Comments on: All-in-one Sable Complete PC, an Ubuntu-based desktop PC that competes on price and power

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 14:06:00 +0000

I think that’s the pessimistic way of looking at it though. The reason we used to tinker was because we had to, it was a necessity. Whereas now hardware doesn’t end up on the junk heap quite as quickly and we can spend more time doing things rather than maintaining things. That said, there is a pleasure in creating something yourself, even if you are just assembling parts.
I agree about the need for more variety though – its the reason I appreciate the new windows mobile approach over android – they innovated, and to a certain extent succeeded. It’s not for me, but it doesn’t have to be – not every user is the same.

By: Jens Reuterberg

Jens Reuterberg — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 10:13:00 +0000

Thats the thing – I don’t like how the Imac look. Its the same with how laptops strive for that Macbook look. I wish we could find a more eclectic design style to sneak into (although ducking the damn “steampunk” thing completely would be great).

But yeah – the Imac sells so obviously the design is appreciated… I just wish there could be some kind of choices available.
Also – about people (me included I guess) dont tinker as much as they used to. Thats just kinda sad in a way. We buy new stuff all the time instead of trying to improve what we got and at the same time we forget how to do it I think, or the confidence to.

By: Michael Hazell

Michael Hazell — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 04:56:00 +0000

I’m not sure of their reason behind this, but I surely know that they are excited about it. I should ask them that.

By: Michael Hazell

Michael Hazell — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 04:53:00 +0000

Well the whole point of an all in one is to have everything built into the product. System76 also makes towers so you should probably look into that instead.

By: Michael Hazell

Michael Hazell — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 04:50:00 +0000

When Linux gets more popular, then that might become a reality

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 11:47:00 +0000

GIMP doesn’t do CMYK. That, alone, makes it worthless to anyone doing any professional image work. The real world isn’t just the web.

By: pjcamp

pjcamp — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 02:24:00 +0000

I’ve sworn off Ubuntu ever since they lost their friggin minds with Unity. If Linux wanted to be a Mac, Steve would have stolen it instead of FreeBSD.

By: OoerictoO

OoerictoO — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 01:09:00 +0000

they compare to the 21.5″ imac. fail.
there is a 27″ imac. and it’s not much more than the 21.5. and the reason they don’t, more than likely, the IPS screen. you can barely get a screen that good for the price of the imac by ITSELF. 2560-by-1440 that’s pretty much my minimum now, for 27″+
the 21.5″ imac is IPS too, but it happens to be 1080 vertical.
can you tell i’m toying with buying a 27″ imac?
i’ll get a 2010 model. probably run gentoo natively and put windoze and osx in VMs

By: benenglish

benenglish — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 21:32:00 +0000

This isn’t my cup of tea; I don’t care for all-in-ones. I could make do with one, I suppose, if it included an eSata port; all my external drives connect that way. This one doesn’t have such a port.

That said, I’ve been a happy user of System 76 computers for a long time. I’m on a Wild Dog right now. I ordered a fairly top-spec machine, swapped the boot drive for an SSD, added a 2TB data drive and have been happily doing all my general computing tasks with little fuss for years.

Wine and VMs are used occasionally to overcome problems that I could probably fix in Linux if I were just better with the OS. Flash sucks but not nearly as bad as it did a while back. Overall, I’m happy and can recommend System 76.

So, wondering what this all-in-one is supposed to accomplish for the company, I started poking around on the web site. They used to sell a model or two small enough to mount to a bracket behind a large monitor. Those models made perfectly functional ersatz all-in-one machines. Now I no longer see those machines in their product line. I guess people thought of them as an ugly kludge and demanded something sleeker. (My take on it was that they provided all the savings of desk space while being easier to upgrade and more adaptable to more monitors…but I value function over aesthetics.) This new machine is certainly sleeker. I hope it sells well for them but I have my doubts.

By: spejic

spejic — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 21:30:00 +0000

I don’t get the concept. When I have to change to a different computer, I have to throw out a perfectly good monitor?

By: jimtron

jimtron — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:59:00 +0000

Yeah, I don’t think the Sable is that much cheaper after configuring it https://www.system76.com/desktops/model/sabc1/ to match an iMac, (add Wifi, wireless keyboard and mouse, optical drive, etc…plus iMac has Firewire, Thunderbolt, and Bluetooth, which apparently the Sable doesn’t have available). Not saying that Sable is a bad machine, but it isn’t the same performance as an iMac at a much cheaper price.

Also, you can get iMacs on Amazon with no tax and free shipping, not sure if that’s true with the Sable or not.

By: Guido Núñez-Mujica

Guido Núñez-Mujica — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:05:00 +0000

I am not a purist of “Open”, like Stallman. I love my Linux, what I can do with it, but I can use closed programs when I have to. I wrote my thesis in Matlab, when it was more practical than Octave, but I did my 3D graphs in Gnuplot. I wrote it in LaTeX, after OpenOffice was not enough.

