Dell Continues Shipping Fresh Linux Laptops

jones_supa writes: In its latest move, Dell will be bringing Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to its top-of-the-line Precision M3800 workstation laptop and the latest model of the Dell XPS 13. Both systems will be running Ubuntu 14.04.1. According to Barton George, Dell's Director of Developer Programs, programmers had been asking for a better, officially-supported Ubuntu developer laptop. This came about from a combination of the efforts of Dell software engineer Jared Dominguez and enthusiastic feedback. Specs of M3800: 15.6" LCD @ 3840x2160, Intel i7 quad core CPU, NVIDIA Quadro GPU, up to 16 GB RAM. The bad news is, as Dominguez explained on his blog, this version of the M3800 doesn't support its built-in Thunderbolt 2 port out of the box. However, thanks to the hardware-enablement stack in Ubuntu, starting with upcoming Ubuntu 14.04.2, you will be able to upgrade your kernel to add some Thunderbolt support.

Comments

XPS 13 works great

[rfengr]

I have a 2014 model of the XPS 13 and it runs Fedora seamlessly, including hibernation, camera, and touch screen. Yet it was still cheaper to buy an windows 8 version of the XPS 13 from microcenter and wipe it, rather than the preloaded developer edition from Dell.

Re: XPS 13 works great

[Anonymous Coward]

I forget but didn't the Linux version have a higher resolution display?

Re: XPS 13 works great

[rfengr]

No, the 2014 model was 1920x1080, just could choose between i5 and i7. I don't see how higher resolution on this new model will help with a 13" screen.

Re: XPS 13 works great

[Anonymous Coward]

OK. Could be the older model that shipped with 12.04.

Re:XPS 13 works great

[Computershack]

Their business range of Windows laptops don't come with bloatware.

Re:XPS 13 works great

[hairyfeet]

Of course it is because when you get Windows you don't have a "MSFT tax" you have a "MSFT tax BREAK" that so few FOSS users seem to be able to grasp!

Look its REALLY simple, 1.- Somebody who buys bulk (in the case of MSFT bulk is defined as over 10K licenses) gets Windows MUCH cheaper, last figures I saw was between $0-$50 depending on version and device, 2.- the OEMs then GET PAID to put trial versions (or in the case of Google their toolbars and browser) on the install image, 3.- When combined with the discount this can often make putting Windows on the system a money EARNER instead of a cost,4.- You have the economies of scale on the Windows side which Linux doesn't and finally, 5.- LINUX COSTS MONEY to the OEM because they have to keep their own custom version of a distro (which they have to pay developers to maintain) because otherwise updates can shit all over their drivers. Before any FOSSies poo poos this idea because "Linux doesn't shit on drivers, you're a liar Hairyfeet" I would point out Dell has been having to deal with the piss poor Linux driver model for many years and just as i have seen how badly the driver model really is and therefor has NO choice but to keep their own distro, at a not inconsiderate cost, just to keep users from screaming "update foo broke my drivers!"

So this is why Linux will ALWAYS be more expensive than Windows, because if you look at total cost to the OEM for going with Linux over Windows? Windows is the cheaper alternative. Its less brittle, doesn't require you to have your own fork, the OEM doesn't have to pay a dev team to update its drivers constantly, it can place trialware on the system. Linux is only "free" if your time is worth nothing and for OEMs this is simply not the case.

Re: XPS 13 works great

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it does come with Windows.

Re:XPS 13 works great

[Anonymous Coward]

They do come with some, I don't seem to recall there being unnecessary third party crap, but they do stick some of their own utilities on that you may not want on there, oh and Office 365. They may have a lot less bloatware than their consumer machines, but it isn't true to say they have none. These were new laptops bought this year and shipped with Windows 7.

Re:XPS 13 works great

[Teun]

I'm no expert on the subject but from experience I'd imagine using hardware that complies with standards should prevent most of these issues?

At least it works for my Lenovo's with nVidia.

Re:XPS 13 works great

[Computershack]

They do come with some,

Skype and Dropbox.

Re:XPS 13 works great

[Anonymous Coward]

Take it easy Ballmer. You'll be OK in a few minutes. But yes, reverse engineering Windows specific hardware has
been historically very challenging. Even before 2009. You might want to update your Windows NTP client on your way to
the medicine chest.

Re:XPS 13 works great

[unixisc]

Why don't they do PC-BSD instead of Linux instead, in that case? With the BSDs, you don't have them disrupting past software models, so here, all Dell would need to do would be to hire developers to write drivers for things like WiFi ONCE, and they'd not have to bother about it again, but can support newer models and peripherals. With Ubuntu, there is not just the usual Linux issue, but also the issue of Unity. For PC-BSD, they have a wide range of UIs to choose from -

Awesome

Cinnamon

Fluxbox

FVWM

GNOME

i3

IceWM

KDE4

Lumina

LXDE

Mate

Openbox

Ratpoison

spectrwm

XFCE4

WindowLab

Window Maker

If Dell wishes, they can offer just a subset of these, and they'd be off to the races.

