Linux Computer Maker System76 To Move Manufacturing To the US (opensource.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Linux computer manufacturer System76 made its mark in part because of its commitment to open source principles and doing what it believes is right. Last year it released its homegrown Linux, Pop!_OS. In early March, System76 founder Carl Richell tweeted about the company's plans to locate its computer manufacturing factory in Denver, Colorado. By moving its manufacturing from China to the United States, System76 is offering more proof that it's not afraid to buck prevailing tech norms to do things "the System76 way." Carl Richell, founder and CEO of System76, says in a Twitter exchange that they anticipate shipping products from the factory by the end of the year.

Comments

Assembler, not manufacturer.

[Kenja]

All the parts, will still be manufactured elsewhere.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[Anonymous Coward]

what, do you want them to fab their own chips in house or something?

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's like saying Ford doesn't manufacture cars because they source parts from all the world.

By this logic nobody can possibly manufacture anything unless you're in the mining or petroleum businesses.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel chips are made mostly in Oregon and Arizona.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[Luthair]

Its hard to see what they will actually be doing to "manufacturer" computers when its generally known their laptops have all been designed and built by other companies like Clevo.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[ctilsie242]

True, but the perfect is the enemy of the good in this case, and one has to start somewhere. It would be nice if everything can be made in the US, but one only can do so much, and this is a lot better than just buying something from a Chinese OEM/ODM and "badge engineering" the product.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you RTFA?

Don Watkins: Why are you building a factory in the United States when so much is offshored?

Louisa Bisio: Over the last 12 years, we've developed every capability, capital-wise, that an organically grown hardware company can. We can make careful and deliberate choices about hardware and our product line. We can customize all parts of the software stack from the firmware level to the operating system experience. But today, we can't design and manufacture our products.

It's similar to how Tesla used a Lotus chassis for their first car. Like the Roadster, the outside of our computers might look similar to others, but it's the inside that counts. The strategy was cash-efficient and allowed us to focus on developing high-value areas of the company. However, knowing what we wanted to build—but without the means to do so—left us constantly yearning.

Chris Short: Where are systems being built before the factory opens?

LB: Current products are produced from a global supply chain with much of the manufacturing concentrated in China. Final assembly, OS imaging, and QC testing are in Colorado and California.

Sure, they could be lying, but it seems pretty obvious what their plans are here.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[HornWumpus]

Perhaps, it changes year to year, but the wafers are then shipped overseas to be cut-up and packaged.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[tlhIngan]

True, but the perfect is the enemy of the good in this case, and one has to start somewhere. It would be nice if everything can be made in the US, but one only can do so much, and this is a lot better than just buying something from a Chinese OEM/ODM and "badge engineering" the product.

So System76 is not doing anything that every other white box computer maker in the US is doing. There are plenty of companies who assemble computers in the US - they range in size from mom and pop computer shops selling their own prebuilt PCs to companies like Dell which can and do assemble PCs in the US.

Given their pricing, I would've thought their computers were assembled in the US anyways.

OTOH, maybe their a Tier 1 OEM now, which means they can manufacture their own boards in the US. That is more unique (though there are many other white box companies that can do this as well), in which case that's a bit more impressive. But given their volumes, it's probably not a difficult thing if it's designed elsewhere. There's a lot of small contract manufacturers out there and they can handle motherboard production quite readily. (The company I work for often uses local CMs - the PCBs and parts often come from overseas, but small runs of units we generally use a local CM to stuff the boards and test them. Larger runs we use China.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[Austerity Empowers]

Many of their chipsets are made in malaysia, or were when I worked there.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[RhettLivingston]

No, but until the chip, display, battery, circuit card, and other component manufacturers move back (though especially the ones that require real science and tech), the US doesn't manufacture computers, it assembles them. The computer is what's inside, not the case. I've run computers without a case before.

On their side, after carefully reading the article, this isn't just "final" assembly - it is a hair past that. They are already doing something they are calling final assembly in this country. There are indications in the article that they will at least be truly manufacturing the case, the lowest tech aspect of the job. This is one little piece more than most end-users can actually do for themselves though making your own case, even for a laptop, is not terribly difficult and can be quite rewarding.

