Hi I understand that System76 laptops ship with Pop! OS, so I was interested in getting my hands on one. Has anyone on this list had any experience with these laptops they might like to share? I was thinking in particular of getting a Pangolin 16" laptop, and would it support my portable Lenovo ThinkVision M14 monitor? I already have the monitor, and in theory (according to the docs that came with it) it uses USB-C. If a monitor says it uses USB-C, does it need external power? Would a laptop with a Thunderbolt port be better? Paul King
From: sciguy via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
I understand that System76 laptops ship with Pop! OS, so I was interested in getting my hands on one.
You can easily install Pop!OS on almost any PC. It is nice to support a Linux hardware company and the Pop!OS developer. I assume that there is a considerable price premium over the good deals I see on laptops.
Has anyone on this list had any experience with these laptops they might like to share? I was thinking in particular of getting a Pangolin 16" laptop, and would it support my portable Lenovo ThinkVision M14 monitor? I already have the monitor, and in theory (according to the docs that came with it) it uses USB-C. If a monitor says it uses USB-C, does it need external power? Would a laptop with a Thunderbolt port be better?
USB-C is a connector. Almost always the port conforms to some version of the USB-3.x standard. Unfortunately, USB-3.x is all-encompassing: essentially all former USB devices conform to USB-3.2. And very intricate. So just knowing that you have USB-C doesn't give you much info. There are tonnes of options and you need to know which options matter for your use case. You want the DVI-over-USB option for the display data. And you want it to handle your monitor's resolution, refresh rate, and colour depth (bits/pixel). You want "PD" (Power Delivery). I don't happen to know if that covers both the power transmitting side and the power consumption side. If your monitor has a touch screen, that information will be transmitted by some USB protocol, one that is surely present.
On 2025-07-11 9:13, D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk wrote:
From: sciguy via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
I understand that System76 laptops ship with Pop! OS, so I was interested in getting my hands on one.
You can easily install Pop!OS on almost any PC. It is nice to support a Linux hardware company and the Pop!OS developer. I assume that there is a considerable price premium over the good deals I see on laptops.
My attraction to System76 is that both the hardware and the OS are custom-built for each other. But looking back at previous GTALUG discussions on System76, I don't see too many glowing reviews. I know from past experience that "tricked-out" laptops like mine are generally not supported. I refer to my Acer Spin 3, which can be converted into a tablet and has a touchscreen and a stylus. It has Thunderbolt 3 but its support of my Lenovo ThinkVision portable monitor (which says it only needs USB-C without going into further detail) is lacking and works maybe 10% of the time I plug it in. I know the monitor works because it works reliably with my Samsung S24 smartphone. ...
Unfortunately, USB-3.x is all-encompassing: essentially all former USB devices conform to USB-3.2. And very intricate. So just knowing that you have USB-C doesn't give you much info.
... or *need* a particular configuration of USB-C isn't telling me much apparently. ...
You want the DVI-over-USB option for the display data. And you want it to handle your monitor's resolution, refresh rate, and colour depth (bits/pixel).
I don't see "DisplayPort-over-USB" written in the documentation, but I just got it from a blogger (TomsGuide.com) that the Lenovo requires a laptop which supports DisplayPort over USB.
You want "PD" (Power Delivery). I don't happen to know if that covers both the power transmitting side and the power consumption side.
Strangely, it claims to draw power and signal from the same USB cable and only came packaged with one USB-C cable (same connector on both ends). This is despite the fact that the monitor has two USB-C ports. Paul
On 2025-07-11 22:03, sciguy via Talk wrote: ...
My attraction to System76 is that both the hardware and the OS are custom-built for each other. But looking back at previous GTALUG discussions on System76, I don't see too many glowing reviews. I know from past experience that "tricked-out" laptops like mine are generally not supported. I refer to my Acer Spin 3, which can be converted into a tablet and has a touchscreen and a stylus. It has Thunderbolt 3 but its support of my Lenovo ThinkVision portable monitor (which says it only needs USB-C without going into further detail) is lacking and works maybe 10% of the time I plug it in. I know the monitor works because it works reliably with my Samsung S24 smartphone.
I didn't finish my point here. The fact that my laptop is "tricked out" with various weird hardware means that Linux is likely to not have drivers that support things like touchscreen, use of a stylus, screen rotation, video resolution, and so on. With some distros I've tried, it is a problem even getting the netowrk card to be detected (whether with wi-fi or cat-5). The fact that the makers of System76 went to any effort at all to select hardware they know should work with Linux I find appealing. While things like touchscreen and screen rotation is not essential for me these days, these are just examples of things that "just worked" under windows and can become a big problem with Linux. Paul
From: sciguy via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
On 2025-07-11 22:03, sciguy via Talk wrote: ...
