Galago Pro review (+ Mint 21 Cinnamon)

[MurphCID]

I have the Galago Pro from System 76, model galp6. Specs are below. I wanted this laptop for a while, and since I have spent the last 28 years scrimping, saving, working extra jobs, using 2nd and 3rd hand computers for decades, doing without, etc to save, and am now retired so I can sort of afford it (I also gave up several other hobbies to make this happen). So I have been using it for a couple of days so let me address the good, the bad, and the meh. It also has had the coffee shop test of going to some coffee shops with me. It has replaced the Darter Pro as my laptop downstairs due to its size and weight.

Overall:
Good looking system 14" screen model, came in the usual System 76 box. No damage, no marks, scratches or dings. 90 watt barrel charger.

Ports:
EXCELLENT: 2x USB-C (one of which is thunderbolt), 2 USB-A, HDMI, and Ethernet. Thunderbolt port DOES work under Mint 21.

Screen:
Nice and reasonably bright, but not as bright as either the Lemur Pro or the HP Dev One. No dead Pixels. Also a nice matte screen, so no glare.

Hardware:
12th Generation Intel i5-1240P with 4 "P" cores and 8 "E" cores which show as 16 cores on HTOP. 500 gb NVME drive, 16gb of ram. Coreboot firmware which gives you NO control over anything except boot order. I got the i5 since I really have no use for anything more powerful. WiFi 6 (Claimed by System 76), Memory foot print on HTOP shows higher than on other laptops with normal "resting" ram usage with just a terminal and HTOP running of 1.15 gb vs 850-900 on the Lemur Pro or HP Dev One, all running Mint 21 Cinnamon.

Keyboard and trackpad:
Very good, not as good as the one on the HP Dev One, but one of the better ones for good tactile feel. Trackpad is good and smooth, works fine, I don't use it and turn it off since I use an external mouse.

Software:
Comes with POP!_OS 22.04 with the Cosmic desktop. It has the firmware updater which is nice. Gnome is not my cup of tea, and their version of Cinnamon is both older and very unattractive where you get tan icons/folder icons. So I immediately after the first boot installed Linux Mint 21 on it. As is my wont, I installed HTOP and TLP right off the bat. I am not seeing any real issue using Mint 21 on a 12th generation chipset. I installed the System 76 PPA's and it updated the kernel to 5.19, but something just felt "off" with that PPA, so I reinstalled plain vanilla MInt 21 Cinnamon with the 5.15-48 kernel and it seems to work fine.

The Good:
Good weight, very nice keyboard, lots of ports, and it seems stable with Mint 21. Thunderbolt and USB-C ports WORK under Mint 21 compared to the Darter Pro where they did not work. WiFi is very fast and responsive. Ethernet works well, and fast. Typing on the keyboard is very good, accurate, and has excellent tactile response. Fast boot and fast shut down. Mint allow me to theme things but that is not really the focus here.

The bad:
Screen hinge is the floppiest of all the System 76/HP laptops I have owned. It tends to move when I pick up the laptop, not much, but some. This is somewhat concerning. I just do not understand why in this day and age why laptops have to have floppy screens? The Lemur Pro screen is rock solid, with no flop, same for the Darter Pro, and the HP Dev One. It does not take much shake to get the screen to move on the Galago Pro.

The Meh:
Battery. I am hoping it gets better as there are a couple of charging cycles occur. It has the same size battery as the HP Dev One, and the battery on the Dev One settled down, and I am now getting 5-6 hours of usage from it. This one is showing 3-5 hours depending. It could be also a kernel issue, wanting a later kernel more suited for the 12th generation processors. Screen is just not as bright as other System 76 or HP laptops I have had or have. I have brightness at 27% whereas on the Lemur or HP Dev One I have 10%/9% respectively. It is not bad by any means, it is just not as bright.

"Feel", subjectively it does not feel nearly as good as either the Lemur Pro or the Dev One. Perhaps it will grow on me as time goes by. I think I would have been happier if I had gotten a second Lemur Pro since that is probably my all time favorite laptop (with the Dev One being a close second by microns). But I wanted a Galago since I purchased the first System 76 the old Darter Pro which has gone on to a friend who needed a laptop. But it is by no means a bad laptop, or even an unacceptable one. There is also a slightly different "feel" with Mint 21 on this laptop compared to the Lemur Pro or Dev One that I cannot put into words or even quantify, it just "feels" slightly less enjoyable than the installations on those other laptops. Do Not mistake my comment as claiming it is bad, or even not good, because that is NOT what I am saying. For those who have multiple devices with Linux Mint, you will understand what I am saying about "feel". This could also change with an update to the Kernel to 6/6.1 later on down the road.

What could have been done to make it better? One; giving it the 73/watt battery from the Lemur Pro would make it superb. But with the small 53/watt battery the screen is fine, if it had the Lemur screen, battery life would be that much shorter. Also a better screen hinge would be very nice. I am NOT one of those folks who want to lift my laptop screen with one finger. Who cares? I want sturdy. All in all not as polished or well made device as the Lemur Pro or the HP Dev One. Better than many laptops out there though.