Perhaps they are also making the circuit cards here but I didn't see an indication of that in the article.

It would be really nice if the government would fix the "made in america" requirements to at least require that half of the dollars paid on the device itself (not counting non-value added activities like marketing) have their final resting place within the country. That wouldn't be a perfect measure, but it would cut out a lot of the fraudulent claims.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[Luthair]

For years they've often made claims that their hardware was custom - in short, I won't believe them until they actually ship something that isn't from an OEM.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[kilodelta]

Well if they did that we'd have to call them the successor to Commodore.

Re: Assembler, not manufacturer.

[HornWumpus]

Fabs typically last 2 generations of process. Intel has fabs all over the world. I don't keep track. Last I knew (a long time ago), the Oregon fabs were CPU/process prototype and debug.

'Mostly' is a bold claim, most by what measure? Intel makes an assload of integrated circuits beyond x86 processors.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[HornWumpus]

I hope not. Mold making is hard, Laptop chassis are not simple parts, some of the molds will be complicated.

If they try and learn as they go, they will go broke on that effort. Outsourcing mold making is very common. They won't have the volume to justify hiring anybody qualified full time, so they're going to outsource it. The only question is how much super expensive scrap metal they generate first.

I can't imaging they'll even have the volume to justify having an in house injection molding machine. A laptop chassis isn't going to be shot on the smallest machines.

Unless they're making a lot more laptops then I think, I think they should grab the opportunity to be better. CNC the chassis' out of aluminum, anodize them custom colors, factory engrave them. Perhaps invade toughbooks space, perhaps just make them extra shiney.

Send out 'limited editions' to artists for decoration (get the 'special one', with toejam under glass).

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[timjones]

Read the article. They understand, as should YOU, that you can't just suddenly start manufacturing every last part immediately. They'll take back what they can, AS they are able.

Did you expect them to make the CPUs and the hard drives and the screens all on day one? Is that realistic for anyone in the hardware business, even an Apple or Samsung?

At least System76 is making more of an effort than anyone else, and open-sourcing it along the way. That's way more than Lenovo, HP or any other major brand is doing.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[jellomizer]

That doesn't explain why it needs to be assembled/manufactured in America vs China.
They may want more control of their process. Having your own assembly line can help this, and often it is actually cheaper to build in America especially if their product has a higher tolerance levels. But it doesn't mean it cannot be done in China and just as well.
Mostly I expect it is just a political thing, where they can show they are a solid American company.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[shaitand]

"The question in the case of the car manufacturers is "where are the really important parts made?" - engines and computers especially. Where is the need for tech and know-how?"

It's also, where are the really expensive/profitable parts made? Trump is right about one thing, we are a massive nation with plenty of raw natural resources of most every type and a huge trading deficit. As long as we can continue to steal talent from elsewhere it wouldn't really hurt the United States if we just used our resources and labor. For the most part it has been the US or US funding that has developed the things we buy, some things might be less costly because of global trade and in some cases it might make sense to seed our landfill mines with everyone elses resources and use our own when they are all out but we don't particularly NEED all this outside trade.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[MightyYar]

You'd need to exempt raw materials from that. To take an extreme example, jewelry production cost is dominated by the price of the precious metals... I think most people would agree that a handmade ring from New York was made in the USA even if the gold ingot came from South Africa.

Re: Assembler, not manufacturer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fabs typically last 2 generations of process. Intel has fabs all over the world. I don't keep track. Last I knew (a long time ago), the Oregon fabs were CPU/process prototype and debug.

I work at Intel, specifically at Fab 32 in Arizona. I can assure you that our fabs in Oregon and Arizona last significantly longer than 2 generations of process. Oregon does do a lot of prototyping, but they also ship actual customer product.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[RhettLivingston]

Maybe... I'd agree if there are no known reserves here that that could be an exclusion. But, contrary to what we've been guided to believe, we have large deposits of virtually everything we need at home. We just choose not to develop them. I think that is a combination of NIMBY and a strategic move to manipulate via NIMBY to maintain our reserves while using those of others.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[MightyYar]

Even if the US had large deposits of gold, the value added on a ring is the manual labor - not the cost of the raw materials.

