19 ms·

Dell XPS 13 Kabylake Makes for a Great Linux Laptop

91 points by satai 8y ago

std_throwaway 8y ago
The performance seems great in comparison. But this laptop seems a bit thin for my taste. There would be room to almost double the battery if the thickness was increased. There would also be room for USB-A and a LAN port. Two things I would really like to see. Also I read a lot of bad experiences here on HN with the XPS line every time it comes up. Personally I know at least two people who had a bad experience with it and ended up replacing the machine with something else. Is Dell improving on that part or has it stabilized? On paper the machine looks really good but right now I just can't justify pulling the trigger to replace a Retina-MBP.
- Boulth 8y ago
  > Also I read a lot of bad experiences here on HN with the XPS line every time it comes up. Personally I know at least two people who had a bad experience with it and ended up replacing the machine with something else. Is Dell improving on that part or has it stabilized? Haha, yes, I'm one of the unfortunate people that use XPS 13 9350 and have had a lot of issues with it. On the other hand I installed Arch recently and everything works out of the box, including touch screen, that really surprised me. Personally I would blame Intel for their crappy hardware (all issues were with Intel peripherals), but that's me.
rootbear 8y ago
I have the previous model, the 9360, and my only real complaint is the touch pad. Palm rejection is just terrible, so much so that I've considered just turning off the touch pad and using a mouse. One nice feature of the touch pad is that the scrolling direction for the mouse is independent of that for the touch pad. This means I can set the mouse to work like mice always have, before Apple invented "natural" scrolling, but have the touch pad use "natural" mode. For some reason, this actually feels right to me. I wish my Macbook Pro could do this.
- rahimnathwani 8y ago
  " I wish my Macbook Pro could do this." What you describe is a feature of the OS, not the hardware, right?
  - tcfunk 8y ago
    It is, however the two are somewhat inseparable in this case.
    - rahimnathwani 8y ago
      Which OS do you run on your XPS that you cannot run on your MBP?
- KSS42 8y ago
  I haven't used it but try: "Scroll Reverser is a free Mac app that reverses the direction of scrolling. It is available for macOS 10.4 through 10.13. It has independent settings for trackpads, mice and Wacom tablets, and for horizontal and vertical scrolling. " https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/ https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/
  - ReidZB 8y ago
    I've used it for a long time now. It was set-and-forget and has done the job properly ever since I installed it. No complaints.
  - rootbear 8y ago
    Nice! Thanks!
  - slavak 8y ago
    I've been using this for a while now, and it has been a godsend. That said, I do consider it a ding against MacOs, because it's ridiculous that I'm forced to use third-party tools for such basic functionality. (Other examples: USB-tethering with non-Apple phones requires hunting down and installing third-party drivers. A feature that just works, out-of-the-box, on every other system I've ever used.)
ironjunkie 8y ago
I used Linux for 10 years (mainly on Lenovos and some early Dell XPS back in the days), then I switched to MacOS about 3-4 years ago and over the last couple weeks I have been trying to go back to Linux because I am sick having to use MacOS everyday. It is a great OS for an everyday user, but not for a developer. Here is what I tried so far: 1) Dell XPS 9370 Developer edition: This comes preloaded with Ubuntu and it is actually amazing that everything works out of the box. It was too small for me though, and the fan made a rattling noise so I decided to return it. The 4K screen is probably overkill on such a small display. Based on the review people recommend taking the normal screen, it saves a lot of battery and there is not that much difference. 2) Lenovo X1: I didn't like the feel of the Keyboard, and the screen was not that good. Installing Linux (Arch) was easy, but decided to return it. 3) Dell XPS 9570: I have this one for the last two weeks and so far I love it on the hardware level. I would even put it as somehow superior to my MacBook Pro. The downside is that Linux is not well supported at all. I have installed Arch so far and spent all my evenings trying to fix all the drivers. So far: The Nvidia drivers are barely working, ACPI needs a lot of tweaks (but it seems I got it working and got my 7 hours of battery). I still need to work on the Touchpad, and couple other things. So far, the Dell XPS 9570 is a good challenger to the MBP, but installing Linux is still going to be a small challenge
- copperx 8y ago
  > I am sick having to use MacOS every day. It is a great OS for an everyday user, but not for a developer. Could you expound on that? I'm curious as to why OS X isn't satisfying for you as a developer.
  - Scarbutt 8y ago
    If you are deploying to/for linux then developing in linux feels more consistent, natural, compatible, etc... Personally I just use a macbook and develop over ssh.
