@amosbatto That certainly clarifies things. Thanks for elaborating on this. I am waiting for a reply from System76 sales support. Trying to demo the PopOS! before making any commitments with a purchase.
If you are new to Linux, I recommend installing the Cinnamon desktop:
sudo apt install cinnamon-desktop-environment
It is much easier to use than GNOME Shell in Pop!_OS in my opinion.
Pardon the late response, still working through college assignments for the rest of this year. @amosbatto I have not abandoned what you have shared and also clarified with your previous posts.
For Personal projects, I will go with Linux via System76. I am eye-balling the Thelio Desktop Computer line. For business, I will stick with Mac OSX because I need things to work smoothly and be compatible.
For testing out the Cinnamon desktop do you recommend I use ubuntu and install that desktop environment in it?
Not to answer for @amosbatto, but if youâre looking to explore Cinnamon and/or Linux in general, I would recommend Linux Mint. Thatâs how I learned Linux, itâs very new-user friendly (though not the prettiest OS in the world) and has a very helpful community. Itâs also based off Ubuntu LTS releases, so I donât think itâs as cutting-edge as 20.04, but if youâre just looking to get a feel for it, itâs a very good way to go.
You can install Cinnamon in Ubuntu or Pop!_OS (the two OSes that System76 offers), or you can install Mint with Cinnamon, since it comes with Cinnamon preinstalled. If all you are doing is testing, then you can install it in a virtual machine.
Linux has several dozen different desktop environments that you can try out. Cinnamon is close to the Windows 7 interface, and is easy to use, whereas GNOME 3 Shell is very different from what most people are used to.
The Thelio is going to cost you the same as the laptop that I recommended. It costs $1,505 for a 6 core Ryzen, 500 GB SSD, Radeon RX 550 GPU and 16GB RAM. On the other hand, the Thelio is easier to upgrade and you are getting an American-made PC, and it is really good to support S76 when it does custom manufacturing and has an open hardware case and IO daughter board.
BTW, you can save a lot of money by doing the upgrades yourself.
The last time I remember learning about putting my own computer together was before middle school. I am looking for something more powerful than the specs you gave for the laptop.
I am aiming for the Thelio Major to start. Where do you recommend I get the parts? My goal is to be able to do 3D work using Blender software, not just video work. The 3D work is for personal/hobby work I want to see what Blender can do.
Edit: Should I make a separate thread or take this conversation private? I think this conversation has deviated from the original post. @amosbatto
Also there is this:
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What has happened with the graphics and RAM capabilities? More cores arenât enough for what I want to use it for. Also, while I respect what you are doing company wise, I donât do pre-orders, especially this early. It wouldnât be good financially for me to do so.
Would you feel better if I took the conversation between me an @amosbatto private, so the forums stays with your products?
There are many places to buy parts. I normally buy from newegg.com when Iâm in the US (I live abroad), but that is, because I donât want to support Amazon and NewEgg makes it easy to find parts on their web site. NewEgg takes longer to ship parts than Amazon.
For normal Thelio, I would advise you to buy the RAM and GPU separately and install them yourself if you are trying to save money, but it looks like with the Thelio Major, S76 charges a lot for the base model, but has reasonable prices for upgrading the components.
This article explains what hardware Blender uses. If you have CUDA or OpenCL cores in your GPU, then Blender will take advantage of them, but just like video rendering, it is primarily the CPU cores that are being used, and if you have to chose, it better to buy more CPU cores than buy a high-powered GPU.
It is hard for me to recommend stuff with you telling me exactly what you need. If you want to build a high-powered video rendering machine, you can buy this motherboard, CPU and GPU, but it doesnât sound to me like you really need that much horsepower, and that machine is not going to be quiet.
Then I will start with the Optimal-Level Specs - or close to it - for Blender for the 3D Pipeline. (https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/)
Also, another example is Kdenlive Video Editor: https://kdenlive.org/en/
If your recommendations can handle those two software, than any other graphics work should be easy (GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, etc.). Audio work should be easy as well, especially recording audio clips to production level video.
Does that help? Or how to could I better communicate to you so you can offer better recommendations?
The problem with the Optimal-Level Specs is ⌠it wants a graphics card and a graphics card isnât really compatible with the privacy and security that comes with open source / blob-free.
The remaining requirements are relatively undemanding, providing that you are prepared to compromise from 8 cores to 6 cores - but if you insist on 8 cores then you can certainly get 8 cores anyway.
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I donât think that you need Thelio Major. You are going to get better performance with Thelio + 3rd gen Ryzen 9 (12 or 16 cores) than Thelio Major with an Intel CPU. Look at the performance chart for Blender. Video rendering is going to have very similar numbers.
