Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Operating Systems Ubuntu Linux Technology

Dell Begins Pre-Installing Linux On Range of Precision Laptops (phoronix.com) 139

Posted by BeauHD from the keep-em-coming dept.
"While Linux-preloaded laptops have been available for years from smaller companies, and have represented a fraction of their own sales with the much-admired XPS 13 developer model, Dell now offers a range of Precision models pre-installed with Ubuntu Linux," writes Slashdot reader Freshly Exhumed. Phoronix reports: At the start of May Dell announced an Ubuntu Linux option for their entry-level ~$700 Precision laptop while now they are closing out May by offering up Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on their higher-tier Precision laptop models. Ubuntu Linux has landed for the rest of Dell's current generation Precision mobile workstation line-up with support for the Precision 5540, 7540, and 7740. The Precision 5540 offers options of Xeon E or 9th Gen Core CPUs with up to 64GB of RAM and options for a NVIDIA Quadro T2000. The Precision 7540/7740 meanwhile are more powerful mobile workstations with supporting up to 128GB of ECC RAM and latest generation processors. The Precision 7740 model can also accomodate NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 series graphics. Additional details can be found via this blog post by Dell's Barton George.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Dell Begins Pre-Installing Linux On Range of Precision Laptops More

Dell Begins Pre-Installing Linux On Range of Precision Laptops

Comments Filter:

  • So... (Score:1, Troll)

    by spcebar ( 2786203 )
    ...year of the Linux laptop?
      • Feb 1992 Linux runs fine (except for swapping) on a Dell 235D (25Mhz 386).
      • Mar 1992 Dell employees help vote for the creation of comp.os.linux
      • Aug 1992 Dell employees active on the Linux-Activists mailing lists.
      • Oct 1994 Dell employees help thier customers run Linux on Notebooks with a footnote that"In this isolated instance these are indeed the opinions of my employer"
      • Jun 1995 Dell tests Linux on Notebooks and notes to potential customers "OS/2 Warp is supported. Linux isn't officially supported but uno

  • Dell for Linux? Right. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30, 2019 @09:41PM (#58683322)

    Dell sold me a laptop that can't even reflash its own BIOS using the documented method for doing it using the BIOS itself. The BIOS also can't work correctly with grub (which isn't Linux, btw). It also doesn't work with Linux.

    Here's what their "tech support" had to say about it: pay us and we'll look into it, maybe, but we'll definitely take your money:

    We are sorry to know that you are disappointed with the machine and also with the support. I am afraid I like to bring it to your attention that this machine was shipped with Windows 10 Home 64 bit Operating system.
    The issue you reported is related to Linux. Please be informed that the warranty on this computer is applicable only to hardware with the operating system shipped with the computer. I understand that you do not run Windows on this computer but kindly be advised that the warranty is applicable only to Windows 10 OS. Hence, the issue you mentioned is considered as Out Of Warranty which can be helped by our Out Of Warranty Support Team which is a paid support.

    Apparently they think it's legal to warrant the OS, and not the hardware. Whatever. I don't have the resources to fight it.

    Dell has a long history of using parts that barely work on Windows. I don't trust Dell to make a Linux laptop, period.

    • Re:Dell for Linux? Right. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Brave Guy ( 457657 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @10:44PM (#58683544)

      For what little it's worth, their support is awful even if you actually did buy your laptop from them with Linux pre-installed.

      The XPS 13 Developer Edition we bought as an experiment was a disaster (on the level of "worst laptop we've ever owned") and the abysmal support has convinced us we can't trust Dell for any other professional equipment for a while either. We're continuing to investigate alternatives to Windows 10 in case Microsoft follows through with their current plan to EOL Windows 7 next year, but whatever the final answer is for our business, Dell won't be part of it any time soon.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Trogre ( 513942 )

        That's funny. The XPS13 non-Developer Edition we bought ran Linux better than Windows 10.

