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Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off

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Re: Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off

#81

Post by NiklasMort »

mschuster91 wrote: post #24
NiklasMort wrote: post #4

meanwhile in Thinkpad land... honestly I never understand why people go for Macbooks or XPS. X/T model user since 7 generations. I did look at the XPS but there are so many disadvantages with those modern one-body-all-closed-no-mods laptops. Before you down vote me, I still applaud Dells decision to get Ubuntu Laptops out there. But I don't really see what the big game changer is whether a laptop comes preinstalled w…

> honestly I never understand why people go for Macbooks or XPS Touchpad. No Windows laptop I know even comes close to both size and functionality of the touchpad of a Macbook - although I have to admit I won't get a recent Macbook, because the keyboard is crap, the touchpad is too big for my opinion and no USB-A = no Macbook for me.

Well personally I oppose touchpads, I tried them all (even the new macbook ones), they all don't work well, I love my thinkpad trackpoint, works much better. The touchpad is the first thing I disable after OS installation.

Re: Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off

#82

Post by smcl »

chupasaurus wrote: post #67
sandGorgon wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also recommend Fedora 27. I have seldom seen an OS as polished as that. Holds its own versus OSX.

Big note: Fedora is a kinda beta branch of RHEL with experimental features and could have breaking changes.

I think RHEL is for solid long-term Enterprise-level support, so even though its more experimental than that, it’s still pretty solid IME

Re: Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off

#83

Post by craigsmansion »

chx wrote: post #17
luka-birsa wrote: post #6

As a 20 year Linux user I really appreciate Dells support in proving the market exists. This improved support across all manufacturers. I've recently acquired a HP Envy 13 2017 laptop with Windows preinstalled. I've really wanted to try Windows out, but after installing Google Chrome and Docker (1hr after starting it up) it stopped working - windows boot up into a blank black screen. In a hurry I've downloaded Ubuntu…

As another 20+ (24 actually, 0.99pl15) Linux user let me counter: with the Linux subsystem for Windows there's no reason to wrestle with Linux any more. While Linux certainly works on laptops it doesn't work well. Wifi and battery life are absymal and for me seemingly every other update either breaks the printer half or the scanner half of the MFC device (and if not, then it's time for another bluetooth breakage, you…

> there's no reason to wrestle with Linux any more.

Unless one wasn't "wrestling" with Linux in the first place, because things tend to just work these days.

> While Linux certainly works on laptops it doesn't work well. Wifi and battery life are absymal

That's blatantly untrue. Given the right laptop, Linux is on par or excels. Given the wrong laptop, an install from scratch of the Windows operating system is likely to be far worse.

> problems seemingly totally out of nowhere

So problems that arose without any changes to the system?

> there's nothing.

Well, there's full access to your own system.

> Drivers [..] are running in Windows

Never run old hardware or peripherals? Because if you do Windows is a world of pain filled with drivers sourced from questionable download sites.

I'll assume good faith here instead of astroturfing, but you might want to tone down the unwarranted praise of X over Y when describing your satisfaction with your current setup, especially when you're apparently not really familiar with Y.

Re: Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off

#84

Post by Already__Taken »

Crontab wrote: post #63
jmkni wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows has gotten a lot better, but the rules regarding new computers hasn't changed in the past 30 years, you still need to wipe the hard drive and install it yourself from scratch, and then spend a little time disabling the ads, bing crap, telemetry, etc. Once you do, it's rock solid, but it should be OOTB and it annoys me that it isn't. It leaves those not familiar with Windows with a bad first impression, and th…

I liked version 7 but I believe Windows has taken a downturn since then.

The UX improvements to window management, multiple monitors and virtual desktops since 7 is immense though.

Re: Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off

#85

Post by sigi45 »

craigsmansion wrote: post #83
chx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another 20+ (24 actually, 0.99pl15) Linux user let me counter: with the Linux subsystem for Windows there's no reason to wrestle with Linux any more. While Linux certainly works on laptops it doesn't work well. Wifi and battery life are absymal and for me seemingly every other update either breaks the printer half or the scanner half of the MFC device (and if not, then it's time for another bluetooth breakage, you…

> there's no reason to wrestle with Linux any more. Unless one wasn't "wrestling" with Linux in the first place, because things tend to just work these days. > While Linux certainly works on laptops it doesn't work well. Wifi and battery life are absymal That's blatantly untrue. Given the right laptop, Linux is on par or excels. Given the wrong laptop, an install from scratch of the Windows operating system is likely…

I have plenty of experience with linux on laptops and windows.

Yes it is very nice to have 1, 2 or even 5 Laptops which work with linux.

Windows still runs on more devices, better.

I had never the issue, that i had to sit it out that a specific bug came into the release cycle of a windows update but i had this 4 times in 3 years with arch linux.

And i also have a strange experience with linux: One ssd does work flawless under windows and under linux it creates minilags of the whole system.

While i like my linux machine and i use it daily @work and also daily @private laptop, it takes more effort and more knowledge than windows.

