more like hipster machines incorporating wood and leather.
- Ingon 7y ago
  Aspect ratio and bad arrow design are my only gripes with laptops from System76. Actually, afaik there are almost no laptops which nail these and have a good/first party linux support.
- mroche 7y ago
  Been curious about people's opinions on non-16:9 displays. Assuming they share the same pixel width, would you prefer working on a 4:3 or 3:2 laptop. 4:3's will offer the most resolution, but will result in taller systems.
b1gtuna 7y ago
Good luck to the team on this endeavor. I have never had a chance to use a laptop / workstation from them, but they must be doing something right since they have been around for a while now and that the community has nothing but great things to say about them.
AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
I'm pulling for System76 in principle, but I've never been able to take the plunge on one because their chunkier Clevo/Sager-based designs have always paled aesthetically in comparison to the Dell XPS 13 line. Maybe that will finally change when they can design their own.
- bobongo 7y ago
  Did you take a look at these? https://system76.com/laptops/darter https://system76.com/laptops/darter https://system76.com/laptops/galago https://system76.com/laptops/galago I have one of the chunkier ones. The roominess of its insides make me happy whenever I open it up (e.g. to clean it up).
  - PascLeRasc 7y ago
    I love System76 and used to own one of their desktops, but this just looks awful: https://artoo.system76.com/assets/products/darp6/keyboard-on-1ae6cee302_1280.webp https://artoo.system76.com/assets/products/darp6/keyboard-on... Thankfully the Thelio is absolutely beautiful, so I still have high hopes for their in-house designs.
    - isantop 7y ago
      Beauty is subjective. And luckily, that's not really a perspective you're often to encounter when using a laptop in the real world. IMO, the XPS laptops don't really look a ton different when viewed from that angle.
  - matheusmoreira 7y ago
    It seems the Darter Pro has the same keyboard as my Clevo PA70ES. Same layout, same hotkeys on the numpad. Any way to confirm that it's the same model? My keyboard's USB data: idVendor 0x048d Integrated Technology Express, Inc. idProduct 0x8910 bcdDevice 0.01 iManufacturer 1 ITE Tech. Inc. iProduct 2 ITE Device(829x) I'm asking because I wrote a user space driver for the keyboard LEDs. If it's the same model, maybe they'd be interested in taking a look at it: https://github.com/matheusmoreira/ite-829x https://github.com/matheusmoreira/ite-829x I found a WMI driver in their repositories but it doesn't match the way my keyboard works: https://github.com/pop-os/system76-dkms/blob/master/system76_kb-led.c https://github.com/pop-os/system76-dkms/blob/master/system76...
funemployed 7y ago
~2020~ 2021 will be the year of Linux on the desktop
hardwaresofton 7y ago
Popping in to note that if anyone is on the fence about the Oryx Pro, it's a fantastic machine, I love mine! System76 was a fantastic company to deal with. After some initial troubles with the cooling system (I sent the laptop back and it was serviced under warranty), I've been chugging along the last few months. I should note that the fans can get pretty loud (from what I read on reviews other laptops like the Lenovo X1 Extreme are even louder), so while it is portable, it might be a little bit intense to use at a coffee shop/coworking space. For those interested, shameless plug to where I rambled about the experience, and getting Arch installed (which isn't an officially supported OS but worked fantastic): https://vadosware.io/post/starting-my-journey-with-the-system76-oryx-pro-and-arch https://vadosware.io/post/starting-my-journey-with-the-syste...
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 7y ago
  What problem did you have with cooling? Mine has been working fine, but i can't help but feel terrified when looking at temperatures while gaming. It's been holding for 2 years though, so i guess it's fine...
  - hardwaresofton 7y ago
    Mine was DOA -- it would overheat within minutes of being started up, a cooling unit wasn't starting/working at all. Yeah, I see high temps while gaming, but nothing crazy actually (~80C). I actually have a second smaller laptop as a sort of redundancy just in case, but if it's been good for you for 2 years maybe it's fine. I do have the newer model they just started making so I assume your model is shaped different as well.
beatgammit 7y ago
I just want a decent keyboard, non-soldered RAM, and a second battery with a quality 14" screen where everything works reasonably well out of the box on Linux. I don't care if it's a bit heavy or thick, I just want to have a good typing experience with high performance CPU options that don't get thermally throttled too bad. Building a sleek laptop is all the rage these days, and everyone seems intent on convincing us that you can have a good keyboard in a thin package. Go the opposite way and make the best working experience possible and then work out how to make it easy to carry. As long as it's not ridiculously heavy (say, <5lbs or so), I'd consider buying it if it had a better typing experience.
luord 7y ago
Damn, and I just bought one. I'll have to buy another I guess =D
mammalutte 7y ago
Are the designs going to be released with a free license? And what exactly will they do/don't design?

