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System76's Much-Anticipated Open Source 'Thelio' Linux Computer Will Be Available To Pre-Order Starting Next Month, But Shipping Date and Specs Remain Unclear (betanews.com)
Brian Fagioli, writing for BetaNews: When you buy a System76 computer today, you aren't buying a machine manufactured by the company. Instead, the company works with other makers to obtain laptops, which it then loads with a Linux-based operating system -- Ubuntu or its own Pop!_OS. There's nothing really wrong with this practice, but still, System76 wants to do better. The company is currently working to manufacture its own computers ("handcrafted") right here in the USA. By doing this, System76 controls the entire customer experience -- software, service, and hardware.
This week, the company announces that the fruits of its labor -- an "open-source computer" -- will be available to pre-order in October. Now, keep in mind, this does not mean the desktop will be available next month. Hell, it may not even be sold in 2018. With that said, pre-ordering will essentially allow you to reserve your spot. To celebrate the upcoming computer, System76 is launching a clever animated video marketing campaign.
This week, the company announces that the fruits of its labor -- an "open-source computer" -- will be available to pre-order in October. Now, keep in mind, this does not mean the desktop will be available next month. Hell, it may not even be sold in 2018. With that said, pre-ordering will essentially allow you to reserve your spot. To celebrate the upcoming computer, System76 is launching a clever animated video marketing campaign.
Put on your waders because the website for Thelio is an absolute marketing shit-wreck of CSS and HTML5. the only thing youll find is a cartoon hosted at Vimeo prattling on about broken space robots?
At the presser, the ominous is stated
Please note: The article previously referred to Thelio as a laptop, but it is actually a desktop.
so what the hell are you making besides noise, system76? why is "open-source computer" in scarequotes??
Good people go to bed earlier.
TFA has zero information, the website (thel.io) has no details. What is this thing?
x86 and CoreBoot/LibreBoot? RISC-V?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It's a computer assembled from foreign-manufactured parts in America! By hand! It's a desktop! And it runs Linux!
What else could you possibly need to know?
Interesting to note that Linux enjoys a less than 5% market share among end-users, the desktop is a dying form-factor, and paying people a US wage to plug foreign-made components (where are MB, HD, RAM, CPU, video card, power supply made?) into a 'handcrafted' system sounds expensive, not cheap.
Then again, no one ever accused Linux users as cheap, did they?
Ken
No soldered-on memory, storage, battery, etc. I am tempted to get an Alienware for that reason. I cynically expected them to have no replaceable battery, but they do. All you have to do is take a few screws off the bottom and there you go. Battery can be popped out and replaced.
Clicked around for a couple of minutes to figure out what exactly it is that they do, other then slapping some linux distro on laptops or desktops. Didn't get any wiser.
What retard came up with that name.
It appears I was mistaken all this time that they meticulously built their hardware to be open-source and backdoor free.
Huh. So all they do is load Linux distros on other hardware.
I think for the purposes of marketing, System76 is re-defining the meaning of "open-source computer" here to mean merely a computer that does't have any components which require closed-source/proprietary drivers or firmware.
If they can even succeed at that much without muddying the waters further with lies and half-truths I will commend them and perhaps buy one. As a US citizen however, the thing here that gives me the biggest cause for suspicion is the claim that these computers will be manufactured in the US.
Then again, no one ever accused Linux users as cheap, did they?
Sarcasm detected. But the adage is generally wrong, except for in the case of beginning Linux users still living with their parents and learning Linux for the first time with the only hardware they have available. Generally speaking, people who continue to use it into adulthood instead of going screaming back to Microsoft or Apple, soon join a demographic of people who spend the most total on computer hardware, even if few of these purchases are conspicuous high-budget laptops.
...even if few of these purchases are conspicuous high-budget laptops.
And it is probably important to note here that these aren't people who are opposed to spending a lot of money, or having nice things. They're opposed to spending $5,000 on a computer that can't even run Linux and the manufacturer will obsolete prematurely after only 1.5 to 2 years.
Ask any Linux zealot about Linux, and 9 times out of 10* one of the first features they'll cite is how it runs great on older hardware...
*WAG, not a statistical fact.
Ken
Spoiler alert: It's just going to be a rebranded Thinkpad with a different audio and networking devices.
I've been waiting for them to make this announcement since I first heard of them several years ago. As an anonymous coward who has come forth with no proof whatsoever of how long you've even been paying attention, how is your opinion on the hype surrounding this credible?
they already sell overpriced laptops (and they look hideous as well), so i can't expect this to be affordable.
i don't trust it being "open source hardware", many have tried and failed.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
No mention of what System76 considers an Open Source computer. At the very least, I'd want something that uses Coreboot and free/open payloads for the same as well as a means to turn off or reliably block management engine backdoors. Meanwhile there ARE completely Open Source modern computers from Raptor Computing Systems in the form of the Talos series, although they're very expensive.
lol - https://gadgets.ndtv.com/lapto... - " HP Leads Global Laptop Market, Apple Takes Fourth Place" I think you meant Apple, not HP.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/... - "Market intelligence provider IDC has released a report detailing the state of the worldwide traditional PC market for the first quarter of 2018 (1Q18). According to the data, both Dell and HP have seen increases in market share in comparison to the first quarter of 2017 (1Q17).
Whoo Hoo! Great to hear that USB 3 and HDMI are going to be open source now. They would have to be right. I mean, no one would buy a computer of any kind without a few USB 3 and HDMI ports, so obviously they are going to have to be open sourced, with all their patents released to the commons. I mean, I'm sure that's what they meant by "OpenSource hardware", right?
