New Thelio Mira

bwingbob

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I posted this over at the Linux Mint Forum, thought I would share it here,

I have been a Linux user on and off for a couple of decades and a full time Linux user for about 3 years. Over this time I have converted several Windows computers to Linux but I recently purchased my first "Linux Computer" from System76, a Thelio Mira.

Prior to placing my order, I watched a ton of review videos, most of which were good but a couple of reoccurring recommendations kept coming up, IO cutout on the case and fan noise. I think System76 has addressed these problems and I will identify the items below.

I ordered the machine online, the experience was simple. System76 estimated a 10 day build time that turned out to be more like 14 days. I email System76 on day 11 and they responded that System76 was currently experiencing heavy demand for desktops and that they were working to get build times back to normal. Good for System76.

I have not owned a full size desktop in years and my first thought was man this thing is BIG. The case is extremely well constructed and easy to remove. I ordered my Mira without a dedicated GPU because I already owned a RX 6600 which was a gift/payment for some tech support I provided a friend. Installation of the GPU was pretty easy and there is plenty of room to work inside the case once the cover is removed.
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Thelio_Desk.jpg

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One of the items that kept coming up in the reviews that I watched/read was that the IO cutouts for the motherboard were made into the case back and if you ever replaced the motherboard a CNC machine would be required to fit the new motherboard. System76 has modified the design to use a standard rectangular cutout for the motherboard IO so this should not be an issue in the future.
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Thelio_Back.jpg


Fan noise was the second item most reviews mentioned, I have not had this experience. Even when gaming I have yet to hear the machine. I ran a stress test with Xsensors running just to be sure that the fans were spinning up.
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Thelio_Sans_Cover.jpg

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The first boot experience was not eventful, as you would expect for a machine designed to run a Linux OS. Pop booted and properly detected all my Hardware, even the new GPU. I did go back into bios and disable the onboard GPU since both where showing up in the system. I was afraid that having 2 GPUs might cause problem for some programs. I may re-enable the onboard GPU at some point to see if I can pass it through to a VM.

I specified a fairly middle of the road machine i5-13400, 32g ram and even with these middling specs I don't think I will ever be pushing the machine, unless I am gaming. I booted my Windows 10 VM (Work) and it came up almost instantly and runs at native speeds.

My machine has 1 1TB NVME main drive and 2 1TB 2.5 inch SSDs. The NVME drive make the 2.5 inch SSD seem like spinning Hard Drives. KDiskMark is reporting 6.7gb/s for the NVME vs 535mb/s. There is room on the motherboard for 3 more Gen4 NVME drives.

I have been using Pop!OS on my laptop for some time now and the experience is the same on this desktop, everything just works! I can not comment on how the machine does with Linux Mint yet, but I imagine it should run Mint just fine. My wife prefers Mint to Pop! so I install the Cinnamon desktop environment for her and so far she has been happy with it.

In conclusion I am very happy with this machine. If you are in the market for a desktop computer I do not think the Mira will disappoint you. Depending on how you value the case I could have built a similar machine for $300/400 US cheaper but without the support and testing of System76.

Bob


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I posted this over at the Linux Mint Forum, thought I would share it here,

I have been a Linux user on and off for a couple of decades and a full time Linux user for about 3 years. Over this time I have converted several Windows computers to Linux but I recently purchased my first "Linux Computer" from System76, a Thelio Mira.

Prior to placing my order, I watched a ton of review videos, most of which were good but a couple of reoccurring recommendations kept coming up, IO cutout on the case and fan noise. I think System76 has addressed these problems and I will identify the items below.

I ordered the machine online, the experience was simple. System76 estimated a 10 day build time that turned out to be more like 14 days. I email System76 on day 11 and they responded that System76 was currently experiencing heavy demand for desktops and that they were working to get build times back to normal. Good for System76.

