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System76 Unveils 'Darter Pro' Linux Laptop With Choice of Ubuntu or Pop!_OS (betanews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Today, System76 unveiled its latest laptop -- the 15.6-inch (full-HD) "Darter Pro." It is thin, but not overly so -- it still has USB-A ports (thankfully). The computer is quite modern, however, as it also has a USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 port. It supports Pop!_OS 18.04 LTS (64-bit), Pop!_OS 18.10 (64-bit), or Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (64-bit) operating system. It comes in two variants, with the following processor options: 8th Gen Intel Core i5-8265U: 1.6 up to 3.90 GHz -- 6MB Cache -- 4 Cores -- 8 Threads, or 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8565U: 1.8 up to 4.60 GHz -- 8MB Cache -- 4 Cores -- 8 Threads, with either coupled with Intel UHD Graphics 620 GPU, and up to 32GB Dual Channel DDR4 @ 2400 MHz, and M.2 SATA or PCIe NVMe SSD for storage. As for ports, there is USB 3.1 Type-C with Thunderbolt 3, 2 USB 3.0 Type-A, 1 x USB 2.0, SD Card Reader. The company says it will announce the pricing at a later stage,
Waiting for the next global warming article claiming we only have 10 years left to live.
Like I said, why does Pop! OS exist?
does it support snap packages and crackle streams?
hopefully the keyboard has a functional caps-lock indicator
Not interested.
If I ever bother paying money for a laptop, its going to be a laptop with a separate GPU not dependent upon Intel Corp. My last laptop CPU was the Arrandale model, and the OS could not be upgraded to Windows 10, because Intel abandoned support for the CPU after 1.5 years. The problem was that the GPU didn't support advanced graphics primitives that became "expected" for Windows 10. Intel could have written an updated driver that would work in Windows 10, and ignored the obscure calls, or even made the API available for someone to write a 3rd party driver, but of course, they didn't.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
I just paid $600 for an Acer Nitro 5 AMD edition, its the Ryzen 5 2500U and the Radeon RX560X, I got the base version as I intend to put 32Gb of ram and my own 1Tb+ M.2 and 2.5" SSDs in it. I'll never understand why System76, Zareason, Purism, Think Penguin etc keep only ever offering Intel/Nvidia crap.
Out of curiosity, what OS are you running?
probably because Intel is very Linux friendly and nVidia, like it or not, delivers superior GPU power.
and the OS could not be upgraded to Windows 10
And nothing of value was lost.
Circumcision is child abuse.
System76 makes linux laptops. Who cares if they fail to run windows - or the next version of windows? That is not what you buy them for. Perfectly fine for them to use components not supported by windows - as long as they support linux.
Must be nice for 7 hours to be your full work day.
I hate Chicklet keyboard! It's like typing on concrete!
Will $CURRENT_YEAR be the year of the Linux Desktop?
The keyboard is not centered in front of the screen. The put it to the left to squeeze in a num pad.
Whatever you think about macbooks, they didn't compromise on the keyboard placement.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
If someone came out with a machine like this or the Oryx Pro that was completely compatible with macOS, they'd make a lot of people happy. Ship it with a common Linux distro so that it's good to go out of the box, but ensure all the bits play nice with macOS.
Is "Disabled ME". I really hate Intel ME and I'm glad companies are advertising the fact that they've disabled it.
I'll never understand why System76, Zareason, Purism, Think Penguin etc keep only ever offering Intel/Nvidia crap.
Simply, you're utterly ignorant of the manufacturing business. They're not there to make a laptop that makes their customers happiest. They're there to make a laptop as cheaply as possible, and then charge as much as possible, while still satisfying the majority of laptop purchasers who are not you (geek). They need to have a relationship with the various chip manufacturers, because those manufacturers provide an allocation of CPUs at a price, and those manufacturers are going to favor the the company that gives them the best long term profit and jumps through their hoops.