Re:XPS 13 works great

[hairyfeet]

Because drivers for consumer hardware (even shitty drivers like Linux has) simply doesn't exist? As I have said for years Linux is a SERVER OS but even so you have a group of hardcore FOSSies that reverse engineer drivers for consumer gear, that simply does not exist in BSD land. BSD is even more hardcore server oriented so the amount of drivers for consumer gear is just microscopic which translates into a LOT of service calls and returned devices when they find that while their shitty consumer AIO printer may only print in Linux it won't even be recognized in BSD, same with the USB wireless sticks, digital cameras, the drivers simply aren't there.

So while I agree 1000% that BSD is a better OS simply because unlike Linus' trainwreck of a driver model BSD has a sane driver ABI and therefor doesn't have an eternal case of the driver shits BSD just doesn't have the consumer grade hardware support required, I wish it did.

Of course the fact that Windows is going to give out free upgrades means what little support outside the religiously fanatical FOSSies is gonna blow away like a fart in the breeze and that is that.

Re:XPS 13 works great

[unixisc]

So that's what I was saying. Dell used to have a small group of devs who wrote Linux drivers. They could do the same here for PCBSD/FreeBSD. Difference from the earlier situation - maybe unbeknownst to them - is that unlike Linux, where the drivers broke w/ the next iteration of the OS, in the BSD case, it won't, for the reasons you mentioned. In short, Dell would only have to write those drivers ONCE, and that's it. Also, PCBSD is not 64-bit only, so they won't have to bother about 32 vs 64 bit support.

Re: XPS 13 works great

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they want people to actually buy the system :D

Re: XPS 13 works great

[Anonymous Coward]

It uses a vanilla version of Ubuntu... Not some special Dell version of Ubuntu. And when was the last time you tried running Linux on your desktop? You might be surprised at how its come on in the last 10 years.

Re:XPS 13 works great

[david_thornley]

Why would I want to run PCBSD? With Ubuntu or Fedora, I can easily download lots of software with the package manager. There's lots of people running Linux on the desktop (1% of the total market qualifies as "lots"), so there will be lots of community support. I've had Linux immediately recognize printers I had to do fiddling to get Windows to acknowledge. What do the BSDs have to compare with that? (This is a legitimate question.) What would the advantages be?

Currently iff I want BSD on the desktop, I'll get a Mac.

Re:XPS 13 works great

[hairyfeet]

You are missing the point, its NOT the Dell hardware that is the problem, its their Canon printer, Nikon camera, Sansa clip player, no name wireless stick, NONE OF THOSE will have drivers and THAT is why they will be calling Dell and running up the support bill!

until you have a reasonable shot of grabbing hardware in your average Walmart and have it plug and play with BSD? its just too big of a PITA. As much as Linux sucks it does have SOME support for consumer gear, piss poor as it may be, in BSD it just doesn't exist.

Re:XPS 13 works great

[hairyfeet]

Take "The Hairyfeet Challenge" and you'll find out! You see, unlike Torvalds fucked up 1970 *NIX lack of a driver model BSDs actually HAVE a functional ABI, what does that mean to the end user? That means a driver that works today WILL work five years from now PERIOD. In fact I've talked to BSD users that have actually PASSED the Hairyfeet challenge with flying colors! That means they took a five year of BSD, updated to current, and at the end of the test? 100% functionality just like Windows!

I guarantee you that your distro of choice WILL NOT PASS and the reason why is simple, lack of a functional driver model. many have compared Linux to XP but I would argue its not even at Win9X, its at Win 3.x when it comes to drivers! With Win 3.x you had to write drivers to a VERY SPECIFIC version of hardware, so that if the driver was written for "Windows 2, hardware foo, rev 1" then it WOULD NOT WORK if ANY of that had in ANY way changed...sound familiar? This is why you can't just stick a "Debian" or "Ubuntu" sticker on a box for some hardware because it cannot be JUST Debian or Ubuntu, it HAS to be written for the very.specific.kernel. and.distro.release. Anything before or after? Enjoy your non functional device!

So if you truly think your distro is great? Stand up and take the challenge...but I know you won't, as many cursing FOSSies have admitted to me during their rants of "Its gotta be rigged!" (yeah because expecting Linux to actually update? that's too much to ask LOL) that no matter which consumer distro they used NONE PASSED. The reason I have to put consumer distro BTW is some really rabid FOSSies have been soooooo fucking desperate to have ANY distro pass that they have used shit like SciLinux (which even says on their fucking website its a rarely updated distro designed for HPC math clustering...yeah like your average laptop is bought to process CERN data ROFLCopter!) that doesn't get updated but once or twice a decade as "proof" that a distro can pass and that "Linux is ready for the desktop"...which of course it isn't which is why every system builder and B&M treats Linux like plague blankets.

But if you think you can pass? Take your best shot and upload the video to dropbox, but as long as Linus Torvalds has a pulse and is in charge of the kernel? Sorry but its always gonna be shit because he refuses to do a damned thing about the broken driver model. I could sit here for another 30 minutes and show you how with basic math you can prove his "let the kernel devs handle drivers"completely and utterly fails once drivers reach 4 digits but its 10AM and I had a wisdom tooth pulled yesterday so if you want to know more look up my previous posts.

not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[ihtoit]

...wouldn't bother me that a kernel doesn't support it.

