System76 Transmission Log

3, 2, 1, 0.

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.

Emma, what is your
favorite kind of chocolate?

Dark chocolate is the correct answer.

Yes, 86% is what I prefer.

I'm eating 88 right now.

Actually not right right now.

Otherwise you hear me
biting on some squares.

But I heard you biting on the
squares earlier that you did.

So perks of working at System 76.

Yes, chocolate all the time.

All right, let's get started.
I'm Emma.

I'm Alex and this is
system 76 transmission log.

Welcome.

Let's get into the news.

All right, well first
up we got a new Darter.

Just hit the market.

It's our screen real estate laptop.

14 or 16 inch ultra portable 1610 display.

It's got that nice silver finish and it's
just been upgraded with the Core

Ultra 200 series CPUs from Intel.

But it has not updated the chassis.

So still rocking that same silver slick
chassis that we love so much

and looking as pro as can be.

Absolutely.

That Darter.

Real stalwart in the office.

Let's move on to the next topic.

The launch keyboards still on sale.

Still on sale folks.

They are 40 to $60 off
depending on which one you get.

Manufactured right here in Denver.

Alex, what's your favorite switch type?

Favorite switch type?

Well, I was going to say Nintendo but I
feel like dropping a company

wouldn't really be good here.

So I'm just going to say you're so funny.

You're just so clever today.

Use the jades on mine.

Currently I have a pre production model
because I had to write about how

the keys felt on the website.
Enjoyed it a lot.

And I started with the royals but the
clacky sound is a little weird to me.

And then I tried the clicky ones and it
was a lot more satisfying

on my fingertips.
And then we introduced the browns.

So I do want to give those a shot.

I think I would like them a lot but for
now I have to say the jades

because I haven't tried the browns.

Can you guess what my
favorite switch type is?

Is it the pinks?
It is.

Good.
Guess what's next?

Cubicon.

We are done with Cubicon
Europe and that was a big one.

Athelio Astra making its rounds again all
over the world it seems she was on display

doing a demo at the Blunk
booth and the arm booth.

At the arm booth it was showing off all
128 cores running LLMs using Bluefin and

Rama Llama, which is really interesting
and visually fun to watch with

B Top going at the same time.

And yeah, we don't know where Astra is off
to next, but we're going to

share it, so get excited.

It's like the Carmen Sandiego
of computers this year.

It is, yes.

Like everybody wants to show off Astra.

Yeah, Kubecon's over, but Linux Fest
Northwest is up next and we won't be

bringing an Astra out there, but we will
be bringing some meerkats and

pangolins and launch keyboards.

And Carl will be doing a talk on Cosmic
DE and the progress from the last year.

Yeah, partly because he introduced Cosmic
at Linux Fest Northwest

the last time he was there.

People have been waiting for the sequel.

This is now the sequel and believe it or
not, it will be better than the original.

Yes, we are excited to watch and we're
also hosting a lunch the

Saturday of the fest.

So come by and see us and
grab a sandwich and say hi.

BYO bbq.
Right?

No, barbecue.

Actually I definitely want
to bring barbecue sauce.

So it is bring your own barbecue sauce?
No, it is.

I just said it wasn't.

So why would you say it is?

Well, because if the barbecue wasn't
happening, then you'd need

to bring your own sauce.

Well, what's up next, Cosmic?

People have been
wondering where that's at.

We are still putting together Alpha 7.

There's a few features we want to get
together for what we hope is the last

Alpha release before we switch to beta.

So we're working on things
like pinned workspaces.

People have been asking
about static workspaces.

That's sort of our, our solution to that.

And then pausing for dramatic
effect, slash thinking.

We've got some accessibility
features in the works and more.

Well, thanks for that
update about Cosmics, Emma.

We have a fantastic guest
here with us today as always.

Yes, a longtime friend of
System 76, Michael Dominic.

Some of you may know him.

Today we have Mike Dominic from the MAD
Botter, an AI development company and a

well known nerd in the Linux community.
While.

Welcome Michael.
Thanks for having me.

Folks, can you tell us what is
madbotter and what do you do there?

We're at our core a small software
company based out of Tampa, Florida.

We do automation and AI enabled software,
which is just a fancy way to say we

automate basically large sets of
data for regulated industries.

So think the military and military
contractors, large construction folks who

have large sets of data locked in Legacy
systems and need to pull them forward for

either compliance issues or just to, you
know, not be running everything in

Microsoft Access, which you would be
surprised how many big companies are

relying on one Access database to run a,
you know, multimillion dollar business.

I thought on your Website I saw
ChatGPT and some of your work.

