4 ms·

Anecdotal like other comments but I and a few others from my workplace have switched to Dell XPS machines and run Linux now, and it's because we're working with

Anecdotal like other comments but I and a few others from my workplace have switched to Dell XPS machines and run Linux now, and it's because we're working with Docker, even with 16GB RAM and solid-state drives, the performance of Docker on MacOS is pathetic, and entirely unusable for our work. The XPS machines we have are ugly, they're flimsy, they have a grotesque carbon-fibre pattern on them, the keys leave imprints on the monitor after the lid has been closed, the fan drowns out the sound of music in my apartment, the camera is situated about 5mm above the keyboard with it's rickety keys, it is without a doubt the ugliest, the worst computer I have owned, I eat tramadol just to handle the back-pain from carrying it around in my rucksack, but I'm much less angry and frustrated working on it than I am on a Mac because it doesn't shit it's pants when more than a few containers are running.

mattnewton 8y ago
Have you tried running Linux on a MacBook? This used to be pretty well supported (albeit expensive) way of getting pretty hardware and the software you needed, but I haven’t tried in a while.
- OxO4 8y ago
  AFAIK newer Macs with a T2 security chip block OSs other than macOS and Windows 10 [0] (at least on the internal drive). [0] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Apple-T2-Blocks-Linux-UEFI https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Apple-T2...
geoka9 8y ago
I started using X1 Carbon 6th recently and it's an amazing little machine. Extremely portable (a 14" that weighs 2.5 lbs and fits in a 13" sleeve), great keyboard, great Linux support, good display, and it runs very cool (the fan is never on, despite running multiple virtualbox instances in addition to regular work that causes sporadic CPU spikes - e.g. compiling). It's also very pleasant to touch and hold in your hands, especially if you like the Thinkpad aesthetics.
- polyfather 8y ago
  I have to agree. I was never a big fan of laptops before, but I've really come to enjoy my 6th gen X1. The keyboard is surprisingly nice (for a laptop) and the battery lasts long enough to not annoy me when I'm on the move. The fingerprint reader doesn't work though, not that I know what I would use one for.
  - rikkus 8y ago
    I installed KDE Neon on a t450s recently and the fingerprint reader was the only hardware that didn’t work out of the box. I had to install an extra package and add some lines to a pam config file. I use it to log in, plus to auth for anything that requires root. I’m doing some coding so occasionally do something that requires sudo in a terminal. A prompt appears and asks me to swipe my finger. It’s very neat.
rezeroed 8y ago
I use a Dell Latitude at work. It's far worse than the XPS I've sampled in shops. The keyboard is the worst thing I've used since the ZX81 and Spectrum. Possibly worse but my memory may fail me.
sowbug 8y ago
Counter-anecdote (I admit that I'm ignorant about aesthetics, so I'm not addressing those points). I got a personal 2016 XPS 13 (9350) because of Project Sputnik (https://bartongeorge.io/tag/project-sputnik/ https://bartongeorge.io/tag/project-sputnik/), which brought official desktop-Linux support to it. I also work at Google where we have a very solid desktop distribution, providing me a working example of almost every tweak I might want to make. Owning the hardware has been a great experience since two changes. First, I swapped out the Killer wifi card and replaced it with an Intel card. Unfortunately this is table stakes for any machine with that card. Second, I thought the spring on the keyboard's keys was much stronger than another XPS 13 that I'd test-driven, so I rolled the dice on eBay and bought a replacement for something like $20. I swapped it in, and it indeed restored the light touch that I liked about the other one. I wouldn't expect many people to do this. As for software, I've settled successfully on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, running the same Cinnamon desktop environment we use at work. A key part of my success has been committing to Ansible for configuration management. When I make a settings change I want to keep, I figure out where it's persisted, and then upstream it into my Ansible repo. This has the three-part benefit of teaching me a little about the system (mostly dconf), creating a worklog of changes I've made to the machine, and giving me the psychological comfort that if things get really bad, I can reinstall the OS plus all my tweaks. (Just to be clear, these aren't I've since expanded the Ansible setup to manage a tiny target-practice server I keep on a cloud service, and over the holiday break this year I successfully set up an old desktop in a closet by (1) installing base Ubuntu, (2) unzipping my Ansible repo to it, (3) running a bootstrap script in the repo that installs python, git, and ansible, and runs Ansible on itself, and then (4) drinking a cup of coffee. By the end I had a machine that was substantially identical to my XPS 13. I'm sure I'm proving someone's point that Linux isn't ready for the desktop. But from my perspective, the Linux-hardware interface is excellent on a Dell XPS 13 because of Project Sputnik, and if you can factor out the likely dozens of hours I spent overengineering my personal Ansible configuration system, I now have a reliable, easily reproducible desktop setup that rivals the manageability of a Chromebook, which is my personal gold standard for desktop statelessness.
- sowbug 8y ago
  oops, I meant to delete my needless clarification "(Just to be clear, these aren't..." but must have sent it anyway. All I was trying to say was that these tweaks are user preferences like background images, not essential things to make the machine usable. Thanks to Sputnik and the wifi card swap, the machine was usable from the start.
H1Supreme 8y ago
For folks considering the XPS, check out the Dell Inspiron 7000 range. I have the 13" version and it very much reminds me of a MacBook Pro aesthetically. Brushed aluminum chasis, dark keys (with back lighting), and an overall sleek, understated design. Nothing like the cheap, plastic Dell's I was used to seeing. And, it installed Ubuntu (mate) without a hitch. Everything worked out of the box except the font scaling. I suspect that's a Mate specific problem though. Gnome may work better.
- JacobJans 8y ago
  It seems to me there is always an "except" with Linux. Even someone, elsewhere in this thread, said the developer edition of the XPS worked flawlessly, "except..." -- and that is a laptop that comes preinstalled with Linux!
akfanta 8y ago
Docker performance outside of Linux is always going to be a problem since it will need to rely on VM. There is a big thread of discussion here for docker on Mac: https://forums.docker.com/t/file-access-in-mounted-volumes-extremely-slow-cpu-bound/8076/270 https://forums.docker.com/t/file-access-in-mounted-volumes-e.... Our development environment has been with docker on Mac for a few years. It's definitely slow, but we found it acceptable. Do you happen to use a very large image with tons of IO work?
soperj 8y ago
> back-pain What Mac were you using previously? 13 inch macbook pro is heavier than the 2.67 pound 13 inch XPS
k_bx 8y ago
I am dual-botting my MBP 2014 and I absolutely recommend doing that. Not sure about more recent ones though.
OxO4 8y ago
> the keys leave imprints on the monitor after the lid has been closed Same with my Late 2013 MacBook Pro. > the keyboard with it's rickety keys I haven't used the XPS keyboards extensively but they seem to get good reviews and in my limited experience, I definitely prefer them to the new MacBook keyboards (which I've used quite a bit). > I eat tramadol just to handle the back-pain from carrying it around in my rucksack The XPS 13 is actually lighter than the MacBook Pro 13 and the new MacBook Air. The XPS 15 is half a pound heavier than the MacBook Pro 15, which should be barely noticeable when carried in a backpack. I am not quite following.
wasted_intel 8y ago
Funny, I have an XPS13 (9370) and I love the aesthetic; the carbon fiber and metal look/feel is really nice. It's light, works well, and is quiet. The keyboard leaving imprints on the display is no different from my 2013 MBP, whose design everyone still seems to love.

