this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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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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[–] [email protected] 110 points 1 year ago (14 children)

$1400 for a non upgradable SSD and RAM, not to mention there are no USB, HDMI or audio jacks. What a ripoff.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

Even apple's most io-limited macbook ever had a headphone jack. Dell is really trying to outperform them.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Project Sputnik didn't start yesterday. It started in 2013 and Dell XPS was much different back then.

[–] dinckelman 11 points 1 year ago

Dell love pretending they're the Apple of the Windows/Linux world, except the issue is that for one, people specifically bought their stuff for the things you mentioned, and that the build quality was not exclusively just black plastic. The current XPS is everything that people hated about the "Macbook" from almost a decade ago. The one with the first butterfly switches

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] wreckedcarzz 5 points 1 year ago

Oh no, I see the mistake, just let me

$14.00

there we go

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dell has sold an XPS-13 with Ubuntu out of the box for at least a decade now.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah I bought an ubuntu laptop in 2018..don't know what's the news here...

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What's news is the presentation

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Very true also for the opposite direction; I am daily driving an HP Elite Dragonfly for work and my Elite x360 1030 G2 for private and both work almost flawlessly despite no official Linux support. I have to disclaim that I never tested the Fingerprint reader or IR face recognition crap. But microphone, orientation sensors, webcam, keyboard, trackpad all work extremely well (Arch linux).

It always comes down to the individual hardware it seems.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Ubuntu needs to stop being a standard. There are better alternatives at this point

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] PlutoniumAcid 27 points 1 year ago

Yes, that's me. I have no interest in a nerdy deep-dive into esoteric distros that may be "better" according to whatever metric you suggest. To me, it's just a machine that needs to work.

With Windows, getting help when things break is easy. For a non-nerd USER, it has to be the same for Linux. Ubuntu was intended from the start to be made for people like me, and with AskUbuntu there's a large support site.

I know you can tweak your distro better, and it's faster, and so on. But it requires knowledge that I don't care to learn - just as I am not an auto mechanic, I just drive the machine.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] olafurp 4 points 1 year ago

Agreed, still when you sell a laptop and want to put in an OS that's going to be supported for the whole lifetime of the device then there are not options for people who don't tinker.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

[–] udasi 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you have a source for this that I can read more about?

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Just me. It was my job for a while at Canonical, until the work was moved to China.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oof, is canonical fully offshore now?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Just that work, and frankly doing it near the factories makes sense. We were "offshore" doing it from the US. Canonical is global, headquartered in the UK.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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).

[–] Zeth0s 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The selling point of xps is that they are light. Many of us just need light laptops nowadays, as almost any hardware is more than capable of any task with the exception of gaming. But I have never gamed on laptops

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] SpeedLimit55 8 points 1 year ago

Same, we got several small batches of XPS13 over a period of several years and just about all had problems. We had issues with batteries, drivers, random hardware failures, or total failure. We switched ThinkPad X1 Yoga and Surface Laptops 13 and have far fewer issues now.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I have an (old) developer xps13. Got it with Linux on it. Great device.

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[–] MooseBoys 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I had a linux 5520 and it was terrible. Standby and bluetooth never worked properly. Are the new models any better?

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