Please share your experiences with System76

[aysiu]

Point of this thread
Oftentimes, people ask about System76. Is it worth it? What's it like? Well, I'm starting this thread with my experience, but I'm hoping other people will share their first-hand experiences, not hearsay. If you want to share your experiences with System76, please tack on to this thread. If you have an "I have five friends who..." experience, I will move your post to another thread.

My view on the company
I'm a firm believer in what System76 does. It is one of few companies that sell preinstalled Linux laptops at reasonably competitive prices. Sure--without the crazy bulk discounts that Dell has--a small vendor will never be able to have the absolute lowest prices, but System76 does manage to keep things cheap. Carl Richell gave me the unique opportunity (thank you, Carl) to review a Gazelle Value a few weeks ago.

Some myths about System76
I'd like to dispell a few myths about System76. First of all, as Carl informs me, they are not ASUS laptops (at least not the Gazelle Value) but Quanta ones. As you can read in the following links, almost all laptops are Quanta ones of some variety:
http://store.agearnotebooks.com/sagernotebooks.html
http://www.reed-electronics.com/move...CA6277490.html

The other thing is that System76 actually does something. The laptop you get out-of-the-box is not the same as a fresh install of Ubuntu. System76 has its own drivers and special configurations to get, for example, the media card reader to work or the screen resolution to be truly widescreen. It also installs the network manager applet, adds in all the major extra repositories, and includes the deskbar. It gives you a quick printout guide introducing you to basic navigation around Gnome and Synaptic, and also directing you to various System76 resources.

That said, one thing that I was a bit surprised to find was the CDs that came with the laptop--they were full of Windows drivers. No matter how much we try to make it a Ubuntu world, we still live in a Windows world. Even a "blank" laptop is still ultimately a Windows laptop. System76 does have a downloadable System76 driver .deb, and I believe they will ship you a restore CD if you ask for it, but I've suggested to Carl (and he seemed receptive to it) that the default should include a restore CD.

Overall impressions / Pros
I was generally impressed with the experience. The shipping was nigh-immediate (a couple of days after I placed the order)--even though it's supposed to take ten business days--and the packaging was very secure. I thought the outside of the laptop looked slick and sturdy. It booted and automatically detected the local wireless connection. All the keys worked (brightness, sound, etc.). It was a pretty seamless experience.

The cons
There was one big wrench thrown in there--suspend had broken in Edgy (you can find a few threads about it in these very System76 subforums) even though hibernate worked just fine. Personally--and I let Carl know this--I don't think they should have released Edgy laptops if things were working fine in Dapper, but he assures me they're going to be working more closely with Canonical to make sure compatibility stays better in the future, and he also said they have finally now fixed suspend, and this is now advertised in the Meet the New Gazelle Value thread posted a week ago. So while I found that disappointing, I don't think that should inform your decision to buy a System76 laptop, since it is now fixed.

While I was generally impressed with the polish of the installation (sans suspend), there were some little nitpicky problems I had with other parts of the laptop (which other people--and I've read other people's experiences--didn't seem to have problems with... maybe I'm too picky). The power button was a small sliver. I had to sort of dig my fingernail in to press it. I like finger-sized buttons. Again, I'm probably nitpicking. Carl says he uses a Gazelle Value on a regular basis and, after a while, you get used to the small button. I also found the speakers a bit tinny-sounding... fine for movies but a bit too much treble on music. On the plus side, it is the speakers and not the sound card. When I tried it with headphones, the tinny-ness went away.

If these things sound as if they might not be a big deal for you, then great. If they might be, well, the good news is that apparently they might be getting new laptops. More details in this thread: What is the new gear from System76?

A few more pros
Battery life was excellent--a good four hours. And the laptop runs silently most of the time. Every twenty minutes or so, the fan fires up for a second or two just to keep things cool.