142 points by mroche 7y ago

Please don’t have a bezel.

Awesome news. I bought a Darter Pro back in March and the experience has been great. I was a little hesitant at first because I'm not a Linux expert, but their team puts a lot of effort into making sure stuff with Pop_Os "just works." It might not be quite as polished as a macbook, but it's a comparable product at half the price, plus I get to support open source. Thelio looks amazing and I'm excited to see what they can do in the laptop space.

panpanna 7y ago
I still feel they should've used those resources to improve an existing distro instead of creating their own. Hardware companies trying to write software usually ends in disaster. (Yes Lenovo, I'm looking at you)
- Finnucane 7y ago
  >I still feel they should've used those resources to improve an existing distro instead of creating their own Since Pop_Os is derived from Ubuntu, you could argue that this is just what they did.
  - panpanna 7y ago
    The point is, now there is yet another distro out there as its own island, stealing resources and not contributing to the rest of the community (including Ubuntu)
    - Finnucane 7y ago
      Stealing resources? How do you steal that which is given away for free?
    - uncletaco 7y ago
      Are you positive they aren't contributing anything upstream?
      - pkulak 7y ago
        They absolutely are.
    - CivBase 7y ago
      What's stopping Ubuntu from just taking back the parts of Pop!_OS they want? Assuming they actually want anything from Pop!_OS to begin with. To address your original point, I suspect it's more expensive and slower (at least, in the short term) to add features to someone else's distro than to fork it and keep building it out yourself.
      - isantop 7y ago
        > What's stopping Ubuntu from just taking back the parts of Pop!_OS they want? Nothing. Everything we create here at System76 is open source, either GPL or some form of permissive license. (Edit: To be clear, I'm just answering your rhetorical question, not insinuating anything about the tone of your post for sure.)
        CivBase 7y ago
        Woops. I re-read my comment, and the "assuming they actually want anything from Pop!_OS to begin with" bit reads like an insult to Pop!_OS. My bad! I just figure Canonical probably has a specific vision for Ubuntu (just like System76 surely has for Pop!_OS), so they don't necessarily want to pull in every feature from every downstream distro. The prevalence of purposed-focused distros is one of my favorite things about the Linux ecosystem. I actually haven't used Pop!_OS yet, but it looks good and it's on my short list of distros to try. I didn't mean to imply anything negative about it.
  - curt15 7y ago
    When bugs get fixed in upstream projects, do they have to first land in Ubuntu and then filter down to Pop_os? Or does Pop_Os point directly at Ubuntu repositories?
    - tlb 7y ago
      /etc/apt/sources.list mostly points right at Ubuntu, so you get fixes immediately.
    - 7thaccount 7y ago
      Honestly not sure, but my POP!OS distro tells me it has new updates almost daily in a little notification at the top.
yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
> but their team puts a lot of effort into making sure stuff with Pop_Os "just works." I don't personally use it, but I've heard of people actually using it on other hardware just because the system is supposedly so polished. And maybe because it has better support for proprietary firmware? I forget.
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  I installed it because it had great support for Nvidia drivers. It was painless when I installed it with my GTX1080 - IIRC I was able to get Keras-GPU working in minutes.
davidmurdoch 7y ago
One of the reasons I didn't get a System76 machine was because of how Pop!_os is branded. Everything about its branding, from the name itself to even the footer background on the website looks like a complete joke to me. Of course, maybe there is a demographic that is in to this sort of branding, but I bet it's more of a detriment to overall sales than anything. Is the OS as full of seconds-long bouncy animations and bubble letter finds as the branding and website makes it look? If so, can animations be reduced or disabled?
- tlb 7y ago
  Change the background picture and turn off animations with gnome-tweaks and it's quite inoffensive.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  That might actually be a reason to get a system76 machine, since I expect that the stock OS can be replaced with very few issues. Debian GNU/Linux is a lot leaner and meaner than Ubuntu or PopOS (which don't seem to differ significantly in their branding anyway). (Even Fedora or CentOS are not nearly as comfortable to use in my experience, although they might be preferable in other ways!)
- 7thaccount 7y ago
  You can select either Ubuntu LTS or POP!_OS when building a System76 computer. I built one with PoPOS (however you spell it) about 6-8 months ago and absolutely love it. I've previously used Xubuntu, Linux Mint, and Fedora and PoP!OS had a lot of the things everyone installed already taken care of and the UI is useful, but minimalistic.

