- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@derp.foo
- technews@radiation.party
Today, the Dell XPS-13 with Ubuntu Linux is easily the most well-known Linux laptop. Many users, especially developers – including Linus Torvalds – love it. As Torvalds recently said, “Normally, I wouldn’t name names, but I’m making an exception for the XPS 13 just because I liked it so much that I also ended up buying one for my daughter when she went off to college.”
So, how did Dell – best known for good-quality, mass-produced PCs – end up building top-of-the-line Ubuntu Linux laptops? Well, Barton George, Dell Technologies’ Developer Community manager, shared the “Project Sputnik” story this week in a presentation at the popular Linux and open-source community show, All Things Open.
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$1400 for a non upgradable SSD and RAM, not to mention there are no USB, HDMI or audio jacks. What a ripoff.
Even apple’s most io-limited macbook ever had a headphone jack. Dell is really trying to outperform them.
Project Sputnik didn’t start yesterday. It started in 2013 and Dell XPS was much different back then.
Yeah, I don’t get it. What am I gonna do with 2 USBC ports? What if the ssd dies? Nah, I’d rather get a framework
The framework is cheaper when comparably equipped. It’s not even any thicker or heavier despite everything being replaceable. Dell just wants to make you pay a huge repair fee when the SSD fails.
Is it supposed to be submersible? WTF no jacks or ports?
Non upgradable SSD & RAM?
So Dell is trying to out-stupid Apple. Maybe they’ll come out with their own maps.
linux users when a laptop that ships Linux isn’t absolutely perfect and cost $20 (they don’t care that it helps get linux to average users)
Soldered SSD and RAM is something we expect from a cheap chromebook. It’s just not acceptable in a high end laptop.
There are plenty of other good laptops that come with Linux installed.
including, *checks notes*, ah yes… most of DELL’s other offerings with linux pre-installed
Which give you no option to forgo the Windows license.
Is it something that depends on the region? In Brazil their Linux offerings are usually way cheaper precisely because you can forgo the Windows license.
We are pretty happy with framework, tuxedo and system76 even if their products often cost loads of money and for sure aren’t perfect.
and yet people still find ways to complain when a manufacturer that is twice as big as all of these examples combined ships laptops with linux to the hands of millions of people, most of the time costing less than offerings by these companies
I came here to disagree with you, but in thinking a little about it, I’m not sure I do.
I find the lack of ports and upgradability extremely problematic. And while I understand they’re supposed to be light, slim, quality laptops, the price point feels high even so.
But, these are personal gripes with the device. And nothing to do with Linux. But these are basically the same things Apple aims for and people seem to love that.
So, I might argue the price doesn’t make it reasonable for the average user. But otherwise the more devices with Linux pre-installed, the better.
Ubuntu needs to stop being a standard. There are better alternatives at this point
Popularity makes all forms of support infinitely easier. I’d struggle to come up with any technical reason that could be worth giving up the ability to easily google for issues or install software. That doesn’t mean I think you shouldn’t use other distros, just that I believe Ubuntu is the best choice for a default install targeting average people.
If you want it to stop being a standard, help your distro do a better job at marketing. Ubuntu is one of the few that do some actual market research and dedicate resources to getting the OS into the hands of people by getting them interested in it. It’s one of the things we are looking forwards to doing better in Fedora.
Ubuntu got to be most popular because they focused on making it easy to setup and use by non-technical people. Even now they, for example, patch gnome to make it usable.
They patch GNOME to maintain the look and feel similar to Unity, which became their signature look.
As much as people don’t like Ubuntu, for users who aren’t enthusiasts they don’t want a million different options to choose from
If we keep changing the standard it’ll drive people away and leave behind support
Or you could just recommend Linux mint. It is so much more usable
Recommend yes, preinstall maybe not. Anyway as others have said if Ubuntu runs any distro should
Ubuntu sucks for many reasons, but new user experience is on the better side. I don’t want to use Ubuntu over Debian myself but I feel like it’s the mandatory corporate evil that can make Linux more appealing to more than just techies while also making Linux desktop more appealing to corpos in Microsoft’s ecosystem. Intune already has some rudimentary support for managed Linux Desktop, with Ubuntu currently supported.
I don’t know the last time you used Ubuntu but its user experience is not on the “better side”. They are pushing snap so hard that they are blind
hi, can you please elaborate why that is wrong? I am fairly new to Linux and have been using Ubuntu for the past month and so far I am satisfied with it…
The problem is that when you install a app via apt it sometimes will install the snap version. This may not seem like a problem until you want to just have native packages or flatpaks.
Snap packages are files that contain a file system and get mounted. They contain the application and libraries and such it depends on.
It doesn’t sound like such a bad idea on paper, and speaking for myself and from what I’ve gathered from stuff I see in the community, a general bias against Canonical probably plays a part.
But specifically as a desktop package solution, I do think it’s a poor one. It’s messy, slow, bloated and sandboxing creates usability issues (though it has benefits too, of course).
There may be, but realistically it’s probably the most well known.
