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Linux Business Portables Ubuntu Linux Hardware

Dell Continues Shipping Fresh Linux Laptops 123

Posted by Soulskill from the permanent-penguin dept.
jones_supa writes: In its latest move, Dell will be bringing Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to its top-of-the-line Precision M3800 workstation laptop and the latest model of the Dell XPS 13. Both systems will be running Ubuntu 14.04.1. According to Barton George, Dell's Director of Developer Programs, programmers had been asking for a better, officially-supported Ubuntu developer laptop. This came about from a combination of the efforts of Dell software engineer Jared Dominguez and enthusiastic feedback. Specs of M3800: 15.6" LCD @ 3840x2160, Intel i7 quad core CPU, NVIDIA Quadro GPU, up to 16 GB RAM. The bad news is, as Dominguez explained on his blog, this version of the M3800 doesn't support its built-in Thunderbolt 2 port out of the box. However, thanks to the hardware-enablement stack in Ubuntu, starting with upcoming Ubuntu 14.04.2, you will be able to upgrade your kernel to add some Thunderbolt support.
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Dell Continues Shipping Fresh Linux Laptops More

Dell Continues Shipping Fresh Linux Laptops

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  • XPS 13 works great (Score:5, Informative)

    by rfengr ( 910026 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @03:57PM (#48948091)
    I have a 2014 model of the XPS 13 and it runs Fedora seamlessly, including hibernation, camera, and touch screen. Yet it was still cheaper to buy an windows 8 version of the XPS 13 from microcenter and wipe it, rather than the preloaded developer edition from Dell.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Teun ( 17872 )
        I'm no expert on the subject but from experience I'd imagine using hardware that complies with standards should prevent most of these issues?

        At least it works for my Lenovo's with nVidia.

      • Why don't they do PC-BSD instead of Linux instead, in that case? With the BSDs, you don't have them disrupting past software models, so here, all Dell would need to do would be to hire developers to write drivers for things like WiFi ONCE, and they'd not have to bother about it again, but can support newer models and peripherals. With Ubuntu, there is not just the usual Linux issue, but also the issue of Unity. For PC-BSD, they have a wide range of UIs to choose from -

        Awesome

        Cinnamon

        Fluxbox

        FVWM

        GNOM

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • So that's what I was saying. Dell used to have a small group of devs who wrote Linux drivers. They could do the same here for PCBSD/FreeBSD. Difference from the earlier situation - maybe unbeknownst to them - is that unlike Linux, where the drivers broke w/ the next iteration of the OS, in the BSD case, it won't, for the reasons you mentioned. In short, Dell would only have to write those drivers ONCE, and that's it. Also, PCBSD is not 64-bit only, so they won't have to bother about 32 vs 64 bit suppor

            • Why would I want to run PCBSD? With Ubuntu or Fedora, I can easily download lots of software with the package manager. There's lots of people running Linux on the desktop (1% of the total market qualifies as "lots"), so there will be lots of community support. I've had Linux immediately recognize printers I had to do fiddling to get Windows to acknowledge. What do the BSDs have to compare with that? (This is a legitimate question.) What would the advantages be?

              Currently iff I want BSD on the deskto

            • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • ...wouldn't bother me that a kernel doesn't support it.

    So that's not a dealbreaker for me.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Billly Gates ( 198444 )

      USB vs Thunderbolt = VHS vs Betamax. VHS more widespread due to it being cheaper yet betamax won in video production by being superior. Same with Thunderbolt.

      Thunderbolt is Sony/Apple competitior to the original USB. It is higher performing with I/O bound to the host vs in the peripherals of the original USB design. It was more expensive so USB won but due to its superior bandwidth and processing it is used for ilink/thunderbolt video cameras, vga dongles, and ethernet.

      Thunderbolt comes with MS Surface and

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hitmark ( 640295 )

        Could have sworn that the betacam format used in video production has very little in common with the betamax format sold to the public.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You just compared USB and Firewire, not thunderbolt.

      • USB vs Thunderbolt = VHS vs Betamax.

        You can run multiple USB connections over a single Thunderbolt, so it makes USB work better, rather than replacing it. You can also use Thunderbolt to daisychain multiple monitors, disk drives, network connections, etc. It has a bandwidth of 20Gbps. It is the standard connector on Apple computers, and is becoming more widely adopted by other vendors.

      • Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is (Score:5, Informative)

        by aitikin ( 909209 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @05:19PM (#48948453)

        Thunderbolt is Sony/Apple competitior to the original USB. It is higher performing with I/O bound to the host vs in the peripherals of the original USB design. It was more expensive so USB won but due to its superior bandwidth and processing it is used for ilink/thunderbolt video cameras, vga dongles, and ethernet.

