System76.com Serval Professional unboxing
Before Christmas my laptop and mobile phone were stolen. After a lot of research and waiting I decided on a Serval Professional from system76.com. see… http://www.system76.com/index.php?cPath=28
They don’t ship to Australia but were happy enough to ship to my in-laws in Colorado. From there my dear Mother-In-Law on-shipped the box to Australia. After being stuck in Australian Customs for over a week (and a charge of AU$514 taxes) the box has arrived.
It should be a really nice, no compromise desktop replacement. Specs…
System76.com Serval Pro
Fully Supported Ubuntu 9.10 64 Bit Linux
15.6″ Full HD LED (1920 x 1080)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 285M – 1GB GDDR3
Core i7-920XM Processor Extreme Edition
8 GB – DDR3 1333 MHz x 2 DIMMs
160 GB Intel X25-M Solid State Drive
My initial plans are to set up VMWare workstation on it (which I have piloted on some previous machines) and set up my “computer lab” entirely virtually on this new mobile platform. This way I can get rid of all the miscellaneous electronic bits that have made up my lab over recent years.
Once unboxed I’ll start to set-up the new machine and will be updating my most popular blog entry (find it here http://dominoconsultant.org/2009/04/21/ubuntu-904-a-how-to-for-my-laptop/ ). This time it will be for Ubuntu 9.10 with any System76.com specifics.
The unboxing
These are great pictures and good memories of mine. I just got my Serval a little over a week ago. I absolutely love it save for a few configuration issues with hardware. I blew away Ubuntu right away and put in Slackware. I’ve never liked Ubuntu. I like what they are doing for the community, but I don’t like using it. It always seems to get in my way.
The only issues I have are the wireless, which I fixed by downloading the driver from Realtek directly and suspend does not work. I repartitioned and put in Ubuntu and did a restore and suspend also does not work on that restored install. I do not know if it ever worked on the original install. I did not take the time to try it. My only other gripe is the mouse. It does not scroll when dragging on the right edge. Not a big deal.
For me this is a work system. I didn’t have time to play with it. I needed to get all my stuff functioning in short order. I have to say, this is the nicest display, the most powerful hardware (ordered the i7 840QM and 8GB of RAM), and the best keyboard I’ve ever had. I like the fact that it has a microphone and camera built in. I don’t have to bring anything with me to use Skype with video.
Thanks for posting this. I enjoyed the pictures. I hope System 76 keeps growing. This is my first purchase from them and I’m absolutely thrilled with it.
Yeah, I wish system76 shipped to Australia – my laptop just died and I’d love to get one of theirs, since I’ve been using Ubuntu exclusively for years anyway… But $514 tax? Ouch…