thelinuxlink.net

Wow - that was a great interview. I just listened to it this morning. It's a shame they are ubuntu only, since I was seriously considering buying a lappy from them for my wife, but we are a KDE household. When I have some money, I might get myself one of those minis. I really wish they would have made a bigger deal about the fact that they support both the hardware as well as the software on the site - I really never picked up on that. I figured they were just another x86 box-shifter that installed linux instead of windows.

Still, I love my stinkpad, and having a model that is interoperable with my wife's is awesome - we can swap utrabay drives, batteries, power cords, etc. And Edgy really is extremely nice on it. I'm blown away by how much works OOTB.

I too am a KDE user [Kubuntu] and intend to get a system76 laptop and simply run:
Whats wrong with that Snarkout

Nothing, but I already bought the new laptop, and went with a closeout thinkpad. Also, If I'm going to buy a pre-installed linux distro, I'd prefer some choice. Kubuntu would have been fine. My point was that they seem like a great outfit, but to me, it's major turnoff that they'd only support ubuntu, but not kubuntu. That more or less lost them any chance at a sale. There were many more factors than that, but that was a major one - if I'd heard the interview beforehand, I might have changed my mind. I'm still a fairly hardcore thinkpad fan, though, so maybe not.

Snarkout wrote:Nothing, but I already bought the new laptop, and went with a closeout thinkpad. Also, If I'm going to buy a pre-installed linux distro, I'd prefer some choice. Kubuntu would have been fine. My point was that they seem like a great outfit, but to me, it's major turnoff that they'd only support ubuntu, but not kubuntu. That more or less lost them any chance at a sale. There were many more factors than that, but that was a major one - if I'd heard the interview beforehand, I might have changed my mind. I'm still a fairly hardcore thinkpad fan, though, so maybe not.

This is just sad. People wonder why Linux is mired in the 4-5% of the desktop and cannot move any further. This is a prime example.

We have this company that has built up around supporting only Linux on their products. You choose to purchase a laptop from a company that charges extra for preinstalling your OS of choice. One that sells their machines with an OS installed that you are simply going to wipe out anyway.

You'll spend time installing your Kubuntu anyway. With the Thinkpad you spend time getting the right drivers from different sources. From my understanding the System76 guys provide their drivers from their own repositories for any of the *ubuntu distros. And if you take the Ubuntu as it is on the machine you can do as Dave suggests and make it a quicker and easier install than the entire OS.

If it comes down to a lack of choice I wouldn't be able to choose a System76 for my next work PC as they want us to use Suse if we're going to run a Linux on the desktop. With the recent announcements from Novell's whitebox agreements I may go with a different vendor. Yet for my next personal laptop it will be a System76 box as long as I don't hear of any quality issues there.

When the time is right to get a new laptop I will seriously consider getting a system76 box even though I am primarily a KDE user. Nothing is stopping you from installing Kubuntu and just installing the extra drivers from the system 76 repos. Hell, I can even install Suse, Arch, Gentoo or any other distro and just download the source code for the system76 drivers and compile them myself. Personally I will do my best to support a company that supports GNU/Linux and don't pay the M$ tax. Be it system76, rcubed or anyone else.

Patrick wrote:Hell, I can even install Suse, Arch, Gentoo or any other distro and just download the source code for the system76 drivers and compile them myself.

Someone needs to put those into the openSUSE build service so that there's nice packages ready to install.

Have a link to their drivers page?

Sorry you think me and my choices are sad, and that me and people like me are the sole reason that linux can't gain marketshare. I'd point out that reality is exactly the opposite of this, though. Linux maintains this market share because people find it inconvenient or difficult to install. As a consumer, they didn't offer what I was looking for in a lappy. Honestly while I'm sure that their lappy's are nice, they aren't thinkpads - the look plasticy, and for all the world look like rebranded acer or asus lappys, and nothing on the website makes a point of "We care for the hardware and software."