So that's not a dealbreaker for me.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[Billly Gates]

USB vs Thunderbolt = VHS vs Betamax. VHS more widespread due to it being cheaper yet betamax won in video production by being superior. Same with Thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt is Sony/Apple competitior to the original USB. It is higher performing with I/O bound to the host vs in the peripherals of the original USB design. It was more expensive so USB won but due to its superior bandwidth and processing it is used for ilink/thunderbolt video cameras, vga dongles, and ethernet.

Thunderbolt comes with MS Surface and any Apple product to connect vga, ethernet, dvd, HDMI, video cameras, and other dongles. Mac users use them too. USB 2?? Well it can't handle these well or at all.

My coworker has a surfacepro 2 which has a Thunderbolt for his ethernet adapter. He is the network guru at my site and uses it with wireshark and some cisco app. A laptop it too bulky and breaks too easily and has crappy batter life. His Surface he can use any thunderbolt adapter for HDMI video. I hated Windows 8 and the surface like most slashdotters but it opened my eyes.

Anyway USB 3.1 may be able to compete but thunderbolt has had this for many years and it used for video professionals and those who need high bandwidth devices.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps more people will be initiated in the glorious duty of customizing ones kernel configuration

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[hitmark]

Could have sworn that the betacam format used in video production has very little in common with the betamax format sold to the public.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[Anonymous Coward]

You just compared USB and Firewire, not thunderbolt.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[ShanghaiBill]

USB vs Thunderbolt = VHS vs Betamax.

You can run multiple USB connections over a single Thunderbolt, so it makes USB work better, rather than replacing it. You can also use Thunderbolt to daisychain multiple monitors, disk drives, network connections, etc. It has a bandwidth of 20Gbps. It is the standard connector on Apple computers, and is becoming more widely adopted by other vendors.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[Anonymous Coward]

Giant tapes. We still use them at work, even though our player is absolutely fucked.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[aitikin]

Thunderbolt is Sony/Apple competitior to the original USB. It is higher performing with I/O bound to the host vs in the peripherals of the original USB design. It was more expensive so USB won but due to its superior bandwidth and processing it is used for ilink/thunderbolt video cameras, vga dongles, and ethernet.

You sound like you're describing Firewire (developed by Apple, Sony, and a number of others), not Thunberbolt (developed primarily by Intel).

Thunderbolt comes with MS Surface and any Apple product to connect vga, ethernet, dvd, HDMI, video cameras, and other dongles. Mac users use them too. USB 2?? Well it can't handle these well or at all.

This paragraph confuses me, what are you talking about when you say USB can handle these well or at all? Dongles are almost always used on the USB port.

An easier explanation is that Thunderbolt is a functional, external PCIe bandwidth connection. I see it far more often in Pro Audio and Pro Video than any other purpose as its high bandwidth allows better access. It's still a young tech (2011) as opposed to USB (1996) and Firewire (1994), so there's plenty of things that still can come from it.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[xeoron]

Thunderbolt was developed by Intel & Apple and was formerly known as Light Peak. Not Sony. It can offer up to 10Gbits per channel, which USB 3 can't even do.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[mirix]

Though it requires active cables, which cost quite a bit more. So it might have a place for bleeding edge stuff, but not so much for economy.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[unixisc]

Uh, Thunderbolt is connected to the North bridge, while USB is to the South bridge. Hardly VHS vs Betamax: both interfaces were defined and developed by Intel.

Thunderbolt combines PCI Express (PCIe) and DisplayPort (DP) into one serial signal alongside a DC connection for electric power, transmitted over one cable. Up to six peripherals may be supported by one connector through various topologies.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[MSG]

Thunderbolt comes with MS Surface

No.... it doesn't. Not as far as I can tell. None of the spec sheets I can find list Thunderbolt. Your coworker's Ethernet adapter is almost certainly USB.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[Anonymous Coward]

You could be not less correct if you actually tried. You've got basic facts about the situation completely wrong.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[ihtoit]

yeah, reading this thread has left me so utterly confused I've actually (gasp!) taken to actually reading up on it. Seems Thunderbolt is a serial connection comprising PCIe (essentially extending the PCIe bus with external channels) and DisplayPort, and DC power, through a 20-pin Mini Displayport connector. Each host port can drive up to four discrete devices, six in a daisychain, including direct serial connection with other Thunderbolt hosts. The difference between Thunderbolt and USB/Firewire is that Thunderbolt devices must each have its own Thunderbolt controller. I would assume that this reduces the handshake between host and device to merely detection and assumption that the connected device is a streaming serial device like a composite video adapter (to throw an example out there). This being a residual effect of the original design specification of Thunderbolt being an optical pair rather than a duplexed copper system.

For me, while this is faster than USB, it doesn't offer me the flexibility I need in my real world application (which is cramming as much hardware as I possibly can through each port, call me a hoarder). USB offers the 127-device-per-channel expandibility, there are 120-port hubs (the hub counts as a device and most systems these days come with 2, 4 or more hubs even if they only come with 1 physical port which sometimes happens), I have a 120-port hub and it's wonderful thank you though a 5V80A power supply is a bit bulky, it comfortably powers every drive I have plugged in.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[Anonymous Coward]

He's confusing Thunderbolt with Mini DisplayPort which is physically identical. I'm typing this on a Surface Pro 2.

