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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

#251

Post by halbritt »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #217
craigsmansion wrote: post #83

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…

Your comment doesn't fully implement the Linux Desktop Evangelism playbook. It's got variations of: "It works for me!" "You chose the wrong hardware!" "Well you can fix that because the source is available!" and "But Windows is worse!" But it's missing: "Try distribution #132!" "You don't actually want to do that!" and my favorite: "Maybe you're just too stupid to use it!"

How about these:

Dual-booting on an XPS15. Running Ubuntu and Win10. I've had fewer problems with Ubuntu than Win10.

Had a HiDPI version of the same laptop at the last gig. Both Windows and Linux had some issues which were easier to overcome.

Windows definitely gets better hardware support.

However, having my local "dev" environment be native Linux is glorious. No weird Docker issues. Python is legit. Don't have to mess with Homebrew.

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

#252

Post by pjmlp »

plupf wrote: post #204
pjmlp wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Linux users are against nice UI/UX provided by GNOME, KDE, Anjuta, KDevelop, GNOME Builder, .... as seen by the complaints and forks. There is this culture of tiling window managers, vim, Emacs, everything done via CLI and UI/UX is a subject of interest only for dumb users. Which surfaces as the biggest one among its users. So anyone that cares about programming pleasant UI/UX workflows, hang with developers tha…

Many many Linux users are all for nice UIs, and pretty animations. Which is why GNOME, KDE, XFCE, MATE, Cinnamon, Budgie, Pantheon exist in the first place. The sheer amount, variety and quality of themes available for a typical Linux distro puts your point to rest.

What puts my point to rest is that the only successful Linux based consumer devices, are a web browser based OS and a Java based one, with nothing Linux specific exposed to its users or app developers.

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

#253

Post by eli_gottlieb »

rlpb wrote: post #178
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #111

Sorry, I'm gonna have to flame Dell out here. I own a Dell XPS 13 9365, a 2-in-1 laptop. Dell have decided, arbitrarily, not to support Linux on this machine, but you can still actually make it run by disabling Secure Boot and setting the SATA mode to AHCI. Even then, Ubuntu doesn't seem to detect when you've rotated the screen for tablet mode or stuff like that -- but that's probably Ubuntu's driver support. The mac…

I really wanted this same laptop, but I got the 9360 in the end because of the lack of Ubuntu support on the 9365. > Dell have decided, arbitrarily, not to support Linux on this machine...Ubuntu doesn't seem to detect when you've rotated the screen for tablet mode or stuff like that I suspect that this is exactly the reason why Dell decided not to ship with Ubuntu on this particular machine. I'm not sure that GNOME h…

>Ubuntu (like other distributions) doesn't have anything to do with distribution and release management of the the firmware blobs themselves; that's done entirely by Dell I believe.

Indeed, and yet here y'all are, saying that if I didn't want a brick, I shouldn't have run Linux. Ubuntu didn't do anything to the hardware, it just queued up a Dell-distributed, Dell-released firmware update to run upon BIOS POST.

Since this update was supplied by the manufacturer, I expect that at the very least, it can check for BIOS settings which render the update incompatible, and should most probably just, you know, install itself cleanly. It should never, ever brick the machine, because why in the hell is the manufacturer sending me something that bricks their own hardware?

>What exactly do you mean by "brick"?

By brick I mean brick. It fails POST and the several input combinations for resetting to a clean BIOS don't work either. Dell is having to send a technician to me to replace the motherboard, after which I can once again figure out the BIOS settings to run Ubuntu cleanly.

This doesn't mean that Ubuntu crashes after GRUB loads it. It means the BIOS no longer loads, period, let alone GRUB and Ubuntu.

>Dell explicitly don't support Ubuntu on this particular machine. If you had been running Windows, would you still be stuck? If not, I don't think you can reasonably blame Dell here. They don't QA with Ubuntu (or any Linux) on this hardware, and you knew this before you purchased.