geoka9 7y ago

Please consider adding an Ultranav-like pointing device and an API for the battery-controlling EC (start/stop charging thresholds - unless you already have that). FWIW those are the only things that are keeping me glued to the Thinkpad line.

thrilleratplay 7y ago
I came here to say the same thing about the Trackpoint. That, the ruggedness, and the relative ease of repairs is why I have been using Thinkpads for close to 20 years.
Rotareti 7y ago
Same here. I love to keep my hands on the home row. Nothing can beat a pointer with a concave cap! I check the system76 laptops every once in a while only to see if they added a pointer yet.

kick 7y ago

Will they be sticking with x86? They seem like one of the few companies that could get away with releasing a POWER line.

xxpor 7y ago
Why POWER over Arm?
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  Better performance for the same footprint as x86. Sadly they would not save much money as the POWER support ecosystem is manufactured in lower volumes so it costs more per chip.
  - xxpor 7y ago
    I've heard the power requirements for POWER make it not feasible for a laptop though?
    - ChuckMcM 7y ago
      As with all processors you can underclock it to reduce power demand. And since power is proportional to the square of the frequency you don't have to underclock it very much to get a good benefit in terms of power.
- peristeronic 7y ago
  POWER is now open source and royalty free.
  - floatboth 7y ago
    Which is great if you're going to design your own high-performance CPU core, which uhhhh very few organizations in the world are capable of. If you're a downstream consumer, especially so far downstream that you're just buying a pre-made chip and putting it onto a board like System76 would, the ISA royalty means very little to you.

VectorLock 7y ago

If they lift everything physical from the 2015 MacBook it will be a runaway success.

ChuckMcM 7y ago
That would be pretty cool.

pkulak 7y ago

This is such good news. Pop_OS is fantastic, but I've never been super impressed with their laptop hardware. The world really needs a way to buy a high-quality laptop that's running Linux, and supported.

basilgohar 7y ago

I love the concept of System76, full stop. What has kept me from seriously considering them, however, is the absence of AMD-powered systems from them. I understand the ubiquity of Intel-based hardware, but I don't full get why not even an option of an AMD-based system is available. If they're going to go their own way in terms of hardware design, I would hope that they at least opened a line of dialog with AMD to explore that option. AMD is dying for a good laptop OEM, and System76 has the good sense to make it into a well designed package all around. I hope to see something develop in this direction.

pgeorgi 7y ago
> I understand the ubiquity of Intel-based hardware, but I don't full get why not even an option of an AMD-based system is available. Because it's hard enough to deal with a single silicon vendor, so they're looking for the one with the most bang for the buck and that was, before Ryzen, definitely Intel. They might be ramping up with AMD now (or not, I don't know), but when you don't have pre-existing business relationships that takes a while before you're even at the stage of building prototypes. That space is rather complicated.
nullc 7y ago
At least people know how to largely deactivate intel me, not so for the amd PSP stuff. :(
- basilgohar 7y ago
  That's unfortunate. I'd love to know more about this.
markphip 7y ago
They support Ryzen with their Thelio desktops so ... maybe. That said I recently wanted to get a Ryzen laptop and could not find one that seemed worth buying. I am not sure if AMD really offers a truly competitive laptop chip yet. I wound up building a custom desktop with a 3700x and am running Pop_OS on it. Like it so far ... just cannot travel with it. Would definitely be interested in a laptop, was about to buy the Galaga but decided to build a desktop because I wanted to try the AMD processor.

jagger27 7y ago

I have a feeling the chances of them making a 16:10 or 3:2 laptop are slim to none.

buzzert 7y ago
I would buy that in a heartbeat
newnewpdro 7y ago
Nothing in the forbes article suggested they'd prioritize anything like that. Talking about wood grains and rounded corners, the priority seems to be more function following form. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't expect anything resembling modern classic thinkpad replacements from system76 at this point. It's more like hipster machines incorporating wood and leather.
Ingon 7y ago
Aspect ratio and bad arrow design are my only gripes with laptops from System76. Actually, afaik there are almost no laptops which nail these and have a good/first party linux support.
mroche 7y ago
Been curious about people's opinions on non-16:9 displays. Assuming they share the same pixel width, would you prefer working on a 4:3 or 3:2 laptop. 4:3's will offer the most resolution, but will result in taller systems.

b1gtuna 7y ago

Good luck to the team on this endeavor. I have never had a chance to use a laptop / workstation from them, but they must be doing something right since they have been around for a while now and that the community has nothing but great things to say about them.

