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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

#301

Post by chimeracoder »

bunderbunder wrote: post #168
erikbye wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not Windows' fault, though. It's up to developers to update their apps to handle DPI scaling.

True, and I'm pretty sure the reason's the same for Linux. Doesn't affect my opinion on the usability of the platform, though. For my part, I got my work to do, so I ultimately ended up back on a Mac (yet again, ugh) because, for all Apple's recent problems, none of them bother me as much as things like, "I just flat-out can't use this app that I need without a microscope."

> Doesn't affect my opinion on the usability of the platform, though. For my part, I got my work to do, so I ultimately ended up back on a Mac (yet again, ugh) because, for all Apple's recent problems, none of them bother me as much as things like, "I just flat-out can't use this app that I need without a microscope."

Well, at that point, you're no longer using 4K (even if you use a 4K external monitor, OS X doesn't render at that resolution by default). Incidentally, if you do try to render OS X in 4K, it looks horrible, for the exact same reasons.

In my experience, the 4K experience is actually strongest on Linux, followed by Windows. OS X comes in last.

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

#302

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #294
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might do, if Linux wasn't so hostile to the concept of proprietary drivers and had a stable driver ABI. Not that I necessarily disagree with their position on the matter, but you can't escape the consequences.

I'm not sure "Linux" (by this I believe you mean Linux kernel and distros & open-source software) is hostile to the concept of proprietary drivers. There is only a small subset of users who are hostile to proprietary drivers. And I have no idea why you are suggesting Linux doesn't have a stable ABI.

Because for drivers, it doesn't and never did and never will as long as Linus has anything to say about it. This is in stark contrast to his position on userland ABI, which is so stable you can still run Motif.

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

#303

Post by solarized »

I hate M$ monopoly in laptop market. So i start looking for best linux laptop 4 years ago. I use ubuntu-wiki-laptop [0] as my buying reference. The choice was Dell Vostro 5470 non-os. This is my main machine since then. As a developer i can say this type are outstanding.

I start with ubuntu 14.04 + gnome-classic. At the beginning the problem just the stereo and volume drivers, solved with patch from launchpad.

Almost my work done in terminal (vim, mocp, bash, psql, mysql, etc). Things that need gui just google-chrome + libreOffice suite. Battery also work great and has no issues with OS, Almost 5 hours average from full charge.

Thanks Dell, thanks canonical. [0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Laptops

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

#304

Post by LeifCarrotson »

chatmasta wrote: post #286
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or Windows (only works on laptops specifically designed for it) Windows also works well on laptops specifically designed for MacOS. It helps that all the commodity parts that Apple uses were designed for other Windows laptops. Plus, Apple has put some effort into Boot Camp to ensure that Windows can be loaded, and Microsoft has probably spent some effort making sure that Windows runs well on Apple hardware, but tha…

ChromeBook would be a good example.

That it would, thanks for pointing it out!

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

#305

Post by thomastjeffery »

fgonzag wrote: post #278
jenscow wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how much you like VS.

I have actually moved to vscode and I love it so far. I still can't move to Linux since I need visual studio for some older projects, but I hope I'll be able to make the switch in the future. In the mean time vscode + windows subsystem for Linux has been extremely usable for me, no more virtual machines

You don't have to switch.

You can dual-boot. GParted or most distro's installers will resize your windows partition, just don't forget to disable fastboot in windows first.

You can run Linux in a VM. Granted, this means you can't really use a good tiling window manager, which is one of my main reasons for not using Windows.

You can run Windows in a VM. Take a look at Qubes to see just how integrated this can be.

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

#306

Post by thomastjeffery »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #192
chatmasta wrote: post #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 combin…

> or Windows (only works on laptops specifically designed for it) Windows also works well on laptops specifically designed for MacOS. It helps that all the commodity parts that Apple uses were designed for other Windows laptops. Plus, Apple has put some effort into Boot Camp to ensure that Windows can be loaded, and Microsoft has probably spent some effort making sure that Windows runs well on Apple hardware, but tha…

Apart from their absolute garbage EFI (not UEFI) implementation, there are no problems with running Linux on anything that runs OS X.

As far as EFI goes, Apple does not allow you to boot USB. Apple allows you to boot the OS X installer via firewire, but nothing else. This means your only option to install Linux, Windows, *BSD, etc. is from a CD/DVD or from a new partition on the hdd/ssd.

Thankfully, you can shrink the root partition in OS X while running OS X, so there is a way to install Linux without optical media, but it is complicated.

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

#307

Post by thomastjeffery »

drchaos wrote: post #279
gargravarr wrote: post #108

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…

> Ubuntu doesn't much like the 4k screens This is not really Ubuntu's fault, but mainly a problem with GTK2. Everything based on GTK3 scales quite well nowadays, the same is true for QT. Unfortunately, the Gimp and Inkscape are two notable applications which have not yet been ported to GTK3. Other than that, it's only the console which is not usable out-of-the-box.

> the Gimp ... [has] not yet been ported to GTK3.

Which is ironic, considering GTK is the GIMP ToolKit.

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

#308

Post by thomastjeffery »

macco wrote: post #27

I wonder how many machines Dell is really selling. Or if project Sputnik is more of marketing ploy, to get popular with developers. Linux users are very tough customers in my experience. And the strategy to have plain Ubuntu installed makes them very vulnarable to competitors. The should have developed their own flavor like System76 is doing with PopOS, imo.

> And the strategy to have plain Ubuntu installed makes them very vulnarable to competitors.

How so?

They are selling hardware, not software.

Ubuntu is very well-supported.

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

#309

Post by thomastjeffery »

YSS_i3wm wrote: post #118

I'm using Linux with i3wm and one thing that Windows keep beating Linux over is font rendering. Font rendering just sucks on Linux, if you like it or not. Microsoft got a few patents end of the 90s and their fonts clearness are just the best. End of story.

That as been the opposite of my experience for the last 5+ years.

In my experience, Windows has been the worst at font rendering, and Linux (freetype) the best, with OS X somewhere in the middle (closer to Linux).

Of course, there are edge cases, especially if you are trying to use Windows' fonts, but I very rarely run into them.

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

#310

Post by thomastjeffery »

Hextinium wrote: post #2

Can someone explain to me why it is so difficult to produce hardware that is identical to current offerings but with software that is different? Is it driver conflicts and BIOS problems?

Manufacturers are obsessed with the word "proprietary".

For that reason alone, they tend to keep their drivers closed-source, which means that manufacturer must keep that driver up to date without any help from the outside world.

This works with Windows until a new version of Windows is released that breaks functionality. This does not work with Linux, which is monolithic, and requires drivers to be built into the kernel.

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