Before Ryzen, only a fucking moron would buy an AMD laptop, because they have to run hotter & use more power in order to match the performance of an analogous Intel CPU. Even now, there's no consensus that Ryzen cpus, specifically made for laptops, can run as power efficiently as Intel. Ryzen only hit the market maybe 3 years ago. No major manufacturer is going to jeopardize their CPU allocation with Intel for a company that makes inferior laptop CPUs and can't even ensure they can deliver X CPUs to them per quarter, or be producing a laptopable, competitive CPU two years later. Then you have to design a laptop around AMD hardware. Even now, I don't think AMD has a laptop CPU based on Ryzen until their 2nd generation, which only came out a year ago.
As long as AMD is committed to putting out a competitive laptop CPU, they will eventually show up in laptop products. But it doesn't happen overnight, and it certainly doesn't happen in less than a year.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Of course there was. Like it or not, laptops are going to be most power efficient on a Microsoft OS, because they own the Wintel market. One day that may change, but not until hardware chip manufacturers are designing their chips to be power efficient under linux, while linux kernel developers are incorporating those power saving features, and glibc, gcc, and GUIs are mandating power efficient code into their products. "Nice tweak, does it interfere with sleep mode 3X? Then it doesn't get put into the codebase."
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
And linux works fine under my old laptop with the Arrandale CPU. But I obviously can't use updated code that expects a graphics hardware primitive that the CPU can't deliver. And it doesn't run 2 hours on battery.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
GNU/Incel. The only OS for nerds who can't get da pussy.
From TFA: "When people come to me for advice on buying a computer that comes with a Linux-based operating system pre-installed, my first suggestion is always System76. While other companies, such as Dell, also make great laptops running Ubuntu, for instance, System76 stands above the rest by also offering its own operating system -- Pop!_OS (which is based on Ubuntu). In other words, System76 has better control over the overall customer experience."
My own "overall customer experience" with the Thelio that I recently bought was this: It came with Pop!_OS, which I dutifully tried out. Its quirks and limitations were so irritating that within three days I gave up on it, wiped the drive and installed Ubuntu MATE, and everything has been running smoothly since then. Great hardware. I have no idea what they are trying to do with Pop!_OS, though.
Out of curiosity, what OS are you running?
Ubuntu Studio Linux is what I'll be running, it should be arriving tomorrow. From what I've read the only issue I can see anyone having is at initial install, because of something that Acer set in the UEFI that isn't user changeable, so you have to boot with nomodeset to get the install media to boot, but once you install it'll grab the AMD microcode patches from the repos and will function normally after.
He may have been going for "Oh, you can't upgrade to Windows 10. Intel did you a favor."
Meaning, if you are looking to "upgrade" you are coming from somewhere - Windows 7 or Windows 8.
If it's Windows 7, it's arguable that Intel really was doing you a favor. Windows 8 had a horrific interface but the OS underneath wasn't bad. ClassicShell fixed the UI problem.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
probably because Intel is very Linux friendly and nVidia, like it or not, delivers superior GPU power.
Define superior? At $600 what does Nvidia have that can touch the RX560X w/ 4Gb GDDR5, and a Ryzen 2500U with a anIPS display that supports Freesync? Sure, at the $1000 mark Nvidia has faster gear, but with the $400 I'm not spending there I'm going to add 32Gb of DDR4-2400, a 1Tb 860 Evo M.2 and maybe even a 2TB Crucial MX500 to make this this a half decent video editing rig while on the go without having to resort to a 20Lb behemoth. Open source? All of AMD's drivers are open source, can't say the same for a bunch of Intel's GPU drivers over the last few years. Not to mention more secure than Intel hardware, as well as not having chip shortages.
Anyone with the balls to name an OS project Pop!_OS. Hands down the stupidest name for a project ever.
