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.<p>They have created an open source "daughter board" for this purpose.
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.<p>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.<p>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!)
A nice change from the LED lighted boxes you often see for high end machines.<p>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.
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.<p>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.
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.<p>It looks like System76 has delivered precisely that series... and at a reasonable price. Thank you guys!
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.
Related discussion from the other day: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18342744" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18342744</a><p>Personally I find this industrial design to be a refreshing change from other PCs but I'm sure the wood grain will be divisive.
> "I like your computer," she said. "It looks like it was made by Indians or something."<p>> 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."<p>> "The rest is silver?"<p>> "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."<p>For the twenty years of Idoru they could have sown some discrete references to Gibson :).
It is a shame they don't offer ECC memory for the Ryzen and Threadripper based systems.<p>I built myself a Threadripper 2990WX based system a few months ago, and the hardest part of the built was ECC support. In particular:<p>1) confirming ECC support on the mobo was not disabled by the mobo vendor<p>2) finding "reasonable" speed ECC UDIMMs (ended up w/2666) in a high enough density to reach at least 64GB.<p>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.
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.
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.
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.
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:<p><a href="https://www.techrepublic.com/article/raptors-talos-ii-lite-brings-power9-to-the-desktop-without-breaking-the-bank/" rel="nofollow">https://www.techrepublic.com/article/raptors-talos-ii-lite-b...</a>
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.
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.
They look nice, are pretty large. Very few specs, I couldn't for instance find anything mentioning the size of the fan.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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?<p>Why is the rear fan so far from the rear of the case?<p>Why is the motherboard horizontal which makes the case very wide, especially for a machine with a max of 32GB ram.<p>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.
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.
> And to offset environmental impact, every Thelio sold plants a tree with the National Forest Foundation.<p>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 <i>not</i> doing it, but... it just feels bordering on sleazy.<p>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.
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.
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 :)
It looks really, really cool (very nice specs, and <i>attractive</i> 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.
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...
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).<p>The open hardware part is extremely appealing, and the reason I started paying attention to System76 in the first place.<p>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.<p>I already shopped around for, and have, a suitable cabinet:
<a href="https://www.salamanderdesigns.com/racks-stands/hampton-317-rm/" rel="nofollow">https://www.salamanderdesigns.com/racks-stands/hampton-317-r...</a><p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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 :)
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?
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
This site is full of misleading or false claims.<p>>Open hardware licensed to give you rights<p>>Thelio, Thelio Major, Thelio Massive, and Thelio Io are >OSHWA certified open source >hardware.<p>The case might be. The mainboard, i.e. <i>the actual computer</i>, 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.<p>>Designed and Manufactured in Colorado<p>>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.<p>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 <i>is</i> the damn thing. This is at best highly misleading.<p>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.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/system76-announces-american-made-desktop-pc-open-source-parts" rel="nofollow">https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/system76-announces-amer...</a>
I have been looking at these computers forever and am continuously waiting for them to come up with a <i>nice</i> 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.<p>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.<p>Concentrate on one product (probably laptops) and make something outstanding there. There are some of us that want to buy it.
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
Was excited AF until I read this:<p>"Perfect with Pop!_OS<p>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. "<p>Forgive me but I'm just not interested in running an obscure custom Linux. I feel the same about Amazon's AWS Linux distro.<p>Give me one of the following, in order of preference, and we'll talk:<p>- Arch
- Ubuntu
- Debian
- Fedora
- RHEL