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[jedidiah]

Big fat hariy deal...

apt-get install thunderbolt-driver

If it's really bad, then it's...

apt-get install thunderbolt-kernel

Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is

[Tough Love]

Thunderbolt is dead in the water. Nobody knows what problem it solves.

Hardware enablement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't Ubuntu follow the stable kernel series from kernel.org? I believe this is what the Fedora distribution does and as far as I know it works fine. Linux has a very stable ABI and if things break they are usually quicker to fix it than Ubuntu is to backport the fix.

Re:Hardware enablement?

[armanox]

Ubuntu, like Red Hat, tries to keep the version of components the same for the life of a (LTS) release as not to risk breaking compatibility and application certification. Fedora's kernel updates can occasionally break things, and not breaking compatibility is very important for a long term release. (Compare Ubuntu LTS to RHEL or SuSE Enterprise)

Re:Hardware enablement?

[kthreadd]

You should read the release notes for any RHEL minor release. They do all kind of crazy stuff in their enterprise kernel. The entire KVM virtual machine layer for example, that came in with RHEL 5.2, a minor update that you got automatically. They also break stuff occasionally, but I've not had that happen very often.

Who gives a shit about Thunderbolt?

[Anonymous Coward]

It solves no problem, other than declining cable sales at Best Buy. This guys sounds like a whiner.

Re:Who gives a shit about Thunderbolt?

[Anonymous Coward]

It solves no problem, other than declining cable sales at Best Buy. This guys sounds like a whiner.

A laptop Linux user says unsupported hardware was useless anyway, goes on using software/hardware combination that makes absolutely no fucking sense.

classic

Re:Who gives a shit about Thunderbolt?

[Anonymous Coward]

He is right, who gives a shit about thunderbolt? in case you didn't read the article, this is targeted for DEVELOPERS, Unless you do serious semi-pro or pro video/audio editing and serious programming at the same time (in which case you probably represent less than 5% of all developers and are likely to be a Mac user), Developers don't give a shit about Thunderbolt.

Dell's linux systems lack proper support

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell's linux systems lack proper support as do many of the systems sold. It's quite frustrating. I wish they'd quit shipping with hardware components dependent on proprietary software. If I wanted a proprietary operating system I'd of gone with Microsoft Windows or Apple's OS X. I don't!

Give me freedom- or stop marketing the same old crap.

Re:Dell's linux systems lack proper support

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell's linux systems lack proper support as do many of the systems sold.

Then their Ubuntu certification is misleading as it should mean that every component works fully.

Re:Dell's linux systems lack proper support

[Anonymous Coward]

The Ubuntu certification program is a joke. They should be certifying against free software and mainline kernel/driver support. Not "does it work with specific version of Ubuntu x.xx.x". That doesn't guarentee support down the road because there are proprietary components that Canonical itself can't support. When the chipset designer decides to pull support for example there is nothing Canonical can do. Support gets dropped and guess what... there goes the certification. 1 1/2 years later and your forced to upgrade. This happens from everything from printers to computers. It's a mess.

I've purchased Linux systems from Dell. The support doesn't exist. I called them up and got redirect several times before being told they don't offer support. The problem I was having was a hardware issue!!!!! Ultimately they directed me to Canonical which by that point was on a weekend and wasn't opened. I gave up. I returned the system to Dell. Had I called Canonical it would have been another $250 USD for support as Dell doesn't contract with Canonical for support.

Much better to go with another company that understands free software and has decent support. http://www.thinkenguin.com or maybe http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/

Re:Dell's linux systems lack proper support

[viperidaenz]

You've described the exact same scenario for Windows.
The only difference is Windows is more popular and if hardware manufacturers stopped supporting their products on new version of Windows, they'd go bankrupt.due to lack of sales.

Just works and has a decent resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never been able to find high enough resolution models with System76 or Penguin computing. The XPS-13 is great. Just works even when upgraded to the latest Ubuntu. Jared keep it up and I will keep buying more of these - three additional purchases to Dell from me alone so far that you would never have had without the Sputnik project.

Re:Just works and has a decent resolution

[viperidaenz]

3 sales from you alone! Wow, that's just paid for 6 hours of one of their employees time.

Re:Just works and has a decent resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

No actually it paid for one executives morning coffee.

Thunderbolt 2...

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming Soon... They have only had how many years to figure this out?

Dell keeps shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

the most cheaply made crap that they can with ubuntu on it.

There, fixed the headline for ya!

Linux actually a radio button option for a change

[rklrkl]

It's nice to see that Dell have put Linux as an OS option right next to WIndows (and $101 cheaper than Windows too). A bit strange for them to ship a Linux release that initially has no Thunderbolt support, though I suspect not many people use Thunderbolt-only hardware outside of the Apple ecosystem.

Defaults to an HDD in the config options which is also weird, especially since it appears to have 2 drive bays, so surely you'd want an SSD in there in one of the bays?

