Fedora on System76

[TK492]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone here had any experience with System76 laptops? I know it ships with Ubuntu by default, but I'd be interested in purchasing one of their models in the near future but I'm curious as to how it runs with Fedora installed (mostly regarding drivers I guess).

Thanks for any input!

[smr54]

From what I have seen, they generally sell Clevo laptops. I bought a Clevo from rjtech, and Fedora was fine. I chose an i7 processor--if I remember correctly, they all come with Intel graphics. I chose an Intel wireless card for which I might have had to install some iw firmware--I don't remember, to be honest, but even if I did the wired ethernet worked without any problems.

So, as System76 specifically puts together machines to run Linux, I suspect that it's all going to work pretty well. I would guess that the System76 folks probably care a good deal about their customers' satisfaction, because they are catering to a very small percentage of users, so you can probably get in touch with them and ask.

[bkerensa]

Originally Posted by smr54

From what I have seen, they generally sell Clevo laptops. I bought a Clevo from rjtech, and Fedora was fine. I chose an i7 processor--if I remember correctly, they all come with Intel graphics. I chose an Intel wireless card for which I might have had to install some iw firmware--I don't remember, to be honest, but even if I did the wired ethernet worked without any problems.

So, as System76 specifically puts together machines to run Linux, I suspect that it's all going to work pretty well. I would guess that the System76 folks probably care a good deal about their customers' satisfaction, because they are catering to a very small percentage of users, so you can probably get in touch with them and ask.

System76 specifically builds systems for Ubuntu they do not take other distros into consideration and work closely with Canonical to ensure that all hardware works with each release of Ubuntu that they ship on the laptops in fact they have a special configuration utility on the machine for your initial boot.

[cryogenic666]

There's no real advantage to ordering from System76 if you're not going to be running Ubuntu. You can get a similar Clevo from a ton of other vendors with the same hardware for less money and just order it with no OS. I ordered my laptop through powernotebooks.com and it's been great with Linux. There's also xoticpc, Sager Notebooks, Malibal, Cyberpower and iBuyPower, among many others. Almost all of the hardware a laptop is going to offer will be supported. Wireless is the only piece that I'd be picky about and get an Intel-based card as they seem to do best. Their drivers don't require anything special to install. From my experience, they're included in a default Fedora install.

[smr54]

Well, if we're recommending Clevo sellers, I'm going to put in a good word for rjtech. They were quite quick in responding to pre and post purchase questions. I think I would, if I were going to put an SSD drive in it, buy that elsewhere--I wound up buying the drive from Crucial, for about $100 less than it would have cost from rjtech (with them installing the drive, but that was quite trivial to do.)

[TK492]

Originally Posted by cryogenic666

There's no real advantage to ordering from System76 if you're not going to be running Ubuntu. You can get a similar Clevo from a ton of other vendors with the same hardware for less money and just order it with no OS. I ordered my laptop through powernotebooks.com and it's been great with Linux. There's also xoticpc, Sager Notebooks, Malibal, Cyberpower and iBuyPower, among many others. Almost all of the hardware a laptop is going to offer will be supported. Wireless is the only piece that I'd be picky about and get an Intel-based card as they seem to do best. Their drivers don't require anything special to install. From my experience, they're included in a default Fedora install.

Thanks for your input! I quickly checked out powernotebooks.com and configured an identical build of a Sager to a System76 Lemur that I was considering and it was 100$ less

On that note, I'll be sure to check out all of the different vendors as well as rjtech that seems promissing to make sure to get the best bang for the buck.