Actually, I think I stumbled upon the solution. Measure the value added, just like the Europeans do to calculate their VAT. If the value-added to the consumer is greater than 50%, it's 'Murican.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[thegarbz]

Did you expect them to make the CPUs and the hard drives and the screens all on day one?

Do you expect them to ever given the amount of pull they have in the market? Comparing them to Apple is being disingenuous.

At least System76 is making more of an effort than anyone else

No they really aren't. System76 are a niche market player not competing with general purpose computing on raw cost and are in the best position to be able to do whatever the hell they want for manufacturer. It's a nice token move, but hardly a resemblance of effort. A better question would be, given their products and market position why weren't they assembling in the USA in the first place.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[RhettLivingston]

Yes. I was just saying that you can't exempt the raw materials because the labor to get the raw materials could be performed in the US in nearly all cases. Even in the cases of the rare metals everyone panics about, we have large deposits of most that we choose not to admit exist.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[MachineShedFred]

Except for Apple already doing assembly on some models in Texas for a few years now on some systems, and announcing plans a couple months ago to spend billions moving more manufacturing and assembly back on-shore.

Sure, the number of Mac Pro systems is probably pathetically small for a company like Apple (especially since it's ass-old and stupidly priced), but System76 is hardly a major OEM cranking out millions of units either.

So what is unique in what was announced here today, and how it's "way more" than other major brands?

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[BlueStrat]

For years they've often made claims that their hardware was custom - in short, I won't believe them until they actually ship something that isn't from an OEM.

Sure, the processor chips will be one of the major brands, but having custom production runs for other makers, franchises, etc is bread-&-butter work for many manufacturing facilities. This is particularly true for many foreign manufacturers.

The new guitar distortion pedal I just bought made in China has a board inside identical to several other brands of distortion pedals. They use a single generic 'type-X distortion circuit' PCB and fill it with the appropriate parts for the features desired for that brand's model. Many name-brand speaker-makers do custom runs for guitar amplifier and PA-system makers made to non-standard specs and/or with non-standard parts & materials.

If you come to a manufacturer like a Lenovo, Samsung, or similar with the prospect of a 10,000-unit or more mid- to high-end laptop order, they're going to be willing to go some ways towards giving you what you want, especially if they believe the orders will continue and even increase. Once the initial setup costs are paid for it's just more profitable production and sales for the contracted manufacturer.

This move by System76 will allow them to keep more cash in-house to further expand with, it will add much-needed jobs, and also return more cash into the US domestic economy.

My concern is that it puts them even more squarely under the thumb of US TLAs and any shenanigans they decide to get up to.

Strat

Re: Assembler, not manufacturer.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's kind of sad you are so ready to challenge something that is easy to confirm yourself. Out of those let's only look at 14 nm (Coffee Lake, etc). That leaves Oregon, Arizona, and Ireland. We do not yet produce Intel CPUs in mainland China or Taiwan.

Fab name City Production start year Process (wafer, node)
D1X Hillsboro, Oregon, USA 2013 300 mm, 14 nm/10 nm
D1D Hillsboro, Oregon, USA 2003 300 mm, 14 nm
D1C Hillsboro, Oregon, USA 2001 300 mm, 22/14 nm
Fab 32 Chandler, Arizona, USA 2007 300 mm, 22/14 nm
Fab 24 Leixlip, Ireland 2006 300 mm, 14 nm

Do you have data to back up your claim "but the wafers are then shipped overseas to be cut-up and packaged." ?

Re: Assembler, not manufacturer.

