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Bravo sir, I could not have said it better myself. I purchased a brand new XPS15 ubuntu 14.04 and it was a disaster - The battery lasted about three hours, the

Bravo sir, I could not have said it better myself. I purchased a brand new XPS15 ubuntu 14.04 and it was a disaster - The battery lasted about three hours, the $300 graphics card did not function at all because of poor drivers (graphics switching is still theoretical on even user friendly linux os' because of dark age xserver) I had to spend two weeks to get the wifi working by messing around with conf files The concept of hardware/software integration seems to evade the general purpose computing industry to the detriment of us all, I am not sure why someone hasn't built a tightly integrated linux laptop yet. At this point the GUIS look pretty decent and there is plenty of software (most people only use browsers anyway) we just need to get the basics working well.

tolger 10y ago
Did the machine come with Ubuntu out of the box, or did you install it yourself? That is one of the reasons my company went with System76. They ship with Ubuntu installed and will provide support, drivers for all the hardware, etc. The OryxPro is a nice desktop replacement.
- bischofs 10y ago
  Shipped with it from dell
  - junnan 10y ago
    Shipped with Dell but wifi not working? I don't buy it.
    - im_down_w_otp 10y ago
      The Broadcom wireless card my XPS 13 (9343) Developer Edition shipped with absolutely does not play well with Linux. Including the Ubuntu 14.04 version it shipped with. It's a known issue, and that's not all. When the machine originally launched there were huge problems with the audio, the trackpad, the bluetooth, and the screen brightness control. You don't have to buy it. I did... for $1100, and now it mostly sits on a shelf. I had to go back to my MacBook Air to get multi-modal work done. I can use Linux as a primary machine if the only thing I ever use is Emacs. The instant I have to venture across different applications and different modes of content creation (docs, code, slide decks, etc.) it's a very bespoke and inefficient experience.
      - pkd 10y ago
        The Broadcom fix is literally one apt-get install command. The driver issues keep happening because companies are loathe at releasing drivers for Linux or even provide support and assistance for third party drivers. Here's looking at you Realtek. Also I don't understand how something can be bespoke and inefficient at the same time. With MacOS, you learn the Apple way, with Linux you have the freedom to create your own workflow. This freedom is what stops Linux from being a noon friendly OS, and frankly, I am happy about that.
        im_down_w_otp 10y ago
        The driver itself is horribly, horribly unstable. Also. I definitely do not have "the freedom to create my own workflow". No amount of my trying, including digging into window manager, UI toolkits, and application code for KDE, GNOME, or Xfce resulted in my being able to provide consistent keyboard shortcuts across the board. So I wasn't able to get to a point where I could use 30-years of muscle memory and predictability in and across the UX to facilitate my work. I'm not a noo[n]. I'm a distributed systems engineer and functional programmer. This "Linux is open source, so it can do anything!" trope is really annoying.
        pkd 10y ago
        I did not intend to call you a noo[n] (and neither to misspell it that way. Typing on the phone is hard). Neither did I mention anything related to open source to cause you any annoyance. Linux offers a lot of pick your own adventure style options for everybody. Yes, it takes a bit of time to get used to it, but so does getting used to the cmd/ctrl abomination in Macs. I don't see people complaining about that. The only application that by default violates the normal keyboard shortcuts is the terminal and even that has menu options for changing them to what you like. I don't know what application doesn't respect common shortcuts to break your muscle memory but I then I am not a distributed systems engineer so what do I know.
- r3bl 10y ago
  Dell XPS 13 has a special "developer" edition, which comes with Ubuntu 14.04 pretested and preinstalled.
Frondo 10y ago
I haven't hand-configured a laptop since 2009, when I switched to Mageia Linux. I don't know how they do what they do for hardware support, but it's frickin' brilliant.

tolger 10y ago

Did the machine come with Ubuntu out of the box, or did you install it yourself? That is one of the reasons my company went with System76. They ship with Ubuntu installed and will provide support, drivers for all the hardware, etc. The OryxPro is a nice desktop replacement.

bischofs 10y ago
Shipped with it from dell
- junnan 10y ago
  Shipped with Dell but wifi not working? I don't buy it.
  - im_down_w_otp 10y ago
    The Broadcom wireless card my XPS 13 (9343) Developer Edition shipped with absolutely does not play well with Linux. Including the Ubuntu 14.04 version it shipped with. It's a known issue, and that's not all. When the machine originally launched there were huge problems with the audio, the trackpad, the bluetooth, and the screen brightness control. You don't have to buy it. I did... for $1100, and now it mostly sits on a shelf. I had to go back to my MacBook Air to get multi-modal work done. I can use Linux as a primary machine if the only thing I ever use is Emacs. The instant I have to venture across different applications and different modes of content creation (docs, code, slide decks, etc.) it's a very bespoke and inefficient experience.
    - pkd 10y ago
      The Broadcom fix is literally one apt-get install command. The driver issues keep happening because companies are loathe at releasing drivers for Linux or even provide support and assistance for third party drivers. Here's looking at you Realtek. Also I don't understand how something can be bespoke and inefficient at the same time. With MacOS, you learn the Apple way, with Linux you have the freedom to create your own workflow. This freedom is what stops Linux from being a noon friendly OS, and frankly, I am happy about that.
      - im_down_w_otp 10y ago
        The driver itself is horribly, horribly unstable. Also. I definitely do not have "the freedom to create my own workflow". No amount of my trying, including digging into window manager, UI toolkits, and application code for KDE, GNOME, or Xfce resulted in my being able to provide consistent keyboard shortcuts across the board. So I wasn't able to get to a point where I could use 30-years of muscle memory and predictability in and across the UX to facilitate my work. I'm not a noo[n]. I'm a distributed systems engineer and functional programmer. This "Linux is open source, so it can do anything!" trope is really annoying.
        pkd 10y ago
        I did not intend to call you a noo[n] (and neither to misspell it that way. Typing on the phone is hard). Neither did I mention anything related to open source to cause you any annoyance. Linux offers a lot of pick your own adventure style options for everybody. Yes, it takes a bit of time to get used to it, but so does getting used to the cmd/ctrl abomination in Macs. I don't see people complaining about that. The only application that by default violates the normal keyboard shortcuts is the terminal and even that has menu options for changing them to what you like. I don't know what application doesn't respect common shortcuts to break your muscle memory but I then I am not a distributed systems engineer so what do I know.
r3bl 10y ago
Dell XPS 13 has a special "developer" edition, which comes with Ubuntu 14.04 pretested and preinstalled.

Frondo 10y ago

I haven't hand-configured a laptop since 2009, when I switched to Mageia Linux. I don't know how they do what they do for hardware support, but it's frickin' brilliant.