How do you implement that with your app?

We're a OpenAI developer.
Right.

So a ChatGPT developer.

Our Alice product has a optional ChatGPT
integration that just basically takes some

preset prompts, ties it into our algorithm
to try to understand, you know, we don't

want to be too mean to some of these
legacy systems, but shall we

say, more obscure data formats.

I don't know if anybody's old enough to
remember FoxPro databases here,

but we get kind of a lot of those.

What are you most excited
about with the future of AI?

You know, I think it's going to level the
playing field for frankly, younger folks.

I have an 8 year old, soon to be 9, and
with just a little bit of help and like

Cursor, he's able to fully develop
Minecraft, little Minecraft mods.

Doing a lot with Pygame and I think that
would have been far more challenging for

him and obviously kids his age without
just that, you know,

little bit of extra hand.

Does he, does your son use like
ChatGPT to help with his coding?

Yeah, via the cursor IDE,
which is a offshoot of VS Code.

Okay, cool.

So is there a reason for the
Alice in Wonderland theme?

How does that tie into the company?

Well, anybody who listens to coder
radio knows that I'm a little eccentric.

So I'd like to tell you there was a really
good, smart, you know, Forbes

500 business reason for that.

I thought it was cool, the idea of
reinterpreting Lewis Carroll's, you know,

Alice in Wonderland universe to basically
be, if you want to look at the

website, 1950s retro robots.
Right?

Yeah, I like it.

It's so cool.

And the little pet rabbit is fun too.
Yep, yep.

We used to have a product actually called
Rabot, which that little pet rabbit is.

Yeah, Rabot.
Clever.

What's your Linux background?

Oh, so we could go all
the way back in time.

I started with Linux on the desktop
when the only color choice was brown.

At least that's what
Ubuntu told me at the time.

So I want to is that 810 or 910 somewhere
in there spent a lot of tears

trying to set up Ubuntu tv.

Just so much Pain eventually.

I actually am a pop user now
and on my kick around machine, which

is also a system 76 used cosmic.

I'm actually on the latest alpha.

I think we just is going to update to
beta, but I don't know when that is.

I might have already done it because
I know it's a rolling release, so.

So yeah, it's been using it on
the desktop for a long time.

I love my Thaleo.

I tend to buy more Thaleos than I actually
use because I give them away once a year

to middle school and high school students.
That's fun.

Tell us about that.

Yeah, so every year we do
an Earth Day competition.

You could be just have to be in the US
high school or middle school actually and

do some sort of coding or engineering.

It doesn't have to be coding.

One year a kid actually brought in a.

He actually designed something in
open CAD which was really cool.

Like his own take on a hydroponic fish
tank where on top of the tank was.

You could grow your hydroponic.

His example was strawberries.

But you know, it could be anything, right?
Super cool.

Yeah.
These kids come up with amazing stuff.

Emma.
It's really, you know, there's no.

There's no cost to entry,
there's no gimmick.

We don't charge for anything.
Pick.

Every year we pick one winner,
that winner gets a brandy.

New Thaleo, you guys have been kind enough
to allow me to buy them and ship them

directly for me so I don't
have to deal with that.

It's.
I think it's.

It's obviously very small impact, but it's
good to see enthusiasm in

young people for this stuff.
Especially when.

I don't know if you've ever heard of
Fortnite, but they sure spend

a lot of time on Fortnite.
I think Roblox is the new one.

I know.
See, I'm dating myself already.

It's not even that new.

Even when I'm trying
to say get off my lawn.

I'm just so old, I don't even
know where the lawn is now.

Oh yeah, my kid loves Roblox.

He loves that and Minecraft and weirdly
Scratch, which runs great on Linux.

So that's a nice plus because I'm forcing
him actually to use my old pangolin.

You're Talking about
your system 76 machines.

Can you tell us what machines you've used
and what are some of your

favorites or what is your favorite?

Okay, I'm going to try to not
butcher any model names here.

The First, I think it was the
first Ultrabook you guys did.

I was actually in Denver when you
were showing it off, the Galago Pro.

I have the Lemur.

I have, I think the new
pangolin that I just got.

I actually have a customer who every time
they want to send me data that they don't

want shared on other machines, they buy
one of your laptops and send it to me.

So that's interesting.

Yeah, it's kind of crazy.
I have Onyx.

I know it's not a Pure System 76 machine,
but I'm sure you guys remember the

HP Dev 1 collaboration you guys did.

That's actually.

That was an exciting
one around the office.

Yeah, that's my rode machine actually
because just because of the portable size,

I just throw it in my bag and if I have
to, let's say I tend to have to

fly to New York or North Carolina.

