Hands-On With System76's New Redesigned Thelio Desktop For Linux!

[@sherrilltechnology]

I went to their factory over this past weekend to celebrate Software Freedom Day I spent alot of time talking to the people their and they truly care great group of people!! I got to tour the whole factory and spoke with one of the QA guys and the amount of thought and care that goes into those machines is crazy, they do alot of testing and everyone is built by hand!! Great video Brother and i use PopOS on my PC i built myself. I love PopOS and again i love the video and i am doing a video on PopOS and why i switched away from Windows!!

[@dlsjr123]

I’ll be buying this computer soon. I was a little disappointed in the price but I realize they’re a small business of dedicated geeks doing what they love and you’re paying a premium for that.

[@atemoc]

I actually am seeking a case like this but with better noise management, dust filters, a normal hole for replacing motherboards, and I know this might sound weird, but I am one of the rare people who like to have every single port on the front of the computer, all but the power supply cables and display ports.

[@JohnAndersenYVIG]

Beautiful machine. Thanks Ryan!

[@dasgeek]

Agreed! They nailed the look. It's gorgeous.

[@divexo]

Just got a system76 laptop. The adder ws 17". Awesome machine. Works flawlessly, and it's very strong in building my yocto linux kernel.....great video. Keep up the good work. Love the honesty

[@mikekellytech]

I've had the pleasure of getting to play with one the past month too and can confirm, it's an amazing machine!

[@dasgeek]

Love hearing that! Plus lifetime support from System76 makes it an even sweeter temptation.

[@Galka_DK]

Loved that you didn't just give them a win, and pointed out the motherboard cutout. Cause I would love to build with that case. (if, they sold it separately).

[@whiskeylinux]

Good review Ryan, now I need a Thelio. :)

[@dasgeek]

I know, I miss it already!

[@jamescobban857]

I have been using UNIX based products since the 1980s. First I used SunOS and Solaris. In the 1990s I first set up a dual boot of Linux with Windows, but by 2000 I found I was almost never booting Windows. I never had any issue running Linux on a desktop x86 because the drivers all worked. However laptops often had issues with laptop specific hardware, such as touch pads. Since discovering System 76 I have exclusively bought their laptops. I love that they support "the right to repair".

[@Amirhesamyan]

Me too. I have been using their laptop for many years now and I am thinking about buying their PC.

[@janhallholm9043]

Good work 👍

[@dasgeek]

Thank you so much

[@alexharker7223]

They do have a window for a replacement motherboard now, just not right when this iteration of the Thelio released

[@postnick]

I don’t own this but my biggest criticism is the motherboard backplane as well. New nice boards come with their own cover too. For a company who wants job to repair they locked this motherboard to this case forever.

[@michaelplaczek9385]

I would love for them to sell cases in the future

[@Robert8455]

A couple of great points that keeps me looking and maybe waiting. The fixed backplate was a design flaw or deliberate and seems to go against the ability to maintain it long term. I've heard some complain about the noise issue so maybe that only is more pronounce with a GPU unit. A noisy machine is a deal breaker for me. Fan intake at the bottom means it really should not be on the floor.

[@guilherme5094]

Really nice👍!

[@littlewinge]

Hi DASGeek! You're one of the only reviews of the new Thelio I could find. I've got a whole lot of questions about the motherboard, are you able to answer some of them?

[@Xanduur]

I haven’t touched windows since windows XP except when I’m at work. I gave up on malts LOS with my last Macintosh computer…. A 2012 Mac mini. I switched to Linux out of exhaustion with Microsoft and Apple.

[@MichaelEKaz]

Cool review, thanks! What is your monitor size and resolution when using Pop_OS? I’ve struggled with the scaling on my 27” 4k monitor. 100% is too small, 200% is too big, and fractional scaling causes stuttering and weird issues. Maybe my non-Thelios PC is the problem. Scaling and limited multi-monitor support are a few of the things keeping me away from using Linux full-time. I’m hoping I can make the jump eventually.

[@danielnorton9803]

How well does the thelio work with Blender? Particularly with render times with cyclez

[@HaroldCrews]

Good review. I would have liked to have heard more about the expansion capabilities but I'm sure all that info is available on the spec page for each model. The two problems of not being able to change your motherboard because the I/O ports probably won't match and no usb or audio connectors on the front are troubling. The lack of front ports can be easily fixed with a hub connected to the rear port of course, but it shouldn't have to be done that way. But short of mod'ing the rear of the tower like you said there isn't anything that can be done about the changing the model of the motherboard. I do have problems with Pop_OS! though. Gnome is just a deal breaker for me. It's a functional but unpleasant environment to work in. I strongly prefer Plasma DE. Pop_OS! should offer other DEs like other distros do. I find the "our way or the highway attitude" off-putting in something as important as the DE. Sure, Plasma can be added as an alternative DE, but that comes at the cost of stability. Of course the user can probably install another distro with the DE of his or her choosing instead of Pop_OS!, but that means no firmware updater that is built into Pop_OS! More on this in a moment. An owner shouldn't have to dual boot just to get the DE of his or her choice and still get firmware updates. But besides that, overall I'm not a big fan of System76. I bought a System76 Lemur 6 laptop back in 2015 or 2016. It came with a keyboard with a apace bar key having a large dead-spot. I should have returned it for another, but I didn't. Eventually, I replaced the keyboard although it was rather expensive. That still didn't fix the problem. The space bar still has a dead-spot in it. This obviously makes it difficult to use. Further, although I do not care for Pop_OS!, it is the only distro that will run on that laptop. Any other distro I've tried, will cause the laptop to suddenly shutdown randomly as if it lost power. Like I said, I'm not really a fan of System76. I'm sure other owners of their computers have had very different experiences. Like with all things, YMMV.