The higher res screen is only a $70 bump, so it would appear to be a no-brainer to pick that option. If the final price wasn't so eye-wateringly high (and me being in the UK probably means it'll either not appear on the UK dell site or be a dollar to pound conversion), it would be an attractive high-end Linux laptop.

Will it void the warranty

[Anonymous Coward]

if I upgrade to Slackware?

Re:Will it void the warranty

[Anonymous Coward]

Aww- yea- it's dell we're talking about. The company also ships with non-free software that will cause problems and they're also using digital restrictions so you can't replace the wifi card.

Re:Will it void the warranty

[BarbaraHudson]

Have fun trying to boot your Slackware install DVD from the non-existent DVD reader.

Re:Will it void the warranty

[Teckla]

Have fun trying to boot your Slackware install DVD from the non-existent DVD reader.

It's pretty easy to create bootable USB flash drives with the Linux distro of your choice these days.

Re: Will it void the warranty

[corychristison]

Who the hell uses discs anymore?

My two year old laptop doesn't have one, and I haven't missed it one bit.

I have a couple of USB drives with SystemRescueCD on them. Plug it in, boot it up, and install whatever you need through there.

Re:Will it void the warranty

[unixisc]

Given that Dell doesn't support even Ubuntu, what difference does it make?

In fact, when I got my Inspiron 17, w/ Windows 8, due to the problems I had w/ it, I just replaced it w/ PC-BSD. Didn't bother Dell at all, as I knew it wouldn't be supported. As long as I have no hardware problems - which I don't, so far, I'm fine. It's a pity I couldn't get iwn working for PC-BSD - the Centrino internal WiFi wasn't supported.

Re: Will it void the warranty

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell restricts aftermarket wifi card options because they must do so to stay compliant with FCC requirements. Wireless radios are certified as a system - card plus antenna (built into the laptop). Refer to question 5 https://apps.fcc.gov/eas/comments/GetPublishedDocument.html?id=208&tn=830118

Re:Will it void the warranty

[ihtoit]

my four year old netbook doesn't have an optical drive.

I usually reimage using the SD card slot or a thumb stick in one of the usb ports.

Re:Will it void the warranty

[BarbaraHudson]

I had to try several usb creators before I found one that actually worked. A couple of them can't handle usb drive boot partitions bigger than 8 gig. They'd install, but fail to boot.

Re:Will it void the warranty

[ChunderDownunder]

dd if=myinstaller.iso of=/dev/sdX

works for me...

Re:Will it void the warranty

[kesuki]

i find usb (powered) bluray burners ($80+ on amazon) work on any usb 2.0 or better connection. if you're on a budget a bd-rom/dvd-rw or just a dvd-rw will work. i recommend BD simply because i prefer it to dvd.

Re: Will it void the warranty

[Anonymous Coward]

People who buy games usually get them on DVD. At least where I live, it is cheaper to buy physical copies of the games I play instead of getting them from Steam or PSN. Of course, it is a bit ridiculous to first install 50GB out of 6 DVDs and then download a 30GB update package from network. At least it may be possible to install the same application on next machine, where as the digital copy might require re-purchase.

Re:Will it void the warranty

[BarbaraHudson]

Tried that multiple times, with multiple distros, all failed to boot. Also, what does someone do if they don't already have Linux running?

Re:Will it void the warranty

[fustakrakich]

Slackware works with USB. Comes with a windows installer and everything. You don't load the whole thing. You have to mount the volume where the ISO is for the install itself. It's very straightforward and one of the fastest installs I've seen.

Re: Will it void the warranty

[corychristison]

If you're buying a laptop with Linux on it, I don't think you're buying video games on discs.

Even more so if you plan to install Slackware on it.

Re:Linux actually a radio button option for a chan

[Anonymous Coward]

The drive configuration depends on the type of workload you have. Two SSDs in RAID 0 would be very nice to have in a laptop.

Why always Ubuntu on these boxes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it always Ubuntu? Why not Fedora? I have looked at Linux boxes over the years, both desktop and laptop, and the distro always seems to be Ubuntu. I'd rather use a Mac.

Re:Why always Ubuntu on these boxes?

[bazmonkey]

Because Fedora is not a commercial product, this laptop is not an enterprise product (just in case you retort "well what about RHEL?"), and if you're going to pick a single distro to reach the most potential non-serverside users, it's Ubuntu.

Re:Why always Ubuntu on these boxes?

[unixisc]

Or why not PC-BSD? At least they won't break device drivers every version

Re:Why always Ubuntu on these boxes?

[deragon]

Fedora LTS version is RHEL which is expensive, though they could install CentOS

But manly, it is a laptop and not a server they are selling. RedHat has never been interested in selling a desktop solution (just to contradict me, I believe that recently they have a workstation version comming up). Ubuntu is first and foremost concentrating on the Desktop experience. Steam supports Ubuntu, not Fedora. Ubuntu is what is closest to Windows and Mac as for support. It had wifi connection via GUI two years before Fedora got it.

And if you do not like Unity, you can try Gubuntu. It should look familliar to Fedora as it runs Gnome 3.

Re:Why always Ubuntu on these boxes?

[kthreadd]

RedHat has never been interested in selling a desktop solution

Sure they have. Go back to the Red Hat Linux days, the desktop was the main reason why they got into the business to begin with. It failed miserably though and that's when they switched to the enterprise market.

