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Dell bets big on Ubuntu Linux laptops for developers
- wil421 7y agoWhere are these Linux XPS’s on Dell’s website? Windows is the only option for 13 and 15 inch XPS. If I search Linux I only see an XPS desktop and some junk. How’s the track pad? Track pad and MacOS is still far ahead of the competition. Despite all the backlash Apple gets for TouchBar and Catalina it’s still miles ahead of the competition.
- PhilippGille 7y agoI'm currently only on mobile, but I think this one for example: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/cty/pdp/spd/xps-13-7390-laptop/cax13w10p1c606csu https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/cty/pdp/spd/xps-13-7390...
- vonmoltke 7y agohttps://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebooks/xps-13-laptop/spd/xps-13-7390-laptop?appliedRefinements=302 https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebo... Note that you need to choose "For Work" in order to get the option for the Developer Edition with Ubuntu.
- wil421 7y agoThey still show Windows 10 in all configurations. I’m checking from iPhone on safari, I’ll check with my laptop when I get home. Thanks.
- sam_lowry_ 7y agoThey do not offer Linux laptops in many countries. I am from Belgium and they never had Linux as an option.
- svl 7y agoGoing to dell.be, products, laptops, for work, there's a filter for OS: Ubuntu that shows 12 results.
- sam_lowry_ 7y agoThese 12 results are not good. When they start offering 5-series or 7-series with Linux support, we may consider them.
- nottorp 7y agoThe Linux laptops aren't available everywhere outside the US sadly.
- MegaDeKay 7y agoThey are available in Canada, for one... https://www.dell.com/en-ca/work/shop/laptops-ultrabooks/sr/laptops/xps-laptops/ubuntu https://www.dell.com/en-ca/work/shop/laptops-ultrabooks/sr/l...
- blaser-waffle 7y agoThere is? There is an Ubuntu button on the bottom right but using it to filter laptops doesn't bring anything up for me. Other filter options work fine; I'm in Alberta.
- MegaDeKay 7y agoDoes this work for you, for example? https://www.dell.com/en-ca/work/shop/laptops-ultrabooks/xps-13-7390-developer-edition/spd/xps-13-7390-laptop/cax13w10p1c607buca https://www.dell.com/en-ca/work/shop/laptops-ultrabooks/xps-... Under tech specs, it will say "Operating System: Ubuntu 18.04, Linux - Included in price".
- nottorp 7y agoYes but shipping from Canada doesnt help me
- enriquto 7y agothey are certainly available in france, where I have bought quite a few
- Lio 7y agoI got mine from the UK site ok.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago“How’s the track pad? Track pad and MacOS is still far ahead of the competition.” This is one of the main reasons I am keeping my MacBook. The trackpad feel and the gestures on the Mac are much better on then MacBook than on either windows or Linux. When I have my windows laptop on my lap to work everything’s feels really fiddly compared to the MacBook.
- llampx 7y agoIt's a matter of configuration and getting used to it. I got used to Windows from Mac OS pretty easily once I switched full time, ymmv.
- infecto 7y agoTrackpads are still bad imo.
- enriquto 7y agoI think this is mostly a personal preference. I am used to trackpad in my Dell laptop under Debian, which it is quite practical. But if I have to just click on a link using a MacBook, the experience is so infuriating that my colleague fears for the physical integrity of his computer...
- dlivingston 7y agoSpecs and spec configurations are only a small piece of what makes a good dev laptop. Is it ergonomic and lightweight? Is the trackpad large and the keyboard comfortable to type on for extended periods of time? How tightly does the hardware integrate with the software (i.e.: can I use multi-touch gestures on the trackpad to move through my environment quickly)? Say what you will about Apple and how they treat developers (read: not well), but the modern MacBook Pro (sans touchbar) is truly a great dev machine.
- mattmoose21 7y agosans keyboard
- strikelaserclaw 7y agoThe butterfly keyboard is a pain to type anything long on, my x1 carbon work laptop's keyboard feels so much better.
- soperj 7y agoThinkpads have much nicer keyboards. I also never use the trackpad for anything, and turn it off immediately. I guess don't conflate what is good for you, as good for everyone.
- ThrowawayR2 7y agoPretty much everyone touting MacBook Pros as great dev machines mentions the touchpad. As a person who doesn't like touchpads (despite having used company issued MacBook Pros these past few years), I find nothing compelling about the MacBook Pro versus other laptops as a dev machine.
- llampx 7y agoMacs are not really that great anymore. Between the keyboard, price and lack of upgradability, you have to have a pretty flexible definition of "good for developers" to choose one over even a Windows laptop with WSL, let alone a Ubuntu one.
- osiaq 7y agoDeja vu
- j88439h84 7y agoI have an Ubuntu XPS 13 for some years, I like it.