AdmiralAsshat 7y ago

I'm pulling for System76 in principle, but I've never been able to take the plunge on one because their chunkier Clevo/Sager-based designs have always paled aesthetically in comparison to the Dell XPS 13 line. Maybe that will finally change when they can design their own.

bobongo 7y ago
Did you take a look at these? https://system76.com/laptops/darter https://system76.com/laptops/darter https://system76.com/laptops/galago https://system76.com/laptops/galago I have one of the chunkier ones. The roominess of its insides make me happy whenever I open it up (e.g. to clean it up).
- PascLeRasc 7y ago
  I love System76 and used to own one of their desktops, but this just looks awful: https://artoo.system76.com/assets/products/darp6/keyboard-on-1ae6cee302_1280.webp https://artoo.system76.com/assets/products/darp6/keyboard-on... Thankfully the Thelio is absolutely beautiful, so I still have high hopes for their in-house designs.
  - isantop 7y ago
    Beauty is subjective. And luckily, that's not really a perspective you're often to encounter when using a laptop in the real world. IMO, the XPS laptops don't really look a ton different when viewed from that angle.
- matheusmoreira 7y ago
  It seems the Darter Pro has the same keyboard as my Clevo PA70ES. Same layout, same hotkeys on the numpad. Any way to confirm that it's the same model? My keyboard's USB data: idVendor 0x048d Integrated Technology Express, Inc. idProduct 0x8910 bcdDevice 0.01 iManufacturer 1 ITE Tech. Inc. iProduct 2 ITE Device(829x) I'm asking because I wrote a user space driver for the keyboard LEDs. If it's the same model, maybe they'd be interested in taking a look at it: https://github.com/matheusmoreira/ite-829x https://github.com/matheusmoreira/ite-829x I found a WMI driver in their repositories but it doesn't match the way my keyboard works: https://github.com/pop-os/system76-dkms/blob/master/system76_kb-led.c https://github.com/pop-os/system76-dkms/blob/master/system76...

funemployed 7y ago

~2020~ 2021 will be the year of Linux on the desktop

hardwaresofton 7y ago

Popping in to note that if anyone is on the fence about the Oryx Pro, it's a fantastic machine, I love mine! System76 was a fantastic company to deal with. After some initial troubles with the cooling system (I sent the laptop back and it was serviced under warranty), I've been chugging along the last few months. I should note that the fans can get pretty loud (from what I read on reviews other laptops like the Lenovo X1 Extreme are even louder), so while it is portable, it might be a little bit intense to use at a coffee shop/coworking space. For those interested, shameless plug to where I rambled about the experience, and getting Arch installed (which isn't an officially supported OS but worked fantastic): https://vadosware.io/post/starting-my-journey-with-the-system76-oryx-pro-and-arch https://vadosware.io/post/starting-my-journey-with-the-syste...

Fire-Dragon-DoL 7y ago
What problem did you have with cooling? Mine has been working fine, but i can't help but feel terrified when looking at temperatures while gaming. It's been holding for 2 years though, so i guess it's fine...
- hardwaresofton 7y ago
  Mine was DOA -- it would overheat within minutes of being started up, a cooling unit wasn't starting/working at all. Yeah, I see high temps while gaming, but nothing crazy actually (~80C). I actually have a second smaller laptop as a sort of redundancy just in case, but if it's been good for you for 2 years maybe it's fine. I do have the newer model they just started making so I assume your model is shaped different as well.

beatgammit 7y ago

I just want a decent keyboard, non-soldered RAM, and a second battery with a quality 14" screen where everything works reasonably well out of the box on Linux. I don't care if it's a bit heavy or thick, I just want to have a good typing experience with high performance CPU options that don't get thermally throttled too bad. Building a sleek laptop is all the rage these days, and everyone seems intent on convincing us that you can have a good keyboard in a thin package. Go the opposite way and make the best working experience possible and then work out how to make it easy to carry. As long as it's not ridiculously heavy (say, <5lbs or so), I'd consider buying it if it had a better typing experience.

luord 7y ago

Damn, and I just bought one. I'll have to buy another I guess =D

mammalutte 7y ago

Are the designs going to be released with a free license? And what exactly will they do/don't design?