Purism is already far down along this path, with good quality hardware.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
...with open source BIOS and an Open Source OS (Linux being the best known, but there are others, like Net/Free/OpenBSD.) That would be what I would call an 'open source system'.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Precisely; and that's a big part of the problem with marketing terms—they are designed to tell you nothing substantive. This seems particularly useless when pitching a computer for sale (pre-orders are said to be on offer in October) and speaking to what is likely a technically literate audience that values being in control of their own computers. I know what features I'd want in a modern, powerful computer but I can't begin to evaluate if this computer is worth considering.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) put together criteria by which hardware ought to be evaluated however this organization predates the development methodology brought up by the term "open source" by over a decade. The FSF has a history of doing work with published, carefully structured definitions (such as their list of "Words to Avoid (or Use with Care) Because They Are Loaded or Confusing") based on critical thinking about relevant technological and social issues. For example, the FSF doesn't want to be lumped in with "open source" because they stand for different values.
I'd like to see this new system be evaluated for the Respects Your Freedom campaign; I'd find that useful information to help me determine whether I should order one of these computers. But right now all I see are vague terms and an ad campaign that doesn't illuminate what's really going on offer.
Digital Citizen
And that is a good thing - how? If I wanted for company to control my entire user experience I already have Apple and MS.
Cheap? The 500 most expensive and powerful supercomputers on the planet run Linux.. Linux has a 100% market share of those machines... So no, not all Linux users are cheap.. Linux users actually purchase and use machines that cost hundreds of millions of dollars each.. What's your big contribution? $2K? oooooh.. slow down big spender....
Who cares what percentage of the desktop it has? The Linux project is, and will remain, viable for the foreseeable future. If System76 thinks there is a market for US assembled Linux computers, why does it concern you if they give it a go? Their experiment will cost you nothing...
While it is true that desktop sales are slowing, it's not a huge drop off.. They aren't going from 100,000,000 units to nothing.. The change from 2017 to 2018 was 97 million to 94 million units.. (Laptop sales actually increased during the same time frame)
Linux also has a, roughly, 55% share of the internet server market... So yeah.. it's a viable OS.
I get that concern.. but, what's the alternative? China? There have been plenty of reports of them forcing manufacturers to put in backdoors in the hardware...
At this point it seems to be impossible to purchase anything for a computer that hasn't been altered to permit spying..
I remember an interview with Torvalds where he basically confirmed that he had been approached by the NSA to put a backdoor in Linux..
Will it be like Shinola?
Made elsewhere, but assembled in the USA?
... lovingly, by skilled artisans, who have dedicated their lives to selecting only the choicest components, ...
It's a computer. Not a violin. Enterprise-level BS sales-speak won't change that.
You want to impress us, make it a good value with good drivers and tight system integration.
Will custom hardware make that easier?
But you can most certainly plunk down cash for some future mystery box with unknown shape or style, filled with hardware that nobody is able to describe, meeting a spec that doesn't exist! But it's open, somehow!
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
...people who spend the most total on computer hardware, even if few of these purchases are conspicuous high-budget laptops.
And it is probably important to note here that these aren't people who are opposed to spending a lot of money, or having nice things. They're opposed to spending $5,000 on a computer that can't even run Linux and the manufacturer will obsolete prematurely after only 1.5 to 2 years.
Anecdotal evidence, but can confirm. I have NEVER bought a laptop for myself, the only laptops I've ever used were provided by my employer (typically Lenovo, HP or Mac)
I have however been buying high end desktop PCs, for example my current 8 Core desktop was bought back in 2013 when most people only had 4 cores, and it has been serving me well for 5 years now, with some upgrades through the years such as GPU, SSD or RAM.
I'm already planning my next build which would involve whatever Zen2 based upgrade to the Threadripper 2950X is released next year, and I'd expect to keep that for another ~5 years. I would have bought the 2950X but I'm waiting for next years Threadripper so that the Spectre fixes are included.
Dammit, I was really close to clicking the buy button for a dual monitor desktop running their pop-whatever version of linux. This was based on their (perceived by me) reputation of being a no-nonsense and very helpful customer support system provider. Well, they just threw all that in the trash bin for me. I don't give a FUCKING SHIT about broken robots. System76, you just lost all the credibility you had for me. I'll be finding my next Linux system from somewhere else. Zareason is looking good right now. System76, you've dug a very deep hole you're going to have a long crawl out of before you can have any hope of gaining my respect as a serious player in this game again.
The best information I can gather from 3rd parties on this suggests gambling that China's backdoors are only interested in spying on the Chineese, and if you swap in reverse-engineered firmware it is unlikely to work on you and their profit margins on the devices are too slim to justify expanding the scope of their existing surveillance capabilities by trying to remotely re-enable any such features in rooted devices.
Does it though, does it really? Or are you just telling yourself that to feel better? Are you sure you would know the difference?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operating_systems_used_on_top_500_supercomputers.svg
I used that as my reference.
Well... it is the dominant OS on Earth (Android, Top500, Internet Servers).. When would you consider it the "year of Linux"?
Then again, no one ever accused Linux users as cheap, did they?
I'll say it. I'm cheap when it comes to computers. I want a computer that will just work and keep working for years. Something that is cheap for me to fix or upgrade when I need something better.
And that's why I buy System76 hardware. I know that it will work with any Linux OS I throw at it, even 10+ years later. Because it's made for Linux. No need to worry about crappy hardware that needs drivers that are no longer available on the manufacturer's website.
My time is expensive (well, not that expensive. I obviously have time for /.), and I don't want to waste it reinstalling an OS over the course of days because the hardware needs to be coddled in order to work with the OS.
It's all about total cost of ownership.
When I upgrade the OS I pop the USB in, answer a few questions about partitioning and administrative user and network names, and the install is done 15 minutes later.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.