I have not owned a full size desktop in years and my first thought was man this thing is BIG. The case is extremely well constructed and easy to remove. I ordered my Mira without a dedicated GPU because I already owned a RX 6600 which was a gift/payment for some tech support I provided a friend. Installation of the GPU was pretty easy and there is plenty of room to work inside the case once the cover is removed.
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View attachment 15856
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One of the items that kept coming up in the reviews that I watched/read was that the IO cutouts for the motherboard were made into the case back and if you ever replaced the motherboard a CNC machine would be required to fit the new motherboard. System76 has modified the design to use a standard rectangular cutout for the motherboard IO so this should not be an issue in the future.
*
View attachment 15858

Fan noise was the second item most reviews mentioned, I have not had this experience. Even when gaming I have yet to hear the machine. I ran a stress test with Xsensors running just to be sure that the fans were spinning up.
*
View attachment 15859
*
The first boot experience was not eventful, as you would expect for a machine designed to run a Linux OS. Pop booted and properly detected all my Hardware, even the new GPU. I did go back into bios and disable the onboard GPU since both where showing up in the system. I was afraid that having 2 GPUs might cause problem for some programs. I may re-enable the onboard GPU at some point to see if I can pass it through to a VM.

I specified a fairly middle of the road machine i5-13400, 32g ram and even with these middling specs I don't think I will ever be pushing the machine, unless I am gaming. I booted my Windows 10 VM (Work) and it came up almost instantly and runs at native speeds.

My machine has 1 1TB NVME main drive and 2 1TB 2.5 inch SSDs. The NVME drive make the 2.5 inch SSD seem like spinning Hard Drives. KDiskMark is reporting 6.7gb/s for the NVME vs 535mb/s. There is room on the motherboard for 3 more Gen4 NVME drives.

I have been using Pop!OS on my laptop for some time now and the experience is the same on this desktop, everything just works! I can not comment on how the machine does with Linux Mint yet, but I imagine it should run Mint just fine. My wife prefers Mint to Pop! so I install the Cinnamon desktop environment for her and so far she has been happy with it.

In conclusion I am very happy with this machine. If you are in the market for a desktop computer I do not think the Mira will disappoint you. Depending on how you value the case I could have built a similar machine for $300/400 US cheaper but without the support and testing of System76.

Bob


Top
Thanks for the review. And awesome rig!

I've debated getting one of their towers before. And laptop for that matter. The cost has been to roadblock. But I bet it runs great.

Have you ran any AAA titles on it yet?
 
Thanks for the review. And awesome rig!

I've debated getting one of their towers before. And laptop for that matter. The cost has been to roadblock. But I bet it runs great.

Have you ran any AAA titles on it yet?
Runs great, way more than I anticipate needing for a while, but there is a lot of room to upgrade if I feel the need and prices come down.

Running The Last Of Us at 1080P, Ultra setting and getting 60fps and The Witcher 1 at 170fps.

I struggled with the cost too, but the price difference was not terrible and I wanted to support the company. Both for 'Made in USA' and offering Linux as the OS.

I own their Launch Heavy keyboard and I love it. I was not a keyboard snob, but can't imagine using anything else now.

Bob
 
What VM software are you using? I just ordered my Thelio Mira. This is my second go around with System76 as I use a meercat as my daily desktop and a Pangolin as my daily laptop. I had great experiences so I thought i’d try a tower.
 
What VM software are you using? I just ordered my Thelio Mira. This is my second go around with System76 as I use a meercat as my daily desktop and a Pangolin as my daily laptop. I had great experiences so I thought i’d try a tower.
I am running both qemu(Virtual Machine Manager) and VMWare. Both run just fine.

Since the virtual machines run so well and hard drive space is virtually free I have set up several machines for different tasks and experimentation. I spend more time using one of the VMs than I do on the bare metal install Pop_OS! Less chance of breaking my install this way. :)
 
Nice review thanks.
 
What VM software are you using? I just ordered my Thelio Mira. This is my second go around with System76 as I use a meercat as my daily desktop and a Pangolin as my daily laptop. I had great experiences so I thought i’d try a tower.
I am probably 6-9 months out on a new laptop, how do you like the Pangolin?
 

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