        • Their Ubuntu installation itself generated system error messages after every boot literally from the first update (immediately after turning the laptop on for the first time) onwards.

          The laptop itself had severe problems with battery performance, and lost system settings resulting in problems with Secure Boot and the like.

          The trackpad was so over-sensitive that you had to turn off certain gestures or they'd be triggered because your hand did... well, almost anything.

          The keys were so light and short-travel t

          • See, I had the opposite problem with Dell. I got a Precision running Ubuntu a couple of years ago, and Ubuntu always ran great. However, over time one of the hinges started to freeze up. It got harder and harder to open, and then the hinge popped out part of the plastic case, since it's logical to just rest moving metal parts which can apply a lot of torque on plastic I guess. That allowed the charging port to come lose, and that in turn caused a short which fried the motherboard.

            I expect my hardware to las

            • Ours didn't make it a year before the first failure, and then went wrong the same way again just weeks after it was finally fixed (which in turn was months after we first contacted Dell support, on a business machine with supposedly next-day service). It really was in is-this-a-joke territory.

      • For what little it's worth, their support is awful even if you actually did buy your laptop from them with Linux pre-installed.

        The XPS 13 Developer Edition we bought as an experiment was a disaster (on the level of "worst laptop we've ever owned") and the abysmal support has convinced us we can't trust Dell for any other professional equipment for a while either. We're continuing to investigate alternatives to Windows 10 in case Microsoft follows through with their current plan to EOL Windows 7 next year, but whatever the final answer is for our business, Dell won't be part of it any time soon.

        Really? I love my XP 13 DE that I got to replace my old MBP so I could leave that eco system. Well built, easy to work on yourself if needed (other than pulling the SSD to make a backup factory image before I started messing with it, I haven't need to work on it).

        Out of the box I had an issue with sleeping where when I closed the lid it wouldn't sleep, but would freeze up and get really hot with the fans screaming. Most annoying is that it was only sometimes when it would do it.

        My initial call was annoying

        • We never got to any dedicated Linux support.

          After multiple months (on a business laptop with supposedly next-day on-site service) they finally sent someone over. Seems like it had lost all the factory BIOS/UEFI level settings and reverted to some default setup were after not being used for a few days and having the battery go flat. The guy who came over was obviously outsourced and did know what he was doing, replacing various components and changing various settings back until it would boot again.

          But then

      • As a fellow owner of a XPS 13 dev edition (9370) I'm curious what made it a disaster for you? (actually writing this on it, has been my main machine for a year)

        • The main things are just the ones I mentioned in my comments to other replies -- basically, a few hardware features that didn't work very well, but mostly the catastrophic failure due to some sort of fundamental flaw with battery discharge and boot settings, combined with support more incompetent than any I have experienced in multiple decades of professional computing.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by piojo ( 995934 )

      Dell sold me a laptop that can't even reflash its own BIOS using the documented method for doing it using the BIOS itself. The BIOS also can't work correctly with grub (which isn't Linux, btw). It also doesn't work with Linux.

      Here's what their "tech support" had to say about it: pay us and we'll look into it, maybe, but we'll definitely take your money:

      It's useful to know nothing has changed. More than a decade ago, I bought a Dell computer that had a spare drive bay, but was missing some proprietary parts that would be needed to actually install a second drive. Their tech support told me I needed to purchase extra parts. As sold, the computer was unfit for its intended purpose. I cobbled something together from aluminum cans and tape which was able to hold the drive in place, but I never bought another Dell, nor suggested Dell to any company I've worked

    • So install windows 10 on it, update the firmware to a supported level and call support if needed. Then remove windows install your OS and use the damn thing. If updates are required in the future I've had no issues on any of my dells using fwupd to update the firmware. On ubuntu it is:

      sudo service fwupd start
      sudo fwupdmgr refresh
      sudo fwupdmgr update

      Wait until it boots back up into your DE.