My attraction to System76 is that both the hardware and the OS are custom-built for each other.
In theory, you can get the same effect from mainstream vendors on models that ship with Linux or specify that Linux is supported. Most of those are not cheap, low-end models (my favourites!). Here's a reasonable deal for a Dell notebook that you can order with Ubuntu: <https://forums.redflagdeals.com/dell-latitude-3550-laptop-customized-linux-i3-1315u-8gb-256gb-long-life-battery-15-6in-fhd-ips-486-2771253/> Generally speaking, I've only had minor annoyances with Fedora on consumer laptops. (Pretty) full disclosure of problems: - Fedora comes with only open source drivers - Fedora makes it easy to install Nvidia closed-source drivers, but you must make a conscious act to get them. - I don't know if fingerprint readers are a problem because I don't use them. They used to be fairly proprietary. - some WiFi cards used to be a problem. I haven't hit that in quite a few years. - My HP Aero came with a buggy WiFi card (suspend related, in Windows and Linux). There was a setting to mitigate the problem in Win 10 and and in Linux but not in Win11. I replaced the card with a better on. (Stewart Russell helped.) - there are always bugs in the UEFI firmware but few cause me problems. - It has taken Linux a few weeks to support really new features. + I experienced that a decade ago with the Asus UX305C touchpad. After a bit, a kernel update fixed it. + longer ago, I had a problem with a Dell monitor with a touchscreen. Seems to work now.
But looking back at previous GTALUG discussions on System76, I don't see too many glowing reviews. I know from past experience that "tricked-out" laptops like mine are generally not supported.
I refer to my Acer Spin 3, which can be converted into a tablet and has a touchscreen and a stylus.
- I have touch-screens and they work. Including on my Acer Spin 1. Rotating works too. - I have an old ThinkPad x61 with a stylus, and that works. I have no newer stylus. - video resolution is easy to change from GNOME. - some firmware "features" took a while to support. Like when Modern Standby mode was introduced (and various sleep states disappeared).
It has Thunderbolt 3 but its support of my Lenovo ThinkVision portable monitor (which says it only needs USB-C without going into further detail) is lacking and works maybe 10% of the time I plug it in. I know the monitor works because it works reliably with my Samsung S24 smartphone.
USB continues to be a mystery to me. I just tried connecting an external monitor to my Asus Vivobook S with a single USB cable. - reading the manual, I learned that only one of the two USB-C ports could do power and signal - the USB-C ports on the Vivobook had a symbol for DisplayPort (good+) - my USB cable with the voltage indicator powered the monitor but sent no video signal - a USB cable that came with the monitor did work for both power and signal A stupid amount of fiddling.
I didn't finish my point here. The fact that my laptop is "tricked out" with various weird hardware means that Linux is likely to not have drivers that support things like touchscreen, use of a stylus, screen rotation, video resolution, and so on. With some distros I've tried, it is a problem even getting the netowrk card to be detected (whether with wi-fi or cat-5).
When my son got a motherboard with a built-in 2.5G ethernet, the chip wasn't supported via the installation kernel but it was supported when he did an update. This was before the pandemic.
The fact that the makers of System76 went to any effort at all to select hardware they know should work with Linux I find appealing. While things like touchscreen and screen rotation is not essential for me these days, these are just examples of things that "just worked" under windows and can become a big problem with Linux.
If you do a vanilla installation of Windows, you will find that fewer devices work than with a vanilla installation of Fedora. If you buy a computer with Windows installed, the vendor will have added device drivers their hardware needs.
On Fri, Jul 11, 2025 at 10:04 PM sciguy via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
My attraction to System76 is that both the hardware and the OS are custom-built for each other. But looking back at previous GTALUG discussions on System76, I don't see too many glowing reviews. I know from past experience that "tricked-out" laptops like mine are generally not supported.
In a former life I recall System76 people just being jerks to deal with, so I never went into the details of the hardware. The same concept holds true for Germany's Tuxedo Computers and the TuxedoOS (which is my current choice of distro). Tuxedo had much nicer people. (PLUS keep in mind that Canada currently has reciprocal 25% tariffs on computer purchases crossing the border from the US to Canada. No such tariffs exist for computers coming from the EU.) Generally speaking, both Pop_OS and Tuxedo_OS were done by the hardware manufacturers for what they use themselves, so the hardware they ship is assured to be supported but you're at the mercy of community help for anything beyond that. I don't see "DisplayPort-over-USB" written in the documentation, but I just
got it from a blogger (TomsGuide.com) that the Lenovo requires a laptop which supports DisplayPort over USB.
Tom's Guide is hardly a personal blog, there's not even a Tom anymore. It's one of the largest tech news and review sites in the world. - Evan
participants (4)
-
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Evan Leibovitch -
sciguy -
Scott Allen