System76 Transmission Log

Emma, we're in a cube today.

Yes, it's blue and black in here and
some off-blue, which is a little weird.

It's a little greenish.

I don't think it's
supposed to be greenish.

I feel like that used to be blue.

So what happened?

Well, I think some dust built up in here.

We're in the Rubik's Cube at the factory.

We built it initially for acoustics
testing on the Palio desktops, and now

it's being used as a recording studio.

It feels like a really long time
since we've recorded.

Yeah, we missed you all in December.

We were celebrating some holidays.

Some people were
on vacation, having a blast.

And now we're back in 2025,
right back to work where we started.

I guess that means we'll have double
the news to share today.

Yeah, and I hear sales
is back from CES, too.

Well, let's jump into it.
I'm Emma.

I'm Alex.

This is Transmission Log.

Welcome to the T-Log, folks.

Three, two, one, zero.

Welcome aboard the System

76 transmission Log.

Our broadcast is about to begin.

This is the latest on System 76
computers, manufacturing, and pop OS.

Now for your in-orbit crew.

We have a fair bit of updates
from our busy January, and sales just

got back from CES and Covesa.

Yeah, we had Delio ASTRA at the Ampere
booths, putting 128 CPU cores to the test

with a Blender render demo, and it
was also at the tier 4 booth at Covesa,

showing off driving simulations.

Yes, so the Blender test, we put a script
together to automate Blender renders

with different scenes taken from
Blender and Foronix's websites.

You could watch the activity

of the CPU through BTOP while each render

was going, and then it would
close out and open a new render.

You could see the power of the CPU
with just a light GPU to keep it going.

I heard Mega was hanging
out at the gigabyte booth,

showing off some text to video renders.

We did a little write-up
about all the demos on our blog at blog.

System76.

Com, if you want to check that out.

On the topic of desktops,
we have a new Thalia Mira out now.

Yes.

Thalia Mira is now AMD across the line,
and it's available in a custom

premium or elite configuration.

Custom configurations start at 1299.

I believe that goes up
to the AMD Ryzen 9950X.

16 cores, some pretty powerful stuff.

I look forward to seeing
what people make with it.

Yeah.

That won't be the last you see of System
76 machines at conferences this year.

We have scale coming up in March as well.

We released a laptop, too, huh?

Yes.

Pretty Little pangolin was updated
with a new case design and 2K display.

I've been showing it to everyone
that comes in for tours, and wow is

the first reaction, which is really good.

Youtuber Emily Young was here,
and I recorded her initial thought,

so I wanted to share that with you guys.

Let's listen.

Solid.

There is no flex.

Ees.

They are very well-stabilized,
and they are very nice.

This is the layout that I can...

I really like this shape
and It's a boring factor.

When I picked up my 2011 MacBook Pro,

15-inch, I wanted this because it got me

a big view, got me a nice big area
for me to rest my wrists on, and

it had a really nice keyboard, like this.

Top row is thinner,
which I do like for laptops.

Helps with homies on them.

We have dedicated delete It's
very nice layout, actually.

Very comfortable.
Awesome.

People seem to be really
loving this pangolin.

I got to hold it myself
in the marketing office.

It is such a light
but sturdy piece of computer.

I like the color.

The screen looks really nice.

It feels so good in your hands.

Yeah, it definitely feels premium,
and it's under 4 pounds,

so it's pretty light.

I have a lot of weight
to lose to match that.

All right, Alex, what's happening
in the cosmic universe?

Well, well, well.

In Cosmic Alpha 5, I just released

in January, we updated Alt tab, so now

it matches the behavior you're used to.

It's ordered based
on the last active window instead of just

listed alphabetically, but it took
a little more work to get there.

So that's why you're seeing
this update a little later on.

We also had an update to the
variable refresh rate and how that works.

It takes into account the minimum refresh
rate that your display puts out, which

would result in smoother cursor movement,
especially for apps that aren't games

when they're being used in full screen.

That's where that fix is most noticeable.

We've also officially
made Cosmic Media Player,

the default media player in Cosmic.

It supports video and audio.

It uses Vulcan for rendering,
VAPI for decoding.

Sometimes I call it VAPI.

I don't know if that's a common thing
to do, so I just spelled it out.

We're also developing
a native codec installer

to replace the session installer.

It makes it a little more updated
and also in that nice rust code

we like for Cosmic.

You may be wondering
why we're making a video player.

It's not really all that much work.

The ICE toolkit already
has a media player.

We're just adapting it for Cosmic.

Even though a lot of people do have
their For your preferred media player

apps to use, it is essential for an OS
to at least ship with one as an option,

so you're not left in the dust
when you need to play a video.

You'll see more about
Alpha5 on our blog, blog.

System76.
Com.

This time around, we did
have a bug on the website.

On the main blog page, the release
might have been hidden.

If you weren't aware that
Alpha 5 released, well, now

you can see it up on there.

We fixed the bug.

Now, you didn't hear this from me,
but we're almost feature complete.

There might be a couple more alphas
to come out before the beta,

but it's getting very close.

All right.
Well, we have an interview to get to.

The robots are taking over.

Yes.

We have Andrew from 241e Robotics,
and we're going to learn how they use

pop OS to power their project.
Awesome.

Let's get Thanks
for joining us today, Andrew.

Thanks for inviting me.
My name is Andrew.

I'm from New Hampshire.

I'm the captain and lead programmer
of Vex Robotics team 241E.

I've used pop OS as my daily driver
for a little over a year

on both my laptop and desktop.
That's awesome.

How did you get into working with Robots?

I mainly got in through my brother, who
was a part of the Vex Robotics program

at my school, and it caught my attention.