- dmix 7y agoIs there a reason why it's limited to XPS 13 and not XPS 15? Is there a problem supporting the NVIDIA graphics cards on Ubuntu or something?
- nickserv 7y agoIn my experience, there is a non-zero chance that a kernel update will render the system unable to start the display driver. Things may have improved in the last couple years, but I switched to AMD and never looked back.
- jandrese 7y agoLaptop graphics are one area where you run into issues with drivers still sometimes. I have some MSI laptops where the ACPI tables are fucked hard enough that you can't boot Ubuntu with the nVidia binary blobs installed. Dell is usually better about supporting Linux on their hardware, but even then the binary blobs are a bit of a risk factor.
- airbreather 7y agoMSI are the only laptops I have had serious "I give up" issues with trying to install Linux. Bought one, found official company line is not supported at all, seems deliberately, gave it to my 15 year old. It was so flimsy that six months of school bag transport, in special bag with laptop section, it is totally trashed. Flimsiest laptop I ever saw, by a long, long way. Plus for the specs, it was slow. Luckily I was shelling out for the expensive but comprehensive insurance. Steer clear of MSI.
- ppseafield 7y agoI wondered this myself. However my work got me an XPS 15 at my request (with Windows), and I installed Ubuntu on it. I can switch between NVIDIA and Intel graphics just fine. I haven't tested the USB-C video output though, just the HDMI.
- airbreather 7y agoMine works fine at 4k
- holri 7y agoWhat non free software is required to run all the hardware?
- blihp 7y agoThe main things are CPU microcode updates, GPU drivers and wireless LAN/bluetooth drivers. But on some devices (don't think this applies to the Dell models in question) if you get into an esoteric hardware configuration you could also have proprietary drivers for things like high speed wired LAN, storage chipsets/devices, audio, fingerprint readers etc. This is typically stuff you can get on your own usually by downloading drivers from the manufacturer's website and either extracting firmware from their Windows drivers or downloading a Linux-specific driver package, if available. All Dell is doing is collecting it all up and pre-installing/configuring it for you.
- colmvp 7y agoA few months ago, I was looking for a laptop with Ubuntu pre-installed since I was interested in learning ROS but was pretty disappointed that most of the options available were either 13 inches or clunky/ugly laptops. I ended up buying the XPS 15 and just installed Ubuntu alongside pre-installed Windows 10. It wasn't without hiccups but thankfully those who came before me posted their solutions on how to fix some of the issues, namely the Wifi card not being supported. All in all, for my basic needs of coding C++/Python and using ROS, I'm pretty happy with my decision.
- Bubbadoo 7y agoAside from the Dell battery issues, the XPS 15 is a workhorse that runs linux flawlessly. I had some bluetooth messiness but was able to resolve it playing driver bingo. You'll be happy.
- pedrocr 7y agoGiven the state of GPU drivers on Linux someone may end up capturing a bit of this market by launching a great AMD CPU+GPU laptop with a good Zen 2 APU or CPU+GPU pairing. These days you end up having to choose good drivers but poor performance (Intel) or good performance but poor drivers (Nvidia)[1]. The open-source AMD drivers are supposedly finally good and Zen 2 a great CPU on the desktop. So I'd love a Lenovo X1 Carbon with AMD for my next laptop[2]. [1] Before anyone comes in to defend Nvidia, the closed-source drivers may be great for you but the closed-source nature of them means you have to jump through some hoops to install them and some things will simply not work properly (e.g., actual Wayland support) [2] Bonus points for 1) ECC RAM 2) 32GB+ total RAM 3) 2 or more full-speed SSD slots
- soperj 7y agoJust wondering, why the carbon? The X395 is equally light, and you can actually replace things.
- pedrocr 7y agoWhat can you actually replace on the X395 that you can't on the X1? RAM is now soldered and that used to be the only difference from what I remember. I currently have the T460s and like the size. The T495s would be the equivalent but looking at it they are all about the same size now. I thought the X395 would be smaller. Either way the X395 and T495 both have a maximum of 1080p screen. I have a 1440p and will never go back. In fact I want the X1 for the 4K screen and the beefier chassis. I'm on my third panel and they all develop white spots from the cover not being protective enough.
- soperj 7y ago> RAM is now soldered Wow, really. Hadn't heard that. Complete bullshit.
- ajacksified 7y agoJust bought an X1 Extreme gen 2, and immediately upgraded (aftermarket) to 64GB of RAM and 2x 1TB M.2 drives. Feels pretty good. Ubuntu install was very smooth. The only thing I hate is the super cheap-feeling keyboard.
- mh8h 7y agoI wonder what it takes to have more than 16GB of RAM in these "for developers" laptops. I really like the form factor and the fact that it works well with Linux out of the box, but I am sure I will regret buying a laptop with 16GB of soldered memory in 2019.
