System76's Supercharged Linux-powered Gazelle Laptop is Finally Available (betanews.com) 160
The System76 Gazelle laptop is finally available. From a report: What makes this laptop so special (besides its pre-installed Linux-based operating System), is its impressive specifications. You see, System76 has supercharged it with a 9th generation Intel Core i7 Processor (9750H) and NVIDIA GTX 16-Series Graphics. It even has something the pricey MacBook Pro doesn't -- the ability to be configure with up to 64GB. Yeah, Apple's laptop can only have a maximum of 32GB. The Gazelle can be configured with additional top specs, such as an NVMe SSD up to 2TB. Actually, it can accommodate two such drives, so you can theoretically have 4TB of speedy storage. You can opt for either a 15 or 17-inch display, both of which have a 1080p resolution. Regardless of screen size, you get a full keyboard too, meaning it has a number pad on the right. It ships with Ubuntu or Pop!_OS pre-installed and starts at $1099.
Re:Pre-installed Linux = worth some big premium $? (Score:5, Informative)
The price is a function of not getting subsidies from Microsoft to pre-install Windows and other crapware as well as a guarantee that the hardware will work seamlessly with Linux distros. Sure, it's cheaper to buy some Dell or Lenovo, wipe the drive and put Linux in, but you also have a higher chance of running into weird niggles.
At most, you'd buy a System76 to send a message to laptop/desktop OEMs that there exists a demand for prebuilts with Linux preinstalled so that other major firms will do it.
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Don't be a niggard.
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You are correct. Nowadays, as I understand it, the Windows license is more likely to be subsidized by publishers of included trialware.
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The price is a function of not getting subsidies from Microsoft to pre-install Windows
Reference please. Microsoft does not subsidize computer vendors to install Windows. OEM Windows versions cost the vendors money. Other bloatware generally doesn't subsidize the computer, it only subsidizes itself. IE: print-shop like software that the OEM can install for free but then tries to entice you to sign up for printing services.
as well as a guarantee that the hardware will work seamlessly with Linux distros.
Every laptop manufacturer has to test that the hardware will work properly with the OS that is installed on it. I cannot see that this testing is any more difficult bec
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The price is a function of not getting subsidies from Microsoft to pre-install Windows and other crapware
Don't know about other makes, but the business-grade Lenovos actually are 100 € or so cheaper if you choose no OS instead of Windows.
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The price is a function of not getting subsidies from Microsoft to pre-install Windows
You do realise that MS hasn't done that since they got in trouble for it in the 90s right? What they do do is heavily discount OEM licenses.
Sure, it's cheaper to buy some Dell or Lenovo, wipe the drive and put Linux in, but you also have a higher chance of running into weird niggles.
I guess the Microsoft tax actually is just a deduction from the Linux tax.
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As I see it, a beefy laptop like this could really speed up my Linux experience.
Try using Vim instead of Emacs on your existing machine...
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Try using Vim instead of Emacs on your existing machine...
That made a difference in the 1980s.
On a modern laptop, Emacs has a negligible effect on performance.
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whooooosh
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Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping.
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Emacs is a great OS.
It only lacks a decent text editor.
Ah, and I like those too: https://www.emacswiki.org/emac... [emacswiki.org]
It seems like a fair price (Score:3)
$1099 seems pretty cheap for a computer. Even if you replaced it every 2 years that works out to less than most cell phone bills.
Mainly limitation I feel are that it's 1920x1080 (FHD) and not 2560x1440 (QHD) and only one USB Type-C port. I'm curious how much extra the 1660 Ti upgrade costs, because that seems worthwhile to me, if it adds too much to the price then I'd pass. The display size, 5lb heft, and the numpad puts this squarely in the desktop replacement category, making the 15" version too small.
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All the prices for upgrades can be seen here: https://system76.com/cart/conf... [system76.com]
Ships with a GTX 1650, and can be upgraded to a 1660 (which seems to have nearly double the cores) for $175.
The price doesn't seem all that bad to me, but the laptop is thick, heavy, and has a very small battery. For the 15.6" model, we're talking 1" thick, 4.9 lbs weight, and only a 49 Wh battery.
I don't really understand the point of a "Linux laptop". Go buy the best laptop you can within your budget, and then put whatever oper
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I don't really understand the point of a "Linux laptop".
Go buy the best laptop you can within your budget, and then put whatever operating system you want on it after the fact.
Over the last 15 years or so I've personally used or installed about 5 laptops where I did exactly that on, maybe about 15 different servers/desktops. All had/have Linux installed on them.
Without exception, the server/desktops have worked flawlessly. Bulletproof. Massive uptimes, I've barely ever had an issue. One server I've run
Re:It seems like a fair price (Score:5, Interesting)
I did that with my last laptop. I even did my research to make sure all the components had Linux drivers. It worked fine for about 6 months, until it updated to a new kernel for which the proprietary graphics driver no longer worked (because the company Intel outsourced the graphics driver to wrote a driver for one specific kernel version, and then never updated it since they weren't being paid anymore). I was able to go back to running an old kernel for another year or so. After that, no more graphics acceleration or suspend/resume.
