System76 systems "unique"??

[isantop]

still waiting for working fingerprint scanner on my serval pro.

The laptop was delivered to me with 11.10 on it and the fingerprint scanner has never ever worked.

We've done some testing, and it looks like the fingerprint readers will for sure be working in 12.04. Once it's released, you can upgrade and the System76 Driver will set it up for you.

What about warranty ? Now that you ship abroad (including to Belgium where I live), I have some question about that.
When you sell electronics in Belgium (or Europe for that matter), as a manufacturer, you're obliged to give a 2 year warranty on your products.
Only recently, Apple has finally given in after years of arguing about this.

Do you provide European buyers with 2 years of warranty. What if a System76 breaks down ? Do I ship it back to the US to be repaired or can I contact a local service centre ?

We offer a 1 year warranty standard, but we also offer warranty extensions up to 2 or three years as options on our products. If you need the extended warranty, you'll want to check that option when you configure your system. For repairs, we can sometimes ship you a replacement part (which is a good deal less expensive than shipping the entire system). We don't compensate 3rd-party repair facilities, so you would need to go through us to have repairs and replacements covered by System76.

[Penguissimo]

We offer a 1 year warranty standard, but we also offer warranty extensions up to 2 or three years as options on our products. If you need the extended warranty, you'll want to check that option when you configure your system.

Just a quick question—is it possible to buy warranty extensions later, or do you have to make that decisions at the time of purchase?

[isantop]

Just a quick question—is it possible to buy warranty extensions later, or do you have to make that decisions at the time of purchase?

We can add a warranty extension within 30 days from the system's original ship date, but beyond that the warranty is locked at whatever it had at that point. Otherwise, there wouldn't be anything preventing people from purchasing a warranty right before reporting a major problem.

[Penguissimo]

We can add a warranty extension within 30 days from the system's original ship date, but beyond that the warranty is locked at whatever it had at that point. Otherwise, there wouldn't be anything preventing people from purchasing a warranty right before reporting a major problem.

Ah, that makes sense, thanks! I'll be sure to take that into account when I order.

[brdmn]

...all of the tweak we do apply, can be easily had through our System76 Driver package. All you need to do after a fresh, vanilla installation of Ubuntu is download and install this package, then run the System76 Driver application and use the restore functionality. This restores all factory settings and applies any patches required for your system and particular Ubuntu version.

Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, Isantop, but does the restore to "factory settings" have any effect on the /home directory? In other words, will user files be left untouched?

[khuffmanjr]

/home should remain untouched through any System76 driver operations.

As for System76 and support, I love the hardware and the people, but the repair process can be somewhat painful. I needed a new graphics card in my SerP7 and so was without my laptop for a time. Communication to update me on the progress was non-existent, and UPS was the only option for shipping.

FedEx is much much better for those of us that can't sit at home between 6am and midnight (I gave up at 11pm and went to the bar for a bit only to have a note on my door from UPS when I got home....ridiculous) waiting for UPS to deliver on the expected date. FedEx allows the recipient of a package to have it held at a 24/7 location for up to 5 days.

All of that said, my system was repaired and has worked flawlessly since. I fully expect to buy my next laptop from System76...

[isantop]

Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, Isantop, but does the restore to "factory settings" have any effect on the /home directory? In other words, will user files be left untouched?

Definitely. The only thing this will do is re-enable the driver repository to ensure updates, and reapply any non-essential settings or applications (For example, it enables two-finger scrolling, and in the past it installed cheese on laptops). Basically, just the sort of things that lend to the "nuances of the System76 Experience", if you will.

Apart from that, it just does the basic driver installation, like the Install function.

[freechelmi]

Hi All.

I'm always a bit surprised how sometimes Laptops resellers (not system76) might not want everybody to know that the buy barebones from Clevo ( or others) .

But let's Face it : there is no other way. even with 10K units/months , I'm not even sure you could afford your own plastic design etc....

The Clevo ODM model is a great choice and everybody wins, the machines are great and have a quality/price ratio unbeatable, the Bios can be customized for each customer etc....

on the other hand I think it's better if the "builder" tells explicitly that the machine is a Clevo XXXYY. it's easier then to find reviews or replacable parts.