Don’t buy System76 hardware and expect to get firmware updates from the LVFS

https://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2018/05/09/system76-and-the-lvfs/

by anarcat • 8 years ago

163 133 8 years ago

blogs.gnome.org

obsurveyor• 8 years ago

There's also a response from someone at System76 here: https://plus.google.com/+CassidyJames/posts/RDKMJtGoX62

_asummers3• 8 years ago

Classy. That's a great, professional way to build relationships and really makes people want to work with you on your project.

That's.... not how this should be handled. Unsure this person's position, but if they're high enough to matter, that's not the position they should be taking here, regardless of their feelings on the matter.

They also didn't address the technical parts of the article besides saying "it will probably work though we haven't tested it". They didn't discuss the reason for the degradation of communication, nor the particulars of the decisions made, or even acknowledge the scenario the article outlined, instead talking about the author negatively.

_wmd• 8 years ago

It sounds like the "breakdown in communication" amounts to the LVFS maintainer not being informed, as everyone is naturally obliged to do so(!), that System76 were adopting a different strategy, and according to this reply due to a simple matter of commercial priority. Maintainer continues by indicating they do not require an apology, after all, everyone is obliged to inform them of all matters firmware!

I didn't like the attitude in the original post, and I can understand why there is a little spice in System76's reply. Recommending a competing laptop brand over an issue as trivial as an alternative BIOS update mechanism that doesn't match Microsoft's compliance requirements seems like seriously sour grapes.

It seems they expect System76 to invent an in-house firmware update system that does not use the official mechanism supplied by their chipset's support package, and somehow this is automatically a better outcome than what existed already.

Maintainer should be reminded that toiling for free (presumably) on an important subsystem grants no special rights or entitlements, and lashing out at a vendor because they didn't toe an ideal line looks very immature

edit: sadly maintainer isn't even working for free, they're a Red Hat employee

Lunatic6662• 8 years ago

I don't see him talking about the closed source flashing tool afuefi, which seemed to be the reason for the hickup in working together.

cptskippy7• 8 years ago

Richard's post made it clear that they didn't need to use it, they should be able to use UpdateCapsule.

cptskippy7• 8 years ago

Yay drama! Why act like adults when we can squabble.

It sounds like the folks at System76 have a limited amount of resources available and this is not an immediate priority for them. That's understandable considering the last 6 months have been a security shit show. I mean sure why not overhaul your firmware delivery system on top of everything else?

It also sounds like Richard is butt hurt that they didn't notify him of their priorities. And so he passive aggressively wrote a public blog post trivializing the amount of effort it was going to take to switch and then advised people not to purchase their products. That's kind of petty.

I find it really insulting when someone tells me how long it will take me to do something without knowing what constraints I'm forced to work under, so the "just a few hours" remarks annoyed me.

netsharc• 8 years ago

As someone who've never heard of LVFS or System76, this response seems to be a bit unprofessional to me. He opens and ends with passive-aggressiveness, he points to 2 tweets as if saying "How did you not see these 2 tweets!" Well okay one of them is his reply to the original blog poster's reply to another thread, but a random non-commital tweet after several months of radio silence seems unprofessional too.

Lunatic6662• 8 years ago

I'm currently using a System76 laptop, but it's for sure my last one. The build quality is pretty poor and the touchpad is so annoying that I disabled it. When the fan broke and had to be replaced I had to take over the shipping costs and replace it myself. While I don't matter replacing parts, I don't see why I have to pay for the shipping during the warranty. Now this article on top, I'll see if I can get rid of it quickly, I went back using my old Lenovo X230 again anyway.

ghba66• 8 years ago

Where do you live? I'm pretty sure that is illegal in the EU

isostatic• 8 years ago

I think he lives in Singapore. Consumer protection rules there weren't great from what I remember, although I only tended to buy a few things for the office from Sim Lim square

neuromantik8086• 8 years ago

I bought a lemur in 2012 and had consistent issues with overheating that caused the laptop to shut off. Bought an external fan, but that helped very little.

Ended up buying a Macbook Pro.

