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.
Ubuntu needs to stop being a standard. There are better alternatives at this point
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.
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.
You think Arch is going to replace Ubuntu on commercial and corporate machines? Or some other funny distro like Fedora that cannot survive an upgrade? Ubuntu is based off of Debian Unstable, with a lot of UX polish and Snaps that allow for sandboxed system programs.
It also runs terribly. What we need is a more diverse ecosystem that is more than just ubuntu
…aaaand what is it going to be, other than Debian/Ubuntu based distros? Stable AND LTS only, NO rolling release options. Last I saw, Debian is harder than Ubuntu (source I used Ubuntu LTS for 6 years before adopting Debian 12 Stable upon release).
I have a Linux/Windows computing guide made from a couple decades of experience, and simply see nothing beating Ubuntu and GNOME as far as UX polish goes. https://lemmy.ml/post/511377
openSUSE Slowroll
No roll
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 has sold an XPS-13 with Ubuntu out of the box for at least a decade now.
Yeah I bought an ubuntu laptop in 2018…don’t know what’s the news here…
What’s news is the presentation
I used to buy computers for a research lab as part of my job, we had a contract with dell.
Overall dell’s entire market is made of companies like the one I used to work at, that signed a nice contract with 5 year on-site warranty, bulk order rebates and the like.
These (or the ones they sold 3 years ago, at least) aren’t that bad. They’re not exactly good, but you have a Linux laptop with some manufacturer support (as much as you’re getting with windows at least) and they’re capable machines, with good drivers and they come from the factory with Ubuntu if that’s what you tick in their custom order form they give you when you sign that contract. As the guy in charge of fixing the computer, its nice knowing that its not the Linux support for the laptop that’s trash.
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.
Earlier this year I was given one of those XPS machines with Ubuntu and decided to install Debian on it. The camera driver was so bad - I can’t remember technical details but you can’t simply get it to run on another kernel, it was a mess of hacks to get it to work. I decided I won’t get a camera driver. “We ship a laptop with Ubuntu” does not necessarily mean working Linux drivers.
EDIT: To add insult to injury, the touch bar suddenly decided to stop responding to input. It’s already bad enough to not have tactile feedback for Esc / Fn keys / Delete / Print Screen.
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.
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).
I have an (old) developer xps13. Got it with Linux on it. Great device.
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.
