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I've had two Dell XPS laptops (a 13" 2015 model and a 15" 2-in-1 2018 model). Both had significant touchpad issues: not sure if that's a driver thing or a hardw
by mort96 10mo ago
I've had two Dell XPS laptops (a 13" 2015 model and a 15" 2-in-1 2018 model). Both had significant touchpad issues: not sure if that's a driver thing or a hardware thing, but both would sometimes act as if there was a phantom touch somewhere on the trackpad which messed with my actual input. One of them had a keyboard where key caps of frequently used keys (super, shift, ctrl) would split in two after a ~year of use; this was not fixed under warranty, I paid out of pocket after a year of ownership, another year later it happened again.
After those two Dell XPS laptops, I got a MacBook Pro 2021 with an M1 Pro instead of getting the keyboard fixed again. No issues. Linux support isn't great, but at least macOS is a relatively competent UNIX so it's fine.
I might consider another non-Mac laptop in the future. But it's not gonna be a Dell.
- debo_ 10mo agoI think I may have the same 2015 13" model you are describing. Which distro were you running out of curiosity?
- mort96 10mo agoMostly Arch Linux at the time, though I've had Elementary OS on it as well. I used to run i3 (and eventually Sway) on it, which worked well since I could have a keyboard-centric workflow and not rely o bc the trackpad.
- debo_ 10mo agoHuh. I wonder if they were both hardware issues. I've run arch on my laptop with no issues.
- fluidcruft 10mo agoI have had many Dells that have been great with FreeBSD and with Linux. You do have to do your research though. Frankly, I wouldn't expect any touchscreen to work with Linux. That's not a Dell issue though.
- mort96 10mo agoInterestingly, the touch screen of the 2-in-1 worked really well! I often relied on the touch screen to do light web browsing when the trackpad was acting up.
- Fluorescence 10mo agoThe XPS I bought in 2018 has a Wacom digitiser for touch/pen and I believe those are very well supported. A clean install of Ubuntu and the touchscreen and all pen features worked perfectly and never had a hiccup since.