I did use a gazelle at one of my jobs, and had fewer issues with that. In general though, I'd be extremely chary of buying system76 in the future. They're basically just rebranding generic Clevo laptops with very little value added imho. If I absolutely needed a Linux laptop I'd preferring dual-booting a Mac using rEFIt, buying a Dell XPS, or virtualizing.

znpy• 8 years ago

When I sent my ThinkPad X220 to Lenovo for service under warranty, they sent UPS to my house to pick it and sent it back to me via UPS. All for free.

mmrezaie• 8 years ago

For my ThinkPad x1 they came to the restaurant I was fixed it in like 3 minutes (had to replace the CPU fan), like a ninja. But I still cannot update the BIOS from Linux with the fwup, and fingerprint reader doesn't work. I had XPS 15 and if it wasn't because of the horrid coil whine I would have kept it. Their linux support is very good.

foepys2• 8 years ago

If you buy a T-series Thinkpad (probably also the X1), they will even send out technicians to your workplace or home with replacement parts - at least in Germany and I suppose a lot of other countries.

vuln• 8 years ago

I love my x220 I use it everyday.

rossdavidh• 8 years ago

I've had my System76 Lemur for a couple years now and have had absolutely no problems with it.

stamps• 8 years ago

Librem 13 is pretty good so far.

I just moved from my x230 (FHD mod, coreboot, and x220 keyboard) and the only thing I miss is the trackpoint so far.

prophesi• 8 years ago

Yep, came here to recommend the Librem laptops. The hardware's not quite as high-spec, but their security + libre focus more than makes up for it.

owenversteeg• 8 years ago

That sounds like an awesome setup. Why'd you move? And are you selling your old x230? I'd be interested.

zamazingo2• 8 years ago

Comparing it to galago pro 13", Librem 13 seems to be $200-$400 more expensive with half the memory. Is there something extra you get with Librem that you wouldn't get with a galago? Is it about the company, the hardware, the software, something else?

Asking out of actual curiosity. I'm not familiar with puri.sm

Not affiliated with system76 but I do own one of their laptops.

haZard_OS• 8 years ago

I have two laptops for work, one of which is a System76 and both are currently running POP! OS (made by System76). I have had a few hiccups with the OS but nothing major.

I would say that I am very satisfied with S76. The 2 times I have had to contact them during the last 16 months or so have been good experiences, as well.

tenken• 8 years ago

I got a work laptop 5+ years ago, system76 and it was Rock solid and still works. Bought a home PC sys76 in 2016 also solid. Bought a new laptop 2 months ago, Onynx and doing great minus an issue with dual mini display port inputs on login (the displays shutoff on desktop dislpay and I have to open/close the laptop lid to redetect all attached displays...)

I've had 1 or 2 minor help request issues and they've always come through promptly.

markbnj2• 8 years ago

My S76 laptop that I use for work has been solid in terms of functionality and reliability. I can't complain about those things. The overall build quality of the laptop is terrible. The touchpad is terrible and has poor fit and finish. The keyboard is terrible. The display is pretty decent, no complaints there. Thing is this machine cost around $1600, which is not cheap and puts it in a category where flaws like these are not acceptable. I like literally everything else about the company, and would want to support them on my next purchase, but they need to produce higher quality products at the price point.

zamazingo2• 8 years ago

Similar story here.

Got mine since 2010 or 2011. It's my only machine, is used daily and regularly, and works without issues.

That touchpad though; it does acquire sentience sometimes :) [I don't care, tbh; it's something I can easily tolerate from a small retailer doing Linux-only work, versus e.g. Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.]

redthrow• 8 years ago

I also bought a lemur several years ago, paying ~$150 for customs for Canadian shipment (obviously not S76's fault).

Thought it was worth it because I was supporting a Linux-friendly company.

The laptop had constant fan noise issues and the touchpad stopped working after a year.

Now I use a fanless desktop mini pc that I found on AliExpress that has Ubuntu pre-installed. Life is much better now.