Bull. They QA their own BIOS and firmware. The whole point of firmware-BIOS-OS separation is that the operating system never even speaks to the BIOS directly. BIOS runs the bootloader, bootloader loads the OS, OS proceeds according to a standard for how PCs are run. What I do to customize the machine is my responsibility, but proprietary updates from the manufacturer are theirs. If I've altered the BIOS settings to run a different operating system, the update needs to detect the altered settings and, if necessary, refuse to run. Then I can get on with my usage of the machine I bought.

It's not my job customize their firmware, nor should their firmware updates have compatibility issues that cripple the BIOS, ever, period.

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

#254

Post by erikbye »

suby wrote: post #243
erikbye wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's well-suited to anyone who despises bloat. To anyone who wants to run a resource-efficient and performant system with just the parts they need. And honestly, most users will never need to dig deep. Most users will only, occasionally, need to follow a few steps on the well-explained Wiki. More of my thoughts on Arch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15246521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1524678…

I tried arch out in 2016. Over a period of two weeks, 3 separate updates broke one thing or another. In my 4 years using mint / ubuntu, an update broke my machine once, and that was when the power went out during an update. Arch apparently works great for a lot of people, but I'd urge caution.

Did it break in an unrecoverable way, or was it just an inconvenience?

Arch is a rolling release that many choose to update daily, or on a fixed schedule, like once a week. That updates sometimes can break a thing or two, out of hundreds of updates, is to be expected. If that sounds scary to you, Arch is certainly not for you. That said, it has rarely happened to me, and any breakage is usually minor and easily fixed. It's not like you have to even figure out how; it's laid out for you on the Wiki, Forum or Arch's homepage. My experience with other distros has been far more troubling, except Slackware. Arch's strengths easily outweigh occasional inconveniences. Not having to deal with anything Ubuntu or Canonical is a great bonus.

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

#255

Post by chmln »

jmkni wrote: post #31
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…

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…

> 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.

You're just scratching the surface on how user-hostile Windows can be. The ads, bing crap, and telemetry are simply horrific considering it's a paid product.

Windows Update is still a mess. It takes me less than a couple of minutes to pacman -Syu, while windows updates can take HOURS.

Some random windows service can still suddenly ramp up disk usage or cpu to 100%. There are two control panels. File Explorer is still terrible. The list goes on.

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

#256

Post by [deleted] »

purrcat259 wrote: post #219
bitexploder wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. One laptop worth investigating that I haven't seen anyone discussing in this thread is the Precision 7520. It is the same chassis as the XPS 15" laptop, but you can configure it with some more adult options. It is 2017 and I finally own a laptop with 32GiB of ECC(!) RAM. That is pretty damn cool. Allow me to roll out my specs, just cause I love this laptop: * Quad Core Xeon (1505M) * Discrete GPU with accepta…

What laptop make and model is this please? Sounds great. Is the keyboard backlit?

[deleted]

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

#257

Post by rlpb »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #253
rlpb wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wanted this same laptop, but I got the 9360 in the end because of the lack of Ubuntu support on the 9365. > Dell have decided, arbitrarily, not to support Linux on this machine...Ubuntu doesn't seem to detect when you've rotated the screen for tablet mode or stuff like that I suspect that this is exactly the reason why Dell decided not to ship with Ubuntu on this particular machine. I'm not sure that GNOME h…

>Ubuntu (like other distributions) doesn't have anything to do with distribution and release management of the the firmware blobs themselves; that's done entirely by Dell I believe. Indeed, and yet here y'all are, saying that if I didn't want a brick, I shouldn't have run Linux. Ubuntu didn't do anything to the hardware, it just queued up a Dell-distributed, Dell-released firmware update to run upon BIOS POST. Since…

> Bull. They QA their own BIOS and firmware. The whole point of firmware-BIOS-OS separation is that the operating system never even speaks to the BIOS directly. BIOS runs the bootloader, bootloader loads the OS, OS proceeds according to a standard for how PCs are run.

