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Comment by acomjean | Hacker News Reader

You can. Its for people like me who want a linux laptop, but don't want to go through the hassle of installing it. While I could, I just didn't want to spend the time on it, plus setting up some drivers here and there. Thats the value prop. I got one for home use, (Oryx pro with Nvidia) 4 years ago. It worked well enough and had so few issues I got one for work.

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> Its for people like me who want a linux laptop, but don't want to go through the hassle of installing it.

For me, buying from an upstream-oriented Linux hardware vendor is about getting an assurance that on any distro newer than the hardware, everything will just work. I always plan to perform an installation because I have distro preferences.

With System76, a stable, fast, open-source BIOS is also part of the value proposition.

Personally, I'd never get an NVIDIA laptop again, 'supported' or not. At the end of the day, NVIDIA's kernel module will constrain what kernel versions you can use regardless of what any downstream vendor does. That means possible version conflicts with other out-of-tree kernel modules that I actually want, like ZoL.

I totally sympathize with the driver compatibility concern, but what is the hassle of sticking in a linux usb drive to install?

In general, how serious are these driver compatibility concerns for modern laptop hardware?

The driver issues still exist if you don't do research ahead of time. There are laptops on the shelf today that still don't fully work out of the box with Ubuntu.

I don't know. I think most machines are pretty well supported. 4 years ago when I first bought one reading through the forums it seemed kinda hit or miss with wifi and sound. especially since my initial machine had nvidia graphics it seemed like a throw money at the problem and avoid headaches. If it was a desktop, I probably would have installed myself.

The machines I have from system76 are rebadged "Clevos" (I got dog hair in the fan and replaced the fan, which necessitated investigating. My AMD one with original fans is NL50NU) https://www.clevo.com.tw/

The POPOS full disc encryption out of the box was another selling point. I'm not sure thats easy to set up on on a new install.

The support is good, when I had issues going up a major version (I think steam installed something newer than what it was expecting) and I couldn't figure how to get the OS to upgrade despite tons of command line foo, I put a ticket and they pointed me in the right direction.

I don't know about popos but when installing Fedora disk encryption is a one-click option.

You'd be surprised by how many software engineers balk at the idea of installing an OS from scratch.

> In general, how serious are these driver compatibility concerns for modern laptop hardware?

If you're not using anything Nvidia related, the process should be smooth as butter. Any Intel or AMD chipset from the past 5-7 years should be well supported by now.

The hassle is the relentless debugging and glitchiness after slapping Linux on a Windows computer. System integration is a thing, and it's hopeless for a random user with zero access to firmware and chip/board documentation.

Also, the support and open firmware.

System 76 has a ways to go in this regard.

My system 76 firm ware feels like abandon ware

Really? That is not my experience with them at all.

I bought a high end serval a couple years ago. I think they stopped producing that line. We never got any firmware updates to address battery life, wifi, sound, bluetooth, trackpad issues. I think they perhaps realized the fu'd, and that product line might have represented a sunk cost for them. I can't blame them if thats the case from a buisness pov, but as a consumer, I'll shop elsewhere for my next 'it just works' linux laptop. Many more options now than a handful of years ago.

Interesting. Good luck then! I'd be interested to hear back about some good ones. I agree, options are good and it's so much better than 20 years ago.

When I installed Linux on my first PC that was an operation that involved literal days of downloads and a screwdriver. Now it takes 30 minutes and I do it 3-4 times a year at least.

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