(just to contradict me, I believe that recently they have a workstation version comming up).

There have been desktop version of RHEL going back to the first version. They actually have two of them, Desktop and Workstation where Workstation is intended for software development while Desktop is meant for regular desktops.

Ubuntu is first and foremost concentrating on the Desktop experience.

If there's something Ubuntu is missing it's focus. They are doing desktop, mobile, tablet and server. Ubuntu Server is extremely popular in the server market, I would guess that's probably their biggest user base.

Steam supports Ubuntu, not Fedora. Ubuntu is what is closest to Windows and Mac as for support. It had wifi connection via GUI two years before Fedora got it.

And if you do not like Unity, you can try Gubuntu. It should look familliar to Fedora as it runs Gnome 3.

Canonical only supports packages which are in main, and most of the alternatives to Unity including Gnome is in universe. You may and often will miss out on important security updates if you use them. I see tons of people install Ubuntu's LTS releases thinking that they can install just about any package and it will be supported for five years, but in reality only a small subset of packages are supported that long and the majority are not supported at all.

Re:Why always Ubuntu on these boxes?

[deragon]

Red Hat scurries away from consumer desktop market:

If Red Hat goes after some Desktop market, it is for specialized, corporate markets. Not for general consumers and surely not on laptop.

As for Canonical's resources, I guess they are split half and half between the server business and consumer business, the server business fuelling the consumer initiative. Currently they are focusing on the tablet / smartphone. Desktop is pretty largely pushed aside for the moment; this is obvious by the low quality (numerous bugs) of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

Re:Why always Ubuntu on these boxes?

[CurryCamel]

RedHat has never been interested in selling a desktop solution (just to contradict me, I believe that recently they have a workstation version comming up)

My HP z840 is not three monts old, and fully supported by HP and/or RH.
It even had a physical RHEL 6 driver CD in the package!
As of a few years back the 3rd party SW vendors have slowly started to add support for Ubuntu, but as of now, only the linux fanatic could even consider switching. RHEL has been the obvious choice on the desktop for the last 10 years (if you didn't want Solaris). I even had RHEL 5 on my laptop for a while back - no problems whatsoever.

Re:Why always Ubuntu on these boxes?

[Tough Love]

Because Red Hat idiotically canned its desktop distribution many years ago, deciding to go with just the lucractive server business. Overlooking the fact that Linux admins tend to use Linux desktops, and when they get in a position to influence server specs, they will go with the OS they know, that is, Ubuntu. Ah well, it's better that way, Red Hat flavors of Linux have always been a bit crappy. I mean, not unusuably crappy, just a bit crappy. No apt-get for starters, Yum is ok as far as it goes, but apt is just way nicer to use, and fix if things break.

Not in Canada

[denisbergeron]

I suspect a new custom restriction to send Linux computer on the goodguy side of the border that only apply to Dell computer. In the mean time I spend nice time on a 2013 ASUS G75VX (i7 16gb BR-Burner) with Linux Mint and a functionnal Thunderbolt port

Why Thunderbolt?

[Groo Wanderer]

Why would you want Thunderbolt again? It is a badly broken (IE doesn't actually do what is promised like channel bonding and a few other things that are sort of fixed in VERY recent silicon), costs far too much, forces the use of painfully expensive active cables, and only passes PCIe or video. This last bit is problematic because if you want any functionality on the other end of the cable, you need to add full controllers there too, think expensive and wasteful of power. In essence you are hot-plugging controllers with the cable, and while it works in theory....

TB is a badly broken spec from day one, it was meant as a control point for Intel to force the use of it's silicon in phones.mobile by replacing USB with something only it could provide. Needless to say the market saw through this and didn't adopt it in droves, sans the few that drank from the Intel money hose. The second the hose was shut off, so was the design wins.

The main reason that USB3 had such a slow start was because Intel was desperate to kill it to promote TB. Since Intel had control over the USB3 cert process, things went might slow for technical minutia that would easily pass by previous spec certs. Coincidence? Nope.

TB is a bad idea on technical, cost, lock-in, and many many other reasons, not working correctly ever being a key one there. Delivered silicon is a joke, there is and always will be one supplier, and progress is glacial. USB3.1 on the other hand beats it like a drum in every regard other than single channel throughput.

Why do I want to pay for this in my next laptop again?

                  -Charlie

Re:Why Thunderbolt?

[iggymanz]

thunderbolt docking station working very nicely for me, don't know what you're whining about

Re:Why Thunderbolt?

[Billly Gates]

Because slim laptops may not have DVD, HDMI/VGA output, and some tablets like the MS Surface do not have ethernet either. Only Thunderbolt can do this. USB 3.1 may change this but it is not finished.

They are essential for plugging into projects for presentations, linking up video cameras (this laptop is a workstation grade one so it has this use), ethernet (I didn't see if this is netbook with an ethernet or not), and can do HDMI as well for hi resolution presentations which again it has a QUADRO so engineers and video editors are the target besides software developers.