    - copperx 8y ago
      That comes with its own set of disadvantages. * If you fire up an editor on the remote machine, there is going to be typing lag, unless your Linux machine is in your local network. You can ameliorate this with software such as Mosh, but that comes with its own disadvantages (losing scrollback buffers). * If you edit locally but save the files to the remote system, you have to worry about getting disconnected or your machine shutting off and losing changes. * If you edit and save locally, then transfer changes later (e.g., using Git), you run and test your code on the remote machine, and have to worry about attaching a debugger to the remote program and other fun stuff. I guess it just depends on how big the project you're working with; but I would have a hard time working with more than, say, 10 files on a remote machine. Other solutions aren't exactly optimal either. A virtual machine takes up precious RAM and it is slower than bare metal. You're not using all of your machine's resources. WSL works for most things, but fails for others (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, I/O isn't as fast as it can be). I've come to the conclusion that doing development on Linux on bare metal is the solution with the least compromises; the biggest one being the loss of access to work-related productivity apps such as MS Office, Outlook, and Adobe products.
wintorez 8y ago
Other than its weird webcam location, it looks great.
ortuna 8y ago
If you want to use NixOs: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/Ortuna/b6e95d6baefd2a1683ddd848f485bf00/raw/94331b994bc7d73a762d177d1605115443d7a786/configuration.nix https://gist.githubusercontent.com/Ortuna/b6e95d6baefd2a1683... -- with the latest kernel, even the webcam is working now (the only thing that didn't).
paulie_a 8y ago
The Dell XPS 13 is what a mac book pro is supposed to be.
baybal2 8y ago
FYI: 9370 has smaller battery than 9360 while having same panel and most of internals
ezoe 8y ago
Nobody sell my ideal laptop. It must have 15 inch Builtin 4K display, Ethernet, display port, multiple USB ports and No Nvidia GPU. I usually don't move my laptop so I prefer 15 inch over 13 inch. But I like my primary computer ready to be carried anywhere so I don't want desktop. I don't play video game or graphics on my primary computer so I don't need a dedicated GPU. Also Fuck you Nvidia. There are 13 inch laptop which satisfy everything else or 15 inch with Nvidia GPU. I guess there is not much demand for my ideal.
- xutopia 8y ago
  Why Nvidia hate?
  - sethhochberg 8y ago
    If OP is at all involved in using or developing for Linux, it seems justifiable... Their approach to linux support has been anything from "poor" to "outright hostile" for a long time. AMD and Intel do a far, far better job of enabling and contributing to open source development and drivers, using standard kernel APIs, etc.
    - newen 8y ago
      But my deep learning... As in, Nvidia's support for deep learning in linux is very good.
      - satai 8y ago
        AFAIK is deep learning the only reason to consider Nvidia at Linux. But if you do deep learning there is very little alternatives to Nvidia.
    - ianai 8y ago
      I remember back in the early 2.4 days. Nvidia was the only way to play games in Linux. Things sure have changed.
  - tomxor 8y ago
pmontra 8y ago
I use middle click to paste all time and it's one of the reasons I bought only laptops with 3 hardware buttons on the touchpad so far. How does middle click work with the kind of touchpad on the XPS?
- anuragsoni 8y ago
  Buttonless touch pads can be configured to support different actions for two/three finger click [1]. I use Gnome where the default is right click on a two finger tap and middle click on a three finger tap. [2] [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics#Buttonless_touchpads_.28aka_ClickPads.29 https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics#Butt... [2] https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/mouse-touchpad-click.html.en https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/mouse-touchpa...
  - pmontra 8y ago
    Don't you ever move the pointer when tapping with two or three fingers? It's called pointer nudge. That's the other reason for hardware buttons.
- dsego 8y ago
  Seriously, why not learn keyboard shortcuts? Strange to depend on such an idiosyncratic feature.
  - me_bx 8y ago
    They most probably know about the keyboard shortcut to paste. Linux' "Select to copy + middle-click to paste" just saves a lot of time, and has the extra bonus of being a clipboard parallel to the one accessible via traditional copy-paste shortcuts and GUI menus.....
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    > "You're holding it wrong" Many people select text using the mouse, then reposition the cursor using the mouse. It's convenient to then insert the selected text using the mouse — the entire operation is done without touching the keyboard.
extr 8y ago