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 5.15.0-48-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.2.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 5.4.12
    tk: GTK 3.24.33 wm: Mutter dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 21 Vanessa base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: System76 product: Galago Pro v: galp6 serial: <superuser required> Chassis:
    type: 9 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: System76 model: Galago Pro v: galp6 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: coreboot
    v: 2022-08-03_26f97c8 date: 08/02/2022
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 28.5 Wh (52.6%) condition: 54.2/51.5 Wh (105.1%) volts: 14.9 min: 15.2
    model: Notebook BAT serial: <filter> status: Discharging
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse serial: <filter>
    charge: 55% (should be ignored) status: Discharging
CPU:
  Info: 12-core (4-mt/8-st) model: 12th Gen Intel Core i5-1240P bits: 64 type: MST AMCP
    arch: Alder Lake rev: 3 cache: L1: 1.1 MiB L2: 9 MiB L3: 12 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1382 high: 2138 min/max: 400/4400:5600:3300:2665 cores: 1: 950 2: 706
    3: 1791 4: 1802 5: 1696 6: 2138 7: 1510 8: 826 9: 1389 10: 1549 11: 1407 12: 1823 13: 1747
    14: 779 15: 561 16: 1451 bogomips: 67584
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-P Integrated Graphics vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: i915 v: kernel
    ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3, DP-4, HDMI-A-1, HDMI-A-2, HDMI-A-3 bus-ID: 00:02.0
    chip-ID: 8086:46a6
  Device-2: Acer BisonCam NB Pro type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 3-7:3 chip-ID: 5986:9102
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 driver: X: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa
    gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 res: 1920x1080 dpi: 158 diag: 345mm (13.6")
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel Graphics (ADL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.0.5 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake PCH-P High Definition Audio vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:51c8
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-48-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-P PCH CNVi WiFi driver: iwlwifi v: kernel bus-ID: 00:14.3
    chip-ID: 8086:51f0
  IF: wlp0s20f3 state: up mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK
    driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 4000 bus-ID: 2e:00.0
    chip-ID: 10ec:8168
  IF: enp46s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel AX201 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 3-10:4 chip-ID: 8087:0026
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down bt-service: enabled,running rfk-block:
    hardware: no software: yes address: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 27.27 GiB (5.9%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB size: 465.76 GiB
    speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> temp: 29.9 C
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 456.89 GiB used: 27.02 GiB (5.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511 MiB used: 258.5 MiB (50.6%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swapfile
USB:
  Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Hi-speed hub with single TT ports: 1 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
    chip-ID: 1d6b:0002
  Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Super-speed hub ports: 1 rev: 3.1 speed: 20 Gb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0003
  Hub-3: 3-0:1 info: Hi-speed hub with single TT ports: 12 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
    chip-ID: 1d6b:0002
  Device-1: 3-3:2 info: Logitech Unifying Receiver type: Keyboard,Mouse,HID
    driver: logitech-djreceiver,usbhid rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 046d:c52b
  Device-2: 3-7:3 info: Acer BisonCam NB Pro type: Video driver: uvcvideo rev: 2.0
    speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 5986:9102
  Device-3: 3-10:4 info: Intel AX201 Bluetooth type: Bluetooth driver: btusb rev: 2.0
    speed: 12 Mb/s chip-ID: 8087:0026
  Hub-4: 4-0:1 info: Super-speed hub ports: 4 rev: 3.1 speed: 10 Gb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0003
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 39.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: 2107 apt: 2097 flatpak: 10
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
    1: deb http: //packages.linuxmint.com vanessa main upstream import backport
    2: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe multiverse
    3: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    4: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    5: deb http: //security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted universe multiverse
Info:
  Processes: 380 Uptime: 2m Memory: 15.47 GiB used: 1.81 GiB (11.7%) Init: systemd v: 249
  runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 11.2.0 alt: 11 Client: Unknown python3.10 client inxi: 3.3.13

Edited for spelling errors.

[MurphCID]

Update:

Just installed the 5.15.0.50 kernel, and things seem fine. The hinge on this laptop is the worst of any laptop I have ever had. I set the laptop down to let the dog out, and the screen moved backwards, and I set it down gently. I am not impressed and wonder why they could not have used the superb hinge of the Lemur Pro/Darter Pro which are very sturdy.

Booting I see an ACPI error message that flashes briefly twice and then the system boots. I see the same error message on the HP Dev One as well. But it flashes so quickly I cannot read the messages. I am still testing this laptop, and I must say, that for me and my use case, the size (14") is perfect. On the web I go to 125% magnification on Chrome websites.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...The hinge on this laptop is the worst of any laptop I have ever had. I set the laptop down to let the dog out, and the screen moved backwards, and I set it down gently. I am not impressed and wonder why they could not have used the superb hinge of the Lemur Pro/Darter Pro which are very sturdy...

Try contacting System 76. This may be a repairable issue.