- anderber 7y agoI agree, which is why I went with a System76 laptop. So far it's been great and I've been enjoying the 32GB of RAM.
- bachmeier 7y agoI'd like developer laptops to max out at 2 GB of RAM and have really slow single-core processors. Then I wouldn't be subjected to software written for machines with 64 GB of RAM and the latest high-end Intel processor.
- drewg123 7y agoI'm with you, but I'd rather they have 64 or 128 super, super slow cores. That way they'd make better use of threads, and hopefully uncover and fix more race-conditions and other concurrency bugs during development.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoI was about to reply the same. It's 2019 and many applications still take forever to start and are unresponsive as hell. How did we take orders of magnitude improvement in every metric and make it just as bad? The magic of Software Engineering I guess.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoThese machines are literally supercomputers but they still struggle to perform common basic operations without delay even though much slower computers could manage a tolerable UX 20 years ago.
- chooseaname 7y ago
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoSo what stops Dell from making all their systems Linux friendly. Why do you have to faf with "Secure Boot" just to install an Ubuntu on an XPS15? It's it Microsoft crippling things (technically or legally) or are Dell not capable (technically, or otherwise) of making the install of Linux work in a straightforward manner ... or what? Does anyone else do it better? How do Lenovo compare, say?
- ldiracdelta 7y agoMy experience is that the Dell setups _are_ Linux friendly. Could be that enough of the hardware exists to be targeted or maybe they're submitting fixes themselves. Intel employs folks to make Linux compatible with their new hardware.
- blihp 7y agoWith Dell it's mostly a marketing exercise since they don't really write any of the software or drivers, they're just packaging the products (hardware and software) that others produce. They are no different than most of the other major PC manufacturers in this regard. (some of the smaller specialty Linux PC companies do go at least a bit further than this) You can get Linux running on the vast majority of PC (desktop and laptop) models. There's value in this sort of bundle for people who want to buy a Linux machine with components known to have driver support and/or don't want to be bothered with installing and configuring it themselves.
- thesmok 7y agoThey don't even replace Windows key graphic with something like Super or Tux icon. Feels like a low-effort job.
- kgwxd 7y agoThey'd win quite few more if they fought for open drivers and firmware from the big names as well. There's a lot of people trying to make that a thing, but support from Dell could really push things forward.
- guillermin 7y agoNot even just 3rd party chipsets: I bought a first generation linux-based developer XPS13 and a proprietary Dell chip that only served to check that the power supply was an original Dell malfunctioned, so my laptop refused to charge and would limit CPU speed. I was left with a useless slow 13" desktop.
- wmf 7y agoAFAIK the tg3 driver exists because Dell fought Broadcom for it, although that was years ago. Probably even Dell isn't big enough to budge NVidia.
- vzaliva 7y agoI applaud Dell for supporting Linux on their hardware. Their main contribution should be open-source drivers for their hardware included in major Linux distributions. That said, I would not use their pre-installed Linux because of security concerns. I would certainly install one myself, with full-disk encryption.
- paulcarroty 7y ago> Up to 16GB of LPDDR3 memory at 2133MHz Excuse me, what year is it?
- asdff 7y ago2020 in cupertino
- davidw 7y agoI have one of these and am very happy with it. It works well and is a nice, compact computer. The only real fiddling I had to do was disable the lame 'windows sleep' that kills the battery quite quickly.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- deedubaya 7y ago> Up to 16GB of LPDDR3 memory at 2133MHz You mean, starting at 16GB of memory, right?
- modzu 7y agobought a brand new kit-out macbook the other day. the right arrow key gets stuck already. wtf? and then forgot my dongle at work, no watching hockey on my tv :( seriously, this thing is a shell of the beautiful machine i bought in 2015. but i am pretty excited that my next laptop could be linux! system76 please learn aluminum! ;)
- ACow_Adonis 7y agoI always say this in the vain hope that someone at Dell listens/hears, and I admit I haven't checked since buying my last one. But please, PLEASE, make them for sale in Australia! I want xps laptops! I don't want windows!
- RenRav 7y agoI always appreciated their dell.com/linux page.
- enriquto 7y agocurious that a few linux laptops are not shown on this page
- Havoc 7y agoSurprised at all the people complaining about the 16GB. This is a 13 inch ultrabook...
- chrisseaton 7y agoI find it pretty hard to squeeze my day-to-day programming work into 16 GB these days, and this says it's specifically for developers.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoBut you're ok with a single 13" screen?
- chrisseaton 7y agoI can physically do my work on a 13" screen. I physically can't do my work in 16 GB (well I'm exaggerating a little, but we're getting close these days.)
- therealmarv 7y agoWith a up to 6 core 15W CPU. There is no comparison on the market right now.