About a year ago I was looking to upgrade from my Thinkpad x220 and I ended up with an XPS 13 9360, a year later am comfortable saying it's the best laptop I've ever owned by a long shot. For my personal DD I like to use Arch and I've discovered basically no "linux-y" issues unique to the laptop hardware. Battery life is impressive, usually lasting 8+ hours of web browsing/casual usage with no tweaks (imo usually linux sees a much larger drop off). I'm definitely glad I went with the 1080p version, the PPI is already very high with such a small screen and I think the touchscreen/4K would have been overkill. Build quality is great and the laptop has a super premium feel. I know others have complained about build issues, I guess to them I would just repeat the old adage that you only hear about the people with issues, never from the satisfied users. I would also say that the newer ones with multi-core are probably not worth the premium, if you can get last year's model for a good price then go for it. I got mine for $850 brand new, a few months before the multi-cores were announced. I don't think I really missed anything.
- lardo 8y ago
  I run arch on a 9360 and adore it, but the touchpad can be linux-ey at times.
- touristtam 8y ago
  I'd like to try the new multicore from Intel. The dual core with HT on my XPS 13 is total trash when throwing at it more than a couple of tasks. And I am not the only one with this issue at work where we use a mix of Fedora 27/28 and Ubuntu 17.10/18.04. The only redeeming aspect of this otherwise overprices machine is the screen. Although I just wished the screen would be flushed with the bezel like for the touch screen version.
jdlyga 8y ago
I have a Dell XPS 13 and it's fantastic. I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 on it. I've run into typical issues with UEFI vs BIOS and problems with Secure boot, but that's typical of nearly every new laptop nowadays. Had problems with Manjaro running KDE dropping bluetooth connections, but Ubuntu 18.04 runs great.
dsego 8y ago
Too bad its 16:9 aspect ratio gives you less screen real-estate than the macbook pro 13.
ianai 8y ago
Personally, my 9350 has me never wanting to own a Dell again. Touchpad alone.
- arendtio 8y ago
  Same here, I am still pissed because of the flicker issues I have with the screen of my XPS 15 9530 and today I saw that the builtin battery is down to 70% of its original capacity. Sure, they look pretty and the Linux support is good, but the build quality didn't satisfy my expectations.
jhack 8y ago
Except for the 16:9 screen. I'm so done working with such a narrow aspect ratio.
- rhizome 8y ago
  Everything old is new again: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/D_Lka7Tsmkk/maxresdefault.jpg https://i.ytimg.com/vi/D_Lka7Tsmkk/maxresdefault.jpg
40acres 8y ago
But did they fix the coil whine?
chx 8y ago
I have been using Linux on servers since 1993. I have been dual booting SUSE with Windows 2000 on my desktop between 2000-2004. Ubuntu and then Arch has been my daily driver 2004-2017. I am not exactly a Linux newbie. But, based on these long, long years, I swear Linux desktop advocates have Stockholm syndrome. Some experiences: Samsung stopped making drivers for their MFCs so I needed to toss a perfectly working laser MFC because it stopped working with Linux, just like that. Later, a HP MFC caused endless pain, seemingly every other Arch update broke one of Bluetooth / printer of MFC / scanner of MFC. Plain Wifi eventually worked more or less (but see the endless string of bugs with 5GHz) but enterprise wifi always has been a pain. The strange F5 VPN our company used was not particularly Linux friendly -- I could only get it to work by running Firefox as root (yuck!). The only reference to the entire shebang was our IT asking around on various forums how to get it work under Linux and noone answering. And then Firefox stopped supporting extensions and I needed to tether my phone to get on the VPN. We now have a different VPN, no idea about the Linux support. I am now using Windows 10 with the Linux Subsystem. O&O shutup takes care of the privacy concerns. I have a Lenovo Graphics Dock and docking and undocking is a nonevent. Do you want to be the one who gets an nVidia GPU hotplugging working on Linux -- and keeps it working through all the improvements the Linux desktop goes through? Worse, get IOMMU passthrough working with this setup because most of the games are still Windows only? I don't, that's for sure. I am 43 years old today and there is not enough time left to use a tamagotchi OS. The Linux Subsystem could have a better I/O performance but I will live. It's a surprisingly frustration free life. Some useful configuration tips https://github.com/chx/chx.github.io/wiki/How-I-set-up-my-Windows-10-(coming-from-Linux) https://github.com/chx/chx.github.io/wiki/How-I-set-up-my-Wi... Before you inevitably downvote this, please comment where I am wrong. If you feel all the above are trivial, give me an offer for maintaing my Linux, I would actually love to get back there but for the time being I do not feel I can. I yearned for someone to take over desktop sysadmin from me for many years but I absolutely couldn't find anyone so eventually I just gave up.
- dozzie 8y ago