Stephen304• 8 years ago

I had the same experience with a fan in my System76 laptop, though I was a week or so out of warranty so I had to pay $40 and install it as well. That combined with an internal standoff in the corner breaking within the first month, causing the laptop to flex open like a book, really killed any confidence I had in their build quality.

ddtaylor3• 8 years ago

System76 has a littered history with firmware updates and drivers, especially for a company that brands itself as a specialist in Linux systems. If you're paying that premium in hopes you'll get a fully working system without quirks, be prepared for disappointment. I have had better luck with simply buying the most popular laptop since it's more likely to be working correctly without hours of configurations.

dudul2• 8 years ago

What premium are you paying? I never found that System76 products were that expensive. I owned one a while ago. It lasted 6 years and was still working when I replaced it.

moondowner• 8 years ago

To be honest these are premium prices: https://system76.com/laptops

ddtaylor3• 8 years ago

Mainly comparing what you can get for a similar price in terms of CPU speed and memory size for half the cost. Their $920 laptop compares to a $500 Dell. In theory this is worth it because you're paying for that awesome Linux integration, but in practice more people buy the Dell laptop so more people are invested in making it work for daily use.

freehunter• 8 years ago

Their cheapest laptop costs $1000, which is Macbook money, which is a premium-priced product.

dudul2• 8 years ago

OK, I guess based on the downvotes people mostly think that these are premium prices. I honestly thought it was in the average range for the given specs.

bllguo• 8 years ago

yes, agreed completely. In general I've come to this conclusion: avoid buying hardware from small/lesser-known companies if possible. It doesn't matter how cool their tech is - what I'm sacrificing is not worth it. Every time, I'm missing build quality, support, and an online community that has already gone through and found solutions to most of the major issues.

I find it hard to imagine a situation where a s76 laptop can do something that a Dell XPS can't.

uvtc2• 8 years ago

If you're paying that premium in hopes you'll get a fully working system without quirks, be prepared for disappointment. I have had better luck with simply buying the most popular laptop since it's more likely to be working correctly without hours of configurations.

I disagree. I buy from, for example, ThinkPenguin, precisely because they've vetted the systems and I'm confident they will "just work" if I do a fresh reinstall.

ddtaylor3• 8 years ago

I'm not saying it's impossible or unwanted, just my experience with System76 and my friends had similar problems.

omeid22• 8 years ago

As someone who is using Linux as my main OS for over a decade, I totally appreciate initiatives like LVFS that makes using Linux more seamless.

Running Linux on MacBook Pro has also exposed me to the struggle of firmware updates and all that jazz.

So the hard work of Richard Hughes on LVFS is not lost me but I think he could have definitely handle the whole S76 issue more professionally. The whole blog post has a very personal vendetta overtone.

The way forward from my point of view would be for System76 to spend a few hours making UpdateCapsule work correctly, another few days to build an EFI binary with the EC update, and a few more hours to write the metadata for the LVFS. I don’t require an apology, and would happily create them a OEM account on the LVFS.

That is not how large organizations work. And if you're trying to build something to get large vendors on board, this demand for apology nonsense is not going to help you.

PS. Don't own a S76 system, don't work for them.

rkangel• 8 years ago

I don’t require an apology, and would happily create them a OEM account on the LVFS

He is specifically not demanding an apology, and is explicitly saying he is happy to continue to work with them.

omeid22• 8 years ago

It implies that someone owes an apology or at least an apology is fitting but the author is willing to forgo it.

digi_owl3• 8 years ago

Nah, it is a passive-aggressive turn of phrase to try to make System76 look bad by being the "lesser" party.

It is the kind of crap one would expect from a project spawned of the Gnome camp...

cptskippy7• 8 years ago

And he's butt hurt that they shipped without LVFS so he's publicly admonishing them, trivializing the effort, and telling people to boycott their products.

But at least he's willing to work with them.

justin66• 8 years ago

That is not how large organizations work.

Wikipedia indicates they employ 21 people. That could be off by an order of magnitude and it still wouldn't qualify as a "large organization."

gtvwill• 8 years ago

Hmm I wonder how many employees s76 actually has? because in the reply from s76 it hints towards a rather larger company than 21 people.

"System76 is also focusing on several other time-intensive efforts (like building a US-based manufacturing plant, designing in-house products, and building a well-received GNOME-based OS for both System76 customers and any interested users)"

Like shit if they are designing and building a manufacturing plant with 21 people in house whilst also maintaining normal business selling and maintaining hardware... My hat goes off to them...for either being amazing or being so crazy stupid to think they could pull it off!

overcast• 8 years ago

They could be off by two orders of magnitude and not qualify. 2100 is not what I would consider large by any stretch.

