this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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The System76 Lemur Pro is light, thin, repairable, and upgradeable. It’s the best Linux laptop we’ve tested.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

The Lemur Pro starts at $1,150 for an Intel i5 machine with 8 GB of RAM and a 256-GB SSD.

Seems a bit expensive no? About dead on with macbook air pricing

if you're strictly looking at value, it's a better value to buy a macbook air with m2 and the same stats and just install linux on it.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Only asahi linux works on Apple m chips right? Is it even stable?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

No. Asahi unfortunately has a long way to go. Last I checked it didn't even have proper audio.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Ah shit, you're right, pardon my ignorance.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

For the nearly $1500 spec they tested you can basically get a Framework 16, with much better upgradability and a 2560x1600 165hz vrr display.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Yeah actually much better comparison.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm looking for a new laptop and really don't know much about hardware these days (been running my old 2015 toshiba sattellite lol, I usually just have hand-me-downs), but I'm looking at getting something that doesn't make me sacrifice my firstborn to an eldritch being to change the goddamn battery. So far I have sys76 and framework on the list, are there any other manufacturers I should also look at? And any reasons I should or should not get a laptop from any of these companies (like this one above, which is a point for framework)?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I was looking at getting a laptop from System76 but the shipping to Europe is insane. I’ve heard some good things about Tuxedo Computers. I don’t have personal experience with any of them so can’t comment on that

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was doing a similar breakdown back when I bought my System76. The difference was upgradability. If I ever thought I might need more RAM I'd have to buy that up front on the MacBook air, putting its price over 1,700 off the shelf for the max ram. System76 cost close to the base MacBook air model, but I can add RAM and upgrades at my choosing, find the best price, and install them myself when I need them. That was worth it for me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The issue is that the M1 (M2 and M3) chips are way more efficient than X86 chips and they gets really good battery life compared to standard PC hardware. So I can hate on the software, the price, the lack of expand-ability, and so much more but I can't get that efficiency anywhere else.

System76 doesn't have some massively efficient ARM chip and system to separate them from any other windows laptop maker I just put linux on. You buy System76 because you like System76. I can live with that and I am very willing to spend more for less in places I feel matter.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I'm pretty sure system76 will would way better with Linux.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's definitely ridiculously expensive.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I just can't get over the 1080p screen. It's the one thing that's always held me back from buying a System 76.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The awful screen is one big reason I don't use my System76 laptop more often. It's the worst laptop screen I've ever seen, has terrible light bleed, and has a pink tint. And this is the warranty replacement they tried to charge me for. The first one had the same awful screen, but kept freezing on me randomly.

And the damn thing STILL has hardware features that only work on Windows 10, five years later (like multi-finger trackpad gestures). I'll take System76 seriously when they start putting good screens in their laptops and get rid of nvidia.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Really? I love the scream on my labtop. It isn't super high resolution or anything but its readable in the sun and is pretty color actuate

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Multi finger trackpad gestures work fine on PopOS? I've had no issues with them on my XPS 13...

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I'm curious. What do you prefer, some larger res with resolution scaling? How's the scaling situation on DEs/WMs nowadays? Last I tried it, it was pretty abysmal. Admittedly it was years ago, but it used to be that mixed scaling wasn't possible, so if my laptop was higher DPI and needed scaling, I'd need to run any external monitor with display scaling as well. I've avoided high DPI/display scaling on purpose for a while at this point because of it, and tend to prioritize usable pixel real estate.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm using OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on a Dell XPS 13 9360 with a 3300x1800 13" screen and Wayland, and it works fine. There was one application (Sublime Merge) where I had to edit some scaling configuration settings, and there's one tray-based tool (Jetbrains Toolbox) that comes up tiny, but for everything else the global scaling setting in KDE has done a fine job. It also handles dual monitors with different resolutions.

I don't like 1080 screens because small text becomes unreadable more quickly on them. It's less of an issue with a small screen, but it still counts against a machine for me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Whatever works for you haha. Admittedly, I'm the kind of guy that's running a 34" ultra wide + two 22" monitors on top, and is looking at replacing them with a single 42-43" 4k monitor right now just to have the equivalent of a bezelless 2x2 grid of 21" monitors lol. And they're all budget/business monitors. So I may not be a reference on display quality... I'm obsessed with having tons of things on screen at once. The ADHD object permanence issues ("out of sight, out of mind" is my default state) might have something to do with it...

