Live data from Hacker News

Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off

techradar.com

151–160 of 319 posts

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

#151
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that to be irrelevant for development (except games, of course). In fact, my graphics card (the cheapest to support Vista) is the only thing I haven't upgraded in the past 5+ years. And it was from eBay, used.

Providing good native UI/UX development is similar to games, specially when using WPF, UWP, Qt,...

I would love to see what you develop.

My graphics card supports the native UI elements of Windows.

My users don't want a "Save as" dialog with life-like water refraction and fog, rendered at higher FPS than their monitor.

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

#152
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 flawl…

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

It's been a long time I haven't seen a general purpose laptop or desktop that didn't work flawlessly with both Ubuntu and Fedora. The only one I have is the MacBook Pro in front of me, but it comes with a decent OS anyway.

> Windows still runs on more devices, better.

Can it delete open files now?

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

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Until there're Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator for Linux There are plenty of great tools that really doesn't require these overly priced tools.

I’m not a designer, I’m a programmer, I mostly use these to export to something else, and do some minor adjustments. But on input, I always getting .psd (raster) or .ai (vector) files, created by professionals.

I’ve been developing software for 17 years, and this always was the case, regardless on the industry (desktop software, embedded, videogames), regardless on target platform (PC, mobile, embedded win or linux, game consoles).

I know there’re other good tools, but I’m not in the position to force everyone else to stop using Adobe.

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

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arch's KISS attitude is really helpful for that. Whenever I have to deal with a Debian/Ubuntu system, I'm sort of weary of "apt install"ing any daemons because of the autoconfigure magic that's going on in dpkg. With Arch, installing a package just unpacks the package files and runs a few innocuous post-install hooks, mostly to rebuild indexes (mandb, fontconfig, etc.) and compile DKMS-based kernel modules. But nothi…

Also, it installs exactly what you want, instead of dozens of tangentially-related "suggested packages". So does Debian, if that's what you tell it you want (either on the config file or as a CLI argument). Even without that, while it may suggest a full MTA by default, you can ask it for another solution and it'll suggest a simple mailer (like bsd-mailx). I don't dispute that Arch's defaults guide you to a simpler sy…

> you can ask it for another solution and it'll suggest a simple mailer

Exactly. The correct solution for me is "no mailer at all".

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

#155
It's funny how a primary criticism of consumer linux is "you'll have trouble running it on any laptop you pick at random." Isn't this an unfair criticism? If you apply the same logic to MacOS (only works on one laptop!) or Windows (only works on laptops specifically designed for it), Linux begins to look extremely compatible in comparison.

Linux has demonstrated itself to be compatible with nearly any hardware combination imaginable, to various degrees of usability. It runs on everything from tiny embedded microcontrollers to supercomputers. MacOS and Windows cannot say the same.

It is perfectly valid to criticize the frequency of driver incompatibility. However, this criticism should not be leveled at Linux. It should be directed at the hardware manufacturers who do not release Linux drivers for their products, or the software vendors like Microsoft and Apple, who forego open standards in favor of proprietary protocols.

The fact that hardware vendors can successfully produce and market a "Linux first" laptop shows that those vendors are responsible for any incompatibility in their other products. They've proved they can make compatible hardware, so why don't they do it by default?

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

#156
post #9

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…

I’ve a dual boot set up on one of my machines with Ubuntu 17.04. I’m consistently having Ethernet issues related to having two network cards, and the multi monitor support is lacking. I can’t use my triple monitor setup, and if I forget to disconnect my third monitor I have to reboot with only one monitor attached to get it work. Meanwhile, on the same machine, windows handles it in its stride. There’s still some imp…

Reverse anecdote:

I can get my three monitors to work under Linux (trivially, actually), but I can't under Windows, and not for a lack of trying.

Under Windows I can decide which one gets turned off, but running all three is somehow denied. This, of course, with recent drivers straight from the manufacturer (AMD).

Baffling.

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

#157
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 servi…

With Windows 10 I just have this unshakeable feeling that Microsoft has closed the loop on their partnership with our corrupt government on spying on all of us all the time. Fuck that noise.

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, it installs exactly what you want, instead of dozens of tangentially-related "suggested packages". So does Debian, if that's what you tell it you want (either on the config file or as a CLI argument). Even without that, while it may suggest a full MTA by default, you can ask it for another solution and it'll suggest a simple mailer (like bsd-mailx). I don't dispute that Arch's defaults guide you to a simpler sy…

> you can ask it for another solution and it'll suggest a simple mailer Exactly. The correct solution for me is "no mailer at all".

Right, so tell it not to install the recommended packages, like I said.

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

#159
post #53
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an option in Windows Defender settings that automatically wipes the hard drive and reinstalls from scratch, without the manufacturer's bloatware

Tried this on a Lenovo notebook and it will reinstall the Lenovo bloatware anyways. I think this restore the initial windows image state, but the image that came in the notebook is customized by Lenovo.

Yes, the 'refresh Windows' feature actually reinstalls from the image OEM provided, which contains all the bloatware. You need to create a fresh install media from Microsoft (their media creation tool) and reinstall from DVD and delete the OEM recovery partitions to finally be rid of them.

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

#160

At my company, most of the developers use Ubuntu end-user machines, all from Dell. Not only does this avoid us having to pay for Windows licenses we never use, but we know the hardware is actually going to work fine with it. There's some quirks, of course - Ubuntu doesn't much like the 4k screens in our 13" XPSen so there's a lot of tweaking involved, but we're getting some very good hardware at a good price, and stu…

FWIW, Windows has problems with 4K screens, too. Most apps work fine, some display at the size of a postage stamp.
Post reply on HN