Not true at all, in fact one great big fat lie. For a computer to be efficient, it has to be efficient in the environment it is used. Just doing internet, and some spread sheeting and word processing, the majority of the market, than Linux is factually the most efficient OS. Want to play computer games, well, technically, "The operating system is Orbis OS, based on FreeBSD 9." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., is the most efficient. In a business environment it depends upon the main packages you use in that environment. In the server environment Linux absolutely craps all over Windows. How about TVs, the smart TV, well there again, Linux with an Android TV layer absolutely wipes out windows, windows does not even appear. How about phones, well, M$ has rolled over and is playing dead ants, so zero efficiency there. Down to tablets, well, that is Apple and Android, windows is nowheresville in that environment. So down to laptops, well, Chrome is eating into Windows as is Apple so, a battlefield and a toss up which one to go with. All that is left, they tiny shrinking ever getting limper, desktop market (excluding smart terminals), M$ desperately clinging on to a shrinking market because it can not expand because that are a pack of privacy invasive anal retentive control freaks and their customers hate them.
Windows is dying because M$ are a pack of dicks, how is MSN doing M$, how small is that market share, and it is all down to your dickish attitude.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
"btw i use arch" suprised no one have said this.
Funny, since we've had multiple article saying that Intel can't deliver their chips. AMD mobile GPUs at the very least have been competitive for years, and in the lower end the AMD APUs where soundly better than the equivalent Intel hardware, what we ended up seeing however was companies seemingly going out of their way to cripple the performance by TDP limiting them in the UEFI to their lowest power state at all times and soldering in 2Gb of DDR3-1333 and throwing in a 4Gb stick locking you to single channel no matter what you do short of taking a desoldering station to it and replacing the soldered in chips, go look at Newegg, there are still a few for sale in this idiotic configuration.
A niche company like System76 has to play to their niche, most people looking to buy a laptop with Linux installed by default instead of Windows care about open source drivers and open standards, Nvidia doesn't provide that and likely never will as they act like Sony with propitiatory format after propitiatory format till they are forced to accept the industry standard that everyone else uses. Not playing to their niche is why I ignored their offerings the last few times I've been looking for a laptop.
Yes, that: 10 is a headache, stay on 7 while you can.
Circumcision is child abuse.
how is MSN doing M$
Man, I remember that, talk about a wasted opportunity. They had Windows Messenger, MSN Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Lync, Skype, Skype for Business, Teams... and you just wonder, what talks to what? What's the difference? Just make one goddamn chat program, make it good and polished and available in every platform. But instead they lost focus and people stopped using it.
Circumcision is child abuse.
They're not there to make a laptop that makes their customers happiest. They're there to make a laptop as cheaply as possible, and then charge as much as possible, while still satisfying the majority of laptop purchasers who are not you (geek).
How many non-geeks are purchasing Linux laptops from System76, or speccing them for their employer? Answer, statistically nobody. Linux users care more about security than average.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
sure it's of value if you need 10 for some reason like compiling applications for it.
oh well at least windows phones dead so nobodys asking to make apps for that.. still. it's better than windows 8. and for the record I had to update to windows 8 because microsoft made(for no technical reason at all, mind you) mandatory to have windows 8 to be able to compile/develop windows phone apps.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
This just seems like an advert.
Maybe it's different over there in the States, but here in Europe there are plenty of companies selling bare-bones laptops (by the likes of MSI and Clevo) without an OS installed. As components these days are largely standard (same chipsets, same CPUs, same GPUs), Linux runs just as well on them as it does on companies who make a point of mentioning Linux.
Buy one of those, boot up Ubuntu from a memory stick and bam, all done.
(I guess if you want someone to install Linux for you at the factory your options are more limited, but if you're thinking of Linux rather than Windows I'm sure you're more than capable of booting from USB and installing it yourself!)
Don't they just rebrand existing laptop models? And regularly switch OEMs? None of those chip-level supply chain issues apply.
Windows 7 gave you root-level control. 10 withholds that (Microsoft is Daddy, he'll just let you hold the wheel). That's a downgrade by any evaluation.
Pop!_OS is based on Ubuntu.
