Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off

techradar.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 319 posts

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

#261

Post by chx »

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…

Ps. DisplayPort MST support is spotty at best.

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

#262

Post by ktta »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #249
beavis2 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you check for Linux support before you purchased it? If not, you can't blame Dell for your choice. (I'm the type of person to buy the car before choosing the tyres)

It's a computer. No firmware update supplied by the manufacturer should ever brick it, no matter what operating system I put on it, which I can put on because it's my computer, not Dell's. That's the whole point of having a separate BIOS and operating system.

There's a reason why companies say they support specific OSes. You'll have a point if they said they supported linux. But they don't.

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

#263

Post by yndoendo »

baldfat wrote: post #120
tinus_hn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I remember 30 years ago you didn’t have to disable ads, Bing crap and telemetry. In fact 5 years ago all you needed to disable was shitty drivers and some trial software.

5 years ago it was horrible we all just forget the bad things and mostly remember good. From 2012: https://www.itworld.com/article/2718342/consumerization/here...

May be 5 years ago for PCs but still year 0 for Smartphone crap-ware bundling. At least PCs have the ability to remove it with keeping the hardware warranty intact.

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

#264

Post by pbkhrv »

bubblethink wrote: post #220
majewsky wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm puzzled as well. Upon reading the article, I tried to find Linux notebooks via their homepage (i.e. by starting at dell.com), but found nothing.

Go to dell.com/developers . Dell's site is quite a disaster in general. It boggles the mind how hard it is for this giant corporations (Dell, Lenovo, HP) to make a halfway usable website.

None of the 15" Precision series laptops linked from that page seem to be available with Linux on their dedicated sales pages... Weird.

Edit: they don't list Linux as being available until you go to "Customize and Buy".

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

#265

Post by baldfat »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #210
baldfat wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 years ago it was horrible we all just forget the bad things and mostly remember good. From 2012: https://www.itworld.com/article/2718342/consumerization/here...

That's all OEM junk though. If you installed from official media on a PC you built yourself (or at least a wiped disk), you didn't deal with that stuff. With Windows 10, that is unfortunately not true anymore because MS is the provider of a lot of the crapware.

That was what I was responding to. A person recommend that the proper way to install Windows on a new Laptop was to wipe the drive and install a fresh Windows. One person said it wasn't needed 5 years ago :)

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

#266

Post by throw7 »

Where/how do you order a linux dell laptop? On the drop down for Operating System only "Windows" options are available. If I search for "linux" I get Canonical support packages and the phrase "Dell recommends Windows" in the top right.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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

#267

Post by psy-q »

sigi45 wrote: post #85
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…

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…

> under linux it creates minilags

Samsung 840 series? Well-known bug in their firmware. Update your firmware.

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

#268

Post by psy-q »

LaGrange wrote: post #186
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…

Ah, WSL. That sounds great. Docker works, let's try to edit something without messing up the permissions... $ git clone ssh://blahblahblah.space/repo.git [...] $ code repo VS Code opens... C:\windows\System32. Because the contents of the VolFS contents aren't available to Windows applications. So, you have to use /mnt/c, which is using Windows permissions (so, everything ends up 0777 for example). That was disappoint…

Microsoft explicitly warns people in big red letters never to open any WSL files from Windows. I'm not sure if that will ever be possible.

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

#269

Post by craftkiller »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #100
oliwarner wrote: post #98

I wanted to throw my money at Dell last year. I wanted the top of the line XPS laptop with Linux. But I needed it quick. At that point, at least, Dell were building them to order in China. Two weeks plus shipping for the UK market. I'm not sure if this is the same for their other models but I bet there's a big pile of Windows machines sitting in an EU warehouse. To add insult to injury, I asked if they could improve…

No, same with Win10 machines. Bought an XPS13 maxed out from Dell. Website deceivably back then said 2 days shipping, but I didn't realize it meant 2 days to deliver it to the carrier and the 3 weeks to Germany from China. Website made it look like it was in Europe when I ordered. BIOS gives smoke detection loudness (!) level alarms at night when some hardware part fails and laptop reboots. Beside that, hardware is c…

How is NVMe preventing you from running Linux? Linux has had NVMe support since 2012 (3.3). I use NVMe on a Dell XPS 13 9350 Developer Edition as my daily driver with no issue.

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

#270

Post by eli_gottlieb »

ktta wrote: post #262
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a computer. No firmware update supplied by the manufacturer should ever brick it, no matter what operating system I put on it, which I can put on because it's my computer, not Dell's. That's the whole point of having a separate BIOS and operating system.

There's a reason why companies say they support specific OSes. You'll have a point if they said they supported linux. But they don't.

Rubbish. Driver problems are mine. Firmware and BIOS problems are theirs. Legally, they didn't sell me a "computer experience" to be had in a walled garden. They sold me a computer. What they provide, such as signed firmware and BIOS updates, needs to either work correctly, or safely refuse to run on an unsupported machine. What it should not do is brick the machine by assuming it only runs inside a walled garden and breaking things -- because, again, they sold me a computer, not a walled garden.

Otherwise the precedent might as well be set that, for instance, firmware updates are not required to work in the case that I've installed LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Word. After all, Dell made no commitment to supporting LibreOffice, so why should I expect the firmware update to work?

Well, because it's an orthogonal concern, and because they sold me hardware, dammit, not software experiences.

Post reply on HN