My coworker with a MS surface 2 is our network guru for the site. He plugs in his thunderbolt ethernet controller to wireshark and use a Cisco program for port scanning instead of a bulky laptop with limited battery life. I want to buy one as a result and without thunderbolt it is a toy.

You complain about specs and costs. I mention it has benefits besides its quirks for consumers and non engineers. Yes it is pricier but it does more and this is a high end developer or engineer workstation grade laptop.

Re:Why Thunderbolt?

[Anonymous Coward]

My coworker with a MS surface 2 is our network guru for the site. He plugs in his thunderbolt ethernet controller to wireshark and use a Cisco program for port scanning instead of a bulky laptop with limited battery life. I want to buy one as a result and without thunderbolt it is a toy.

Well then the Surface Pro 2/3 must be toys, since neither one has a Thunderbolt port.

Re:Why Thunderbolt?

[drinkypoo]

and only passes PCIe or video.

Oh noes, it only passes video or a really fast bus that can be bridged to PCI with a cheap chip, how useless

Re:Why Thunderbolt?

[ihtoit]

Thunderbolt requires controllers at both ends of the cable anyway, what's your issue again?

Re:Why Thunderbolt?

[jedidiah]

> Because slim laptops may not have DVD, HDMI/VGA output,

Simple. Buy LESS LAME hardware.

The only thing Thunderbolt does that USB does not is passthrough of the display port connection that your lame laptop probably already has (or should have).

USB is already a bus and has already handled things like ethernet for quite some time now.

Re:Why Thunderbolt?

[Anonymous Coward]

Enabling the use of Thunderbolt for docking station would make it a bad business for dells and hp's out there. Now they can sell a new, custom docking station with each business laptop, but if they used a standard connection, there might be competition. And competition is bad from big company point of view, hence low adoption rate of TB.

Not on the XPS 15 though

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux cannot into touchscreens, which is amusing considering Android handles it easily.

Re:Not on the XPS 15 though

[unixisc]

Dell would be stupid to put Ubuntu on touchscreens. For those, they should use Android itself. Although in that scenario, they could save more by using ARM CPUs, instead of Core or Atoms

Re:Not on the XPS 15 though

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux cannot into touchscreens, which is amusing considering Android handles it easily.

It can't? I must be imagining the Fujitsu transformer laptop/tablet I've been using for three years... I must have a very active imagination because I own three of them.

Re:Not on the XPS 15 though

[Tough Love]

Linux cannot into touchscreens, which is amusing considering Android handles it easily.

Nonsense, check out how KDE 5 handles it

Re:Ewww thunderbolt

[BarbaraHudson]

At those list prices, they must think they're better than Apple. And of course, in 5 years we'll be able to buy cheap laptops with the same specs at the local big-box outlet.

Finally!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

So this is the year of Linux laptop!

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

So this is the year of Linux laptop!

What, again?

Re:Finally!

[martin-boundary]

I never wanted the linux laptop. The linux desktop was fine the way it was, until Lennart and the merry band of free desktop people turned it into an unusable piece of shit for idiots who don't know the dirrerence between an icon that says "Internet" and the internet itself. Pardon my french.

Price difference?

[hcs_$reboot]

Is there any price difference compared to the same hw with Windows?

Re:Price difference?

[snsh]

Dell previously sold computers preinstalled with Linux at higher prices than identical hardware preinstalled with Windows. Their continuous parade of sales and promo codes only applied to Windows configurations, making Linux usually more expensive.

Dell is OK for a big company...

[Sin2x]

...but I'd still go with System76.

Re:Dell is OK for a big company...

[kervin]

System76 build quality is nothing compared to Dell, sorry. I just bought a Dell XPS to replace my System76 top of the line Gazelle. The S76 lasted 13 months then died. I've never had a Dell die on me, ever.

Re:Dell is OK for a big company...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every Dell laptop I had or advised against buying was defective (5 total). The last one came dead, and they failed to refund tax. Dell makes shoddy crap. You might have been lucky, they are definitely not known for quality

Re:Dell is OK for a big company...

[Sin2x]

Well, the sampling size is rather small to draw any conclusions. It's always prudent to buy at least one year of extended warranty with modern cult of planned obsolescence in any case, wouldn't you agree?.

The Win 10 subscription model

[rsilvergun]

might be boon for Linux. Then again I sucked it down for product activation. Linux still isn't much use for gaming. And it's still a nightmare to write and deploy closed source software on Linux...

Re:The Win 10 subscription model

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's still a nightmare to write and deploy closed source software on Linux...

What? Um nooooooooo.

Re:The Win 10 subscription model

[Billly Gates]

There is all this talk but so far no subscription. MS even said free updates for the life of the product. This hints 10 might be the final OS of Windows like MacOSX is the final for Apple with just updated .1 releases added over time.

Rumor at arstechnica and neowin show MS will play with it perhaps for business editions who need AD access and services like Azure and OneDrive pro edition. Home users will get it free as the app store will generate the revenue to pay for it and will update itself to all operating system versions quicker than the corporate versions which will be 3 -5 years updates but will cost more.

I have given up on Linux sadly on the desktop by 2011 when I saw gnome 3 and still always had bugs or config files I had to edit to get it to do certain things. I run Linux now as an appliance in a VM for development with www.turnkeylinux.com.