Recommendations
All my dealings with Carl have been positive. He is an upbeat guy who is professional and very fast in responding to emails (though real, not just test, users should probably use the forums and not harass him personally). You can see, even on these forums, he's very quick to respond. The System76 experience is, in many ways, what you'd expect--it's a laptop that's preinstalled and preconfigured with Ubuntu. Since suspend works now, it's the kind of thing you actually could just give to people with no Ubuntu experience. And if you have to give them some instructions to install codecs, at least all the major extra repositories are already enabled.

If you don't mind a small power button, and you plan to listen to music through speakers or headphones, you shouldn't hesitate to order a Gazelle Value. If those things do matter to you, you may want to wait for the new gear. Of course, I haven't tested the Serval or the Koala (I'm sure suspend on a desktop doesn't matter as much anyway).

Overall, I'd say the company gets an A, the hardware gets a B, and the software if suspend were still broken would get a C, but now that suspend is fixed gets an A+.

That's my honest assessment. I think there are great things to come with this company. I do hope that Carl will take my suggestions to heart about a restore CD by default and not including anything that even has the chance of breakage.

[aysiu]

Until more people post their experiences here, you can also read these links/threads:
thinking 'bout an S76 laptop?
My new system76 gazelle value laptop
my new linux laptop
review of system76

Please keep in mind the System76 ships to only the US at the moment. Here is a comprehensive list of companies selling preinstalled Linux or no-OS computers, and it's an international list.

[DonDailey]

Here is my experience so far with System 76.

I tried to order a desktop system via the web interface but there was
some glitch in the ordering process. No problem, I figured it could
possbily be my fault.

I placed a call to sales in order to set up my order and get the
standard telephone menu system. After being connected to
Sales I get a message saying all representatives are busy,
please leave your number and someone will return your call.

After about an hour, I repeat the process. After 2 more hours
I repeat the process again. Still no return telephone call, no
way to contact.

The last attempt was by email and of course I have yet to receive
a response from them.

I read the positive review on this forum so maybe I am expecting
too much - but my experience has not been positive so far.

I may put together a system from scratch. If I do, I think I want
to make this useful to others. Would it be useful if someone like
myself made a list of components needed that would run Ubuntu
smoothly at a budget price? I think such a list would be useful
to the Ubuntu community and would save a lot of aggravation
becuase it's very tedious shopping for parts. That's why I
gravitated towards system 76 in the first place.

A good example of such a list for nice Ubuntu system is here:

http://cr.yp.to/hardware/build-20060107.html

Unfortunately, it is a year old but it would still make a rather
powerful system at a pretty low price.



- Don

[DonDailey]

This is an update to my previous post. It took several hours, but
eventually Carl returned my call and was very apologetic about
the delay and was extremely helpful.

So I ordered a new system, core 2 duo e6700 with 2 gig of memory
at the amazing price of only $1290 with Ubuntu of course.

I'll keep everyone posted on how this developes, good or bad. I am
hopefully optimistic that this company will do a lot to promote Linux
and help drive the prices of other Linux machines down to a reasonable
level.

- Don

[KoRnholio]

I bought a standard Pangolin about a month ago. First thing I noticed is the laptop case is very nice.

The situation with my laptop is the same as aysiu's. Things just work. Wireless is great and has no hassle associated with it. Setting up the computer out of the box is a breeze. I was even able to fairly easily play Warcraft III on Wine with it (just compiled newest version of Wine, no real configuration problems), and it runs very fast on the Intel card (224 MB video memory is good for a 'value' laptop) with all the video options turned on high. Granted Warcraft III is from 6-7 years ago, but with that amount of video memory, it should be able to handle relatively new games as well.

The only 'problems' were -

1. Hibernate/Suspend. This still doesn't work. This didn't damper my experience with it at all, cause I never use hibernate and suspend.

2. The speakers are subpar. This doesn't bother me one bit, as who listens to music on laptop speakers? They sound good plugged into headphones or external speakers - and if I'm listening to music, its on good speakers. If there's one thing thats okay to skimp on to make a laptop comparable in price to distributors who benefit from economies of scale, its speakers.

