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posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 15 2018, @08:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the It's-FOSS dept.

Linux system manufacturer System76 introduced a beautiful looking Linux distribution called Pop!_OS. But is Pop OS worth an install? Read the Pop OS review and find out yourself.

More at : https://itsfoss.com/pop-os-linux-review/


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  • (Score: 2) by hubie on Tuesday January 16 2018, @07:26PM (5 children)

    by hubie (1068) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 16 2018, @07:26PM (#623241) Journal

    I am coming up to where I will be thanking my work laptop (Dell with Win7 and linux in a virtual machine) for its years of fine service. This time around I want to run linux with Windows in a virtual machine. Does anyone have experience or opinions on these guys for their laptops? Or for that matter, any of the other specialty vendors of linux laptops? From a technical or user perspective, do you get a lot of value out of the system (presumably from things like 100% driver compatibility, etc.) for the premium you pay?

    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @12:13AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @12:13AM (#623364)

    Going back to 2009, Linux advocate Ken Starks[1] contacted System76 and they didn't have time for him. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [blogspot.com]

    To me, they sounded like Red Hat: just using Linux because it's gratis; those folks don't really get behind the *libre* thing (and the community).
    Perhaps they've changed since then.
    Daddy would say "They've already showed you their colors."

    [1] That's the guy who hit the ceiling when a teacher stole a kid's Linux CDs [blogspot.com] because she claimed that Free Software is illegal.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 2) by hubie on Wednesday January 17 2018, @08:56PM

      by hubie (1068) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 17 2018, @08:56PM (#623799) Journal

      It is hard for me to get a feel for how rude they are/were from his comment. However, I did very much enjoy your second link to the school teacher's comments. It sounds like she "experimented" with linux in college, probably with some other illicit or immoral things as well!

    • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday January 18 2018, @12:28AM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday January 18 2018, @12:28AM (#623924) Journal

      Going back to 2009, Linux advocate Ken Starks[1] contacted System76 and they didn't have time for him. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [blogspot.com]

      To me, they sounded like Red Hat: just using Linux because it's gratis; those folks don't really get behind the *libre* thing (and the community).
      Perhaps they've changed since then.
      Daddy would say "They've already showed you their colors."

      Well, I know they sponsor a number of linux-related podcasts and journalists -- Jupiter Broadcasting and Bryan Lunduke for example...although you could just say that's standard marketing. I've also read that they do contribute code back upstream, although I can't find any concrete examples of that. But they definitely have a lot of their own code published under the GPL on github, so there's that...

      From what I know of them, they do seem interested in contributing back to the community, although since they produce hardware rather than software there's not a ton for them to contribute in terms of source code. But they definitely contribute cash to various Linux outlets and conventions and such.

      Going back to 2009, Linux advocate Ken Starks[1] contacted System76 and they didn't have time for him. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [blogspot.com]

      I suspect there may be more to this. Would be interesting to see what his mail to them actually said. Comparing those two companies I noticed ZaReason ships computers with numerous different distros, while System76 standardizes on one -- previously it was Ubuntu, now it's Pop!. So, this guy sends both companies an email advertising the brand new distro he's created. ZaReason has their build system all set up for deploying any distro you want, so it would be easy enough to add one more to the list if it's any good, especially if it's targeting a niche that their existing choices don't. System76 isn't set up that way, they aren't going to ship some new niche distro, there's no reason they'd be interested. And he says himself that he didn't ask for anything, just introduced a distro that they were never going to use, so what did he expect them to do? Maybe their reply was a bit less polite than it could have been...maybe not...he hasn't posted any of the actual mails so we can't really know.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Wednesday January 17 2018, @12:44AM (1 child)

    by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday January 17 2018, @12:44AM (#623374) Journal

    Does anyone have experience or opinions on these guys for their laptops? Or for that matter, any of the other specialty vendors of linux laptops? From a technical or user perspective, do you get a lot of value out of the system (presumably from things like 100% driver compatibility, etc.) for the premium you pay?

    I bought a System76 four years ago...and I still think of it as "my new laptop". When I tell other people how old it is, they think I'm joking. It looks and feels like I got it last week. I don't care what the other vendors may offer, I'm not even gonna look, whenever I need to replace this thing I'm going straight back to System76.

    It was an expensive system -- the Bonobo Extreme (BONX8), the biggest laptop they had at the time, and I maxed out most of the available options. Cost me around $2k. But four years later it still runs everything I throw at it, never had a hardware failure, never had a driver or compatibility issue (and I use Arch, not the preinstalled Ubuntu), never had any problems at all (except reduced battery lifespan, but that's unavoidable). Build quality is excellent and it is by far the most serviceable laptop I've ever seen. My last laptop was a ~$700 HP, and in less than two years it was so beat up that you'd pick it up and there would literally be bits of plastic dropping off -- I beat the hell out of these things. And it doesn't help that taking apart cheap laptops generally damages them further, and I can never resist popping them open. But the Bonobo doesn't show any wear at all in twice the time. And it's the only place where I have a spare 2.5" drive bay, so any time I need to extract data from one of those, I crack it open and install the drive internally. But it's all metal screws and heavy plastics, no flimsy little tabs and decorative bits, so you could pop it open a thousand times and never have a problem.

    So yeah...if GHz/dollar is the only metric you care about, you might want to look elsewhere...but if you're willing to pay a bit of a premium for build quality and guaranteed compatibility, System76 definitely does deliver on those. I'm not going to say it's definitely worth the premium...that depends on how much you value your time, and probably how many times you've gotten burned by incompatible hardware. I don't think that's as much of an issue these days as it used to be, so maybe it's not so important. But I will say that System76 makes some seriously nice hardware.

    • (Score: 2) by hubie on Wednesday January 17 2018, @08:53PM

      by hubie (1068) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 17 2018, @08:53PM (#623797) Journal

      Thank you This is just the kind of feedback I'm looking for.