X-Istence• 8 years ago

How did:

I don’t require an apology

Get turned into:

[...] this demand for apology nonsense [...]

cptskippy7• 8 years ago

When someone says "you don't need to apologize" it implies an apology is customary/necessary given the situation but the wronged party has decided to forgo formalities and just wants to move past the wrong and move forward with making it right.

Richard basically says "you don't need to apologize, just implement LVFS". This implies that the wrong which necessitated an apology was not shipping LVFS which is not the case. The only apology they might owe him is for not notifying him of the reason why they chose not to ship LVFS after spending time with him investigating using it.

This situation is like spending the day with a car salesman and then leaving without buying a car when the salesman takes a potty break. Then the car salesman runs a TV commercial that says "<you> wasted my time. I don't need an apology though, just buy one of my cars."

codegeek• 8 years ago

Aah System76. I had a terrible experience with their keyboard back in 2012 and they just said they can send a replacement keyboard but would not refund because as a consumer, it is my responsibility to install a new keyboard even though it was their fault. So I had to figure out how to become a technician, rip open the faulty keyboard and try and install the new one. Looks like they have not changed much. Good riddance.

Xeboc4• 8 years ago

System76 tech support here. One of our primary principles is empowerment and enablement. I strive to teach, support, and educate individuals on Linux and hardware maintenance. We tend to have individuals handle minor repairs, as shipping a whole laptop is time consuming and exposes the hardware to the additional possibility of shipping damage or other loss. At any point in time, we are more than happy to bring a computer in and do the repair work. Unless otherwise requested, keeping a computer with an individual tends to be the best, as it allows the computer to continue to be used until the replacement part arrives.

theyinwhy4• 8 years ago

Using "empowerment and enablement" as an excuse for not doing the repair during warranty is not acceptable.

Why would I want to repair a computer in warranty if I could instead spend time with my friends?

If not in warranty, I of course would appreciate manuals' and spare parts' availability.

But those are two very different kind of situations.

asdsa5325• 8 years ago

Cut the marketing slang please

flukus• 8 years ago

That sounds fantastic provided the keyboard is easy to replace, or easy enough for a local technician, no need to ship the whole laptop around the country (ow world) and have it formatted by useless OEM tech support.

The fact that they ship replacement parts at all puts them above most OEM's who don't believe you have the right to repair your own machine.

shmageggy• 8 years ago

They should have never had to ship replacement keyboards at all. I had the same laptop, and the keyboard it shipped with was horribly unusable. For many keys you could only expect it to register a keypress around 80% of the time. This wasn't a case of fixing a damaged part, this was a case of shockingly bad design and QA followed by ignoring customers for months. OP had every right to be annoyed that they made him install his own keyboard. System76 absolutely should have paid to have its defective product fully repaired if that's what the customer desired.

hal9000xp• 8 years ago

In last few days, I actually wanted to order powerful laptop from System76. I want laptop with strong GPU (e.g. Nvidia) that will run Linux very well.

Aside from System76, can anybody recommend powerful laptop fully compatible with Linux?

Of course, I can buy any laptop with several GPUs and install some Linux distribution. But I don't want to spend 4000 USD and then discover that some hardware isn't supported.

P.S. This time, I really don't understand why my comment is being downvoted.

acomjean• 8 years ago

I've looked into linux laptops for a bit. It seems there isn't a great resource about which laptops work well with linux and which don't. There are so many models, I imagine that is the problem.

From my poking around a bit, It seems the Dell xps series (it can come with linux preinstalled), many ThinkPads and some HP machines play nice with many distributions. Wifi cards can (still) be a bit of a pain point.

metabagel• 8 years ago

I have a System 76 Galago Pro, which I absolutely love. However, the battery died, which required warranty replacement and a firmware update. But, I’m still happy with my purchase. The laptop’s features all work well under Linux, which may or may not be the case for other vendors. The only other gripe I had was that the screen was almost unreadable when I received the laptop due to tiny desktop fonts, which I was able to fix somehiw, perhaps through GNOME settings.

opencl• 8 years ago

Dell sells several workstation models with powerful GPUs and Linux preinstalled. If you don't need CUDA specifically AMD has much better Linux drivers than NVIDIA these days.

http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-lapt...

sliken• 8 years ago

AMD has much better drivers? Which? The open source ones? The binary blob ones? Compared to which nvidia drivers?

