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Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)

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31–40 of 188 posts

Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)

#32
I like the Lenovos (not affiliated with them).

Had various of their laptops: T42, T500, T440p, X1 Extreme gen2 (dumb name, but nice laptop).

They usually run Linux without any problems, are solidly built (even after being taking over from IBM).

Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen any major changes between now and then? I looked for a linux developer laptop last year and ended up with a lenovo P1 after a previous bad experience (with power management) on an XPS13 (which I used while traveling - I don't travel now). I didn't see any other alternatives last year vs what he's discussing. I would love to hear if there are new competitive linux-friendly laptops out there now

Well, the Framework did come out since then. That's no small news in the linux laptop world

Anecdotal, a colleague of mine absolutely hated his to the point where he didn’t even sell it, it just ended up in a drawer until he’s calmed down enough to sort it out for sale >_<

Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)

#35

Missing [2019] in the title. I’m in the market for buying a laptop this year. What is the currently reigning developer laptop?

I think it depends on your needs, really. When I bought a laptop in December of last year, I narrowed my options down to a Dell XPS 15 and a Thinkpad T15 (both with the Intel CPUs, although AMD seemed to perform better on benchmarks, Dell doesn't even ship with them and the Thinkpad with AMD wasn't available in my region). I didn't consider System76 much because I need Windows support, and sadly couldn't go for a framework because they didn't ship to where I needed.

I ended up going for the Thinkpad even though it has a worse screen, because I read many negative things about defects in XPS laptops, the CPU was of a lower tier but apparently more energy efficient (also I learned that laptop CPUs are a mess), the Thinkpad has more varied ports, and it has the trackpoint.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that many top of the line laptops (not counting Apple of course) now have user upgreadable components -- both of my options had upgradeable hard drives and ram.

Back to my original point, for my workload I didn't need more than 16gb of ram, or a dedicated GPU, or good Linux support (although I heard it's pretty good for Thinkpads at least), so my option made sense to me -- and still it set me back almost 2 grand, so not an easy choice. I expect this device to last at least 5 years, which puts the cost into perspective to me.

Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)

#36

Unrelated. Why do people hyperlink the title text? It is annoying. I wanted to mark and search the "Dell's Precision 5500" bit to see what the machine looked like. Then I tapped the link. Hyperlinking makes mouse highlighting difficult. Hyperlink title is all over the internet and it is annoying and it serves no purpose.

If you hold alt while highlighting, it bypasses the click events letting you highlight to your hearts content.

Sometimes this doesn’t work when the site is using JS to do some kindof click handler, but it should work fine for an a tag

Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)

#37

Unrelated. Why do people hyperlink the title text? It is annoying. I wanted to mark and search the "Dell's Precision 5500" bit to see what the machine looked like. Then I tapped the link. Hyperlinking makes mouse highlighting difficult. Hyperlink title is all over the internet and it is annoying and it serves no purpose.

Somewhat unrelated. Why do browsers make it so difficult to copy text within hyperlinks. The Presto layout engine handled this perfectly 15 years ago - how have other browsers not managed to fix this in the intervening period?

I think mobile-friendliness has to be blamed for this. Most browsers these days have "copy link text".

Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)

#38
post #7

Maybe if you're considering the "major laptop manufacturers", but I prefer my System76 laptop any day, since it comes with Linux and they support it from the get-go. Also, they write a lot of nice software that makes the Linux ecosystem better; I love Pop_OS! and how I basically don't have to futz around with getting things to work but have the power of a Debian/Ubuntu variant so I can install other things easily. I…

If I could replace my System76's keyboard with a layout that I like, then I would have zero complaints.

I <3 System76

Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)

#39

Unrelated. Why do people hyperlink the title text? It is annoying. I wanted to mark and search the "Dell's Precision 5500" bit to see what the machine looked like. Then I tapped the link. Hyperlinking makes mouse highlighting difficult. Hyperlink title is all over the internet and it is annoying and it serves no purpose.

Somewhat unrelated. Why do browsers make it so difficult to copy text within hyperlinks. The Presto layout engine handled this perfectly 15 years ago - how have other browsers not managed to fix this in the intervening period?

See my sibling comment.

tl;dr hold alt

Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)

#40

Unrelated. Why do people hyperlink the title text? It is annoying. I wanted to mark and search the "Dell's Precision 5500" bit to see what the machine looked like. Then I tapped the link. Hyperlinking makes mouse highlighting difficult. Hyperlink title is all over the internet and it is annoying and it serves no purpose.

Somewhat unrelated. Why do browsers make it so difficult to copy text within hyperlinks. The Presto layout engine handled this perfectly 15 years ago - how have other browsers not managed to fix this in the intervening period?

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