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

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

#121

Post by H1Supreme »

I'll throw my experience with Linux on Dell's in the ring. I have a 13" Dell Inspiron 7000 (i7 8GB ram). I've had it for 4 years or so. In terms of drivers and overall compatibility with Linux, it's been perfect. I install Xubuntu (have also used Mate), it downloads whatever it needs, and everything works. I can't recall a single instance of something crashing, or WIFI problems, or whatever.

There are two downsides. One, battery life sucks. Relative to a Macbook, it's very bad. But, this isn't a surprise to most people. Second, the touchpad driver is shit. Oh man, does it suck. Palm rejection doesn't work, and I had to enable a setting which disables the trackpad for a few seconds after a key press. Otherwise, it's unusable. That part, is irritating.

Those downsides don't really matter to me, because I'm plugged in and docked the majority of the time. I've considered looking into the touchpad issue more, but it's just not worth my effort atm. Otherwise, it's a great machine!

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

#122

Post by brightball »

hughrr wrote: post #46

No. I have a 5550 which is I assume what the author is referring to. It’s garbage. Overheats constantly, the touchpad is dire, the screen has bad vignette around the edges, it’s noisy, the thing hard freezes when you plug it into a dock, the webcam only works 50% of the time you power it up and if you pick it up by the base it flexes so badly the touchpad clicks. The keyboard is also soggy as hell and the battery las…

For what it's worth, I bought a Precision 7200 Developer Edition and it's been great. I came from using Mac's for 10 years before the switch.

I can't speak for the 5500 and I haven't used it with a dock at all, but then I've never used docks in general. At this point I think a USB-C plugged into a monitor with several ports would be close enough.

A lot of it just has to do with you making a choice that you're happy with. I loved using Macs for a decade and I know plenty of people who HATE them because they have to use them at work and they simply didn't have a choice. Because they didn't have a choice, they focus on the things they don't like.

When I picked my Dell I looked a lot of options and eventually came down to Dell or System76. Ended up going with Dell mostly because of past good experiences with their support and that made me more comfortable. It took a little getting used to and there were things I had to figure out along the way but it was my choice so I saw it through.

My next laptop will probably be a System76 or a Framework, but this beast from Dell is doing great right now. It's a portable desktop for me.

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

#123

Post by jiffygist »

I have latitude 5500 (idk if it's different laptop). I am generally happy with it, except for a few minor issues:

- It came with a broken charger, the service replaced it.

- Sometimes when I plug in the charger when the lid is closed, it doesn't start charging (the front light turns on and off after a second), so I have to open the lid and re-plug the charger. Only happens on Linux.

- My touchpad is recognized as "PS/2 Generic Mouse" by libinput, so I can't have touchpad scrolling.

- It only has UEFI boot.

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

#125

Post by shawnb576 »

sly010 wrote: post #118
hughrr wrote: post #46

No. I have a 5550 which is I assume what the author is referring to. It’s garbage. Overheats constantly, the touchpad is dire, the screen has bad vignette around the edges, it’s noisy, the thing hard freezes when you plug it into a dock, the webcam only works 50% of the time you power it up and if you pick it up by the base it flexes so badly the touchpad clicks. The keyboard is also soggy as hell and the battery las…

> If you pick it up by the base it flexes so badly the touchpad clicks. The XPS15 does the same. What's your USB vendor id / device id? I am working on a libinput patch that mitigates that [0]. [0] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput/-/merge_req...

Same. I bought an XPS 15 last year and the thing didn't work that well with _windows_, let alone linux. All the same thigns, the touchpad clicked (I even had them come try to repair), it got so hot I couldn't put it in my lap, and even with light usage, battery life was well less than 4h. Just garbage. It's too bad, the screen is lovely and I actually liked the keyboard, but I saw that I had a made a mistake and sold it while I could. Never again.

In comparison, I have a 2018 era XPS 13 9370 and it runs Linux pretty well. I think Dell is trying hard to come up with nice hardware but they don't have the chops to make it all come together including heat management, assembly, power usage, etc.

I'm sticking with my XPS 13 and interested to see what a MS Surface Laptop 5 looks like when they come out later this year.

I think Dell

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

#126

Post by davidatbu »

BeefWellington wrote: post #43

I really think articles like this can help drive Lenovo to go back to their old superior keyboards. However, apart from the missing [2019], should there not also be a [Sponsored] tag? The author's review can't reliably be seen to be unbiased (emphasis mine below). I just spent the better part of this past year year struggling with the Thinkpad P1, Lenovo's latest effort to compete with Dell's XPS 15 and Precision 550…

FYI, Wes McKinney is the guy behind Pandas, the Python data analysis package. Just in case that changes your perception of the author's bias.

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

#127

Post by dasloop »

Underphil wrote: post #101
hughrr wrote: post #46

No. I have a 5550 which is I assume what the author is referring to. It’s garbage. Overheats constantly, the touchpad is dire, the screen has bad vignette around the edges, it’s noisy, the thing hard freezes when you plug it into a dock, the webcam only works 50% of the time you power it up and if you pick it up by the base it flexes so badly the touchpad clicks. The keyboard is also soggy as hell and the battery las…

I have a Precision 7510 running Linux and don't have any of these issues so I wonder how different those two series actually are.

We used to buy Precision 5500 series laptops (latest model: 5560), but they have issues with thermal management. Over time, the battery expands due to temperature to the point of moving the trackpad up. Now we are giving Dell a new chance using the 7500 series (now 7760).

The 5560 is between 7.7mm (0.30") (front) and 11.64mm (0.56") (rear) thick. The thickness of the 7560 is between 25 mm (0.98") and 27.36 mm (1.08"). The increased thickness should solve (or help solve) the overheating.

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

#128

Post by davidatbu »

vbezhenar wrote: post #41
Shadonototra wrote: post #29

i 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.

Now using a Macbook Pro with the M1 Pro chip with 16gigs of RAM for fullstack development. Best laptop I've ever used (that coming from a linux aficionado). Battery life is about 10 hours with Chrome, qutebrowser, Slack, Apple Music, Ruby and node processes for coding, and Neovim. Laptop basically never stutters or freezes. Screen, keyboard, speaker, mic, camera are all on-point.

My only complaint is that the window manager I use (Yabai) is acting buggy, and I miss i3wm.

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

#129

Post by cjaro »

pthread_t wrote: post #72
stingraycharles wrote: post #5

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

When it's time for me to upgrade I'll go with one of the framework machines. [0] It's fully customizable, with room for future upgrades. I've been looking into a Dell machine for a while, but they just seem to have too many issues. For what it's worth, I'm currently using an m1 macbook, and the battery life is absolutely incredible. [0] https://frame.work/

I have an M1 mac for work and I am seriously impressed with the battery life. I prefer my asus laptop that I loaded ubuntu on for my daily driver (gaming, coding, fun), but man, I can leave my work machine unplugged all day while running the work VPN, firefox & chrome, remote desktop, vscode, slack and mattermost, and finish out the day with above 70% battery. I wasn't planning to like this laptop but I do.

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

#130

Post by dasloop »

deepsquirrelnet wrote: post #124

Is it an unpopular opinion to hate working on any laptop?

Unless you have an external display, keyboard, and mouse. I have my laptop always connected to a screen (34'') unless I need mobility (a meeting room, a plane). A desktop cannot be turned into a mobile solution ;)
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