Like all those LUbuntu, XUbuntu "distros", I don't get it.
Are these for users who don't know how to install packages?
It depends on the laptop vendor. Some companies (Apple in the extreme) participate in the design. Some companies take what manufacturers offer. But they aren't the same complete board, with exact specs, or else one could figure out the generic board Dell gets, and buy a replacement board direct from the manufacturer. The mobo board maker doesn't take the responsibility for CPU allocation from Intel; they leave it to the laptop seller. They just give a rough number to their manufacturing capacity, and its up to the laptop seller (or some other conglomerate) to hit up Intel for CPUs. The way, the laptop seller controls its inventory and sets the order size, not the manufacturer. (There will be exceptional cases as well.)
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
What do you want me to say? I have no proof laptop manufacturers will deliberately cripple AMD based products. I will say its quite possible in order for the laptop vendor to fit a pricing niche, they will deliberately do stupid things to cripple an AMD product, so it stays in the low price niche, and not compete with a higher margin product, which happens to be Intel based hardware But AMD probably is just as much to blame, because they can't produce enough of a particular CPU for the manufacturer to adjust their pricing product lines. (Remember, until recently, Intel could guarantee they could put out a zillion CPUs of varying capability, and AMD is stuck figuring out their price point.)
Its up to AMD to figure out how to best showcase their products, probably by partnering with a specific large vendor, guaranteeing a competitive price point, and supervising the design. But to this day, AMD CPUs will run hotter and consume more power; they just aren't as IPC(?) efficient as Intel products.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
I'd prefer a decent Ryzen CPU (not the castrated U series) paired with an Nvidia GPU. AMD/ATI GPUs have always been a joke.
Just doing internet, and some spread sheeting and word processing, the majority of the market, than Linux is factually the most efficient OS.
Citation please.
Want to play computer games, well, technically, "The operating system is Orbis OS, based on FreeBSD 9." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], is the most efficient.
Yeah, gamers care about hardware efficiency, not what games are available to play on it. (Duh.) That's why Steam on Linux "owns" the gaming market. /s
In a business environment it depends upon the main packages you use in that environment.
I'll let the PlayStation4 penetration in the business market speak for itself. Again, you need to provide citations for you to claim "proof" or "fact".
In the server environment Linux absolutely craps all over Windows.
Yup, and when I need to buy a standalone server, I will probably run linux on it. But I was talking about laptops.
Yeah, let your fanboy flag fly, and use Trump style arguments to persuade the technically inclined. "Fuck the corporate power."
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Don't they just rebrand existing laptop models? And regularly switch OEMs? None of those chip-level supply chain issues apply.
Yep, it's usually Sager, Compal and Clevo, maybe MSI as well. They don't actually make anything, just specify what drives and network chips that the OEMs should put in. There is nothing in general wrong with that, but the marketing wank that they are built for Linux when they aren't doing anything special as they don't have any real control over the build like Asus or Dell would and have far less BTO options compared to shops like XoticPC, AvaDirect and Puget Systems offer for literally the same laptops.
Most laptops on the market these days are BGA and as such soldered in, at the point of manufacture.
Or it's what we've seen from Intel over the past 30 years, contracts to either be Intel only or to cripple the competition in some way, it's the reason AMD won a billion dollar lawsuit from them for these practices, If you have followed the history of both companies AMD has always put out better tech, often when Intel said that it was impossible, but due to the cross licensing contracts that have been there since IBM was calling the shots AMD, VIA and Citrix all had to give Intel access to their tech, Intel had the early lead in funds and contracts and used it to force everyone else out, except for AMD. If it wasn't for those contracts Intel would not have survived AMD beating them to 64-bit, on die memory controllers, multicore, true quad/sexta/octocore CPUs, APUs/GPGPU etc. in a true open market. We're once again at one of those points where Intel's lack of ability to innovate has them stuck, but they have access to AMD's tech and as such will use it to catch up and use their bloated weight to push their chips even if they are trash.