mattnewton 8y ago

Have you tried running Linux on a MacBook? This used to be pretty well supported (albeit expensive) way of getting pretty hardware and the software you needed, but I haven’t tried in a while.

OxO4 8y ago
AFAIK newer Macs with a T2 security chip block OSs other than macOS and Windows 10 [0] (at least on the internal drive). [0] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Apple-T2-Blocks-Linux-UEFI https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Apple-T2...

geoka9 8y ago

I started using X1 Carbon 6th recently and it's an amazing little machine. Extremely portable (a 14" that weighs 2.5 lbs and fits in a 13" sleeve), great keyboard, great Linux support, good display, and it runs very cool (the fan is never on, despite running multiple virtualbox instances in addition to regular work that causes sporadic CPU spikes - e.g. compiling). It's also very pleasant to touch and hold in your hands, especially if you like the Thinkpad aesthetics.

polyfather 8y ago
I have to agree. I was never a big fan of laptops before, but I've really come to enjoy my 6th gen X1. The keyboard is surprisingly nice (for a laptop) and the battery lasts long enough to not annoy me when I'm on the move. The fingerprint reader doesn't work though, not that I know what I would use one for.
- rikkus 8y ago
  I installed KDE Neon on a t450s recently and the fingerprint reader was the only hardware that didn’t work out of the box. I had to install an extra package and add some lines to a pam config file. I use it to log in, plus to auth for anything that requires root. I’m doing some coding so occasionally do something that requires sudo in a terminal. A prompt appears and asks me to swipe my finger. It’s very neat.

rezeroed 8y ago

I use a Dell Latitude at work. It's far worse than the XPS I've sampled in shops. The keyboard is the worst thing I've used since the ZX81 and Spectrum. Possibly worse but my memory may fail me.