    • Well, whether you trust them or not, I've been running various Linux distros on many different Dell Latitude/Precision laptops for many years and have not had ANY issues with incompatiblity. The last issues I recall were many years ago, with the Broadcom wifi that required sucking the firmware/driver from the Windows driver package. Everything now works right out of the box, and has for quite some time. Of course, your experience with Dell support is 100% on-the-money. If the serial number shows the system

    • Something sounds fishy here...

      The BIOS can't/won't flash from the BIOS itself but they refuse to fix it because you have installed Linux?

      If that situation is true, then you could install Windows 10 on it, fail to flash, and get warranty service. It is not like installing Linux changes the hardware or the BIOS. Changing the BIOS is what you want....

      This seems like FUD. An Anonymous Coward claims that running Linux has voided the warranty on their laptop... the best I can come up with out of this situation is

    • Firmware (Score:4, Interesting)

      by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @10:57AM (#58685698) Homepage

      Dell sold me a laptop that can't even reflash its own BIOS

      It's 2019, now. Unless you're into extremely old-vintage computers (that you then unwrap in front of a HD webcam on a youtube channel with "Retro" somewhere in its name) or recounting a couple-of-decades-old anectode, "firmware" is the word you're looking for.

      Most of the modern firmware are UEFI-based, lots of modern Windows 10 based laptops don't even have a BIOS/Legacy compatibility mode built in.

      using the documented method for doing it using the BIOS itself.

      You're definitely doing something wrong. Nearly all modern UEFI-based firmware are totally impossible to update in another way BUT from the firmware itself.

      By design UEFI firmware drops a bunch of privileges, among other the capability of accessing and flashing the firmware, before booting into the OS.
      By the time Windows is up, there's no write access to the flash.

      The "Windows"-based updater isn't an actual updater at all, it's mere a nice GUI that uploads the payload to the firmware and asks it politely to perform the update on the next boot.
      After a reboot, while the firmware is still running with flash write access, it loads the payload it receives performs a bunch of checks and signature verification and proceeds to do the flashing itselfs, before dropping the privilege again and booting into the OS.

      This whole process is called an "Update Capsule", and some recent Linux distros have started supporting it natively.
      You can also pick the update file from the firmware as long as:
      - the file is stored on a FAT32 partition on a USB-stick or on a disk (you could use the FAT32 EFI boot partition that's normally mounted in /boot/efi/)
      - the firmware is running in privileged more (The easiest is to cold boot, though some ultra portable tend to boot straight to the OS without going through the firmware boot menu. You'd need to select to boot into the firmware menu on next reboot from the OS' reboot menu).
      - you got the exact upgrade file corresponding to your machine tag.

      But the TL;DR is : even Windows upgrades the firmware from the firmware itself and not from the OS.

      The BIOS also can't work correctly with grub (which isn't Linux, btw).

      - again, you laptop very likely doesn't even have a BIOS/Legacy compatibility mode, you need the EFI version of grub. (or any other EFI boot loader. or sthraight the Linux kernel when the EFI support is compiled in).

      - if your laptop is configured to boot in "Secure mode", you can't boot straight into grub (nor straigh into the Linux kernel in EFI mode neither). You either need to install the encryption key that where used by your distribution to sign grub (see "MOK") or boot into a microsoft-signed "stub" that will then in turn chain to grub.

      - most UEFI firmware uses a boot table written in flash that list all the bootable EFI files inside the EFI boot partition and how to boot them.
      You'd need to register the Grub EFI as a bootable target.
      Either from the firmware own interface, or most modern Distro installers do it for you.

      as an example openSUSE's Tumbleweed is a distro that supports EFI executable, ships with a shim that passes signature checks and takes care of chaining into grub and does most of the tiny tweaking to getting you a bootable entry into the UFEI's boot table.

      - as a first test, try to boot a distro like "System Rescue CD" on an USB Stick, just to check that the normal EFI boot procedure works.

