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Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops

zdnet.com

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Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops

#61

Post by senkora »

smallerfish wrote: post #38

The camera doesn't work on the current XPS13 if you upgrade to a 6.X kernel (which, to be fair, means moving outside of Dell's packaging.) Technically this is Intel's fault, as they haven't released firmware for it yet. Still, hopefully the Dell team avoid similar issues in future configs by ensuring better driver support. It's a nice laptop otherwise.

Yeah, I think it’s best to keep them on the installed Ubuntu LTS and not upgrade, if you want the seamless OEM experience.

Granted, I’ve still had some random issues with mine, even on the stock version. (The wifi card is glitchy and I have to systemctl restart NetworkManager sometimes, apparently this is a known hardware/firmware issue).

Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops

#62

Post by senkora »

jadbox wrote: post #58
smallerfish wrote: post #38

The camera doesn't work on the current XPS13 if you upgrade to a 6.X kernel (which, to be fair, means moving outside of Dell's packaging.) Technically this is Intel's fault, as they haven't released firmware for it yet. Still, hopefully the Dell team avoid similar issues in future configs by ensuring better driver support. It's a nice laptop otherwise.

Why did the new kernel break the drivers when every release is supposed to be (usually) non-backward's breaking?

The Linux userland interface is stable but the Linux driver interface is unstable.

Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops

#64

Post by galangalalgol »

senkora wrote: post #62
jadbox wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did the new kernel break the drivers when every release is supposed to be (usually) non-backward's breaking?

The Linux userland interface is stable but the Linux driver interface is unstable.

The switch from one mutex back in the day broke so many drivers... we had one expensive pci card that was niche enough and old enough no one would be fixing it, but they had provided the source for the module and it wasn't that bad a fix.

Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops

#65

Post by Trow83949 »

Frotag wrote: post #10
csdvrx wrote: post #3

In theory, laptops from Dell should work with Linux. In practice, not so much, especially if you like to sleep and wake up from sleep everytime without a crash + a reasonable power consumption, both during use and during sleep. IMHO consumption during sleep far more important: if I didn't plug the computer, I expect it to wake up immediately (no S4/suspend to disk) and with less than 0.5% of battery lost per hour (so…

Lenovo laptops tend to be best bang for buck but ime poor build quality and support. I've sent each of the three I've owned in for warranty repair at some point. It took at least a month for all of them and two of them still died a month or two later from repair-related issues (eg glue around new lcd housing was too weak and it eventually warped / cracked).

Macbooks have similar issues. Months long warranty repairs, glu falls apart in LCD housing, cracking hinges...

At least with lenovo you can buy second laptop, and swap SSD before shipping it away. Repairman will not go through your selfies ;)

Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops

#66

Post by kuschku »

roblh wrote: post #60
_cenw wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Really liking my refurb t480 with Ubuntu, however the most annoying thing is that it’s seemingly impossible to get the 2 finger swipe back trackpad gesture working. Otherwise it’s been great.

Switch the trackpad with that of the X1C, and it'll work flawlessly. I did the same on my T470.

Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops

#67

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

jchw wrote: post #32
petepete wrote: post #2

I 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…

Yep, gotta have windows so you can have access to WSL so you can use all of those unix-only tools that academia has been amassing for the last 60 years. Anything else would be too complex.

Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops

#68

Post by frei »

mcbutterbunz wrote: post #25
Freak_NL wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dell is definitely weird about this; I had the same experience. Perfectly satisfied with my laptop (an XPS 13 with Ubuntu on it bought a few years ago), but Dell's online store is just bonkers.

I Googled XPS 13 and go to configure it but can’t find an option to choose Ubuntu, only downgrade to Windows 11 Home. It is weird.

I had to search "developer edition"

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-13-plus-dev...

Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops

#69

Post by jwells89 »

wmf wrote: post #59
jwells89 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

If you order with Linux preinstalled the chance is close to 100%.

For components to work OOTB with Linux yes, but perform well is a different story. There's plenty of parts that technically work with Linux but in practice have sub-par performance and it's easy to wind up with them if one isn't careful.

Re: Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops

#70

Post by AvImd »

Not a high end device (Dell Vostro 15 3515), but it comes with preinstalled Ubuntu as well. It has some serious problems with wireless (10ec:c821). The default driver frequently loses connection on some wifi networks (it has issue with many networks though surprisingly not all of them). Sometimes reloading the driver helps, sometimes it just hangs my system. https://github.com/lwfinger/rtw88 seems to work a bit better though still has the same problem sometimes. It turns out that rfkill block wlan && sleep 3 && rfkill unblock wlan works better than reloading the driver. At least this way I haven't hanged my system yet. And wifi does not seem to be able to work at the same time as bluetooth.

Otherwise a fine device.

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