[bursch-X]

Europe is now getting close to the point where the value added tax is more expensive than the actual value added, though.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[RhettLivingston]

That's one way to look at it. Here is another that clarifies reality by removing the "value" distortion and just looking at wafer capacity. Note that the combined capacity of Taiwan (China) and China is 32.1% of world output. The US is not split out but combined into North American capacity of 13.4% of world output, barely more than China when this was published and dwarfed by Taiwan. If we were to group "Asian" capacity in the same fashion, it would show that Asian capacity is about 3/4 of world output.

Note that Intel is not in the top 5 semiconductor manufacturers in the world when viewed this way.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[MightyYar]

The problem with this is that the raw material source can't be traced after the initial mining operation. If I make things out of recycled aluminum or steel, I have literally no idea where those elements came from. I could make the exact same widget out of recycled aluminum one day and "fresh" aluminum straight from America's finest bauxite mines the next and I'd need to use two different labels. I don't think that's a meaningful distinction.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[jellomizer]

Unless such Nationalist posturing gets in the good graces of your political Representative, or just a popular sales claim.

Now it is probably cheaper for some products to be built in America and Europe. Normally products that require a smaller variance in build quality.

For example. Bolts, Chinese bolts are tested to be much stronger then what they are rated for compared to American bolts are, which American bolts are much closer to the rating advertised. Why is that? American Manufacturing is normally much better at meeting the threshold of the designs, and saving money in not provided wasted quality (Why build a bolt advertised to handle 2 tons, that can handle 8 tons when you can sell that 8 ton bolt for more). While the Chinese manufacturing has more variance. Their bolt making process has a variance of 2 tones - 8 tons but they don't have the same controls, so they will sell the 8 ton bolts as 2 ton just because the manufacturing process isn't as tightly controlled. They may loose out on being able to sell the 8 ton bolts for more. but they the less accurate manufacturing process allows them to make more for less.

Re:Assembler, not manufacturer.

[Luthair]

Sure, the processor chips will be one of the major brands, but having custom production runs for other makers, franchises, etc is bread-&-butter work for many manufacturing facilities. This is particularly true for many foreign manufacturers.

What? They are literally just installing software and slapping a sticker on existing sager & clevo laptops today and have referred to them as custom.

Godspeed

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish you well on your mad quest. Good luck!
(Also will we maybe see an open source laptop from you too?)

Re:What's the advantage?

[Rockoon]

Easier to prepare for retirement when you live near where you plan to retire.

Re:What's the advantage?

[CanHasDIY]

Mebbe stop trolling and RTFA?

Low Volumes == No Difference

[TheFakeTimCook]

I'd wager that they "manufacture" so few units now that the logistics of dealing with a Chinese manufacturer to even give them the time of day is getting so hard, and the actual DOLLAR savings so little (no economies of scale to speak of), that it just doesn't matter, when they can just go order their next month's supplies from NewEgg or Fry's and be done with it.

It matters to companies like Apple, HP, Acer, Lenovo, etc.; because I'd bet they EACH sell more product in a DAY than System76 does in a YEAR.

So, for the 10 jobs they'll bring to the U.S., good for them!

Re:Low Volumes == No Difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Rubbish. It matters - and if you care about jobs in the US, then vote with your wallet and buy System76 products. That is the *only* way things can change - persuade people to buy American instead of Chinese, even if it means buying less stuff.

POP!_OS ??

[jasnw]

Does anyone here have any experience with their POP!_OS flavor of Linux? I'm getting tired of waiting for Apple to remember that it is (was?) in the computer business and am looking to come back to Linux. I like the System76 hardware, but I'm not sure what distro to use (I used CentOS last time out).

Re:POP!_OS ??

[Stormy Dragon]

I have it on a machine I bought from them in November. It's mostly just a minimalist Ubuntu distro that comes with the System76 firmware and an custom "app store" style interface for apt-get.

I like it, but it's hard to really think of it as a distinct distro yet.

I gather they have plans to build more customization into it over time though.

Re:POP!_OS ??

[apoc.famine]

I was in the same boat with Apple last year. Went with a Dell Precision through the small business part of their site, came with Ubuntu installed. No complaints at all. There a few quirks, but nothing like some of the crap Apple is doing with OSX. And it was 2x the hardware for about 1/2 the price of the new MBPs.