[@WakeUpAmerican000s]

I would really like to purchase the Mira for my primary desktop, but I have decided not to for just a couple reasons. First, I need a USB-C and at least one other USB 3.2 port, plus headphone and microphone jacks, on the front of the machine where I can get to them when I need them. And secondly, I have no way to test the MX Linux with KDE Plasma that is my distro of choice. I have no desire to deal with the Gnome DE anymore. I run MX Linux and access the occasional need for Windows using a virtual machine. My physical space would mean that I'd have to have the back of the system facing out so I can access connection ports, which defeats the purpose of the good-looking case. Need two USB-C connections - one in front, one in back, especially given that there's no way to install a 3.5 inch HDD inside the Mira's chassis. I love the culture and philosophy of System76 builds, but I can't get what I need at any price from System76. And I can't change motherboards to get there either.

[@tylerstevens7007]

Dope

[@moonlight-kh6uz]

you spent half the time talking about look? double negative. and from buyer I became no buyer, but thank you, I almost bought this shyte

[@moonlight-kh6uz]

too much fluff talk. too much fillers. automatic negative

[@ivanh2674]

nice

[@Andre-xu3pq]

Thellio is a great looking machine you also need a big wallet for this machine, and if you want to ship it to Europe there a the extra taxes + shipping ... This make its not really a option 😞

[@joesworld396]

I was out when he said, "Don't fool yourself into thinking you can do this yourself...". Building a PC is not hard. It's not desk jewelry to me, it's just a tool. If it works, that's all I need. Paying a premium price for what I could build myself for so much less makes zero sense. And any PC I build would be completely upgradable.

[@longdashes]

Bro, how the heck is your microphone quality so superb? My microphone quality on Linux is horrible. :(

[@luluslovebear]

I see you are recording with. OBS Good job.

[@bg4801]

There is absolutely nothing special about System76 hardware to justify the price compared to any hardware last 5 years running any Distro/DE. Even POP_OS works beautifully on older machines and hardware. Also this new fad marketing of 'this isn't your normal company these people are different/nerds/care' BS is silly. They are still a company and all I care about is they make good stuff (they do) at a fair price (do not believe it is).

[@dasgeek]

I appreciate your comment but disagree about the fair price. As someone who also had a family computer business you're not going to compete on price with companies like Dell and HP. You simply can't as they're ordering tens of thousands of computers at a time all manufactured offshore. You have to compete with service, quality, and uniqueness. The margins are thin, razer thin, especially when you're using domestic labor to manufacture the case and assemble the product. Not everyone can afford to pay for a System76 machine but if you can then you're contributing to an open source company that's lifting up the ecosystem with their contributions. And as someone with 23 years in corporate America I can absolutely tell you that there is a huge difference between companies that focus solely on profit and companies who want to make a profit but care about what they're putting out. I would put System76 in the latter. But buy whatever you want, that's just my opinion.

[@KeithBoehler]

In early 2020 i checked the prices for an XPS, Thinkpad, and Lemur 9. For all of them having 16GB of ram and 500GB of storage the Lemur came out $50 less than the XPS and $120 than the Thinkpad. I do agree that they are pricey, but at the at least when i was out shopping it did not seem like a robbery.

[@choppergirl]

So what is up with this custom firmware on the motherboard and custom firmware on an IO daughterboard. First of all, WHY? And is this going to prevent you from running any other operating system on the hardware. The motherboard, probably not, but if there are only Thelio drivers for the io daughter board... yeah, might be a major strike against it. You should be able to throw it away though and just use the IO on the dmotherboard, in fact, it makes you wonder.. why they need a custom IO daughterboard for any IO at all.. it should be all otu the back on the motherboard. I'd definitely aprt it out and throw away all the value added System76 work as adding no value at all, and just recycle the parts into a new build. I'm not saying I wouldn't give PopOS a fair chance... I'd do my best to get everything I needed to run under it... Steam, Paintdotnet, my games, OBS studio, Audigy, Sony Vegas Movie Editor, etc. If I could get all my WIndows programs to run under it and the UI didn't drive me crazy, I'd be like hey great, goodbye WIndows! But if it couldn't yeah, like every other user, I'm fleeing back to WIndows where stuff jsut works.

[@choppergirl]

I'm a geek. I could care less about color plastic panels. If I had to sell this to a customer, I'd throw away that awful proprietary case, put the parts in a Corsair 5000x RGB and install Windows 10 on it for them.