S76 is charging so much for Thelio Major + Threadripper, that I honestly canât recommend it. If you really need a Threadripper machine, you can save $2k by building your own machine.
Buying RAM and a GPU on your own and installing it is not hard at all. I recommend AMD GPUs because you can use an open source driver. Then issue this command to install it:
sudo apt install xserver-xorg-video-radeon
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i would recommend that too but if he makes that choice 10bit color depth support goes out the window(s?) 
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@reC So narrowed down to the Blender Optimal Specs,
What hardware do you recommend at the best price? Keep in mind, I have never had to build my ow computer before, which should be obvious at this point.
As long as the parts are compatible for open source software and smooth software use, the source for parts shouldnât matter to much. I am not looking for a perfect answer as long as the software can be used to full advantage and have smooth responses.
I do intent to go though System 76 for at least a good âskeletonâ to build off of.
Perhaps âyou can order the Vikings D8 with a second CPU (increasing the available CPU cores to 16â, 2Ă35W or 2Ă95 TDP and âorder this system without a discrete GPU, e.g. if you would like to install a graphics card yourself.â
By being aware, etc.:
With an AMD GPU you can configure it to use 10-bit color, but the default is 8-bit. See: https://linuxreviews.org/HOWTO_enable_10-bit_color_on_Linux
Chromium doesnât support 10-bit color, but you can use Firefox, which is what is preinstalled. Honestly, I donât think that 10 bit color is necessary. I canât see much difference, and a lot of monitors donât even support it. At any rate, this is probably a temporary problem with Chromium.
If you can use a screwdriver, then you can add RAM, GPU and SSD on your own. YouTube has videos that you can watch,but if you want the Apple experience, then just order it all from S76.
Just make sure to buy DDR4 RAM for desktop PCs and not LPDDR4 for laptops. I already gave you links to the Radeon RX 570 or 5700 you can buy. If you are unsure, post links to what you are going to buy.
Okay, I will do just that. Thanks for your input regarding buying parts and also the types of parts. That will come in handy. I will bookmark your suggestions in my browser.
Edit: I saved the last two paragraphs of the conversation that included the recommended parts needed. Thanks @amosbatto .
Edit 2: I have made a list and descriptions of the Desktop computer I am going to save up for, I set a upper budget of $4,000. My build comes in under that by a good margin. I think this is enough and effectively solved my problem. I wonât need any more help with this.
@Jonathanta it might pay off to make an account @ blenderartists forum and see what people use and recommend there as well âŚ
@amosbatto i was on about 10bit because if you want to work professionally with color then you need 10bit color depth support enabled at the OS level and enabled in the drivers/firmware ⌠i too would prefer the amdgpu option instead of the green side but reality is that most people just go for the highest efficiency and that currently is CUDA (i donât like it because itâs a proprietary technology and if something happens and a meteor falls and destroys nvidia hq then you are fucked - pardon the french)
also yes you need at least a 8bit+FRC (~10bit color depth monitor) and you need to keep it color accurate and profiled according to your target audience ⌠like i said it helps to read up on this stuff as it will prove to be a major benefit especially if your target audience is diverse or if you go to PRINT âŚ
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Yes, I might sound silly as well, but I was thinking when talking about working with Blender that 10-bit colour depth is someoneâs requirements number one. How about considering to give it a try to Radeon⢠Pro W5500 or Pro W5700 graphics cards?
Those are not today on AMD Radeon⢠ProRender for BlenderÂŽ compatible LinuxÂŽ AMD Graphics Hardware list (ready yet for Linux platform), but tomorrow that might change. Radeon Pro Software link is here. And yes, I understand this post is in wrong thread (not PureOS compatible) as it might be hard to support 10-bit (each of red, green, and blue) colour depth without non-free repository. Anyway, I was guessing and now see clearly that for @reC panel 10-bit support (1.07 billion display colors), for graphics intensive workload, is important and he is not alone, for sure. And perhaps in ten years from now on my eyes will not be able to make difference in number of colours but today Iâll not watch single Blender movie in 8-bit colour, just because I can afford this to myself (without judging those that cannot or rather spending their money somewhere else).
note that i was referring to a PRODUCTION machine NOT a machine destined for CONSUMING content ONLY. for consumers 8 bit or even 6bit+FRC is usually ENOUGH.
that being said professionals usually PRODUCE content so it is important for them to AT LEAST have aprox 10bit on the panel. MORE is better ofc but the costs quickly ramp up to thousands of dollars investment in monitor panels. but i digress ⌠this is not that type of forum. iâll shut up now.
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