        You sound like you're describing Firewire [wikipedia.org] (developed by Apple, Sony, and a number of others), not Thunberbolt [wikipedia.org] (developed primarily by Intel).

        Thunderbolt comes with MS Surface and any Apple product to connect vga, ethernet, dvd, HDMI, video cameras, and other dongles. Mac users use them too. USB 2?? Well it can't handle these well or at all.

        This paragraph confuses me, what are you talking about when you say USB can handle these well or at all? Dongles are almost always used on the USB port.

        An easier explanation is that Thunderbolt is a functional, external PCIe bandwidth connection. I see it far more often in Pro Audio and Pro Video than any other purpose as its high bandwidth allows better access. It's still a young tech (2011) as opposed to USB (1996) and Firewire (1994), so there's plenty of things that still can come from it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by xeoron ( 639412 )
        Thunderbolt [wikipedia.org] was developed by Intel & Apple and was formerly known as Light Peak. Not Sony. It can offer up to 10Gbits per channel, which USB 3 can't even do.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mirix ( 1649853 )

          Though it requires active cables, which cost quite a bit more. So it might have a place for bleeding edge stuff, but not so much for economy.

      • Re:not knowing what Thunderbolt is (Score:5, Informative)

        by unixisc ( 2429386 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @06:57PM (#48948835)
        Uh, Thunderbolt is connected to the North bridge, while USB is to the South bridge. Hardly VHS vs Betamax: both interfaces were defined and developed by Intel.

        Thunderbolt combines PCI Express (PCIe) and DisplayPort (DP) into one serial signal alongside a DC connection for electric power, transmitted over one cable. Up to six peripherals may be supported by one connector through various topologies. [wikipedia.org]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MSG ( 12810 )

        Thunderbolt comes with MS Surface

        No.... it doesn't. Not as far as I can tell. None of the spec sheets I can find list Thunderbolt. Your coworker's Ethernet adapter is almost certainly USB.

      • Thunderbolt is basically an incompatible security risk

  • Linux actually a radio button option for a change (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rklrkl ( 554527 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @04:18PM (#48948209) Homepage

    It's nice to see that Dell have put Linux as an OS option right next to WIndows (and $101 cheaper than Windows too). A bit strange for them to ship a Linux release that initially has no Thunderbolt support, though I suspect not many people use Thunderbolt-only hardware outside of the Apple ecosystem.

    Defaults to an HDD in the config options which is also weird, especially since it appears to have 2 drive bays, so surely you'd want an SSD in there in one of the bays?

    The higher res screen is only a $70 bump, so it would appear to be a no-brainer to pick that option. If the final price wasn't so eye-wateringly high (and me being in the UK probably means it'll either not appear on the UK dell site or be a dollar to pound conversion), it would be an attractive high-end Linux laptop.

    • and me being in the UK probably means it'll either not appear on the UK dell site or be a dollar to pound conversion

      Currently 1 GBP is worth about 1.50 USD. Sales tax is much higher in the UK and other EU countries than in the US, and included in the sticker price in the UK and other EU countries unlike in the US. This accounts for about 0.30 USD of the difference. The other 0.20 USD, if any, is probably shipping from North America and the increased warranty requirements of the EU.

  • I suspect a new custom restriction to send Linux computer on the goodguy side of the border that only apply to Dell computer. In the mean time I spend nice time on a 2013 ASUS G75VX (i7 16gb BR-Burner) with Linux Mint and a functionnal Thunderbolt port

  • Why Thunderbolt? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Groo Wanderer ( 180806 ) <{charlie} {at} {semiaccurate.com}> on Saturday January 31, 2015 @04:57PM (#48948361) Homepage

    Why would you want Thunderbolt again? It is a badly broken (IE doesn't actually do what is promised like channel bonding and a few other things that are sort of fixed in VERY recent silicon), costs far too much, forces the use of painfully expensive active cables, and only passes PCIe or video. This last bit is problematic because if you want any functionality on the other end of the cable, you need to add full controllers there too, think expensive and wasteful of power. In essence you are hot-plugging controllers with the cable, and while it works in theory....

    TB is a badly broken spec from day one, it was meant as a control point for Intel to force the use of it's silicon in phones.mobile by replacing USB with something only it could provide. Needless to say the market saw through this and didn't adopt it in droves, sans the few that drank from the Intel money hose. The second the hose was shut off, so was the design wins.

    The main reason that USB3 had such a slow start was because Intel was desperate to kill it to promote TB. Since Intel had control over the USB3 cert process, things went might slow for technical minutia that would easily pass by previous spec certs. Coincidence? Nope.

    TB is a bad idea on technical, cost, lock-in, and many many other reasons, not working correctly ever being a key one there. Delivered silicon is a joke, there is and always will be one supplier, and progress is glacial. USB3.1 on the other hand beats it like a drum in every regard other than single channel throughput.