Re: Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off

#86

Post by vetinari »

chupasaurus wrote: post #67
sandGorgon wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also recommend Fedora 27. I have seldom seen an OS as polished as that. Holds its own versus OSX.

Big note: Fedora is a kinda beta branch of RHEL with experimental features and could have breaking changes.

Fedora is not kinda beta branch of RHEL.

Fedora is a fast-moving distribution, similar to non-LTS Ubuntu.

RHEL is a long-term supported distribution (way longer than LTS Ubuntu). It is for machines that you want to set up and forget about their existence.

The difference is in target audience and the intent, what their machines have to do.

More proper designation would be, that RHEL is a fork of Fedora, that is being supported long-term.

Re: Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off

#87

Post by teisman »

Const-me wrote: post #75
jenscow wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I develop for Windows, but I use Linux. I find Windows to be a hindrance (I've used it from v3.1 to 7, so it's nothing to do with unfamiliarity). Microsoft may be trying to become developer friendly - but their OS certainly is not, and increasingly so.

I develop for both, but I use Windows. Until there're Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator for Linux, no professional UI development is possible on that OS.

I use Linux, despite the absence of these essential tools. In my ideal world software vendors would start supporting Linux, and this is why I created SoftwareOnLinux.com - to create pressure groups and give vendors insights in the demand for their software on Linux. Would be cool if you'd show demand for Photoshop through this page: https://www.softwareonlinux.com/programs/8-adobe-photoshop

Re: Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off

#88

Post by mattmanser »

Crontab wrote: post #63
jmkni wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows has gotten a lot better, but the rules regarding new computers hasn't changed in the past 30 years, you still need to wipe the hard drive and install it yourself from scratch, and then spend a little time disabling the ads, bing crap, telemetry, etc. Once you do, it's rock solid, but it should be OOTB and it annoys me that it isn't. It leaves those not familiar with Windows with a bad first impression, and th…

I liked version 7 but I believe Windows has taken a downturn since then.

I was about to defend it, but on reflection, windows 10 is a real mixed bag.

Pros:

- It's fantastically fast, I dislike going back to win 7

- Some of the utilities are nicer

Cons:

- Random scheduled tasks fire in the background at really annoying times. I installed a completely clean install of win 10 and some fail and then constantly re-run as they've not been marked as completed (e.g. .net 32-bit optimization service, some sort of memory optimization service). On my desktop I don't notice, but on my laptop if I leave it unattended the fan often starts going crazy. I've tried fixing the broken services but never really got to the bottom why. What's most annoying is the when you then try and disable or replace these services with dummy exes, windows update will "helpfully" "fix" them and re-enable them. There are also various scheduled tasks that automatically re-enable themselves on restart. It was also constantly trying to run one windows update that kept failing and it never told me, but would go through the whole rigmarole of doing incredibly expensive windows update trying to install this one driver.

- New start menu is bad, it's simply just not as usable as win 7, you end up always searching where win 7 seem to just be easier to quickly find things without typing anything

- Tiles are generally annoying

- New windows apps are annoyingly fancy and touch screen centric, for example there's no reason a calculator should be semi-transparent, it's actually really visually distracting

- Telem crap is incredibly user-hostile, invasive and almost impossible to get rid of

- Ctrl-alt-delete is partially broken and no longer works seamlessly. You have to do some crazy stuff like create a new desktop to get off a crashed program

- Explorer (file explorer) just seems to have become a real mess since XP and searching is agonisingly slow. Especially if you're doing it on a folder that contains bower or npm folders, in 2017 windows still struggles with long file paths

Re: Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off

#89

Post by microcolonel »

The Dell Precision 5520 can have a 97Wh battery, that's pretty slick (though it'd be slicker if it were hot swappable, with a small internal battery like you get on the ThinkPad X2xx and T4xx[s]). It'd also be nice if the site didn't just redirect me to the homepage when I connect from Canada. The only way to even look at the specs on a Canadian IP is to download the PDF spec sheets.

Re: Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off

#90

Post by jmkni »

croon wrote: post #51
jmkni wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows has gotten a lot better, but the rules regarding new computers hasn't changed in the past 30 years, you still need to wipe the hard drive and install it yourself from scratch, and then spend a little time disabling the ads, bing crap, telemetry, etc. Once you do, it's rock solid, but it should be OOTB and it annoys me that it isn't. It leaves those not familiar with Windows with a bad first impression, and th…

> Once you do, it's rock solid, but it should be OOTB and it annoys me that it isn't. I was very happy with an Asus Zenbook I bought that had the PURE (+ sometimes a number) suffix on the model name. Those laptops come with a clean windows install + any needed drivers. It only saves an hour or two for yourself, but I wish more (or really all) manufacturers supplied these models.

A co-worker of mine recently got a Surface Laptop.

Very nice piece of kit, but even that came loaded with ads, and would search Bing and the app store every time you searched the start menu.

It's little things like this that make Windows so much worse. It takes ten minutes in Group Policy to turn it off, but the majority of users will never go near group policy, and will just assume that is just the way Windows works.

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