The economics of the situation comes down to this - what benefits me and my family the most when it comes to spending my own hard earned money. For me, the easy answer was "Buy another thinkpad." If I'm going to have to be support for my wife anyhow, I'm going to make the choice that is best *for me* , and again this time it was the lappy with the parts I can swap out with the ones in my existing lappy. I think they made it painfully clear on the show that they weren't going to support anything besides gnome ubuntu installs, and support, NOT linux would be a major part of my purchasing decision. So, even today, now that I know what they are about, I'd probably still buy the thinkpad. I'm not about to fall on my sword for any company just because they happen to sell linux.

I take it you have bought yourself several items from linux pre-installed vendors? Or are you just trolling?

Patrick wrote:When the time is right to get a new laptop I will seriously consider getting a system76 box even though I am primarily a KDE user. Nothing is stopping you from installing Kubuntu and just installing the extra drivers from the system 76 repos. Hell, I can even install Suse, Arch, Gentoo or any other distro and just download the source code for the system76 drivers and compile them myself. Personally I will do my best to support a company that supports GNU/Linux and don't pay the M$ tax. Be it system76, rcubed or anyone else.

OK. How's your slave-labor M$ tax lappy doing? I'll say again that I hadn't heard the interview prior to purchasing my lappy, and I hope it's obvious that I know what I can do with a lappy I purchase - support is, again, a large part of the picture in this case. Considering I don't think a single guy from the show has bought any of their stuff, I'd really appreciate some slack, here.

WTF? Is it jump down snark's throat day today or something?

Snarkout wrote: OK. How's your slave-labor M$ tax lappy doing? I'll say again that I hadn't heard the interview prior to purchasing my lappy, and I hope it's obvious that I know what I can do with a lappy I purchase - support is, again, a large part of the picture in this case. Considering I don't think a single guy from the show has bought any of their stuff, I'd really appreciate some slack, here.

WTF? Is it jump down snark's throat day today or something?

Dude, I'm not jumping down your throat. I'm stating that when the time comes for a new lappy I will seriously consider getting a system76. That's all. As far as my slave labor lappy I didn't have a problem paying $550 because I didn't have $1200 to drop on a laptop. System76 was not around at the time I was looking for a new machine. I did look at the no OS systems available and they were all $1000+ systems. For PCs I usually buy bare bone parts kits with no OS. After rebates I paid $218 for my AMD64 workstation. Again if I came off as sounding like I was on your ass I apologize. I wasn't.

Tsuroerusu wrote:Someone needs to put those into the openSUSE build service so that there's nice packages ready to install.

Have a link to their drivers page?

http://planet76.com/repositories/

This looks like binaries only. I didn't see any links for the source code. I'm sure they wouldn't have a problem with providing the source code if asked.

Snarkout wrote:WTF? Is it jump down snark's throat day today or something?

Not really, I agree with what you're saying.

Personally I'm a little disappoiting that System76 doesn't have a "If you do not wanna use Ubuntu, here's the drivers you'll need"-page, because I do not wanna use Ubuntu if I bought a laptop from them (If anyone wanna know why, message me in IRC and I'll tell you, because iRC is better for flamewars ).

Patrick wrote:

Snarkout wrote: OK. How's your slave-labor M$ tax lappy doing? I'll say again that I hadn't heard the interview prior to purchasing my lappy, and I hope it's obvious that I know what I can do with a lappy I purchase - support is, again, a large part of the picture in this case. Considering I don't think a single guy from the show has bought any of their stuff, I'd really appreciate some slack, here.

WTF? Is it jump down snark's throat day today or something?

Dude, I'm not jumping down your throat. I'm stating that when the time comes for a new lappy I will seriously consider getting a system76. That's all. As far as my slave labor lappy I didn't have a problem paying $550 because I didn't have $1200 to drop on a laptop. System76 was not around at the time I was looking for a new machine. I did look at the no OS systems available and they were all $1000+ systems. For PCs I usually buy bare bone parts kits with no OS. After rebates I paid $218 for my AMD64 workstation. Again if I came off as sounding like I was on your ass I apologize. I wasn't.

