System76 To Begin Their Own Product Design & Manufacturing

[wizard69]

What you really want is an AMD APU with 8-16 GB if HBM built in. This would destroy the bandwidth problem most APU implementations have. Im not sure if AMD is planning such for this year but it isn't something that they can ignore. Such a chip would make for a tiny motherboard with incredible performance.

All of that being said what i really want to see is an ARM based passively cooled device. The industry isnt far away from having suitable ARM based chips to make such a machine.

And AMD APUs. It would be
awesome if they could make a board where an AMD APU isn't hobbled by single-channel RAM, throttled to 15W of TDP which in "higher end" models is also paired with a total bullshit "dedicated" AMD GPU (that only wastes the battery) like the case for pretty much every Carrizo and later laptops.

Not. A. Single. Goddamn. APU. At. 35W. Of. TDP. Nor. With. Dual. Channel. Ram.

[sverris]

Things I want:

• Open source UEFI firmware
• Support for coreboot.
• Open hardware. Schemata, wiring diagrams and CAD drawings for the PCB and the chassis.
• USB Type-C.
  • Charging over USB Type-C.

And please fair production conditions for those building these products, and some effort concerning easy repair and upgrades...

[Amigori]

I would like to see serviceable ram and hdd, quality ips screens, discrete graphics option (say via bumblebee), drop the vga port, high quality keyboard, and most importantly: a TouchPad that isn't utter crap!

Its 2017 and PC vendor TouchPads aren't any better (probably worse) than my 12" Powerbook TouchPad of 2002. My late-2011 mbp is the standard that I hold TouchPads by, but come on. My 2016 and newer work laptops TouchPads stink!

[microcode]

Once they get into designing their laptops, I would love to see a next-gen AMD + Intel (like the current macbook pros) system with high quality firmware (preferably built on coreboot) and a high-resolution display. I would like them to focus on efficiency (both on the BOM side and on the power side), maybe they could also include a programmable embedded controller to do interesting things (like recording your keystrokes before the system comes out of sleep, so that when the password prompt shows up, the keys are already in).

[M@GOid]

When it comes to laptops im the polar opposite. I want reliable and sealed tight literally water proof when submerged slightky. Soldered in means a reliable portable device. Such a laptop needs to be passively cooked to allow seal up. Frankly from a corporate standpoint such a laptop is far more desirable as rugged beats serviceable everytime.

Desktops and rack mounts are a different story of course but even here the machines must be forward looking. That means no legacy ports so many seem to think are needed.



Keyboards are always an issue! You simply can't please everybody. Id love to see a track pad that works as well as Apples implementations do.

In any event your idea of enterprise grade machines is highly outdated. For the most part a compter these days is one chip, some RAM and a secodary store. By definition little is serviceable and things like RAM will be in package with the SoC silicon in the near future. This isnt the 1960's, it isnt even the 1990's, massive servicable motherboards are a thing of the past.

If you like the Apple way of laptops, don't ask for a imitation, buy one. I want a machine to work for me, out of the box, no USB adapter (that kills all you gain with a thin design) at all. The infrastructure of the places you work/visit will not change just because you fell for the idea that type C connectors is the answer for everything.

I don't dig your idea of enterprise grade hardware at all. Enterprise means ease of maintenance and robustness, not shiny, Apple-like-almost-impossible-to-fix machines. Also, be able to upgrade RAM and storage with available parts is a must, not a thing of the past, unless you like the idea of programed obsolescence. And there is a lot of things in a laptop that can go wrong and need to be replaced with new parts. Screen, keyboard, memory chips, storage, wifi, all of these can and will broke in a heavily used machine and you need to fix it. Apple computers are not immune to this at all.

Or you may think is money well spent buying extended warranty for your hardware, if things go wrong.

Keyboards need to have a solid surface, so when you press a key you didn't get distracted by the whole surface going up and down. This has nothing to do with key travel.

[M@GOid]

As a 25 year ThinkPad abuser, since the Lenovo purchase, only the sub $600 models that share components with the Lenovo consumer line have the crappy LCD's. Depending on the supplier, most of the $1000+ Thinkpads have decent screens and keyboards. I have found used ThinkPads to be excellent Linux testbeds. I finally had to retire my T40 because the latest distros needed a CPU function that the Pentium M couldn't provide. We are talking a 15 year old model here. That's a pretty good shelf life!

I have a T430 (and it have a poor screen), and now I know why people like these so much. The funny thing is people say the old ones are actually better built, witch amazes me because this one is already much better than all consumer grade machines I used before. I got it used, and now I say to everyone who asks me for advice that buying enterprise machines (even used ones) is a much better investment than buying cheap, brand new consumer machines.

[devius]

Why is everyone talking about laptops when the article says they will begin with desktops and laptops won't come until much later?

[davidak]

Why is everyone talking about laptops when the article says they will begin with desktops and laptops won't come until much later?

Probably of the same reason why they say they want Open Hardware but assume that it will never happen. They havn't read the article carefully and don't have read the original, linked article at all.

The original article says:

Our CAD work will be Open Source and our design will pay tribute to computer science.

http://blog.system76.com/post/159767214983/entering-phase-three

I also think they said once that they investigate in supporting coreboot on Twitter but i can't find it. I would really like that too!

[cjcox]

Hopefully their devices will not be as expensive as the Model S.
I'd rather like a Volkswagen.

I'm hoping it costs a lot less than a car myself...

[Sonadow]

I'm not in favor of this.

Own production line translates to higher costs, especially for a small and niche system builder like System76. And I'm not about to pay top dollar for a machine that uses the same hardware as every single commodity notebook out there on the market.

Besides, what's wrong with Clevo notebooks? Clevo's hardware are considered to be the cream of the crop for consumer-grade machines which hardware accessibility and build quality is concerned. Most Clevos make it very easy for users to access most of the hardware within the notebook to carry out self-upgrades, and speaking as someone who always changes WiFi cards regularly, this is a huge plus.

I can only see System76 going down the 'everything closed up and soldered' route if they want to launch their own production line and design, all simply because people love nice and thin machines.

The only value I can see System76 bringing to the table, if they even have any interest in pulling it off, will be Coreboot + TianoCore (or any alternative UEFI stack) at the firmware level.