I've been using my XPS 15 9530 for about a year now and it was one of the best gifts I've ever given myself.
Someone was concerned about thermal issues. Between the keyboard and the display hinge is a vent that runs almost the entire width of the chassis. The vent is split into three sections, so I am guessing it is two inlets and an outlet or vice versa. The laptop can get warm when playing Fallout or synthesizing a large FPGA design. I can hear the fans kick in when it warms up, but they aren't overly loud. It has never gotten hot or uncomfortable to touch. It certainly has never shut off unexpectedly.
Someone asked about only being able to use the NVidia card for games. That's not true. Right clicking any program gives you the option to run with a specific graphics card.
For the person interested in a Precision version, the Precision M3800 was the exact same laptop except for the use of a Quadro instead of a GTX750M. Hopefully, that will get a refresh as well.
Ubuntu is officially supported, at least on the Precision variant. Linux Mint has run fine for me as well since day one. You just have to disable Secure Boot while you are actually installing. You can enable Secure Boot again once the install is complete.
You mentioned Pong Chu's book 'FPGA Prototyping by Verilog Examples'. He has another book with almost the same title that uses VHDL examples. It is very good for a quick cookbook type of book. He has examples of many basic circuits and modules. The foundation for making your own PONG is outlined, although the full implementation is left for an exercise. He also gets into running the PicoBlaze microcontroller module. I think the books are almost identical, just showing how to make common hardware with the language of your choice. Pong Chu also wrote 'RTL Hardware Design Using VHDL'. This book is very well written and covers general RTL design concepts that are applicable to any language. However, VHDL's RTL synthesis substandard (IEEE 1076.6) is used exclusively for implementation examples.
Both languages have tradeoffs which are pretty well known. For FPGA based class, you aren't as concerned about behavioral modeling; you want synthesizable code. Just make sure you use books that focus (like Pong Chu's) on the synthesis aspect of whatever language you are using. The fact that VHDL has a synthesis standard seems like a plus in that department but, some people might say that doesn't matter so much.
It seems to me like the software tracking systems are pretty useless. If they rely on the computer logging onto the internet, then it probably won't help you unless they can steal your OS login password as well, assuming you're using a password. I do believe they offer Lojack for laptops and there might even be more than one vendor with a hardware tracking system; I'd be surprised if there's not. Hardware is a lot harder to modify than software especially when it comes to laptops.
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I've been using my XPS 15 9530 for about a year now and it was one of the best gifts I've ever given myself. Someone was concerned about thermal issues. Between the keyboard and the display hinge is a vent that runs almost the entire width of the chassis. The vent is split into three sections, so I am guessing it is two inlets and an outlet or vice versa. The laptop can get warm when playing Fallout or synthesizing a large FPGA design. I can hear the fans kick in when it warms up, but they aren't overly loud. It has never gotten hot or uncomfortable to touch. It certainly has never shut off unexpectedly. Someone asked about only being able to use the NVidia card for games. That's not true. Right clicking any program gives you the option to run with a specific graphics card. For the person interested in a Precision version, the Precision M3800 was the exact same laptop except for the use of a Quadro instead of a GTX750M. Hopefully, that will get a refresh as well. Ubuntu is officially supported, at least on the Precision variant. Linux Mint has run fine for me as well since day one. You just have to disable Secure Boot while you are actually installing. You can enable Secure Boot again once the install is complete.
You mentioned Pong Chu's book 'FPGA Prototyping by Verilog Examples'. He has another book with almost the same title that uses VHDL examples. It is very good for a quick cookbook type of book. He has examples of many basic circuits and modules. The foundation for making your own PONG is outlined, although the full implementation is left for an exercise. He also gets into running the PicoBlaze microcontroller module. I think the books are almost identical, just showing how to make common hardware with the language of your choice. Pong Chu also wrote 'RTL Hardware Design Using VHDL'. This book is very well written and covers general RTL design concepts that are applicable to any language. However, VHDL's RTL synthesis substandard (IEEE 1076.6) is used exclusively for implementation examples. Both languages have tradeoffs which are pretty well known. For FPGA based class, you aren't as concerned about behavioral modeling; you want synthesizable code. Just make sure you use books that focus (like Pong Chu's) on the synthesis aspect of whatever language you are using. The fact that VHDL has a synthesis standard seems like a plus in that department but, some people might say that doesn't matter so much.
It seems to me like the software tracking systems are pretty useless. If they rely on the computer logging onto the internet, then it probably won't help you unless they can steal your OS login password as well, assuming you're using a password. I do believe they offer Lojack for laptops and there might even be more than one vendor with a hardware tracking system; I'd be surprised if there's not. Hardware is a lot harder to modify than software especially when it comes to laptops.