  > Samsung stopped making drivers for their MFCs so I needed to toss a perfectly working laser MFC because it stopped working with Linux, just like that. Erm... The old drivers stopped working with this particular device? I had a very similar case with perfectly good HP laser printer, which doesn't work on Window 10 anymore because... dunno? No drivers from HP, though. I'm sure it would work just fine with generic PCL or PostScript driver under CUPS. > Later, a HP MFC caused endless pain, seemingly every other Arch update broke one of Bluetooth / printer of MFC / scanner of MFC. Well, that's probably self-inflicted because of your choice of Arch, not because Linux (e.g. Debian). > Plain Wifi eventually worked more or less (but see the endless string of bugs with 5GHz) but enterprise wifi always has been a pain. Enterprise Wi-Fi has always been a pain, also under Windows. > The strange F5 VPN our company used was not particularly Linux friendly VPNs are usually that way. Very few companies can write sensibly working software that would run under Linux. > -- I could only get it to work by running Firefox as root (yuck!). You get pretty much the same under Windows, though you don't see it as clearly. I don't get why you bash Linux. Windows has the exact same problems.
AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
> There is, of course, the Dell XPS Developer Edition models that come preloaded with Ubuntu 16.04 (or just in the past few days, Ubuntu 18.04). Though for my purposes I went with the Dell XPS 13 preloaded with Windows 10 due to running some benchmarks there prior to wiping the disk, faster shipping time going from B&H Photo Video over Dell.com, and running Fedora Workstation as my preferred main OS rather than Ubuntu. Unfortunately, from what I've been told by one of the guys in Dell's Sputnik program, they gauge interest on the Linux Dell laptops strictly by the number of people who buy Developer Edition laptops. So the author is not helping the cause by buying a Windows 10 laptop and loading Linux onto it. Believe me, I get it. The Windows ones go on sale, while the Developer Editions pretty much never do. I'm guilty of buying a Win10 one myself before this was explained to me. Just passing that info on. If you want to support the future of Linux on Dell laptops, I strongly urge you to buy the ones with Linux pre-loaded, from Dell.
- dsego 8y ago
  Do you know what the best way is to get my hands on one in the EU, preferably with a US keyboard layout?
  - lykr0n 8y ago
    Buy one on ebay and have them ship it, use a forwarding service, ask a state side friend to buy one and ship it to you, or take a quick vacation and pick one up. EDIT. It would be 3% PayPal fee + Cost of shipping ($50 or so) is you asked a friend to do it.
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    Dell offer a choice of local or US keyboard: https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptops/xps-13-9370-laptop/spd/xps-13-9370-laptop?~ck=bt&appliedRefinements=301 https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptops/xps-13-9370-lap... This is probably a better plan than importing something without paying taxes. If Brexit happens, there's still Ireland for an English Dell website in the EU. (Like most other European layouts, the British/Irish one will mean the ISO layout rather than the American (ANSI) layout. Other than the additional key giving space for £ and ¬, there's not much difference; so you might prefer that if you want to keep a vertical-shape enter key.)
prudhvis 8y ago
I have a thinkpad T470(Fedora 28) and T470p(QubesOS) that runs Linux just fine. Without any driver issues. The battery life is excellent once you install the tlp packages.
mahgnous 8y ago
The dev version with intel wireless maybe, they put a shitty wireless card in the regular ones that doesn't work for shit in linux.
blubb-fish 8y ago
two of several appeals of Linux to me are the fact that it is free and modest on resources. from that angle it seems slightly ironic that all those great Linux laptops leave the 1000 usd mark way behind them. thing is, I'm actually intending to buy a laptop and have Mint run on it. any suggestions for a laptop cheaper than 1k? I'm eyeing Dell latitude 5480.
- kobrad 8y ago
  I bought a used acer from 2012 and the only bad thing is battery life of around three hours. Can't imagine paying for a new laptop
  - blubb-fish 8y ago
    i had very bad experiences 1st and 2nd hand with Acer, though. unprovoked crashes, WiFi not working without significant research and fiddling. multiple models.
Paraesthetic 8y ago
You monster, how could you do this to such sexy laptop? haha but seriously these laptops are insanely good.
Proven 8y ago
It sounds like my Lenovo or other Tier 1 products. Okay it may be great, but what modern laptop isn't? > running Fedora Workstation as my preferred main OS rather than Ubuntu. Yuck!
kristianp 8y ago
One problem I have with my XPS 13 is the keyboard. It's too small for me to type without making lots of errors (I'm used to the size of keyboards on 14 inch laptops and full size pcs). Also the feel of the keys has no click and feels stiff. I often don't push the left shift properly due to the stiffness.