Let's hope I am right as I do not want to be like these XP users acting all crazy during EOL like 7 was a horrible abomination because of familiarity and fear of change? 7 is aging and already does not recognize USB 3 without special drivers and virtually no 4K support at all, poor battery life, and no locked down boot loader and forced cpu instructions to prevent exploits. XP SP 2 and later have some support for separating data and execution bits but it does not enforce it in hardware for 100% of services and apps like 8.1 does. If Cortana is not so damn intrusive in the final builds (I love instant search in 7!) I will not mind upgrading if it is free. No subscription later on of course.

Re:The Win 10 subscription model

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's still a nightmare to write and deploy closed source software on Linux...

Except it isn't. Most distros have packages in binary form and they work fine. You only need to worry on major updates on glibc or Linux.

Re:The Win 10 subscription model

[jedidiah]

> And it's still a nightmare to write and deploy closed source software on Linux...

Strange then that Oracle has been doing it for so well for so long. It kind of makes you wonder what sort of extra special trade secrets they must be employing to make this happen.

Re:The Win 10 subscription model

[Anonymous Coward]

>...Oracle has been doing it for so well...

Stopped reading there. No point in arguing with the delusional.

Re:Ewww thunderbolt

[Billly Gates]

Well it is a workstation grade laptop with Quadro graphics. So it will be expensive. It is certified for highloads with extra QA for stability. Not the junk you get at Walmart if you want cheap. People who run Linux at work are programmers, administrators, 3d artists, or engineers so this laptop reflects their needs. Not hobbyists.

Thunderbolt does add cost as it is a 10 gig transfer tecnology directly to the PCI-Express bus. But I am a fan of thunderbolt until USB 3.1 and OEMs get their act together and peripherals can be made to take advantage like HDMI and ethernet dongles etc.But is useful to make it thin and for hi res HDMI presentations with a thunderbolt dongle since engineers and animators will be using this laptop for this purpose.

Re:Ewww thunderbolt

[Anonymous Coward]

At those list prices, they must think they're better than Apple.

The XPS-13 is better than Apple. Basically MacBook Pro performance and screen in MacBook Air package. The very latest pros have caught up on the screen but the XPS range is still really impressive.

VAT isn't in US sticker prices

[tepples]

and me being in the UK probably means it'll either not appear on the UK dell site or be a dollar to pound conversion

Currently 1 GBP is worth about 1.50 USD. Sales tax is much higher in the UK and other EU countries than in the US, and included in the sticker price in the UK and other EU countries unlike in the US. This accounts for about 0.30 USD of the difference. The other 0.20 USD, if any, is probably shipping from North America and the increased warranty requirements of the EU.

All maximized all the time

[tepples]

Dell would be stupid to put Ubuntu on touchscreens. For those, they should use Android itself.

Window management in Android OS is designed to display a single application maximized. This works for 4 to 8 inch screens of phones and tablets, not so much for 13 inch or larger screens of laptops, where people expect to view applications side by side. Change this behavior and your customers will lose access to Google Play Store.

Re:Ewww thunderbolt

[BarbaraHudson]

Todays cheap laptops come with HDMI out. And today's cheap laptops surpass anything on the market 8 years ago. You couldn't buy any quad core laptop then. The first mobile 500 gig hard drives were a lot thicker. You couldn't get USB3 on a laptop 5 years ago if you wanted to. Laptops shipped with 500 meg to 2 gig of ram, not 8 gig. All these are standard on $400 laptops today, and it's only going to get better.

Better specs please

[kervin]

I just bought a XPS 15 with windows 2 weeks ago for Ubuntu because the XPS 13 was too underpowered for my needs. Why can't they offer Linux on the Quad-core/SSD/16GB systems?

kernel updates

[l3v1]

"hardware-enablement stack in Ubuntu, starting with upcoming Ubuntu 14.04.2, you will be able to upgrade your kernel"

Well, thank the gods, where would we be without hardware enablement, oh man.

Re:kernel updates

[Anonymous Coward]

That has to be the most out of context quote I've seen today.

Security risk

[stooo]

Thunderbolt is basically an incompatible security risk

$1650!!! Are they crazy?

[Anonymous Coward]

$1650!!! Are they crazy?

$300 is more than enough though I'd pay $400 for that display on my chromebook (chromos wiped).

Re:$1650!!! Are they crazy?

[DQKennard]

$1650!!! Are they crazy? $300 is more than enough ...

An i7 laptop with NVIDIA Quadro and the rest of the specs on that machine would indeed be awesome at $300. That seems unlikely any time soon, though.

Dell's rocky relationship with Linux/MSFT

[chris_clay]

It's been interesting over the years to watch Dell battle with Microsoft to get out laptops with Linux, take them away, put them back, over and over again. When Microsoft releases new versions of Windows, the Linux offerings mysteriously disappear from Dell's site. In either case, getting a machine from Dell is easy to wipe Windows off of it, and put Linux on, so no concerns with that anyway. I recently wiped Windows 8 off of a Dell Inspiron 660, disabled UEFI Secure Boot, and put CentOS 6.6 on it with ease. Quick, easy, no hassles and up and running with great success.