[MurphCID]

...The hinge on this laptop is the worst of any laptop I have ever had. I set the laptop down to let the dog out, and the screen moved backwards, and I set it down gently. I am not impressed and wonder why they could not have used the superb hinge of the Lemur Pro/Darter Pro which are very sturdy...

Try contacting System 76. This may be a repairable issue.

I am going to do so as soon as I get a chance. Submitted.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

The hinge on my System 76 Serval is a lot stiffer than I would like—I have to use both hands to open it up—but I much prefer that over too loose like yours. At least mine will eventually loosen from wear to a more acceptable level.

[MurphCID]

The hinge on my System 76 Serval is a lot stiffer than I would like—I have to use both hands to open it up—but I much prefer that over too loose like yours. At least mine will eventually loosen from wear to a more acceptable level.

The hinge is a completely different design than the other two laptops. One finger opening is not something I really think about. On the upside, battery life is now starting to stabilize at 5-6 hours. I have been using it a lot at the house, and am on charge cycle #4. It is such a pity that they discontinued so many of their laptops like the Serval and Kudu.

[MurphCID]

System 76 offered to replace the unit without any issues. I do not think the screen is that horrible, but it was nice for the customer service to have responded so promptly. Typing on this keyboard is very impressive having a nice solid feel.

[MurphCID]

Ok, I have been using it a lot since I got it, and I must state for the record it is a pretty good laptop overall. The floppy screen is not enough to send it back, and it does not fall down by itself while typing, just moves a bit when you set it down. They keyboard is top notch, and of course the port selection is excellent. I find that Linux Mint 21 runs just fine on this laptop. There is the same odd ACPI error message which flashes really quickly on the screen as I get on the Dev One. Power is much less than that on the Lemur Pro, but it has a smaller battery (53/watt vs 73/watt), but I am getting 5-6 hours of usage from it before having to recharge.

The screen is not as bright as either the Lemur Pro or the Dev One, but it is still better than the Lenovo I gave to a friend. So rating it I put it 3rd behind the Lemur Pro, Dev One, Galago, Darter Pro #2, Darter Pro #1, T480s. So while you cannot go wrong getting one of these, if you need more battery life, and do not need an Ethernet port, get it this unit (it's on sale), otherwise get the Lemur Pro.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Hey, Murph! I just saw a sure fire fix for your loosey goosey hinge problem.

[MurphCID]

Hey, Murph! I just saw a sure fire fix for your loosey goosey hinge problem.


z-laptop hinge.jpg

ROTFLMAO!!! That is great! LOL!

[MurphCID]

I have installed 6.0 OEM kernel, and I will play with it over the next week. It seems it has been getting warmer than the other laptops, and that could an artifact of the 12th generation processors or it just might be specific to the System 76 laptop?

[MurphCID]

Despite trying several things, battery life is just bad, really bad, and because of this, I cannot recommend this laptop to anyone who has to be away from a power source for more than 3 hours. Even with cranking down the brightness, TLP, and other tweaks. So far kernel 6.0 has not improved anything. I am, at this point, wishing I had gotten a second Lemur Pro. I am not pleased at all with the battery life.

[MurphCID]

The worst part of this is that the battery life ruins what would otherwise be a very good/darn good laptop. If it had a bigger battery to compensate for the sucky Linux battery issues it would be almost perfect. I am not sure what to do, but it is annoying as heck. I am on the Lemur Pro right now, at 53% showing seven hours and 58 minutes remaining time. THAT is what Linux laptops should be like.

UPDATE:

Using 6.0 kernel, it seems there is a slight, very slight improvement on battery life, but not enough to bring this laptop back into "good/very good" status.

[MurphCID]

Most likely it will get Fedora 37 Cinnamon today. I am liking Fedora 37 Cinnamon a lot. It is not Mint, but darn it is pretty decent overall.

Update: Fedora 37 Cinnamon running on it with kernel 6.0.8 and it seems to actually have a little more battery life (but not much).

[MurphCID]

Well, I have some thoughts on Fedora 37 as running on two laptops: a) Their updater sucks. It is like Synaptic, but crashes a whole lot more, is really slow, and is something from the early 2000's. Very unacceptable in this day and age. The Mint/POP/Ubuntu/etc app stores are FAR FAR better. Fedora really shows it wants you to use the terminal. b) Stability, so far so good, slower booting than Mint, and it reminds me of a Debian boot. c) Looks; WOW. Cinnamon is as good as that on Mint. Plus you can actually customize it! d) Kernels- the very latest 6.0.8 was installed yesterday, and works just fine. No issues with slow shut downs, or anything like that. USB-C/Thunderbolt ports work just fine. e) Bash- the commands are a little different. But not enough to make it like Arch.

So as far as things go, I think that Fedora will stay on those two laptops, and my main laptops will remain on Mint. We shall see how it works out over the long term.

[MurphCID]

Fedora with kernel 6.0.9 is running well, and battery life seems improved and I am getting about an extra hour of battery life. Still not perfect, but a darn sight better.