Still Too Expensive

[CastrTroy]

Personally, I don't understand why somebody would go with them. Their prices are significantly more than what you would pay for a similar Windows computer with a major manufacturer (Dell, Lenovo, HP etc.) You might as well just buy a laptop off a major manufacturer and wipe the disk. I know that still means that Microsoft gets a chunk of money, and you may be against that, but the large price premium makes it a hard stance to take. The desktop makes even less sense as you can just build a desktop yourself and install your own OS.

Re:Still Too Expensive

[FictionPimp]

Or buy a dell with ubuntu pre-installed.

Re:Still Too Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

System76 laptops are built and certified with Linux. If you buy a Windows laptop somewhere else, you're rolling the dice on Linux compatibility. And they actually care about usability, ensuring enough accessory ports.

Re:Still Too Expensive

[Stormy Dragon]

1. I knew everything in it was going to work with Linux out of the box, rather then all my linux using friends who always seem to have pieces of hardware that never work even though they should
2. Being in a niche sometimes means you have to pay more than the mass market does. But if you don't support your niche, it eventually gets abandoned.

Re:Still Too Expensive

[Stormy Dragon]

3. System76 support is way better than Dell, and worth paying more for.

Re:Still Too Expensive

[wertigon]

This assumes you know the specific brand of the laptop you are buying.

I am not very picky when it comes to laptops. I do have a couple of favorite brands (Lenovo, Dell) like everyone else, but when it is time to upgrade my laptop I must for laptop A, then check if there is Linux support, then look at laptop B, any Linux support, rinse and repeat until I find a laptop that is both compatible with Linux and satisfies my humble needs (mainly, robust, long battery life and long life span, ideally 4-5 years).

Since my time is precious to me, I'd rather not engage in this dance if I can avoid it, since it is going to cost me around 10-15 hours to properly research unless I stumble upon a good laptop by chance. I will gladly pay a few dollars extra if it means I can get rid of the hassle...

Re: What's the advantage?

[Type44Q]

Wow... you manage to be both correct as well as a total fucking dumbass (Dumbass!) at the same time: Of course things will get more expensive for U.S. consumers (no pain, no gain; what? You want something for nothing?? Pfft.); that's the fucking point. Instead of sending smaller sums overseas (to be later reinvested against us), we spend larger sums domestically. Yes,Dumbass; it hurts a little, at first... not doing so hurts far fucking more in the long run.

Re:Name sounds like SystemD to me.

[harrkev]

Oh and they push Ubuntu. No thanks.

So, this isn't good enough for you? They have to settle on your preferred flavor of distro?

If only there was a way to wipe a hard drive and install a different OS on it. I wonder why this hasn't been done before.

Re:What's the advantage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bottom line is cost/unit.

quality certainly is not a factor when it's US made, USA cannot build simple pedestrian overpasses without murdering people

Good for them

[tobiasly]

Wow, tough crowd in here. If you RTFA (yeah I know, bear with me here) they seem very sincere about pushing forward the state of open source computer systems. No, they may not be fabbing their own chips or using your favorite Linux distro, but I'd think the Slashdot crowd would be more receptive of another player putting significant skin in the game.

I bought my dad one of their "Meerkat nettop" devices (IIRC), must have been 10 years ago now. I was tired of the endless phone calls about whatever Windows problem he was having that month. Yeah, I could have built him something for cheaper but having something supported by a real company was quite attractive and I felt much better about recommending that he spend his money with them as opposed to, say, Dell, where MS gets a cut.

It's been wonderful. Support calls have dropped to almost nothing. Once I had to reinstall Ubuntu when whatever LTS it came with ended support. But he still uses that system to this day, checking email and browsing the web.

Thank you, System76, for showing us that a real company can make real Linux-based consumer products and be successful. Best of luck on your new facility. Too bad your systems are so reliable, or I'm sure I'd be recommending my dad buy another one by now.

Re:Good for them

[cwsumner]

I might buy one of these just to encourage them!
And, it's about time I checked out Linux again...