sowbug 8y ago

Counter-anecdote (I admit that I'm ignorant about aesthetics, so I'm not addressing those points). I got a personal 2016 XPS 13 (9350) because of Project Sputnik (https://bartongeorge.io/tag/project-sputnik/ https://bartongeorge.io/tag/project-sputnik/), which brought official desktop-Linux support to it. I also work at Google where we have a very solid desktop distribution, providing me a working example of almost every tweak I might want to make. Owning the hardware has been a great experience since two changes. First, I swapped out the Killer wifi card and replaced it with an Intel card. Unfortunately this is table stakes for any machine with that card. Second, I thought the spring on the keyboard's keys was much stronger than another XPS 13 that I'd test-driven, so I rolled the dice on eBay and bought a replacement for something like $20. I swapped it in, and it indeed restored the light touch that I liked about the other one. I wouldn't expect many people to do this. As for software, I've settled successfully on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, running the same Cinnamon desktop environment we use at work. A key part of my success has been committing to Ansible for configuration management. When I make a settings change I want to keep, I figure out where it's persisted, and then upstream it into my Ansible repo. This has the three-part benefit of teaching me a little about the system (mostly dconf), creating a worklog of changes I've made to the machine, and giving me the psychological comfort that if things get really bad, I can reinstall the OS plus all my tweaks. (Just to be clear, these aren't I've since expanded the Ansible setup to manage a tiny target-practice server I keep on a cloud service, and over the holiday break this year I successfully set up an old desktop in a closet by (1) installing base Ubuntu, (2) unzipping my Ansible repo to it, (3) running a bootstrap script in the repo that installs python, git, and ansible, and runs Ansible on itself, and then (4) drinking a cup of coffee. By the end I had a machine that was substantially identical to my XPS 13. I'm sure I'm proving someone's point that Linux isn't ready for the desktop. But from my perspective, the Linux-hardware interface is excellent on a Dell XPS 13 because of Project Sputnik, and if you can factor out the likely dozens of hours I spent overengineering my personal Ansible configuration system, I now have a reliable, easily reproducible desktop setup that rivals the manageability of a Chromebook, which is my personal gold standard for desktop statelessness.

sowbug 8y ago
oops, I meant to delete my needless clarification "(Just to be clear, these aren't..." but must have sent it anyway. All I was trying to say was that these tweaks are user preferences like background images, not essential things to make the machine usable. Thanks to Sputnik and the wifi card swap, the machine was usable from the start.

H1Supreme 8y ago

For folks considering the XPS, check out the Dell Inspiron 7000 range. I have the 13" version and it very much reminds me of a MacBook Pro aesthetically. Brushed aluminum chasis, dark keys (with back lighting), and an overall sleek, understated design. Nothing like the cheap, plastic Dell's I was used to seeing. And, it installed Ubuntu (mate) without a hitch. Everything worked out of the box except the font scaling. I suspect that's a Mate specific problem though. Gnome may work better.

JacobJans 8y ago
It seems to me there is always an "except" with Linux. Even someone, elsewhere in this thread, said the developer edition of the XPS worked flawlessly, "except..." -- and that is a laptop that comes preinstalled with Linux!

akfanta 8y ago

Docker performance outside of Linux is always going to be a problem since it will need to rely on VM. There is a big thread of discussion here for docker on Mac: https://forums.docker.com/t/file-access-in-mounted-volumes-extremely-slow-cpu-bound/8076/270 https://forums.docker.com/t/file-access-in-mounted-volumes-e.... Our development environment has been with docker on Mac for a few years. It's definitely slow, but we found it acceptable. Do you happen to use a very large image with tons of IO work?

soperj 8y ago

> back-pain What Mac were you using previously? 13 inch macbook pro is heavier than the 2.67 pound 13 inch XPS

k_bx 8y ago

I am dual-botting my MBP 2014 and I absolutely recommend doing that. Not sure about more recent ones though.

OxO4 8y ago

> the keys leave imprints on the monitor after the lid has been closed Same with my Late 2013 MacBook Pro. > the keyboard with it's rickety keys I haven't used the XPS keyboards extensively but they seem to get good reviews and in my limited experience, I definitely prefer them to the new MacBook keyboards (which I've used quite a bit). > I eat tramadol just to handle the back-pain from carrying it around in my rucksack The XPS 13 is actually lighter than the MacBook Pro 13 and the new MacBook Air. The XPS 15 is half a pound heavier than the MacBook Pro 15, which should be barely noticeable when carried in a backpack. I am not quite following.

wasted_intel 8y ago

Funny, I have an XPS13 (9370) and I love the aesthetic; the carbon fiber and metal look/feel is really nice. It's light, works well, and is quiet. The keyboard leaving imprints on the display is no different from my 2013 MBP, whose design everyone still seems to love.