Basically the same things happened to my tuxedo also. With the addition of having to change batteries once a year, because it would drop to half it's factory charge, which wasn't really sufficient. I also gave up on them when they wanted so much money for a screen change (which died after about 3-4 years).
I've replaced it with the new framework 13 inch, which so far works well, but I've only had it for 4-5 months. ( well, but not perfect, because the new AMD AI CPU has issues with suspend on linux)
That's a shame, I got a 13 w/ the previous non-AI AMD 7 7840U in April, and it's been rock-solid running Pop_OS. I wondered at the time if I should have waited for the newer CPUs...
Oh? I'd seriously considered buying the 13 w/this AMD CPU and I guess I naively thought it would be ideal. What sort of problems with suspend are you seeing?
I have a T14 Gen 5 AMD. No issues with suspend/resume at all. NixOS, kernel 6.12. The Ryzen AI APUs are fairly new, so it may take a few months for things to settle.
I haven't spent time investigating if my specific setup is the problem, or an actual bug in the drivers, but after I resume from suspend, the btrfs root fs is in a read-only state.
The only solution is to reboot/shutdown, but it takes a long time and there are some scary fs checks running. Luckily no lost data so far. Currently I'm just shutting down the machine every time because it the boot times are quite fast.
Slimbook (Spanish OEM) basically sells the same ODM designs as Tuxedo and is an option. They have a few cobranded (KDE etc) versions that contribute to the development teams.
Otherwise at this point I believe the Framework laptops have pretty solid Linux support and is a good option if you're ok w/ so-so battery life.
While StarLabs has shipped products before, I'd be careful with them. That StarFighter laptop was supposed to ship years ago, and I don't think any have been delivered yet. Here's a Reddit thread [1] from three years ago saying delivery would be in a few months.
The problem with System76 is that Lenovo exists. There isn’t much of a real reason to buy a “standard laptop” like system76 over a higher volume OEM like Lenovo.
With Framework you’re at least getting the extreme modularity and upgradeability as a major differentiator.
But with System76 you’re essentially getting a regular laptop that you could get from any other major brand. You’ll have an easier time getting parts with Lenovo.
Unfortunately I don't know about a good alternative from Europe. I'd probably get a Framework if my device stops working. They seem to work hard at upstreaming things and use Linux standards. They also connected with the GNOME foundation, so there might be some collaboration in the future
https://entroware.com from the UK gets mentioned here and there, but I think they don't do any software development at all, and only repackage OEM laptops.
I am running a tuxedo since 6 years and I am still happy with it. Had to use their support once to replace the cooling assembly because one of the fan bearings started to ger noisy after 5 years of 24/7 use, the replacement was 100 Euros for the whole copper+heatpipe+two fan assembly. The machine is still outperforming many other machines that exist today and the sceeen is one of the best I have seen (OLED).
A little more context : in june 2024 at Computex, Tuxedo announced a possible christmas 2024 release [1]. A Qualcomm/Tuxedo collaboration was expected but did not materialize [2].
Care beat quality as a metric, because care is very inefficient to fake and very powerful when genuine.
How does the company providing the physical product or the service care ?
Most companies right now care about AI. Some integration are impressive. But where's real care about users ? It seems it's not the subject anymore. We may have tricked ourselves into beveling technology will resolve in itself all problems, and it's at its peak with AI. As engineers we can forget sometimes that technology is just a tool and its fine, but as a society it may leads us all in a bad direction.
It seems that another round is necessary, and VCs want AI. You and the CEO are competent and transparent. This is the premises.
You just need to have the conversation with the CEO, but in the right order.
Come to him/her with objective data, but without your conclusions or concerns, just your observations about where this is headed and if he sees at what rate this AI focus is eating ressources. Ask the CEO what it means for the company. Let him/her do the talking.
From this point, the CEO have the data and you have the company policy. Know you can talk on equal grounds on the matter with him or her. Good luck.
SkyWind is so incredible that I honestly don't think it's necessary. Skyblivion was a thing, but the love and care put into SkyWind is just something I have rarely if ever seen in modding before. So many people loved that world, and so much talent has gone into the project. Even something like the stained glass windows scattered through the world were approached not like a game asset but like a series of art pieces, consulting all of the lore experts, etc.
(Yes it still needs finishing touches but it's complete to the point that there are 10s of hours of gameplay footage from fundraiser streams to confirm it's 90% of the way there. It's polished and looks incredible.)
What if high quality social interactions are not the norm for some kids, and these systems are giving an inspirational blueprint for what they crave and don't have access to ? In disfunctioning families, this can be a lifeline.
Even during the video game/satanic panic of the 80's, it was acknowledged that video games - even at that early stage - allowed children who are introverted or less physically adept to experience "winning" and the satisfaction of overcoming obstacles. It seems the ability to acknowledge that there are also benefits to these new emerging systems of interaction has been lost.
I don't really recall that the people pushing the Satanic panic narrative were the same ones making nuanced arguments for the social benefits of video games and D&D.
If anything, the existence of an Internet supporting direct discussion like this between strangers like we should make vastly more nuance available at the median now than then.
What a shame we all seem to spend so much time making such poor use of it! I grew up on the dream that global communication would lead to global understanding. Imagine my disillusionment on discovering at last the besetting, lethal flaw in this beautiful revel: that we've nothing better than humans to give the job of doing it.
An underappreciated point. Especially considering - as I discovered in my early teens - how easily a kid in a situation like that might be exploited, by an adult who isn't. Say what you like about language models, they at least seem unlikely to harbor the sort of motivations such adults admit for their behavior.
Last LLMs launches from top US AI labs were rather disappointing. Products seems under baked and mainly reactive... They oversold the capabilities of their future models when Deepseek landed to stay in the news at the time, but now that we look at the result it's not what everyone expected. And people are starting to question the hype, which is healthy but also very dangerous for these companies needing very large capital.
It seems that some labs like Meta are unto something, but it's more research material for now than a short term product. Interesting times.
What you think would be the alternative in Europe ?