These two problems, as I explained, didn't really affect my satisfaction with the laptop at all. I haven't had a need to use their customer support, so I can't comment either way.

[kevinlyfellow]

I have had my gazelle performance (old version) about 6 months ago. I developed a problem after about 2 weeks. I posted on the forum and tried to get it resolved with carl (I never did, I just reinstalled since it was new and the problem was enigmatic). I had a bad install cd, carl immediately sent me a new one, no questions asked, no price to pay. Even since then, everything has been running very smoothly. I'm still running dapper, suspend doesn't work, but hibernate does and everything else, including the webcam. The battery, when desperately conserved lasted me almost 5 hours once. My laptop is quieter than most laptops that I've heard/used. People who I was working with (not knowing what an operating system was) were impressed by the computer itself and the interface (yes windows users thought that linux looked easy ) Assuming that system76 is still around and still provides the quality that they do now, I will buy my next computer from them.

[Ubunted]

Not much of an experience here, but it's worth telling.

Ordered a Serval Performance about 6 or so months ago. This was the previous generation Serval with the ATI x1600 graphics. Had the 2Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 80GB hard drive - the works.

Order process was smooth and easy and went through. Order was sent through to manufacturing a few days later.

Unfortunately, that's where it stopped. A few emails back and forth to Carl informed me that they were out of stock in parts to put together my machine. No big deal; supply shortages happen.

A month goes by, no word on the laptop. Another email to Carl is quickly responded to, stating they still don't have any word on parts, but he will gladly offer me one of the new nVidia Serval machines immediately, also suggested a Bonobo or Gazelle, or I can continue to wait for the ATi model. After some humming and hawing on my part, I decided to cancel - the nVidia Servals just don't appeal to me visually like the old one did (looks the same as the current Pangolin series), the Bonobo is just too BIG and the lack of dedicated graphics and SATA turned off the Gazelle for me.

I call the company, Carl himself picks up the phone directly and the cancellation is done without hassle.

So while I never got the machine itself, my overall experience was very positive, and I am drooling over the current Gazelle Performance right now.

[jml]

I will be buying a laptop from System 76 in the very near future, but I have actually interected with the company twice already. I had questions regarding the products offered as well as future products. My first inquiry was via e-mail and I recieved a response in less than 24 hours. This was over a weekend!

My second inquirery was via this forum, and again, Carl's response was rapid, and very helpful to me. Customer service seems to be a high priority with this company and that's important to me. Just my two cents.

Joe

[bobbybobington]

I'm looking at getting a laptop fairly soon as well, and the gazelle or darter are at the top of my list. I'm looking at getting one sometime after feisty is released as I'll need it for the the beginning of classes in the fall. Any questions that I've ever asked have been answered quickly and we helpful. System76 is by far the best linux computer company i've found to date and I'm looking forward to buying from them. All I have to do now is get a job.

[anttch360]

I placed an order for a Gazelle Performance a few days before Christmas. Right after the order maybe 30mins I got a call from System76 explaining to me that my laptop wont be ready in time for Christmas. Which was perfectly acceptable to me. I received my laptop the day after Christmas which I wasn't expecting at all. I was very impressed.

Booting my laptop the first time I played around with the buttons at the top of the keyboard curios if the Internet, email, etc. buttons would work, to my amazement they did. However I quickly found out that it wasn't seeing the wireless card. So I went ahead and ran the live CD I had on me, and found out the wireless was working. So I went ahead and reinstalled the OS. After reinstalling the OS It accrued to me that the buttons at the top of the keyboard no longer worked, and I figured it was manually configure at the factory. I was a little bummed out about that. I went ahead and installed the system76's driver which took like five minutes, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that all the keyboard configurations were back to the way it was. Yes the wireless was still working so I was very happy.

Several weeks later system76 updated there drivers to support the web cam on my laptop, which worked flawlessly.

To this day I haven't had any problems, and would highly recommend System76.