I'll have to check it out again then, if display scaling got better since.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Also a great way to get more performance and increase battery life. On a laptop, most folks would be hard pressed to see the difference between 1080p and a higher resolution.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's the odd part. I run Pop!_OS on a ThinkPad with a 4K touch screen at 175% scaling and it looks beautiful. The scaling on the DE is superb. I don't understand why they don't offer a HiDPI option on their laptops.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And it works fine with multiple monitors at different scaling ratios, or does it scale them all the same? That's the actual part that didn't work correctly for me, back then.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No problem. I have three screens, the built-in at 175%, the attached 1440p at 100% and the 1080p also at 100%.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Well damn. Interesting. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My bet is that it’s to preserve battery life. Driving hi-res screens takes power.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

My 2018er Thinkpad x1 carbon has 1920x1080 and runs over 10 hours. And has better hw suppport than this "Linux Laptop".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

i can't get over how much more they cost than a similarly spec'ed mac with macs being superior in every single benchmark (except privacy and customizability)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Mac are only competitive on the smallest configuration, as you start to add the same options to each the Mac pricing goes through the roof while this one's price will only increase by a bit.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is it possible to buy a display off some marketplace with the same connector, and hopefully, the display controller plays nice with the motherboard?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I guess, but at that point you might as well get a different laptop rather than void the warranty if the System 76.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Upgrading/tinkering doesn't void your warranty. Explicitly.

And their customer service is top notch. I thought I bricked my gazelle when I upgraded the memory, but their customer service walked me through how to fix it - didn't even bat an eye.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Upgrading/tinkering doesn't void your warranty. Explicitly.

This is generally true with everything in the USA (covered by the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act) even though companies are sketchy about it and try to convince people that it'll void their warranty. The manufacturer has to prove that your upgraded part was the direct cause of the issue you're trying to claim under warranty.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I did not know that - my point is that system76 is not at all sketchy about it. They actively encourage tinkering, make it clear that you won't void your warranty, and have extensive technical documentation to explain how to do upgrades etc

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I love companies like that. The world needs more of them.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

They sell laptops with 4k screens.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Modern standby really took things backward for x86 laptops

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

IIRC it’s something about not actually going to S3 sleep to keep stuff like networking alive

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Yeah I mean I get C-states for things that idle a lot, like homeservers, but i still don’t see the reasoning for outright replacing traditional suspend on computers. Now you have to worry if some random pcie device is going to up your consumption by 5 watts during suspension. Well, at least that’s only a big issue on laptops.

Sorry for rambling

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

1920×1080 FH

Not 2k. Not 16:9. Probably doesn’t even cover DCI-P3 or decent color accuracy. Folks are gonna keep thinking Linux is a geeks-only thing if you have terrible panel that’s bad for content creation.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

1920×1080 FH

Not 2k. Not 16:9.

How isn't that 19:9?

And QHD isn't really necessary on a laptop imo.

I still won't buy it though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have had 1080, 4k, & 2k laptops in my life. 1080 text is blurry. 4k is obviously overkill wasting battery on pixels you can’t see. 2k has crisp text without so much wasted density & you have to get unreasonably close to the panel to tell the difference.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

1080p is 2k. From Wikipedia: "2K resolution is a generic term for display devices or content having a horizontal resolution of approximately 2,000 pixels.[1] In the movie projection industry, Digital Cinema Initiatives is the dominant standard for 2K output and defines a 2K format with a resolution of 2048 × 1080.[2][3] For television and consumer media, 1920 × 1080 is the most common 2K resolution, but this is normally referred to as 1080p." (emphasis mine)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You are correct.

I meant “2.8K (2880 × 1800)” or thereabouts but misremembered the naming.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Goddammit, I didn’t need a reason to upgrade my laptop (I have a carbon X1 running Fedora and the failure to suspend drives me bonkers).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Sounds like a great laptop to run Windows on /s

Edit: quite surprising how many people don't understand the /s.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like how not even the "/s" saved you from the brainless.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I guess, they, for some reason, do want people to run Windows on that machine^^

Or they are triggered so hard, that they couldn't even understand the /s anymore when they got to that point of the sentence.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It's just a bad joke.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

You can. There's nothing stopping you

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