System76 Moves Ahead With Writing Their Own OS Installer

[tweak42]

Looks like they were hit by the NIH syndrome. Or that they look at Apple as a model to be followed, you know, our hardware our software. Either way I wish then well, we need more Linux friendly companies.

System76's long term plan is to "move product design and manufacturing in house". Making their own installer and OS spin would be the baby steps toward that goal. Wither this strategy will make or break the company, I don't know. But if this better serves their customers and helps make new ones, can't fault them for trying.

http://blog.system76.com/post/159767...ng-phase-three

If I use another installer it'll be to get rid of Pop#$% OS which better be preinstalled or I'm buying a cheap HP with Winblows again. You really got to wonder just how stupid these people are. System76 might as well declare bankruptcy now and save everyone some time. They're definitely not saving us any money.

I think you are missing the point of PopOS (I do agree the name is stupid). It's so they can support the not-so-technical users to sell more systems thus more revenue thus driving down prices. As long as they continue to push for linux friendly components, I have no issues wiping their OS and installing my own because more than likely it will _just work_ with all other distros anyway.

[starshipeleven]

I'm sure there's a big debate coming involving terrorists conspiring in caves on the other side of the planet... or maybe we need a new installer to keep the homeland safe and secure from Putin's hackers... whatever works to justify this garbage...

Is making a fool out of yourself part of your contract or you do this for free?

[torsionbar28]

While I agree with your sentiment, I don't think its entirely right. My guess is people go after them, mostly because they sell a guaranteed Linux compatible laptop. No keyboard shortcut shenanigans, no incompatible wifi card, no problem with ACPI features, just power and go.

Not just compatible, but fully pre-configured. Power and go, as you say. Everything "just works" out of the box, all features and functions of the hardware, the same as you'd expect from a Windows or Mac laptop. With how finicky many laptops are, it's quite refreshing actually.

[unixfan2001]

I quite like the concept, as it appears to come in the form of a shared library.
Other installers like Calamares claim to be "frameworks" but they feel more like finished products with a few customisation options.

Libdistinst you could just link to in your own personal projects and build the frontend in whatever environment you want.
GTK, QT, HTML5 running inside a privileged browser shell...

[Vistaus]

Looks like they were hit by the NIH syndrome. Or that they look at Apple as a model to be followed, you know, our hardware our software. Either way I wish then well, we need more Linux friendly companies.

Looks like you were hit by something instead. Maybe I've missed something recently, but since when does System76 produce their own hardware? At least up until recently they've just rebranded Clevo laptops. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you can't call it "their" hardware since it's basically Clevo's hardware.

[gutigone]

Looks like you were hit by something instead. Maybe I've missed something recently, but since when does System76 produce their own hardware? At least up until recently they've just rebranded Clevo laptops. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you can't call it "their" hardware since it's basically Clevo's hardware.

You must have missed their post about making their own: http://blog.system76.com/post/159767...ng-phase-three

They will make their own in future.

[starshipeleven]

Looks like you were hit by something instead. Maybe I've missed something recently, but since when does System76 produce their own hardware? At least up until recently they've just rebranded Clevo laptops. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you can't call it "their" hardware since it's basically Clevo's hardware.

For most of the users it's "their own" hardware. That's the whole point of Clevo. Making hardware that people will think is System76, Sager, PCSpecialist, and so on.

[stikonas]

I quite like the concept, as it appears to come in the form of a shared library.
Other installers like Calamares claim to be "frameworks" but they feel more like finished products with a few customisation options.

Libdistinst you could just link to in your own personal projects and build the frontend in whatever environment you want.
GTK, QT, HTML5 running inside a privileged browser shell...

Well, Calamares is "framework" in the sense that it is quite modular. All the installation tasks are split into small modules and Calamares just executes the tasks defined by those modules. You can replace any module with your own. E.g. in principle I could write Gentoo stage 3 installer for Calamares if I had enough time...

[Vistaus]

You must have missed their post about making their own: http://blog.system76.com/post/159767...ng-phase-three

They will make their own in future.

You must have missed the fact that we were talking about the current situation, not the future.

[mmstick]

The reason for all of it's software and infrastructure to be based on Rust isn't a coincidence either. The maintainer / developer of the project is the BDFL of Redox OS. So, there's already a ton of Rust experience in developing operating systems.