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Dell's Next Rev for Project Sputnik: Ubuntu 14.04 On XPS 13 Developer Edition (hothardware.com)

Posted by timothy on from the relationship-maintenance dept.

MojoKid writes: Also known as "Project Sputnik," Dell came up with the idea of offering developers a variant of their XPS 13 notebook running Linux and launched its first models over three years ago. Now in its 5th generation, Project Sputnik is still going strong today with the latest models combining Ubuntu 14.04 with Intel's Skylake processors. To kick off its newest generation of Developer Edition laptops, Dell is offering three Core i7 XPS 13 configurations, including two that feature 16GB of RAM. Dell said it also plans to add a Core i5 option to the Developer Edition lineup sometime down the line. Dell is seeing increased interest from customers and in addition to the XPS Developer Edition, Dell offers Ubuntu on its Precision 5510, 3510, 7510, and 7710 mobile workstations, as well as its Precision M3800. Cost of entry into Developer Edition territory runs $1,550. What that gets you is a 13.3-inch QHD+ (3200x1800) InfinityEdge touch display powered by an Intel Core i5-6560U processor, 8GB of LPDDR3 1866 RAM, and Intel Iris Graphics 540.

1 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Re:for people with good eyesight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I haven't used Linux as a desktop in a half decade now but Xorg seriously can't do font scaling and independent bitmap icons yet? WTF.

    You misunderstand. It of course can. Furthermore, you can scale everything so you don't tend to get the weird problems of menus not matching apps or needing to have a specific multiple of something that you get on "other" operating systems.

    Generally the Sputnik screen is excellent, as is the rest of the system. Strongly recommend it to everybody. You never ever ever feel your Mac or Windows friends are looking down at you and it's very rare that you even feel they have something close. I took it with the absolute full corporate support. Again Dell support has been excellent, however since Sputnik is rare where I live and there are very similar windows models you have to be careful that they don't needlessly swap your mother board and give you one with firmware that isn't fully Linux supporting. It happened to a guy I know. Dell guy came back after two days with the right board though, so no problem.