91 points by satai 8y ago

The performance seems great in comparison. But this laptop seems a bit thin for my taste. There would be room to almost double the battery if the thickness was increased. There would also be room for USB-A and a LAN port. Two things I would really like to see. Also I read a lot of bad experiences here on HN with the XPS line every time it comes up. Personally I know at least two people who had a bad experience with it and ended up replacing the machine with something else. Is Dell improving on that part or has it stabilized? On paper the machine looks really good but right now I just can't justify pulling the trigger to replace a Retina-MBP.

Boulth 8y ago
> Also I read a lot of bad experiences here on HN with the XPS line every time it comes up. Personally I know at least two people who had a bad experience with it and ended up replacing the machine with something else. Is Dell improving on that part or has it stabilized? Haha, yes, I'm one of the unfortunate people that use XPS 13 9350 and have had a lot of issues with it. On the other hand I installed Arch recently and everything works out of the box, including touch screen, that really surprised me. Personally I would blame Intel for their crappy hardware (all issues were with Intel peripherals), but that's me.

rootbear 8y ago

I have the previous model, the 9360, and my only real complaint is the touch pad. Palm rejection is just terrible, so much so that I've considered just turning off the touch pad and using a mouse. One nice feature of the touch pad is that the scrolling direction for the mouse is independent of that for the touch pad. This means I can set the mouse to work like mice always have, before Apple invented "natural" scrolling, but have the touch pad use "natural" mode. For some reason, this actually feels right to me. I wish my Macbook Pro could do this.

rahimnathwani 8y ago
" I wish my Macbook Pro could do this." What you describe is a feature of the OS, not the hardware, right?
- tcfunk 8y ago
  It is, however the two are somewhat inseparable in this case.
  - rahimnathwani 8y ago
    Which OS do you run on your XPS that you cannot run on your MBP?
KSS42 8y ago
I haven't used it but try: "Scroll Reverser is a free Mac app that reverses the direction of scrolling. It is available for macOS 10.4 through 10.13. It has independent settings for trackpads, mice and Wacom tablets, and for horizontal and vertical scrolling. " https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/ https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/
- ReidZB 8y ago
  I've used it for a long time now. It was set-and-forget and has done the job properly ever since I installed it. No complaints.
- rootbear 8y ago
  Nice! Thanks!
- slavak 8y ago
  I've been using this for a while now, and it has been a godsend. That said, I do consider it a ding against MacOs, because it's ridiculous that I'm forced to use third-party tools for such basic functionality. (Other examples: USB-tethering with non-Apple phones requires hunting down and installing third-party drivers. A feature that just works, out-of-the-box, on every other system I've ever used.)

ironjunkie 8y ago

I used Linux for 10 years (mainly on Lenovos and some early Dell XPS back in the days), then I switched to MacOS about 3-4 years ago and over the last couple weeks I have been trying to go back to Linux because I am sick having to use MacOS everyday. It is a great OS for an everyday user, but not for a developer. Here is what I tried so far: 1) Dell XPS 9370 Developer edition: This comes preloaded with Ubuntu and it is actually amazing that everything works out of the box. It was too small for me though, and the fan made a rattling noise so I decided to return it. The 4K screen is probably overkill on such a small display. Based on the review people recommend taking the normal screen, it saves a lot of battery and there is not that much difference. 2) Lenovo X1: I didn't like the feel of the Keyboard, and the screen was not that good. Installing Linux (Arch) was easy, but decided to return it. 3) Dell XPS 9570: I have this one for the last two weeks and so far I love it on the hardware level. I would even put it as somehow superior to my MacBook Pro. The downside is that Linux is not well supported at all. I have installed Arch so far and spent all my evenings trying to fix all the drivers. So far: The Nvidia drivers are barely working, ACPI needs a lot of tweaks (but it seems I got it working and got my 7 hours of battery). I still need to work on the Touchpad, and couple other things. So far, the Dell XPS 9570 is a good challenger to the MBP, but installing Linux is still going to be a small challenge