Cool - I'm just sick and touchy this morning, I guess. The main point of this thread was that I really enjoyed the interview, and that I'm glad there's a company out there doing what system76 is doing. It seems to have become "YOU BOUGHT TEH THINKPDZ0R??? WTF NO TEH LINUX??? U R TEH SUX!!!!!one111"

Snarkout wrote: Cool - I'm just sick and touchy this morning, I guess. The main point of this thread was that I really enjoyed the interview, and that I'm glad there's a company out there doing what system76 is doing. It seems to have become "YOU BOUGHT TEH THINKPDZ0R??? WTF NO TEH LINUX??? U R TEH SUX!!!!!one111"

I hear you man. Stinkpads are nice machines. The only thing I don't like about them is that all seem to come with ATI video cards. My dream laptop has plenty of horse power, 2 gig of memory and an Nvidia video card. I think it's awesome that you can get a pretty nice laptop pre-installed with Linux for $800. Good times indeed.

Snarkout wrote:The economics of the situation comes down to this - what benefits me and my family the most when it comes to spending my own hard earned money. For me, the easy answer was "Buy another thinkpad." If I'm going to have to be support for my wife anyhow, I'm going to make the choice that is best *for me* , and again this time it was the lappy with the parts I can swap out with the ones in my existing lappy. I think they made it painfully clear on the show that they weren't going to support anything besides gnome ubuntu installs, and support, NOT linux would be a major part of my purchasing decision. So, even today, now that I know what they are about, I'd probably still buy the thinkpad. I'm not about to fall on my sword for any company just because they happen to sell linux.

But your previous argument seemed that even if you had liked the hardware because Kubuntu was not the installed distro that took it off the list anyway. I do believe that it's true that they will only support Gnome Ubuntu installs for the software. However by applying the KDE desktop package, you're still running the Gnome software as well for when you need to contact them for support.

And since you have clarified that you want something that you can swap parts with an existing system, your choice makes more sense. I never suggest buying from any vendor based solely on them installing Linux or not, however if that is an option a desktop environment should not be the defining factor for purchasing something else. If you purchase from another vendor that only provides Windows, you have to install an OS from scratch and not merely add a package.

My question to you is what is Lenovo's support for Kubuntu? I'll be honest it's been a while since I checked, but I don't think it's on their list of supported options.

Snarkout wrote:I take it you have bought yourself several items from linux pre-installed vendors? Or are you just trolling?

I am not trolling, but I have not bought from a Linux preinstalled vendor to date for several reasons. I build my own desktops unless I acquire them second hand. The last time I was in the market for a laptop (~3 years ago) was work related and I needed a Windows install. At the time I was doing some thing with Linux and it was a minor factor to me as I knew I could do the install. I could have used the corporate Windows image, however I could not find a Linux hardware vendor at a reasonable price/performance ratio.

What makes me a bit curious is this:

The reason I went with my store bought Toshiba and Apple are for the simple reason I can buy the warranty and make them fix it. Its now a legal contract that must be fulfilled. I can usually have service same day, rarely it goes to a few days (smashed screen would do it I suppose).

->How fast is S76 in the repair world?
->Do I need to pay for shipping too?
->What classifies a lemon? Normally BB, Apple, Circuit City. Sears, CompUSA consider it 3 repairs for any subsystem (display, audio output, keyboards on lappies, battery sharging circuit) or is it going to be the least the law requires of 3 to _a_ subsytem?

The guys seem cool, and I am sure this is not a crooked business. But what I need to know that they arent going to get swamped due to shortsightedness in the repair arena (easy to do, trust me).

As for the distro, I can reload Fedora or RHEL on it at will, I can't cry about them chhoosing a decent distro that I really dont use.