The complexity here is that the firmware updates shipped for Linux may well take a different QA path to the firmware updates shipped for Windows, as the distribution channels are different. Further, manufacturers usually try to unify (to some level) firmware updates for different systems into fewer actual binary blobs to reduce release engineering workload.

What keeps a complex system such as this working smoothly is QA. Dell cannot reasonably be expected to spend effort on QAing combinations they clearly do not support.

While the fact that your system was bricked is likely a bug that should not have happened, nevertheless I think it's unreasonable to blame Dell for this as viciously as you are doing because they do not support or QA that combination and cannot be expected to do so. That they're fixing it is the most I think you can reasonably expect.

I understand that you've accidentally ended up having a poor experience here. But you can't reasonably expect that to reflect on the experience others might get following a path Dell actually supports and can reasonably be expected to actually QA.

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

#258

Post by bitexploder »

cpburns2009 wrote: post #232
purrcat259 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What laptop make and model is this please? Sounds great. Is the keyboard backlit?

> One laptop worth investigating that I haven't seen anyone discussing in this thread is the Precision 7520. He has a Dell Precision 7520. If you customize the model on the Dell website, there's a backlit keyboard option.

^^^^ See above :)

Just make sure anyone seriously considers this takes a long hard look at hte physical dimensions and weight. It is not a sleek or light machine :)

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

#259

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

CaptSpify wrote: post #240
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and those tech savvy enough to install Linux just don't come back. It isn't a matter of tech savvy, and pretending that it is is part of the problem with the Linux Desktop community, which is the worst part about using a Linux Desktop if you ask me. The system has a whole lot of issues, many of them somehow even worse that dealing with Windows 10's bullshit, or else I'd have switched myself by now. Even Linus calls…

I feel like you are arguing the same side. The reason you have to be tech savvy is that the Linux Desktop isn't great (note: I currently operate only on linux at home and work). You have to know some tech just to get a decent amount of things working. This is getting better every year, but we are still dealing with issues that the average user has no idea how to diagnose or fix.

"Average User" is a strawman. We really need to stop using that term in software development, but Linux Desktop people especially need to stop using it because to them "Average User" is some drooling moron who uses the CD tray as a cup holder. To the extent that "Average User" ever existed, he has largely moved on to using a phone or tablet anyway.

Also, I disagree that it is getting better every year. Individual pieces may work better once they're properly configured, but on the whole the system is becoming more and more of a complicated kludge of intertwined, abstracted, obfuscated, and otherwise non-transparent mechanisms. I personally don't see much hope for it as long as that trend continues.

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

#260

Post by eli_gottlieb »

rlpb wrote: post #257
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ubuntu (like other distributions) doesn't have anything to do with distribution and release management of the the firmware blobs themselves; that's done entirely by Dell I believe. Indeed, and yet here y'all are, saying that if I didn't want a brick, I shouldn't have run Linux. Ubuntu didn't do anything to the hardware, it just queued up a Dell-distributed, Dell-released firmware update to run upon BIOS POST. Since…

> Bull. They QA their own BIOS and firmware. The whole point of firmware-BIOS-OS separation is that the operating system never even speaks to the BIOS directly. BIOS runs the bootloader, bootloader loads the OS, OS proceeds according to a standard for how PCs are run. The complexity here is that the firmware updates shipped for Linux may well take a different QA path to the firmware updates shipped for Windows, as th…

>The complexity here is that the firmware updates shipped for Linux may well take a different QA path to the firmware updates shipped for Windows, as the distribution channels are different.

Assuming that they're all still Dell-made firmware blobs, I don't see why they'd be different at all. Anything that Ubuntu can "do to them" ought to ruin the signature. Only an authentic Dell firmware blob should actually make it through the BIOS' checks to installation.

It's like saying, "look, you opened our cryptographically signed file under our system, sure, but you downloaded it through an unsupported channel."

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