copperx 8y ago
> I am sick having to use MacOS every day. It is a great OS for an everyday user, but not for a developer. Could you expound on that? I'm curious as to why OS X isn't satisfying for you as a developer.
- Scarbutt 8y ago
  If you are deploying to/for linux then developing in linux feels more consistent, natural, compatible, etc... Personally I just use a macbook and develop over ssh.
  - copperx 8y ago
    That comes with its own set of disadvantages. * If you fire up an editor on the remote machine, there is going to be typing lag, unless your Linux machine is in your local network. You can ameliorate this with software such as Mosh, but that comes with its own disadvantages (losing scrollback buffers). * If you edit locally but save the files to the remote system, you have to worry about getting disconnected or your machine shutting off and losing changes. * If you edit and save locally, then transfer changes later (e.g., using Git), you run and test your code on the remote machine, and have to worry about attaching a debugger to the remote program and other fun stuff. I guess it just depends on how big the project you're working with; but I would have a hard time working with more than, say, 10 files on a remote machine. Other solutions aren't exactly optimal either. A virtual machine takes up precious RAM and it is slower than bare metal. You're not using all of your machine's resources. WSL works for most things, but fails for others (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, I/O isn't as fast as it can be). I've come to the conclusion that doing development on Linux on bare metal is the solution with the least compromises; the biggest one being the loss of access to work-related productivity apps such as MS Office, Outlook, and Adobe products.

wintorez 8y ago

Other than its weird webcam location, it looks great.

ortuna 8y ago

If you want to use NixOs: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/Ortuna/b6e95d6baefd2a1683ddd848f485bf00/raw/94331b994bc7d73a762d177d1605115443d7a786/configuration.nix https://gist.githubusercontent.com/Ortuna/b6e95d6baefd2a1683... -- with the latest kernel, even the webcam is working now (the only thing that didn't).

paulie_a 8y ago

The Dell XPS 13 is what a mac book pro is supposed to be.

baybal2 8y ago

FYI: 9370 has smaller battery than 9360 while having same panel and most of internals

ezoe 8y ago

Nobody sell my ideal laptop. It must have 15 inch Builtin 4K display, Ethernet, display port, multiple USB ports and No Nvidia GPU. I usually don't move my laptop so I prefer 15 inch over 13 inch. But I like my primary computer ready to be carried anywhere so I don't want desktop. I don't play video game or graphics on my primary computer so I don't need a dedicated GPU. Also Fuck you Nvidia. There are 13 inch laptop which satisfy everything else or 15 inch with Nvidia GPU. I guess there is not much demand for my ideal.

xutopia 8y ago
Why Nvidia hate?
- sethhochberg 8y ago
  If OP is at all involved in using or developing for Linux, it seems justifiable... Their approach to linux support has been anything from "poor" to "outright hostile" for a long time. AMD and Intel do a far, far better job of enabling and contributing to open source development and drivers, using standard kernel APIs, etc.
  - newen 8y ago
    But my deep learning... As in, Nvidia's support for deep learning in linux is very good.
    - satai 8y ago
      AFAIK is deep learning the only reason to consider Nvidia at Linux. But if you do deep learning there is very little alternatives to Nvidia.
  - ianai 8y ago
    I remember back in the early 2.4 days. Nvidia was the only way to play games in Linux. Things sure have changed.
- tomxor 8y ago

pmontra 8y ago

I use middle click to paste all time and it's one of the reasons I bought only laptops with 3 hardware buttons on the touchpad so far. How does middle click work with the kind of touchpad on the XPS?

anuragsoni 8y ago
Buttonless touch pads can be configured to support different actions for two/three finger click [1]. I use Gnome where the default is right click on a two finger tap and middle click on a three finger tap. [2] [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics#Buttonless_touchpads_.28aka_ClickPads.29 https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics#Butt... [2] https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/mouse-touchpad-click.html.en https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/mouse-touchpa...
- pmontra 8y ago
  Don't you ever move the pointer when tapping with two or three fingers? It's called pointer nudge. That's the other reason for hardware buttons.
dsego 8y ago
Seriously, why not learn keyboard shortcuts? Strange to depend on such an idiosyncratic feature.
- me_bx 8y ago
  They most probably know about the keyboard shortcut to paste. Linux' "Select to copy + middle-click to paste" just saves a lot of time, and has the extra bonus of being a clipboard parallel to the one accessible via traditional copy-paste shortcuts and GUI menus.....
- Symbiote 8y ago
  > "You're holding it wrong" Many people select text using the mouse, then reposition the cursor using the mouse. It's convenient to then insert the selected text using the mouse — the entire operation is done without touching the keyboard.

