My experience with the Oryx Pro using Pop OS has been almost flawless. Reliable hybrid graphics switching, great battery life, and System76 even provides a driver package if, for some reason, you want to run Windows 10 on it. (Which I did to compare gaming performance on some native vs Steam Proton games.
Also in my experience, things tend to fall apart a bit when trying to run anything else on my Oryx Pro.
I’ve tried Peppermint OS 10 and elementary OS 5.1 recently, and the issues center around battery life, fan behavior and hybrid graphics switching.
For example, running both Peppermint and elementary OS on the Oryx Pro, you should get a new proprietary Nvidia driver installed which has preliminary support for hybrid graphics switching. But actually triggering that switch in Nvidia X Server Settings results in…well, no change. If I switch to Intel and reboot, the app will report that I’m in Intel, but powertop tells another story, since it shows very high power consumption and reports that the Nvidia GPU is active under the Device Stats tab.
Mark Greaves, the CEO of Peppermint, suggested I add the System76 repository and install the System76-power package. The benefit here is that it adds the extra functionality you expect like changing the keyboard backlight colors. And it has some secret sauce when it comes to graphics hardware management and battery life, too.
BUT, you have to switch between Intel and Nvidia using the Terminal (sudo system76-power graphics intel/nvidia). And that DOES work!
The downside is that whenever the Oryx Pro is plugged in and running under Nvidia, the fans are spinning constantly. For me that’s a dealbreaker because that extra noise is way too loud under certain recording conditions.
Again, this is only based on my personal experience. And I’m sure this problem has a resolution!
For now, I have to say I love System76 from their company culture to how quickly they jump in and solve problems. I love Pop OS too. But it does feel like there’s a BIT of distro lock-in when it comes to my Oryx Pro and Pop OS. I think a lot of this may come down to immature Nvidia hybrid graphics drivers, though, and I’m not sure the blame should be placed on System76.
I try to look on the bright side
But is anyone having a similar issue? Is there a solution out there?