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A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

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Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#111

Post by WD-42 »

trelane wrote: post #106
m_st wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woah! Standby is working fine too? I'm a huge XPS15 advocate at work and really love these machines as a Windows developer. But the standby just doesn't work. If I close the lid and throw it in my bag, then the battery will be empty and the bag will be hot as hell. This is a huge failure and makes me shutdown my XPS15 every evening. Which is just nonsense. I'm a Mac user at home and just never shut these laptops down…

Standby doesn't work on Windows?

Standby on windows just appears to be a cue for the OS that the user isn’t actively using the machine so it should use the time to install updates and restart itself 5 times.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#112

Post by evilduck »

trelane wrote: post #106
m_st wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woah! Standby is working fine too? I'm a huge XPS15 advocate at work and really love these machines as a Windows developer. But the standby just doesn't work. If I close the lid and throw it in my bag, then the battery will be empty and the bag will be hot as hell. This is a huge failure and makes me shutdown my XPS15 every evening. Which is just nonsense. I'm a Mac user at home and just never shut these laptops down…

Standby doesn't work on Windows?

Almost never in my experience.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#113

Post by throwaway984393 »

m_st wrote: post #86
chrsw wrote: post #80

I run Ubuntu on a Dell XPS 13 without any issues as far as I can tell. I've done almost no tweaking. I just do periodic software and firmware updates. I close the lid, throw it my bag, open it hours later, or the next day and I'm right back to where I was. The experience as close to Mac-like as I've ever experienced outside of Apple. But I still do wish someone would make a Linux laptop that's as tightly integrated w…

Woah! Standby is working fine too? I'm a huge XPS15 advocate at work and really love these machines as a Windows developer. But the standby just doesn't work. If I close the lid and throw it in my bag, then the battery will be empty and the bag will be hot as hell. This is a huge failure and makes me shutdown my XPS15 every evening. Which is just nonsense. I'm a Mac user at home and just never shut these laptops down…

[dead]

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#114

Post by vbezhenar »

Raydovsky wrote: post #83
chrsw wrote: post #80

I run Ubuntu on a Dell XPS 13 without any issues as far as I can tell. I've done almost no tweaking. I just do periodic software and firmware updates. I close the lid, throw it my bag, open it hours later, or the next day and I'm right back to where I was. The experience as close to Mac-like as I've ever experienced outside of Apple. But I still do wish someone would make a Linux laptop that's as tightly integrated w…

That's because the XPS were built to run ubuntu. You can even buy one with it pre-installed.

I have Thinkpad which is supposedly built to run ubuntu as well and even certified for RHEL and Ubuntu. It doesn't work so good, though. It works, but there are rough edges around sleeping, external displays, power management.

I feel that it has nothing to do with manufacturer, though, just not good enough Linux support for laptops.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#115

Post by vbezhenar »

bdcravens wrote: post #93
chrsw wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu 20.04 was preinstalled on my machine. But I reinstalled when I moved to a larger SDD. I think I still used the OEM install image too.

I can't help but wonder if Dell tweaked the firmware. I know that I, and everyone I've seen discuss it, haven't been able to get a vanilla XPS (non-Developer edition, sold with Windows) with a typical off-the-shelf distro, including Ubuntu, to work 100%.

I bought Dell 3410 once which was shipped with Ubuntu. I closely inspected that Ubuntu, compared it with vanilla Ubuntu install. All I've found are branding packages (desktop pictures, etc) and one package which blacklisted some module. No secret drivers, no secret kernels.

Can't comment about XPS, but I feel that it'll be the same.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#118

Post by martzy13 »

chrsw wrote: post #80

I run Ubuntu on a Dell XPS 13 without any issues as far as I can tell. I've done almost no tweaking. I just do periodic software and firmware updates. I close the lid, throw it my bag, open it hours later, or the next day and I'm right back to where I was. The experience as close to Mac-like as I've ever experienced outside of Apple. But I still do wish someone would make a Linux laptop that's as tightly integrated w…

https://system76.com/laptops

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#119

Post by jasonjayr »

trelane wrote: post #106
m_st wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woah! Standby is working fine too? I'm a huge XPS15 advocate at work and really love these machines as a Windows developer. But the standby just doesn't work. If I close the lid and throw it in my bag, then the battery will be empty and the bag will be hot as hell. This is a huge failure and makes me shutdown my XPS15 every evening. Which is just nonsense. I'm a Mac user at home and just never shut these laptops down…

Standby doesn't work on Windows?

In the last few years; Microsoft started pushing this "Modern standby"[1] thing, which lets the CPU run while suspended or something. IIRC it is so a PC can run background services, wifi and what not, like tablets + cell phones.

It is causing so many issues, because the common use case for a laptop is to close the lid, and then stuff it into a padded bag. If anything starts up the laptop for whatever reason, all that heat is trapped in there, cooking the device. Some system BIOS are removing the option to even disable modern standby mode (vs traditional standby where just the memory was energized)

1: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/de...

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#120

Post by rqtwteye »

trelane wrote: post #110
iamacyborg wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly doesn’t appear to on my thinkpad

Ouch. Maybe 2025 will finally be the year of Windows on the desktop!

The year of windows on the desktop was around 2004. Since then Microsoft has diligently worked to make things worse.
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