I’m just happy to have Linux as a standard at all. If it works on Ubuntu, there’s a high chance it works on other distros and can be easily replaced
This one is tough for me. I’m opposed to any distro being considered the “standard”. It feels so antithetical to what makes Linux great.
But it’s also probably what we need for better user adoption. I don’t know which I’d pick if I had to, but I know it wouldn’t be Ubuntu.
What we need it distro independent tooling. We already have flatpak and XDG portals to that’s a start
It’s fine, I bought an XPS 13 years ago with Ubuntu and immediately put OpenSuSE on it. At least I’m not paying Microsoft. I still have that laptop, and it’s great. I think Lenovo deserves an honourable mention here, too - we buy T and X series laptops at work with Ubuntu and they work great too.
such as?
Linux mint, Fedora, openSUSE and tons of other options
Yeah and there is a big issue. I would place myself as quite tech savvy, but last time i looked for a distrobI got overwhelmed… Good thing: there are questionnaires that lead you to a good enough suggestion… Back then it proposed mint
But then the next question: which desktopp environment?
I installed on my huawei matebook and it worked okay-ish, but it had one dealbreaker: even with a lot of tinkering there was no way I got standby or hibernation to work. Which is a must for me…
So I removed mint and installed kubuntu… Now standby and even hibernate work (kind of) But it totally craps up when I try to use my external monitor together with the internal screen… Even a lot of terminal tinkering later I don’t have it working… Oh and the speakers still crap now
There is a lit of information around how to maybe get stuff working, but a lot of it requires a lot of upfront knowledge:
- a lot of questions are answered with “yeah, enter that in your terminal” without any explanation what exactly it does (which is bad in two ways in my opinion)
- a lot of official documentation doesn’t explain very well what the configs do and what syntax etc. is expected
- there is often a lot of elitism around that really pushes away newcomers
EmI do love tinkering, but sometimes it’s really frustrating even for me. No way I could my GF to try that out…
I don’t like the wordings and insinuations in the article. Ubuntu Linux ‘snuck’ into Dell laptops? Dell - best known for good-quality mass-produced PCs - end up building Linux laptops? What are they saying? Linux is low quality and it being in Dell laptops is bad?
Dell and Canonical have a partnership. And Linux isn’t a choice that’s forced on consumers. That’s hardly what one can say about Windows. An ad-ridden spyware that’s disguised as an OS and forced down everyone’s throat even when we don’t want it. (Not dell, but there are cases where I had to buy a laptop and clean out Windows).
I don’t understand the author’s exact intentions (I read the entire article). Seems like they are trying to say something positive. But the choice of words is bad.
Dell - best known for good-quality mass-produced PCs -
I’d disagree with the “good-quality” part, but they certainly are mass-produced
Lol, no mention of the fact that Ubuntu was already shipped on almost the entire Dell range, but only in China and developing world markets. This was because they had sold millions of laptops without OS in those markets, which immediately were flashed with pirated Windows, and Microsoft were pissed off. They pressured the Chinese govt to require computers must ship with an OS, so Cannonical/Ubuntu stepped in, did it for cheap (~$1/machine) and… they were still of course flashed with pirated windows immediately.
They didn’t ship to the US or Europe etc., because in those markets Dell got more kickback-money than they spent, from Windows and the various crapware they shipped pre-installed. So shipping Ubuntu in the US actually cost Dell money.
They sell a bunch of models with Ubuntu pre installed in Brazil also. Not every model / configurations, but even gaming laptops are available here.
Not a fan of the XPS line (expensive, not great thermals, and meh port selection) and I have never own one (though I’ve seen others with them). That said, I have a few of their Latitudes (currently using Latitude 7420) and one Precision and those run Linux really well.
One thing most people don’t realize is that Dell does support Linux (ie. Ubuntu) beyond the XPS line and you can buy Latitudes or Precisions with Linux support OOTB. Additionally, Dell ships firmware updates via LVFS on their XPS, Latitude, and Precision lines. The support isn’t perfect, but I have been happy with using Dell hardware and Linux for over a decade now.
PS. You can get really good deals via the Dell Outlet (my current laptop is refurbished from there), and you can usually find a number of off-lease or 2nd systems or parts on Ebay (very similar to Thinkpads).
Snuck. What a load of click bait shit.
How the hell is Dell openly choosing to sell stuff to linux user. In any way shape or form snuck.
Buy framework.
I would, but they don’t ship to my country :sadface:
The XPS line was popular at work. Desk candy to compete with Mac books. However the engineering did not complete at all. The battery was the biggest fail point, we had a high percentage of battery issues under warranty, and they would take months to get replaced by the vendor.
We stopped buying them, if someone wants desk candy these days it’s mostly Mac book pro as expensive as your budget can handle.
Precision are much better than XPS
The pricing is preposterous…no option to forego the windows license, and only a 12th gen i7 and 16gb ram for $1400…on plastic with a shitty keyboard and no IO? Why not just buy a macbook air at that point and jail break it?
Lenovo is absolutely stomping Dell right.
Superfish stomped Lenovo.
If only it had USB-A ports