When I became a freshman, I
joined the club and learned the basics,

became the captain the year
after, and went from there.

That's cool.
What exactly do you do with the robots?

Vex Robotics, every year,
we are given a unique challenge

to build a robot to solve.

Every game has unique ways of scoring.

This could be like this year, for example,
we are collecting rings and putting them

onto mobile goals and wall stakes
that are placed around the field.

That's cool.

The courses are all different
for everybody, or does everyone

have to do the same course?

There's probably
about 200,000 teams all over the world

that all get this same challenge.

It's all about competing at your local
level and then a regional competition,

which is your opportunity to qualify for
the World Competition held in Dallas.

I feel like I've seen you guys
have made it pretty far

with your competitions, right?

My first year, we actually
made it to the World Competition.

Then since then, we've made it
to regionals twice in We've actually

qualified for regionals this year
at our last competition.

That was two weeks ago.

That's so exciting.

You mentioned you were using POPOS
to help power your project.

Can you tell us about
your journey to discover Linux?

Have you been using Linux
or is POP your first distro?

I was playing around with various distros
just in virtual machines,

and POPOS just worked the best for me.

When I got a new hard drive
or an SSD for my laptop, I figured,

might as well set it up in a dual
boot, and it It just went from there.

How has it differed from
the other distros that you've tried?

It's just been by far the most consistent.

I've just not had really
any issues with it, although a lot

of that could have been just
shocked up to the VM being buggy.

What specific software
programs do you use?

For Vex Robotics,
there's three main aspects

being design, programming, and building.

The building is obviously
done all physical, although we do use CAD

to help along with that process.

We use on shape, free add
and then be 3D print stuff.

So produce a slicing and
any 3D print and slices.

Then for programming, we use VS Code
because it's the only thing

that supports the Vex code extension,
which is how we program the robot.

There's pros which is developed by Purdue
University, which uses C++ like Vex Code,

but it's more bare bones
and it allows for a greater level

of control, but it's a lot more difficult
to use it effectively.

Then there's Vexide, which is
a Rust-based alternative with

similar benefits to pros, but a lot newer
and supposedly more efficient.

I've played around with it
a little bit, but I've not

noticed any major difference.

Do you have any advice for people
that want to get into robotics,

how you would get started with that?

Just look around your region.

If your school has one or if
they don't have one, then you

could try and convince them to get one.

Vex Robotics can be done
essentially all over the world.

Even on a remote island,
you could essentially have

of your own virtual competition,
which is what happened during COVID.

If you could make a robot do anything
in the world, what would you make it do?

Ideally, we'd win the world's competition.

But in terms of an actual physical
thing, this year, we have a five-foot

tall ladder in the middle of the field.

I think climbing that would
just be really cool.

What materials the robots
are they built out?

Is it aluminum or do you
use steel or plastic?

It's a variety of materials.

We have So the majority of the robot
is going to be built out of aluminum C

channel, which is essentially
a grade-based thing where we can just

screw it into any point.

We can just screw a ton
of C channels together,

and that is what makes up our robot.

We can also use steel, which is just
the aluminum, but it's stronger.

Then we also get a lexan limit.

We can use a polycarbonate for various
things, whether it be deflectors

or just random parts on the robot
that may or may not need to

be just plastic for whatever reason.

I'm looking forward
in the robot community.

What are you most excited about?

Specifically in our region,
our region is still majorly growing.

Covid hit our region pretty hard
and sent a lot of teams away from Vex.

Having nearly 50, 60 teams showing up
every single competition is just cool.

It's just cool to have happen again
because I've been following Vex

for a little bit beforehand
because obviously my brother was in it.

How can people get in touch with you if
they want to see your robots in action?

We have an Instagram account.

It's 241_eclipse.

There we post our competition results
and what we're doing

if we're going to a middle school
to demonstrate next robotics, then

they can also see us there.

Let's play a game.

Ready?

It's called Two Truths
and a Lie, Tech Edition.

I've never heard of this game.

I'm going to tell you three things.

Two are true, one is false,
and you have to tell me what my lie is.

Okay, shoot.
Okay.

Number one, I didn't have a smartphone
when I started at System 76.

Two, my favorite System
76 laptop is the lemur.

Number three, my first Ubuntu version
I installed was 1104 Nady Narwell.

I think if I had to guess,
knowing that your start date

was X number of years ago.

I do know the number.

I don't need to reveal it here.

I want to say that your favorite laptop is
actually the pangolin and not the lemur.

Oh, my God.
What?

How did you How do you know that?

How do you always know
the answers to the game?

Sometimes I just guess it to it.
What?

How you guess that?

I mean, I don't know.

We were a very young
company when you started.

It is true.

I didn't have a smartphone, and
I didn't even really what the term was.

Then they said, Do you have a smartphone?

I was like, I think I have a dumb phone?
I don't know.

All the phone could do was make
calls, and it could take pictures,

but it could only access a web browser.

I don't even know what that protocol was,
but it only could do the web browser.

It was terrible.

You couldn't even go on a site
because they weren't optimized

for mobile at the time anyway.

Got to say, though, after maybe over a
decade now of having a smartphone, That's

probably all you need a phone to do.

I'm just going to say that.

Personal opinion.

I'm going to agree to disagree there.

All right, well, you're super smart
and you did great at the game.

So let's say goodbye for now.

Goodbye for now.

3, 2, 1.

This has This has been

the System 76 transmission log.

For more inspiration, check out the
website and follow us on social media.

On your descent back to Earth,
please keep your hands and feet

inside the transport beam at all times.

Captain, sign off in transmission.