extr 8y ago

About a year ago I was looking to upgrade from my Thinkpad x220 and I ended up with an XPS 13 9360, a year later am comfortable saying it's the best laptop I've ever owned by a long shot. For my personal DD I like to use Arch and I've discovered basically no "linux-y" issues unique to the laptop hardware. Battery life is impressive, usually lasting 8+ hours of web browsing/casual usage with no tweaks (imo usually linux sees a much larger drop off). I'm definitely glad I went with the 1080p version, the PPI is already very high with such a small screen and I think the touchscreen/4K would have been overkill. Build quality is great and the laptop has a super premium feel. I know others have complained about build issues, I guess to them I would just repeat the old adage that you only hear about the people with issues, never from the satisfied users. I would also say that the newer ones with multi-core are probably not worth the premium, if you can get last year's model for a good price then go for it. I got mine for $850 brand new, a few months before the multi-cores were announced. I don't think I really missed anything.

lardo 8y ago
I run arch on a 9360 and adore it, but the touchpad can be linux-ey at times.
touristtam 8y ago
I'd like to try the new multicore from Intel. The dual core with HT on my XPS 13 is total trash when throwing at it more than a couple of tasks. And I am not the only one with this issue at work where we use a mix of Fedora 27/28 and Ubuntu 17.10/18.04. The only redeeming aspect of this otherwise overprices machine is the screen. Although I just wished the screen would be flushed with the bezel like for the touch screen version.

jdlyga 8y ago

I have a Dell XPS 13 and it's fantastic. I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 on it. I've run into typical issues with UEFI vs BIOS and problems with Secure boot, but that's typical of nearly every new laptop nowadays. Had problems with Manjaro running KDE dropping bluetooth connections, but Ubuntu 18.04 runs great.

dsego 8y ago

Too bad its 16:9 aspect ratio gives you less screen real-estate than the macbook pro 13.

ianai 8y ago

Personally, my 9350 has me never wanting to own a Dell again. Touchpad alone.

arendtio 8y ago
Same here, I am still pissed because of the flicker issues I have with the screen of my XPS 15 9530 and today I saw that the builtin battery is down to 70% of its original capacity. Sure, they look pretty and the Linux support is good, but the build quality didn't satisfy my expectations.

jhack 8y ago

Except for the 16:9 screen. I'm so done working with such a narrow aspect ratio.

rhizome 8y ago
Everything old is new again: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/D_Lka7Tsmkk/maxresdefault.jpg https://i.ytimg.com/vi/D_Lka7Tsmkk/maxresdefault.jpg

40acres 8y ago

But did they fix the coil whine?

chx 8y ago

I have been using Linux on servers since 1993. I have been dual booting SUSE with Windows 2000 on my desktop between 2000-2004. Ubuntu and then Arch has been my daily driver 2004-2017. I am not exactly a Linux newbie. But, based on these long, long years, I swear Linux desktop advocates have Stockholm syndrome. Some experiences: Samsung stopped making drivers for their MFCs so I needed to toss a perfectly working laser MFC because it stopped working with Linux, just like that. Later, a HP MFC caused endless pain, seemingly every other Arch update broke one of Bluetooth / printer of MFC / scanner of MFC. Plain Wifi eventually worked more or less (but see the endless string of bugs with 5GHz) but enterprise wifi always has been a pain. The strange F5 VPN our company used was not particularly Linux friendly -- I could only get it to work by running Firefox as root (yuck!). The only reference to the entire shebang was our IT asking around on various forums how to get it work under Linux and noone answering. And then Firefox stopped supporting extensions and I needed to tether my phone to get on the VPN. We now have a different VPN, no idea about the Linux support. I am now using Windows 10 with the Linux Subsystem. O&O shutup takes care of the privacy concerns. I have a Lenovo Graphics Dock and docking and undocking is a nonevent. Do you want to be the one who gets an nVidia GPU hotplugging working on Linux -- and keeps it working through all the improvements the Linux desktop goes through? Worse, get IOMMU passthrough working with this setup because most of the games are still Windows only? I don't, that's for sure. I am 43 years old today and there is not enough time left to use a tamagotchi OS. The Linux Subsystem could have a better I/O performance but I will live. It's a surprisingly frustration free life. Some useful configuration tips https://github.com/chx/chx.github.io/wiki/How-I-set-up-my-Windows-10-(coming-from-Linux) https://github.com/chx/chx.github.io/wiki/How-I-set-up-my-Wi... Before you inevitably downvote this, please comment where I am wrong. If you feel all the above are trivial, give me an offer for maintaing my Linux, I would actually love to get back there but for the time being I do not feel I can. I yearned for someone to take over desktop sysadmin from me for many years but I absolutely couldn't find anyone so eventually I just gave up.

