I think this should say (2019) in the title, I was somewhat surpried to read "Dell ships a pre-installed a customized Ubuntu LTS release (currently 18.04) "
Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)
51–60 of 188 posts
Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)
#52Personally I'm waiting for the new ARM ThinkPad X13s. I rarely buy things on day one but that will be one for sure. Not sure which distro will run on it but I like tinkering with it.
Same here - I'm ready to move on from my 2015 XPS13, but having recently got an M1 Mac for work I'm now not prepared to compromise on battery life. If a major Linux distro (Ubuntu or Fedora) is shown to work well on the new ThinkPad, I'll be getting one pretty quickly.
Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)
#53Chromebooks and Mac Airs are still better for actual travel use just due to size and power draw (airplane sockets are typically only good for about 180W before they trip. Varies by plane a bit, only one I've seen meaningfully higher was an A380 for Emirates that seemed good to about 250W).
Outside of the big names, I've had a lot of luck with FreeBSD and recent Linux on the MSI G-70x "gamer" laptops, getting the nvidia cards to work in the GPU-switching mode with the lower power Intel ones is finicky but if you don't need to run games or CAD or whatever on it that's not a concern most of the time. Typically 50-75% of a similar Mac and available with NVME ssds and 32GB or more of memory. Atheros/Killer network adapters are not amazing but works and most have a RJ45 gig or 2.5g ethernet port if you need it.
Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)
#54i find it very hard to suggest an intel/amd laptop nowadays now that M1 macbooks exist.. M1 is a league on its own, everything else is just tech junk at this point
M1 is overrated. I own MacBook Pro with M1 Max. It’s fast, but it’s not something that helps in day to day use. And ARM compatibility issues not really helping. Battery is not that amazing either. I spent 30 minutes in discord and battery was at 91%, 5 hours is not something unique. It’s good, fast and expensive laptop. But not something that I could call mind breaking.
Hmm, I have the air with m1, and my battery life is insane. Like 20 hours, even with a parallels vm running some of the time.
I do however have no idea what discord is. Isn’t it some kinda forum?
Also using safari when on battery doubles your life, fwiw.
Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)
#55Maybe 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…
Regarding your last paragraph, I generally agree, but there is at least one exception: If you need lots of RAM and nothing else, then many consumer laptops won't do the job.
Oh yea, that is so true. I wish I could get a cheapo processor with like 32GB or 64GB of RAM. The only choices you have are to get a cheap laptop with a minuscule amount of RAM and the exact amount of processing and hard drive space you need, or to buy some $4000 beast with the amount of RAM you need, but too much of everything else.
Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)
#56I've not had a Precision laptop, but I did use multiple generations of the XPS 13 with linux, and I was fairly disappointed with that experience. My XPS 13s had keyboards that would occasionally miss inputs, they had annoying coil whine, and the port selection got worse and worse over each generation.
I've been much happier running linux on the Lenovo T series recently. It is less flashy but seems to be made better. The only real complaint I have with Lenovo is the mediocre speakers.
I am excited about asahi linux opening up the possibility to have my next machine be an M1 macbook.
Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)
#57Personally I'm waiting for the new ARM ThinkPad X13s. I rarely buy things on day one but that will be one for sure. Not sure which distro will run on it but I like tinkering with it.
Same here - I'm ready to move on from my 2015 XPS13, but having recently got an M1 Mac for work I'm now not prepared to compromise on battery life. If a major Linux distro (Ubuntu or Fedora) is shown to work well on the new ThinkPad, I'll be getting one pretty quickly.
The performance will be the real question, like it won't be nowhere near the M1 for sure
Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)
#58This is from 2019, does not appear useful at all.
If I read dmidecode correctly, I'm writing this on a laptop from 2013, which remains not only fully functional but which has high enough specs that I don't even see it struggling for quite some time. When I someday get another laptop, it's likely to be from eBay, and I would very much like to know what the best laptops were 3-5 years ago. Being from 2019 is important context, but it's not disqualifying.
I used to be the same, rocking a late 2013 MacBook Pro. I then bought a Radeon 5000 series and put it in and old PC I had lying around (Xeon E5-2667 v2, Q3'13 according to ark.intel.com).
I was amazed at how well they kept up, and even how they were faster than my 2018-2019 work laptop (an 8th gen i5u-something) when comparing Rust build times.
Then I got a new one with a Zen 3 (5650u) in December. Man, it feels sooo smooth and snappy when compared to the older computers. And I'm running Linux/i3, so nothing that requires fancy graphics or anything. What's shocking, is that the other computers never felt slow, laggy or struggling.
However, this laptop is an absolute steaming PoS on multiple other aspects (chief amongst which a broken BIOS and absurdly bad screen), so I would absolutely not recommend it.
Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)
#59Missing [2019] in the title. I’m in the market for buying a laptop this year. What is the currently reigning developer laptop?
The Dell Precision 5560 is still a great Linux machine. Most things worked out of the box for me (the one I got has an nvidia card if that bothers you) Battery life does not beat my 2019 MacBook Pro but it’s still pretty good (don’t have hard numbers) Edit: also, nothing so far competes with the MacBook trackpads imo. YMMV
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Re: Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns supreme (2019)
#60My Dell Precision 5520 was a big disappointment. In spite of having a Xeon CPU, Dell decided that this specific model would not get ECC RAM support. Other Dell laptops from that era using the same CPU do support ECC RAM, but then you have to give up portability. It's my most regretted laptop purchase.