I'm selling my System76 Pangolin Performance notebook computer. System76 is a company that custom builds machines that come pre-loaded with Ubuntu Linux. This machine is a beast and I've loved it. I'm selling it for two reasons:
- It's a little heavy
- I wanted to switch to Mac
I've used Linux since about 1997. I've been through distro kicks of Redhat, SuSE, Mandrake, Slackware with brief diversions to FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Linux and Unix have been my main operating system choices for a long time. I had avoided Mac because I was under the assumption that it wasn't a true Unix variant. It's actually registered with the Single UNIX Specification version 3 since 2007. I gave it a few years before trying it (despite my false understanding of its Unix-y-ness), then got hooked on OS X while working at Expedia. Since leaving Expedia, I've wanted to delve into OS X development using Swift… and that's a little difficult to do on Linux. Best Buy had a sale on Macs when the rumors of late 2014 machines were circulating, so I bought one.
While I lived in Seattle, I toted this System76 machine around everywhere. It's about 5.6lbs without the power adapter or anything else I wanted to carry in my bag. Since it's such a beefy machine and I only opted for the 6-cell battery, it only gets about 2.5 hours of battery life (normal for such a machine). Taking the power adapter with you is basically a necessity. I now have a Macbook Pro 13" that weighs ~3 lbs and gets a ridiculously long amount of battery life. If you're interested in my System76 machine, I'm sure you could replace the mechanical hard drive with an SSD and squeeze out quite a bit of battery.
This is an excellent machine for a developer. It's also great for watching movies. It has HDMI output, and I sometimes used this to run presentations on my television.
I've really only found two things "wrong" with the machine. First of all, I attempted to dual boot Windows on the machine once while I was working remotely for a previous employer. I couldn't find any Windows drivers for the web cam. I opted to run Windows within VirtualBox and that resolved the issue. I gave the Windows VM 4GB of ram and 4 CPUs, making it the same power as the machine I replaced with the System76 machine.
The second "problem" is that the trackpad is one piece with the body and it's textured. I've used the machine a lot, so part of the trackpad is smoother than the rest. It's not really a big deal and I haven't noticed it to have any effect on using the trackpad. It's purely aesthetic.
I've only had to contact System76 support twice. Once was because the video card description wasn't displaying what I thought it should in the 'About' dialog of Ubuntu. They resolved the problem by telling me to install a specific package that I must have uninstalled by accident at some point. Another time was just after the Ubuntu 14.04 update, my battery no longer charged to 100%. This turned out to be a problem with XUbuntu. After a few Ubuntu updates, the problem was resolved (appeared to only be how the OS reported battery levels and the battery was in fact charging to 100%).
This is the second machine I've purchased from System76 (first was a netbook). Like I said, I've been pretty happy.
I've included 3 pictures of my computer and some stock photos from the original selling page.
- 15.6" 720p High Definition LED Backlit Display ( 1366 x 768 )
- Intel HD Graphics 4000
- 3rd Generation Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor ( 2.30GHz 6MB L3 Cache - 4 Cores plus Hyperthreading )
- 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 2 X 8 GB
- 750 GB 7200 RPM SATA II
- 8X DVD±R/RW/4X +DL Super-Multi Drive
- Intel Centrino 1030 - 802.11 b/g/n Wireless LAN + Bluetooth Combo Module
Asking $500. Email me: jim@ipreferjim.com if you're interested and you live in Richmond, VA.
