Microsoft also offers Linux introduction tutorials. Seems like a wind of change
Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops
41–50 of 117 posts
Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops
#42I bought an XPS13 in 2012 or so with Ubuntu preinstalled and it was rock solid for years (although I ran Fedora on it). I remember buying it was really difficult, it wasn't listed on the UK website and in the end I had to phone their sales number and was passed through several people who'd never heard of Ubuntu. A few days later I received an email with a link to an unlisted store item that had the same photos as the…
I suspect this happened because when DELL first launched laptops with Linux, it gave them some surprising bad press. Certainly the most famous being the woman who apparently was dropping out of college as a result of accidentally ordering a Ubuntu DELL laptop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qj8p-PEwbI This probably seems like a weird one-off, but this story went pretty viral, of course it went viral on the internet…
This absolutely REEKS of earlier-time corpo PR skullduggery.
Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops
#43> The Dell XPS 13 is the best-known developer-focused, high-end Linux laptop. Not a good ol' ThinkPad T-series?
It seems like these days, the X1 series is considered the ThinkPad flagship. That's where I've seen the best chances of getting hardware that's compatible with Linux OOTB and performs well with it (e.g. Intel WiFi/BT).
Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops
#44> The Dell XPS 13 is the best-known developer-focused, high-end Linux laptop. Not a good ol' ThinkPad T-series?
Many fond memories of my X21 P3 and X220 (i5 iirc). Good little machines. Debian and Gentoo, never had issues (I recall anyway!).
Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect this happened because when DELL first launched laptops with Linux, it gave them some surprising bad press. Certainly the most famous being the woman who apparently was dropping out of college as a result of accidentally ordering a Ubuntu DELL laptop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qj8p-PEwbI This probably seems like a weird one-off, but this story went pretty viral, of course it went viral on the internet…
I have no evidence for this but you can imagine someone at Microsoft saying "Dell has started selling laptops without Windows! We need to run an 'information campaign' to tell people why they should not use Ubuntu! Let's cough 'find' a college student who lost everything because of this operating system and then feed it to a local news channel." I can't say if this happened, but the whole story sounds like a dark PR…
Microsoft did an anti-Linux retail PR campaign around the Windows 7 launch, as netbooks with vendor-specific Linux distributions were starting to gain traction. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/09/micro...
Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops
#46Why does it cost more if I select Ubuntu versus windows? Edit: It looks like just a Canadian thing. 1899 for windows home and 1984 for Ubuntu. https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/laptops/xps-13-plus/spd/xps-...
… I do wish people could just use some round price tags like $1,400 so that I could easily price what the various features are. Nothing says "we value the customer" (/s) like a 0.08% discount and a website that won't tell me straight-forwardly what the cost of the components is.
Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops
#47> The Dell XPS 13 is the best-known developer-focused, high-end Linux laptop. Not a good ol' ThinkPad T-series?
Quality went downhill since Lenovo.
Meh, I'd agree that they aren't quite built like a tank anymore, but my T560 is still going strong after nearly 8 years. Not bad going.
Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops
#48I looked at several precisions this month and they all had Ubuntu options. The /developer/ page doesn’t seem to exist any longer however.
Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess not anymore. I'd say that until a bunch of years ago, you'd be right. Nowadays, I don't see Thinkpads often anymore. My 0.02.
Unfortunately. Even a T490 beats an XPS13 easily. I own both and I'm happy I switched back to ThinkPads.
The T490 is the worst ThinkPad generation to buy right now. The generation they took out the removable battery, soldered half the RAM and generally made some other anti-improvements. So you get the oldest hardware without any of the pre-redesign benefits.
I guess the T495 is worse. Those first gen Zen chips are just terrible.
Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops
#50Why does it cost more if I select Ubuntu versus windows? Edit: It looks like just a Canadian thing. 1899 for windows home and 1984 for Ubuntu. https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/laptops/xps-13-plus/spd/xps-...
ThinkPads, at least in EU, offer the option of no OS or Linux. And the discount is €60 if you opt out of any OS and €30 if you choose Fedora or Ubuntu instead of Windows Home.
With a little subsidy, Dell's pricing you report doesn't seem too far off.