I've been tracking this for some time and whenever I look the nvidia binary driver is the gold standard, intel is close, and amd's binary blob is a distant (and problematic) 3rd. So bad game reviews on linux often put a "doesn't work" in the AMD column.

shkkmo• 8 years ago

Can I recommend the Dell precision 5520? Dedicated GPU, up to 32gb ram and sold with Ubuntu.

uvtc2• 8 years ago

I buy from ThinkPenguin and am very happy with them, but I don't know how their GPUs compare to other systems. They sell fully-compatible systems.

I don't recall where I first heard of them, but I see they're listed at https://www.gnu.org/links/non-ryf.html .

iskander• 8 years ago

No opinions on how anyone should update firmware but I just wanted to chime in that I bought a fairly expensive System76 laptop in 2011 and was very disappointed with how rough & clunky it was.

arghwhat4• 8 years ago

I always thought their early products looked rough and clunky, which has held me off their products. Their new Oryx Pro seems like a step in the right direction, though.

davvolun• 8 years ago

System76 is actually re-selling unbranded Sager/Clevo base models, customized to work smoothly with Linux. I believe there was talk from them about getting their own manufacturing up, but last I knew, that wasn't online.

Whether the Linux customization is enough value-add is your call, but that's how all of these companies work.

acobster• 8 years ago

Their firmware updates are just straight up not working for me on my work laptop. To be fair, I've had zero gripes with how this machine has worked so far (got it about a year ago), and it's probably still the best computer I've gotten to work on. But it keeps prompting me with the same firmware update - one that supposedly disables Intel ME, a feature I definitely want disabled. But when I run the update it just prompts me a few days later to run the same update again. So I'm not at all surprised to learn that this is a proprietary system.

cassidyjames11• 8 years ago

Hrm, that's strange and I haven't heard that being a widespread issue; thousands of customers have updated without issue. I'd open a support case so someone can get that sorted out for you.

Xeboc4• 8 years ago

System76 support here. One of the important final steps to the firmware update is that 'load setup defaults' needs to be issued manually in the BIOS. The hardware has a limitation that even after we apply the new firmware, the settings have to applied by a manual step. This is written out in the firmware flashing steps, but it's still easy to miss! Please 'load setup defaults' in the exit tab of the BIOS (F2 on boot), at which time the Intel Management Engine will be fully disabled, and future firmware prompts will cease. If you are still getting the prompt, please reach out at support.system76.com and we will help further!

paulmd• 8 years ago

General FYI: most/all System76 hardware is actually rebranded models from Clevo, so the build quality issues people are discussing aren't that surprising. For example, the "Galago Pro" is actually a Clevo N130WU.

https://system76.com/laptops/galago

https://www.avadirect.com/Clevo-N130WU-13-3-QHD-Core-i7-Inte...

Some googling suggests the Serval WS is a Clevo P775DM3-G, and the Oryx Pro is a Clevo P650SE.

People upthread were wondering how they're doing all that with just 21 people or whatever, that's how. They slap a new label on Clevo hardware and dress it up with some nice photos. Most of those 21 people are probably web developers, marketing/photographers, and warehouse staff.

They might not even be doing their own firmware updates, they might just be getting Clevo to deliver specific features for them. Maybe they are doing some minor OS customization, or EFI tweaks to help Linux compatibility, but they can't be doing all that much work with 21 people to spread between development and normal sales/warehouse work.

monocasa• 8 years ago

FWIW, they're supposedly switching from rebranded Clevos to their own custom laptops soon.

dmead3• 8 years ago

They have been saying that for two years.

cassidyjames11• 8 years ago

System76 UX architect here!

This vastly trivializes the work System76 does for months and sometimes years leading up to a product release. We don't simply take an off-the-shelf product that already exists, throw an OS on it, and sell it.

System76 works with upstream manufacturers (like, yes, Clevo for laptops) to determine what types of products to develop, including their specifications, design, etc. for months up to a release. These products do not exist before we enter into these conversations.