Re:Good for them

[thegarbz]

Wow, tough crowd in here. If you RTFA (yeah I know, bear with me here) they seem very sincere about pushing forward the state of open source computer systems. No, they may not be fabbing their own chips or using your favorite Linux distro, but I'd think the Slashdot crowd would be more receptive of another player putting significant skin in the game.

Just because they are good in one area doesn't mean they deserve praise in all, and likewise note that no one is criticizing their products, quite the opposite they are actually praised here.

What is being criticized is the fact that being in the unique position of offering a niche product not competing on cost, they a) should not have outsourced to the lowest bidder in the first place, and b) not be praised for what is actually not a hell of a lot of effort on their behalf.

Re:Good for them

[CrashNBrn]

I thought System76 were just like Sager - a reseller of Clevo systems :
LPC Digital, reseller
xoticPC, reseller

Re:Good for them

[HiThere]

Those seem to be MSWind machines. I'm not going to trust them not to need drivers that aren't available for Linux. Even if they use the same manufacturer, this doesn't mean they need the same drivers.

Re:What's the advantage?

[pz]

Better quality control when either (a) you employ the people doing the manufacturing and can say, "make it better or I'll find someone else who can to take your job," or (b) you use a domestic service that you can stomp over to and say, "make it better or we go to your competitor."

In my laboratory, we do light manufacturing. We bring in supplies that are either domestically or foreign (read: Chinese) and do the work in house. It isn't cheaper in dollars spent, but it is cheaper in time because I don't have to re-order things that get messed up because someone in China didn't understand "blue" does not mean "purple" or something like that. So, higher costs, but also higher productivity.

Of course, we're only one tiny, obscure corner of the manufacturing world, but I think the principle remains true: if you have direct control over manufacturing, the product is higher quality as a result.

Re:What's the advantage?

[cwsumner]

What's the advantage of manufacturing them in the US? Higher price?

socialism for poor southern crackers

Um... I don't think very many "poor southern crackers" live in Denver !!!

(DamYankee!) 8-)

Re:What's the advantage?

[Gavagai80]

What's the advantage of manufacturing them in the US? Higher price?

It's hard to get more expensive than System76 already is. Home of $900 desktop towers with 250 GB hard drives and 8 GB RAM.

Re:But those jobs are NEVER coming back !!

[Austerity Empowers]

While, as a hardware engineer, I love the idea of factories coming back to the US so I don't have to deal with the incessant BS of dealing with China/Taiwan factories, I'm not going to blame the media for the reason they got there in the first place.

They got there because those companies can make things for cheap, they can do it by breaking many of the labor/environment laws the western world has adopted, they have a comparatively infinite supply of cheap labor, and they have a lot of inexpensive space to build out. So by moving this back to the US, and complying with US laws, paying US labor rates and US property values, the product is certainly going to cost more.

Will it cost more and be like Apple, a solid system that can be relied on? Or is to going to cost more and still feel like an HP/Dell/Lenovo craptop, wherein we should just go buy one of those for cheaper?

This is how the world really works. I wish them well, I hope they take the harder path and succeed, but I'm not going to blame the media for "spreading lies", I'm not going to blame the liberals for setting labor standards or environmental standards. I'm going to once again point the finger at ourselves for believing that we can have a global economy in the first place, as long as national boundaries and laws vary so wildly.

Probably requested by the NSA

[gweihir]

Otherwise it gets really tedious to replace all those BIOSes. Now they can just use an NSL or secret law to do it.

Re:Probably requested by the NSA

[bill_mcgonigle]

Otherwise it gets really tedious to replace all those BIOSes. Now they can just use an NSL or secret law to do it.

Yeah, instead of Chinese rootkits, now you can get Chinese and American rootkits.

Maybe there's still time to relocate to Germany or Switzerland before the Europeans decide to stop buying.

'Beggars in Spain'

[Bruce66423]

In Nancy Kress' Nebula and Hugo Award winning story, you see the opponents of the scientific advance choosing to pay more for worse technology as a gesture of solidarity against the non-sleepers. This appears to be the same action, which at best can be spun as such resistance, and at worst is sheer xenophobia.