- enriquto 7y agoDell is the only major vendor that ships laptops with linux preinstalled (Lenovo anounced linux thinkpads in 2019 but unfortunately it was a lie). Yet, linux support along the Dell product line is extremely sparse. Between the inspiron 3000 and the xps 13 there is a huge, windows-only gap.
- ajacksified 7y agofwiw, I just bought a Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen 2 and Ubuntu 19.10 worked right out of the box - even wifi and proprietary nvidia drivers. I was very surprised. I haven't tested the fingerprint scanner, but I don't use biometrics, so I can't speak to that.
- enriquto 7y agoYes, thinkpads work great with linux. But if I'm going to shell out more than 4000 EUR for a top of the line P-series, I just don't want to end up with a laptop that does not hibernate or throttle correctly. For that, it is essential that the vendor provides a pre-installed OS with all the functionalities.
- big_chungus 7y agoSo when am I going to get a linux driver for my XPS fingerprint reader? Still doesn't work too well. Dell also still ships killer wireless cards, which generally don't work as well with linux drivers as, say, intel. Though this is probably also because killer cards are just junk.
- bengalister 7y agoI second that. I own a XPS 13 9380, running archlinux and it is pretty much the only thing I am missing from Windows. I bought the Windows XPS 13 version, just in case I had issues with Linux. There are currently no drivers for the Goodix fingerprint reader under Linux. I miss that it is quite useful. I tried the Linux equivalent of Windows hello, i.e, howdy with the infrared camera but it does not work well for me and is not as secure. Dell must fix that situation.
- simlevesque 7y agoI just want a AMD GPU in one of those...
- economyballoon 7y agoDoes Dell gets paid from Canonical to install Ubuntu? Why not OpenBSD, Debian, FreeBSD or Arch? In my opinion we have to do more to free driver source code. To use Ubuntu does not support this I think.
- blaser-waffle 7y agoMost/all of the laptop drivers are in the kernel and would be universal, or mostly universal, with other distros. I don't really care if Canonical or Red Hat or Theo de Raadt paying for it, since it will almost certainly be comparable with other distros and would be free of the Windows Tax; if you don't want OpenBSD or Unbuntu then just install something else. Plus you can do the SHA1 sum when doing your own install and know it's a valid ISO from the source.
- miiiiiike 7y agoThe aluminum enclosure is gorgeous and the hardware is great. I wish they would ditch the chintzy plastic interior tho. I would pay double for a new MacBook Pro if it supported Ubuntu and had a reasonable keyboard. I miss my old 2011 model.
- ajudson 7y agoThey should put a lot of money into improving the touchpad experience for Linux. I bet that for many people that is the last sticking point to moving from a Macbook.
- supercommand 7y agoThis this this. Remember windows before the precision drivers? Linux touchpad stuff today is where windows was a decade ago. This is a fundamental portable use issue that has to be tweaked with each distro and machine. Hand a Linux machine with a clean install to any non tech person and they will ask if your trackpad is broken. It is.
- CyberFonic 7y agoI cannot find Linux laptops on Dell's .com.au site. Never have in the past either. Has MS totally pwnd Oz?
- internet_user 7y agoHow are Dell's keyboards? I'm not optimistic.
- bythckr 7y agoConsidering many developers that run Linux on a MacBookPro, I am sure they will buy a dell if it can bring the right quality & is more affordable. The main thing would be high iFixit score. Even as a mac user, the apps I use daily run on linux as well but its '0' tweaking that I have to do, is what keeps me with Mac. Basically, my laptop is my tool to get my work done. I would like to focus on my work rather than focus on managing my tool.
- jrcii 7y agoI like OpenBSD. I issue a 'ps -ax' and can see a short list of processes which I understand the purpose of, I feel like I understand more or less how the OS works without being a systems/kernel programmer. When I do the same with Ubuntu I get a massive list of processes, most of which I don't understand or recognize. I'm back to the Windows feeling that the OS is a transcendent black box, but now with no Microsoft Office, power management, and display (esp multi-monitor) bugs. I love the idea of Linux but it seems like the less practical option.
- kristianp 7y agoIt irks me that you can't select 16gb of ram with an i5 processor, the page automatically selects the i7. That's just greed on Dell's part. Microsoft does it too with surface last I checked. Lenovo's X1 Carbon doesn't force that choice on you thankfully.
- grumpy-cowboy 7y agoHint for Dell: just ensure that your hardware works perfectly in Linux (drivers) and please don't add any ^(bloat|crap)ware[s]?$ to it. I have a Dell Precision 7530 laptop with an I5 CPU, 64GB of RAM, AMD GPU, 3 SSD M2 drives... I installed Ubuntu 18.04 (from Ubuntu site) and it's the only distrib that work perfectly out of the box with an external monitor, suspend mode, ... :) Note: I tried Linux Mint (issues with external monitor, suspend mode, ...), Parrot Linux (doesn't work at all) and others without any success.