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When was this, and do you recall the make/model of the laptop?
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he's refering to one of the powervr (imgtec ip) gpu cores intel licensed back in the day. And yes. They didn't continue publishing drivers after a while.
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Why would you need the 1660ti for 1080p? Seems unnecessary to me.
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the 1660Ti has two DP outputs, the 1650 has one DP and one HDMI. This laptop seems geared towards desktop replacement and not for portability.
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Americans typically pay about $45-65/phone/month because they get their mobile provider to buy them new phones in contract. I pay $100/month for 3 phones in a no contract pay-as-you-go plan.
What works fine for you and what most people use are two very different things.
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A laptop that supports up to 64GB of memory and duo NVMe's is a pretty big deal, except for the cpu & video choices.. :P I'd rather use Ryzen 3 & Radeon.
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A laptop is more like a desktop than like a smartphone in terms of what applications it can run. It's the same reason that an Android tablet with a keyboard case isn't a close substitute for a proper netbook for someone who often works on lightweight hobby programming projects while away from home.
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1080p? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's because i'm still (barely) young enough to have good eyesight, but 1080p on a screen these days just seems ridiculously low.
2560x1440 seems to be the sweet spot on most sized screens in terms of real estate and not needing a telescope to see text.
Shame to have such a specc'd out machine with that playskool screen.
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Agreed -- all of the other relatively nice hardware with a 1080p screen makes no sense.
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Most "workstation" class laptops from the usual suspects like Dell and Lenovo offer higher resolutions screens as an option, at least as 15" and larger go. As this laptop seems aimed at those, the lack of a higher DPI screen is a bit of a disappointment.
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Re:1080p? (Score:5, Interesting)
Depends on the screen size. I mostly use 12 and 14inch laptops and I think 1080p is perfectly fine at those sizes. Any higher than that and people start to turn on text scaling, even those who claim that they have great eyesight and want higher res....And if you are using text scaling then your eyes aren't sharp enough.
On larger monitors then higher resolutions are welcomed. I'm currently running a large 4k display on my desktop and the real-estate is wonderful.
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If you need a telescope to see text then you're doing it wrong.
Text size is measured in points, which are a real world physical measurement (72 points = 1 inch) and they are not related to the number of pixels used to represent the font. If you have a higher DPI output device, then the text should be sharper but should not change in size.
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If you have a higher DPI output device, then the text should be sharper but should not change in size.
That is true on a Mac. No idea about Linux, but definitely not true on Windows.
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On Linux you set the dpi and then you have:
-system windows that scale well
-some applications that scale well, too
-some that mostly scale well, but some elements in them don't
-some that don't scale with the system dpi setting, but have their own instead
-some that don't scale at all
So a resolution so high that it makes non-scaled stuff completely illegible sucks.
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That depends on what you're viewing. Lots of Web pages (including this one) specify font sizes in pixels.
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I used to say this then I hit early 40s. RIP eye sight. 1080p and 27" is fine, thanks ...
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Yeah, I don't want a larger screen than 27-28", it'd be too big for the space I have.
4k at that size would make the text too small to read comfortably at the distances I'm usually sat from the monitor. When I was 25, no problem, but..
I'm still good with 1440p though, so that remains the best choice for me.
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If you don't have great eyesight, all other things being equal (that is, the text is the same size) a higher DPI screen is actually easier to read, as the extra pixels make the letters clearer and with smoother edges and provide extra detail.
With that said, you still have to deal with software and other UI elements that don't scale well when move away from the default DPI and font settings, though this has gotten better over the past few years as high resolution monitors have become more common.
I have a 4K
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Yeah, that's a crap HD-mill screen in 2019. My generic Clevo laptop is from 2014, has an i7 / 32MB and a 1440 14" matte screen. I think it was $1400 five years ago. System76 tends towards primo but this ain't it.
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If it's not for gaming, then what's the point of installing a $100+ graphics card on a laptop if all you're going to be doing is terminals and browsers? Use the built-in intel graphics and save us some money.
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Maybe it's because GNOME doesn't support high DPI displays very well.
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Maybe it's because i'm still (barely) young enough to have good eyesight, but 1080p on a screen these days just seems ridiculously low.
It's pretty pathetic, I'd hate to think this is the pinnacle of commercially available Linux laptops, you can certainly see why people buy Macbooks and dual boot them. That laptop has a worse screen resolution than the 17" laptop I had in 2006, a Dell Inspiron with a 1920x1200 display! I can't even buy a TV with a 1080p display these days unless I opt for some cheap chinese brand.
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It is an error in the article, screen size is 1900 x 1080.
Re:1080p? (Score:4, Insightful)
1080p lets you fit 4 XTerms with 9x16 fonts. 1440p gives you 6 XTerms. It's a 50% improvement in productivity.
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I'm waiting for 64 xterms, imaging the productivity with those!
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I actually know a guy who had this.
Biggest screen I ever saw, already like 6 or 8 years ago.
On top of that he had like 16 or more virtual desktops, all cluttered with terminals in different colours running variations of top and other monitoring stuff for his "server farm".
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Is "productivity" the right word here?