Re:But those jobs are NEVER coming back !!

[gweihir]

Yess, there is a tiny instance of things being different than for everything else! The people that made these claims must be COMPLETELY wrong because of this!

Seriously, this argument is beyond stupid.

Re:What's the advantage?

[gweihir]

Probably easier for the NSA to force in their back-doors. I guess they have something juicy on the CEO and forced that change of location.

Re:Name sounds like SystemD to me.

[Seven Spirals]

Why buy from a bunch of annoying bearded hipsters ? I can get faster hardware cheaper elsewhere if I want to roll the OS myself. I guess you forgot about that part.

Re:What's the advantage?

[jbo5112]

For some items, the shipping cost outweighs any savings from manufacturing overseas. There are other things to look at too: cost of regulatory compliance (i.e. how many pounds of paperwork to prove you aren't hurting the environment), tax rates, etc.

With lower taxes, less regulation, and the cheaper shipping, it could be cheaper to manufacture in the US.

Re:What's the advantage?

[apoc.famine]

And last I looked, their laptops looked really big and bulky too. I was seriously considering them, but the Dell Precision was just better all around. Ubuntu installed and working on boot too!

Re:Name sounds like SystemD to me.

[apoc.famine]

Roll an OS? What are you talking about?

Are you unaware of how hard it is to install most modern linux distros? Download the self-installer, pop in a thumb drive, run the installer, reboot, answer some questions, and you're done. Linux installed and working. There may be a handful of things to tweak, but oftentimes you've got 99% functionality with that much effort.

Unless you've got somewhat exotic hardware, linux has been a breeze to install for a good decade now. Or is your personal OS Gentoo or LFS? In that case, yeah, you're probably out of luck when it comes to finding any manufacturer installing those by default.

Re:Name sounds like SystemD to me.

[JackieBrown]

How could he forget that? That is not the point you made on your original post.

Re:Whatever

[d0rp]

Well, the article mentions that up until now they were sort of stuck using existing chassis's supplied by their manufacturer in China, and at the time that made fiscal sense. But now they plan to design and build them themselves. So, my takeaway is that they'll likely being trying to address your second concern and they might end up with some pretty slick looking linux laptops.

Umm, no. Taiwan is not China.

[thesupraman]

You had better do a little more research I think.

While China likes to claim Taiwan is China, Taiwan would beg to differ.
And have a reasonably large standing army who would also, Around 1.3% of their population are active military, and close to 8% are reserves.

So no, Taiwan is not China.

Re:What's the advantage?

[HiThere]

It's also strange to call an action by a private company socialism.

Re:Others already do this in the US

[HiThere]

ThinkPenguin's computers all seem to be rather low end. Fine, if that's what you need, but it sure isn't what I'm looking for.

OTOH, these days I also want to avoid Intel. Too may problems, and the problems that exist being addressed with PR before they finally admit them.

Re:What's the advantage?

[HiThere]

But it's paid for by the government. If he were calling our water supply socialized, I'd see his point. I might not think it was a bad idea, but it would be a reasonable use of the term. (Yes, I know there's a use charge, but it doesn't really reflect the cost of the service.)

Re:And Still Pay the Windows Tax? No Thanks

[FictionPimp]

You do not pay the windows tax. In fact, selecting Ubuntu lowers the cost of the laptop by around $100.

Tuxedo-Computers

[sunsolaris]

we do it better ;-) Fully automatic install in case the use trashed his Linux. Pop in the included usb, connect a wired network and enjoy your fresh install with the latest updates and drivers. Every function is working even when the kernel release changes, we develop on time and keep pace.

Re:But those jobs are NEVER coming back !!

[micahraleigh]

Basically I was saying: who are you going to believe? The media or your lying eyes

Re:And Still Pay the Windows Tax? No Thanks

[Trogre]

Hell, I'd pay extra if it meant that Microsoft didn't get a cent for my laptop purchase.