dozzie 8y ago
> Samsung stopped making drivers for their MFCs so I needed to toss a perfectly working laser MFC because it stopped working with Linux, just like that. Erm... The old drivers stopped working with this particular device? I had a very similar case with perfectly good HP laser printer, which doesn't work on Window 10 anymore because... dunno? No drivers from HP, though. I'm sure it would work just fine with generic PCL or PostScript driver under CUPS. > Later, a HP MFC caused endless pain, seemingly every other Arch update broke one of Bluetooth / printer of MFC / scanner of MFC. Well, that's probably self-inflicted because of your choice of Arch, not because Linux (e.g. Debian). > Plain Wifi eventually worked more or less (but see the endless string of bugs with 5GHz) but enterprise wifi always has been a pain. Enterprise Wi-Fi has always been a pain, also under Windows. > The strange F5 VPN our company used was not particularly Linux friendly VPNs are usually that way. Very few companies can write sensibly working software that would run under Linux. > -- I could only get it to work by running Firefox as root (yuck!). You get pretty much the same under Windows, though you don't see it as clearly. I don't get why you bash Linux. Windows has the exact same problems.

AdmiralAsshat 8y ago

> There is, of course, the Dell XPS Developer Edition models that come preloaded with Ubuntu 16.04 (or just in the past few days, Ubuntu 18.04). Though for my purposes I went with the Dell XPS 13 preloaded with Windows 10 due to running some benchmarks there prior to wiping the disk, faster shipping time going from B&H Photo Video over Dell.com, and running Fedora Workstation as my preferred main OS rather than Ubuntu. Unfortunately, from what I've been told by one of the guys in Dell's Sputnik program, they gauge interest on the Linux Dell laptops strictly by the number of people who buy Developer Edition laptops. So the author is not helping the cause by buying a Windows 10 laptop and loading Linux onto it. Believe me, I get it. The Windows ones go on sale, while the Developer Editions pretty much never do. I'm guilty of buying a Win10 one myself before this was explained to me. Just passing that info on. If you want to support the future of Linux on Dell laptops, I strongly urge you to buy the ones with Linux pre-loaded, from Dell.

dsego 8y ago
Do you know what the best way is to get my hands on one in the EU, preferably with a US keyboard layout?
- lykr0n 8y ago
  Buy one on ebay and have them ship it, use a forwarding service, ask a state side friend to buy one and ship it to you, or take a quick vacation and pick one up. EDIT. It would be 3% PayPal fee + Cost of shipping ($50 or so) is you asked a friend to do it.
- Symbiote 8y ago
  Dell offer a choice of local or US keyboard: https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptops/xps-13-9370-laptop/spd/xps-13-9370-laptop?~ck=bt&appliedRefinements=301 https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptops/xps-13-9370-lap... This is probably a better plan than importing something without paying taxes. If Brexit happens, there's still Ireland for an English Dell website in the EU. (Like most other European layouts, the British/Irish one will mean the ISO layout rather than the American (ANSI) layout. Other than the additional key giving space for £ and ¬, there's not much difference; so you might prefer that if you want to keep a vertical-shape enter key.)

prudhvis 8y ago

I have a thinkpad T470(Fedora 28) and T470p(QubesOS) that runs Linux just fine. Without any driver issues. The battery life is excellent once you install the tlp packages.

mahgnous 8y ago

The dev version with intel wireless maybe, they put a shitty wireless card in the regular ones that doesn't work for shit in linux.

blubb-fish 8y ago

two of several appeals of Linux to me are the fact that it is free and modest on resources. from that angle it seems slightly ironic that all those great Linux laptops leave the 1000 usd mark way behind them. thing is, I'm actually intending to buy a laptop and have Mint run on it. any suggestions for a laptop cheaper than 1k? I'm eyeing Dell latitude 5480.

kobrad 8y ago
I bought a used acer from 2012 and the only bad thing is battery life of around three hours. Can't imagine paying for a new laptop
- blubb-fish 8y ago
  i had very bad experiences 1st and 2nd hand with Acer, though. unprovoked crashes, WiFi not working without significant research and fiddling. multiple models.

Paraesthetic 8y ago

You monster, how could you do this to such sexy laptop? haha but seriously these laptops are insanely good.

Proven 8y ago

It sounds like my Lenovo or other Tier 1 products. Okay it may be great, but what modern laptop isn't? > running Fedora Workstation as my preferred main OS rather than Ubuntu. Yuck!

kristianp 8y ago

One problem I have with my XPS 13 is the keyboard. It's too small for me to type without making lots of errors (I'm used to the size of keyboards on 14 inch laptops and full size pcs). Also the feel of the keys has no click and feels stiff. I often don't push the left shift properly due to the stiffness.