    Why do I want to pay for this in my next laptop again?

                      -Charlie

    • thunderbolt docking station working very nicely for me, don't know what you're whining about

    • Re:Why Thunderbolt? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @05:04PM (#48948375) Journal

      Because slim laptops may not have DVD, HDMI/VGA output, and some tablets like the MS Surface do not have ethernet either. Only Thunderbolt can do this. USB 3.1 may change this but it is not finished.

      They are essential for plugging into projects for presentations, linking up video cameras (this laptop is a workstation grade one so it has this use), ethernet (I didn't see if this is netbook with an ethernet or not), and can do HDMI as well for hi resolution presentations which again it has a QUADRO so engineers and video editors are the target besides software developers.

      My coworker with a MS surface 2 is our network guru for the site. He plugs in his thunderbolt ethernet controller to wireshark and use a Cisco program for port scanning instead of a bulky laptop with limited battery life. I want to buy one as a result and without thunderbolt it is a toy.

      You complain about specs and costs. I mention it has benefits besides its quirks for consumers and non engineers. Yes it is pricier but it does more and this is a high end developer or engineer workstation grade laptop.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        > Because slim laptops may not have DVD, HDMI/VGA output,

        Simple. Buy LESS LAME hardware.

        The only thing Thunderbolt does that USB does not is passthrough of the display port connection that your lame laptop probably already has (or should have).

        USB is already a bus and has already handled things like ethernet for quite some time now.

    • and only passes PCIe or video.

      Oh noes, it only passes video or a really fast bus that can be bridged to PCI with a cheap chip, how useless

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

      Thunderbolt requires controllers at both ends of the cable anyway, what's your issue again?

  • Finally! (Score:5, Funny)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @05:18PM (#48948447) Journal
    So this is the year of Linux laptop!
    • I never wanted the linux laptop. The linux desktop was fine the way it was, until Lennart and the merry band of free desktop people turned it into an unusable piece of shit for idiots who don't know the dirrerence between an icon that says "Internet" and the internet itself. Pardon my french.
  • Is there any price difference compared to the same hw with Windows?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by snsh ( 968808 )

      Dell previously sold computers preinstalled with Linux at higher prices than identical hardware preinstalled with Windows. Their continuous parade of sales and promo codes only applied to Windows configurations, making Linux usually more expensive.

  • ...but I'd still go with System76.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kervin ( 64171 )

      System76 build quality is nothing compared to Dell, sorry. I just bought a Dell XPS to replace my System76 top of the line Gazelle. The S76 lasted 13 months then died. I've never had a Dell die on me, ever.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Sin2x ( 1189089 )
        Well, the sampling size is rather small to draw any conclusions. It's always prudent to buy at least one year of extended warranty with modern cult of planned obsolescence in any case, wouldn't you agree?.

  • The Win 10 subscription model (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday January 31, 2015 @05:43PM (#48948545)
    might be boon for Linux. Then again I sucked it down for product activation. Linux still isn't much use for gaming. And it's still a nightmare to write and deploy closed source software on Linux...

    • There is all this talk but so far no subscription. MS even said free updates for the life of the product. This hints 10 might be the final OS of Windows like MacOSX is the final for Apple with just updated .1 releases added over time.

      Rumor at arstechnica and neowin show MS will play with it perhaps for business editions who need AD access and services like Azure and OneDrive pro edition. Home users will get it free as the app store will generate the revenue to pay for it and will update itself to all operat

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by jedidiah ( 1196 )

      > And it's still a nightmare to write and deploy closed source software on Linux...

      Strange then that Oracle has been doing it for so well for so long. It kind of makes you wonder what sort of extra special trade secrets they must be employing to make this happen.

  • I just bought a XPS 15 with windows 2 weeks ago for Ubuntu because the XPS 13 was too underpowered for my needs. Why can't they offer Linux on the Quad-core/SSD/16GB systems?

  • kernel updates (Score:3)

    by l3v1 ( 787564 ) on Sunday February 01, 2015 @05:34AM (#48950653)
    "hardware-enablement stack in Ubuntu, starting with upcoming Ubuntu 14.04.2, you will be able to upgrade your kernel"

    Well, thank the gods, where would we be without hardware enablement, oh man.
  • It's been interesting over the years to watch Dell battle with Microsoft to get out laptops with Linux, take them away, put them back, over and over again. When Microsoft releases new versions of Windows, the Linux offerings mysteriously disappear from Dell's site. In either case, getting a machine from Dell is easy to wipe Windows off of it, and put Linux on, so no concerns with that anyway. I recently wiped Windows 8 off of a Dell Inspiron 660, disabled UEFI Secure Boot, and put CentOS 6.6 on it with e

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