So, I am fine using an Intel processor and putting Linux Mint on top of an HP or a Dell laptop. Even if I like the look and feel of Apple’s machines, I do not simply have the money to invest in one and put Linux on top of it. I can live with a machine I cannot open a lot, except for memory and hard drive change, if the trade off is that I can carry that machine around.

In the case of a desktop, I do not see why on Earth I should buy a closed box that I cannot tweak. Not a single reason. I do not live in Tokyo, I can spare some real state for a tower that I can open and change parts when I want more memory or a bigger processor. So I would never would get a machine like this. If I would get it as a present I would sell it and desktop I can customize to my taste.

Disclaimer: I am the owner of a beautiful, blazing fast, sturdy and not expensive System76 laptop that I have not been able to use because their shipping sucks big time and is still in the US. A friend was supposed to get it to me, but System76 took so long to ship the computer (and screwed around for days when I was trying to buy it and ship it to a different address than my billing address) that it arrived after my friend was here.

By: TimRowledge

TimRowledge — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 18:07:00 +0000

Wow, yes that is good value.
Let’s see an iMac 20.5″ is $1299 with a 2.7GHz quad core i5/8Gb ram/1Tb drive/nvida gt640M.
Trying to get a reasonably equivalent spec on the sable - the cpu/gpu doesn’t have direct match but I *think* that the i7+HD4000 would be about the same? I’m sure I’ll be corrected if not.
8Gbram, ok. Can only include a 750Gb disc, though I think it spins faster. Add a cordless kbd/mouse.
Oh, gosh $1166! What a huge saving.

And it doesn’t even come with OS X, so phew, saved that pain too. Have to avoid that huge Apple Tax.

By: LightningRose

LightningRose — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 17:14:00 +0000

I run Win-XP under VirtualBox for the few windoze programs that I still want/need.

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 17:01:00 +0000

lol.

It’s not that I’m surprised no one would want it (that would be mad), I was just curious why.

By: Yacko

Yacko — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:57:00 +0000

I’ll fill in. Yeah, who wouldn’t want the thing considering it comes in such a bezeliciously black color in homage to Henry Ford.

By: atimoshenko

atimoshenko — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:45:00 +0000

Niché is Nietzsche’s frenchier, kinder, and more fabulous secret identity.

By: Scott Lindsey

Scott Lindsey — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:31:00 +0000

I’m a big fan of my System 76 Serval laptop, but yeah, no. Seems like all the drawbacks of an iMac and few of the benefits.

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:24:00 +0000

TIL That minimalist, industrial design can be a bit much.

The iMac is beautiful, that’s why everyone who builds an all-in-one copies it to death.

Admittedly probably not quite as upgradable as a tower – but that’s more of a preference thing really – most people have as much desire to upgrade their computer as any other device they own. With reliability improvements and a recent leveling out on RAM requirements I haven’t needed to open a computer in years – but with past-me it was a pretty important requirement.

By: Scott Lindsey

Scott Lindsey — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:24:00 +0000

Actually Linux flash is second only to the windows implementation. Adobe’s decision to not release a 64-bit version had the side effect of forcing browsers to run it in an external process. That means that for several years now, when flash crashes it does not take down your browser. Arguably, this negatively effects performance though.

By: Russell Letson

Russell Letson — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:23:00 +0000

Is niché any kin to cliché? Or is it a term with caché, cached in its own special cachet niche?

(Sorry–the temptation was just too strong.)

By: acerplatanoides

acerplatanoides — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:22:00 +0000

If you need more than nethack your imagination’s broke

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:21:00 +0000

Is that 3D character animation IN after effects, or are those 2 separate requests? Because after effects isn’t very good for character animation…

AE will run in Wine I believe with enough hard work. I liked Wings 3D for modeling and Blender isn’t at all bad with the right amount of modding. But admittedly coming from a 3DSM background everything feels a bit tame.

Flash? What’s that?

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:17:00 +0000

Netflix uses Silverlight. Netflix’s choice to use Silverlight is what’s keeping you from Linux.

It’s also what keeps me from buying a Netflix subscription for my XBMC.

DRM ay?

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:15:00 +0000

Fondness.

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:10:00 +0000

This doesn’t actually affect me, but wow, no CMYK support? 0.0

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:10:00 +0000

I’m not sure why but I feel compelled to ask you to elaborate. It feels like your comment is oozing with subtext.

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:07:00 +0000

File formats are as important as software choice unfortunately, and GIMPs support of PSDs is only as good as anyone else’s, i.e. not quite 100%

I will conceded that it looks like its come along a bit since I last used it – but it’s always felt like software built and designed by an engineer.

As I say though, there’s plenty I dislike about PS, it’s just the lesser of all evils for the work I do.

And if you haven’t looked up Pixelmator to see what someone else can do within a couple of years of dev time it’s worth a look. Puts into perspective how bad GIMP is in my opinion. Fair enough Pixelmator isn’t free, but it’s $30, so…

By: Michele Mazza

Michele Mazza — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:01:00 +0000

:-D
silly

By: Guido Núñez-Mujica

Guido Núñez-Mujica — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:56:00 +0000

I would not get a desktop like this.