Once that has been determined, designed, and goes into production, we start on firmware. We ensure all components are working together and with the Linux kernel (often requiring changes to the components' low level interactions with the OS, since the upstream components themselves are often manufactured with the assumption they will be used by Windows).

Once that is complete, we test with Ubuntu and Pop!_OS specifically, ensuring the OS is working perfectly with the hardware. If there are any OS-specific changes to be done, we write that behavior into Pop!_OS and/or our "driver" which is preloaded on all machines (and available in any Ubuntu-based distro, Arch, Fedora, etc.), with the intent to upstream that into Ubuntu, GNOME, and/or Linux itself as quickly as possible. When this is more generic like ensuring HiDPI works great out of the box, this actually ends up benefiting competitors like Dell's XPS 13 probably as much as it benefits us, but we put in the effort to file the bugs, track them, write the code, and get it upstreamed.

Once all of that is complete, we finally offer it for purchase and market it with all of our pretty photographs, sales pages, etc.

What ends up happening, then, is Clevo offers a machine with a similar-looking chassis for sale as a barebones laptop. This is the result partially of the decision making System76 has made for what to produce in the first place. These products, however, do not contain any of the firmware or driver work that System76 has invested in. They do benefit from the nice photography and advertising System76 has done, and since they look similar, people assume they're going to get the same machine for cheaper "directly from the manufacturer."

Edit: regardless, this is a bit beside the point of the linked blog post, and is also becoming less and less true as we work on designing and manufacturing our products completely in-house.

geezerjay• 8 years ago

System76 works with upstream manufacturers (like, yes, Clevo for laptops) to determine what types of products to develop, including their specifications, design, etc. for months up to a release. These products do not exist before we enter into these conversations.

What do you mean by "products"? Is it a particular combination of a specific barebones Clevo laptop installed with specific components (make+model) picked by System76?

Once that has been determined, designed, and goes into production, we start on firmware. We ensure all components are working together and with the Linux kernel (often requiring changes to the components' low level interactions with the OS, since the upstream components themselves are often manufactured with the assumption they will be used by Windows).

What do you mean by "ensure all components are working together"? Do you mean check whether a component is already supported by linux and in case the support is iffy the System76 staff picks some other component (make+model) that's better supported?

callmekit• 8 years ago

I'm a System76 customer (bought a second laptop 1 year ago, works ok but with issues). I think you exaggerating your current work with the upstream manufactures a little bit, otherwise you wouldn't have completely unsupported things like fingerprint reader in your laptops.

dogma1138• 8 years ago

I’ve seen this reply from System76 over and over and while what you are saying could be correct having the same copypasta make it look suspiciously like a marketing ploy.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5umefi/comment/ddvcx...

aries1980• 8 years ago

Hi, I've been using such Clevo N130WU on Linux with stock firmwares. I've received couple of updates since I bought it last year, mostly because of Spectre and some for Thunderbolt 3, there was one for the overreacting CPU vents. I can use all the peripherals on my one without special firmware. HiDPI is a challenge, but nothing that I can't solve with xrandr.

I'm curious what do your firmwares actually improve?

daveloyall2• 8 years ago

From the System76 reply (emphasis mine):

LVFS is neat and we'd love to use it. We also have a couple of constraints that make that difficult: licensing/legal constraints imposed on us, plus time/effort constraints due to everything else going on.

...ok, that means there's non-free software in their machines, right?

cassidyjames11• 8 years ago

Yes, just like every consumer computer at this point. But we're working on that. ;)

daveloyall2• 8 years ago

The lesson here is that your devs were not up front about that with the LVFS guys and the fallout got negative enough to go public. Keep trying! Somebody's got to do it. :)

shmerl• 8 years ago

I'd prefer Purism laptops, but they don't have any Ryzen+Vega options.

cpburns2009• 8 years ago

So what distributions actually use LVFS? I vaguely recognize the name.

The website mentions the GNOME Software center and automatically installing everything. Does it work through the package manager (apt, etc.) similar to the proprietary driver installer in Ubuntu, or does it just automatically do its own thing?

Don’t buy System76 hardware and expect to get firmware updates from the LVFS

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