It's perfect machine for that.

But the workhorse like doing the heavy
lifting, any kind of real computation

is still my trusty Thaleo.
Awesome.

So you've had, I think you've
had it since the first Thaleo.

So you've had it for
like six, seven years.

Yep.
I actually have two Thaleos.

Yep.
But I have both of them.

The old Thaleo is also still in service
doing some just like internal

company server stuff.

Have you upgraded it?

I upgraded the RAM in it and I wildly
upgraded the storage just to

meet the new needs of the server.

But then I got greedy and bought another
one that was a threadripper and

that's what's doing all the.
So.

So this might be too inside baseball.

I'm trying to run some of these MLS
locally just for obviously

data privacy for folks.

But also these APIs are going to expensive
and it's not a bad idea to try to.

I don't know.

See this is where my old man
shaking his fist at the cloud skin.

I truly believe you should
host your own content.

Right.

You should try to host your own blog
instead of using something like medium.

You should maybe not pump
all your data up to ChatGPT.

So that's where running some of these
LLMs has been an interesting experiment.

It's gone fairly well.

I don't know, it just seems like a great
horizon for the open source

community and Linux in particular.

I can't go too much into it but I've been
doing some kind of generation and training

3D graphics files and I just started
playing around with I'm gonna get the

libraries wrong so I won't
try with it on a fancy Mac.

And the newer Thaleo.

And the Thaleo blew it out simply because,
in my opinion, the software is now being

primarily written for a Linux
environment in terms of performance.

Right.
To do the computations and the advantage.

It's unbelievable.

And to pay a service to do this for us
would be, frankly, a significant bill.

All right, so we've gone through
what system 176 products you've used.

Oh, I didn't mention my favorite.

Oh, so this is a little oddball.

I have the original launch
keyboard right here.

I don't know if you
can hear the clackings.

You will pry it from my cold, dead hands.
I love this thing.

So you got the jade switches then?
Yep.

I said clacking.
Oh, they're clacking.

That's awesome.

So do you have a certain color scheme that
you do or do you just go full rainbow?

I was doing the rainbow beach ball thing.

I ended up finding it distracting.

So now I just do it where you.

The meteor shower when you type.
Cool.

Anybody who doesn't have a
launch will think I sound crazy.

There's a utility application
that you can change.

They all have names, right?

One that's called galaxy,
one's called meteor strike.

We've talked a lot about the system 76
machines you have, and it

seems to go back a long way.

How did you first find us?

That's a great question because I
don't think I remember the answer.

It was a long time ago.

We're talking a long time ago.

How did I first find you?
You know how I found you.

I know exactly how I found you.

It was Chris Fisher when I.

You know, because we used
to do code radio together.

And I think he had you on
one of the other JB shows.

Not you personally.
I think it was Carl.

Yeah.
And it was at the Linux Action show.

It was a long time ago because.

I mean, it was the one
with video too, right?

Yeah, it was the old, Old right.
When.

When they used to have like the.

The anchor desk and everything.

I think the background was like the
webpage that they were

talking about or whatever.
Yep.

That was so ahead of everybody else.

They're doing such
awesome stuff over there.

He.
He was.

So the idea of a podcast network, you
think about it now, there's

tons of them, Right.

The New York Times, all
these big shots have them.

But Chris, really.

And the whole team at JB kind of pioneered
what an independent podcast

network could look like.

Yeah, this was like 10,
like over 12 years ago.

Or 13 years ago.
Yeah, because.

Because he and I started coder together.

It was 13 years ago.

So cool to see how the community is.

Has stuck together and stuck with their
projects and how everyone is still knowing

each other and communicating
and staying in touch.

I remember a lot of us used to like not
have kids before this started, right?

Yep.

Is there anything you'd like to tell
the community about the MAD Bot?

If you.

If you need any kind of ETL data
processing or automation done and you want

a local US based vendor,
we are here for you.

We do use exclusively open source tools,
so when you go with us, you're not going

to be forced to like buy a license to.

Probably shouldn't name names, but
expensive enterprise data processing

tools that will lock you in forever.

And how can people get in touch with you?

You can either go to alice.

dev you could go to themadbotter.

com or just email me mikethemadbotter.

com awesome.

Well, we appreciate you
coming on the show today.

We are so excited to share your experience
with the community and hope you have

all the best success with the madbotter.
Thank you so much.

Been a pleasure.

Looks like we've covered all our bases.

3, 2, 1, 0.

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 continue.

Keep your hands and feet inside
the transport beam at all times.

Captain Synoff in transmission.