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Is "productivity" the right word here?
Only one of the XTerms is playing NetHack, granted another two are for IRC.
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"Why yes, I drive a Maserati, but I went with the cloth seats and tape deck" -- that's about how the screen on the laptop sounds.
I'm getting one (Score:2, Funny)
I'm getting one, but does anyone know if it supports Windows 10?
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it probably would but, being windows 10, it would probably run slowly
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I was just kidding. I'll use Windows XP instead.
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Touchpad location: Same flaw as most other laptops (Score:2)
Since most people are right handed why are touchpads to the left of center on the laptop?
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Since most people are right handed why are touchpads to the left of center on the laptop?
Does the touchpad work in Linux? On this laptop of mine - a Dell Latitude 17, where I have TrueOS installed, the touchpad was never recognized - thankfully! Otherwise, typing would be a pain: on this very laptop, when it originally came w/ Windows 8 pre-installed, typing was a bitch b'cos the cursor would get displaced once my palm accidentally tapped the touchpad. Once I installed PC-BSD on it (at the time), the touchpad stopped being recognized, so I got a USB mouse, and have had no issues ever since.
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To center the touchpad under the keyboard.
Though I'm not a big fan of laptops with numpads, as it makes the actual keyboard (the part you type letters on) off center from the screen. With a desktop and a keyboard with a numpad, I'll put the keyboard part so that it's centered with the screen with the numpad off to the side. With a laptop, of course, you can't do that.
I do realize that some people like and want the numpad. Given that swapping a keyboard is simple easy on most high end non-fruity laptops,
trash (Score:2)
Ryzen Wanted (Score:2)
Wake me up when they start offering Ryzen CPUs.
65GB of RAM you say? (Score:2)
configure with up to 64GB
I just tried to configure one: max 32GB.
So much for that.
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The 64gb option only shows after selecting the GTX 1660 GPU. But that is just stupid - only greedy marketing morons and/or pointy haired scumbags (like car dealerships) would link the two, I don't see why one would require the other.
You're kind of nit picking when the real gouging is on the component upgrades themselves--which all manufacturers engage in. Amazon [amazon.com] offers 64 GB RAM for about $175 less than the cost from System 76. You want a 1 TB NVMe drive? That's another $200 [amazon.com] that you can save doing it yourself.
What's funny is that in practice, I would probably do the opposite of what you would: buy the higher end GPU and then upgrade the RAM and drives myself.
Any Proprietary Drivers? (Score:2)
Does it require any proprietary drivers or can I install ANY modern Linux on it?
Support actually knows linux... think about it. (Score:1)
I've been using System76 for years and when I have asked Linux support questions, they offer helpful technical answers.
No. Just No. (Score:4, Insightful)
>Regardless of screen size, you get a full keyboard too, meaning it has a number pad on the right.
Put the keyboard in the middle. I want to type, not do one handed data entry.
No amount of memory or GPU compensates for a bad keyboard when you are coding.
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I couldn't disagree with you more. Nothing annoys me more than having to find the keys 4cm to the left of where they should be when the number pad will go unused for the life of the device. Business laptops with number pads (unless they're very huge) should be thrown into the pits of hell.
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I've always wondered why the big companies like Dell and Lenovo don't offer an option of either a numpad or no numpad. Replacing the keyboard is easy and Lenovo already offers a backlit and non-backlit option on their laptops. How hard could it be to chop off the numpad and put a filler plate on both sides? Then everyone could get the laptop they want and be happy!
I personally would rather have the keyboard centered and forget the numpad, but I can see how some people would make use of the numpad. My fa
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I have a usb numpad on my desk. It's occasionally handy for typing numbers, but the main use is for switching language modes.
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Not really an excuse. I found left shifted laptop keyboards to be quite unpleasant to use compared to centered keyboards.
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Optimize for the least frequent task?
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Then this might be the product for you.
Nvidia non-starter (Score:4, Insightful)
If they had open source video then I would consider it in spite the lack of a trackball.
But I was burned by Nvidia. Nvidia stopped support for the on-board video I have on a desktop and Linux Kernel changed the interface, breaking the proprietary driver's interface. Thus no X and nouveau does not work with with that chip. So I picked up a new card, disabled Nvidia and all is well. No pain with a proprietary driver
So, I will never buy anything with a Nvidia chip again, I expect the proprietary driver needed on this laptop will be out of support and stop working with Linux. Meaning you will be stuck with either Text only or Windows.
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System76?? (Score:2)
At first I thought it was a nod to the birth of Unix. But epoch date is Jan 1 1970. So whats 76?
System5 was the last att unix that even SunOS/Solaris was based upon.
config options (Score:2)
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Which version of Windows do you use? You seem to have missed that Windows has devolved over the last decade. Both Windows 8 and Windows 10 came w/ their own Windows Store, which was a fiasco - both on Windows 10 desktop as well as Windows 10 mobile. My other laptop - an Acer w/ 4GB RAM and 250GB hard drive - has become as slow as hell: will need to take it to Microcenter to get it cleaned.
But other than that, if that laptop died and I were getting a new one, I'd look at low end Macbooks - maybe w/ less