      - just to be sure, you bought a business-line model of laptop, right? Like a Lattitude one? Not one of the "some random chinese stuff quickly rebadged by slapping a dell-logo on it" like most "family-oriented" crap from most manufacturer ?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by saider ( 177166 )

      "Windows 10 Home"

      When you buy from Dell (or anyone really), always buy from their business side. The home user side of the business is trying to get the lowest price point, so you get hardware with poor open source support. The Home side of these businesses are targeting people who don't care about or understand computer architecture and design. "Home" computers almost always come with "el-cheapo" chipsets and/or Windows driver driven peripherals.

      I always buy the business grade stuff with an NVidia graphics

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The article forgot to mention that you have to download and explicitly install the malware. Unlike windows where all you have to do is view a web page.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Yes, it's in completely unrelated news. If you read the actual article it's an APT toolkit, designed to do custom attacks on individual targets. That kind of high end hacking tools for military/industrial espionage, sabotage, corporate blackmail, bank heists etc. would exist whether or not random peeps were using Linux or not. If most people used Linux you'd probably see bot nets and cryptolockers and whatnot targeting the general users, but that'd come on top of these threats.

  • I have a Precision Mobile 5510 that I bought about a year and a half ago that originally came with Windows on it (was an open box). They offered Ubuntu 16.04 as an option when bought new. I immediately wiped it and began using Ubuntu on it. I'm currently running 19.04 and hardware support (touchscreen, nvidia prime graphics, wireless, etc...) is flawless. Probably the only negative is the battery life. It is noticeably not as good as on Windows. I get firmware updates through apt from Dell, too.
  • Year of the Linux Desktop, indeed!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Not yet, I'll bet that the year after Huawei Linux comes out, it will be the year of Linux on the desktop, especially once the government of China make it compulsory because M$ is an American company and a national security risk in China and on yeah, Huawei Libre Office (well at least in China, no way they can resist sticking it back to the USA for the Huawei attack and killing the M$ golden goose, well, how could they resist that bit of revenge). I'd bet that over the years it will become harder and harder

  • Screw Dell (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31, 2019 @12:05AM (#58683764)

    Buy a System76 from a company that's growing and cares about Linux on the desktop, have your own private YotLD.

  • I bet this offer is for corporates who have thousands of Win licenses and don't want to buy plenty of new ones even if they cost 10 bucks. They buy such hardware, replace their old machines and put fresh clean Windows on them licensed by EA or VL.

  • The only reason Linux is so good is because no one knows about it. See on Slashdot today? Literally Dell pre-installs Linux followed immediately by a story about Linux malware. https://it.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]

    You forgot the unsaid 7th rule about fightclub, look scary so no one wants to join fightclub.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      LOL. Users running unknown scripts installing malware is an argument against Linux? I knew you were retarded, but I didn't realize you were that stupid. OF COURSE the computer will run a program when the user explicitly tells it to, that's what computers are for, you numbnut!

      If you can trick a user into running random crap, ANY system is vulnerable.

      • Same issue with modern Windows. You have to click on something to get malware. Sadly, most people are idiots.
    • Yup - Linux would be overrun by malware if only it were more widely used - which is why the worlds server have been overrun by malware for years. Oh, wait ... In fact Unix/Linux had some architectural advantages over original Windows that made it more secure - or rather not as insecure as Windows. A lot of that got actually fixed for Windows over time and a well administered Windows system is no longer sure to be infected within 20 minutes. Security has many aspects. It's partially about the user - if th
  • The few games that I play all require Windows, or I'd have stayed on linux years ago. Dual-booting is not fun.

  • This is great, but in my recent experience, Dell is completely unable to actually fulfil orders. And orders made through their website just vanish or get cancelled without any explanation or notification. And their sales folks can't answer any questions about when things will actually ship, or why the orders are vanishing.

    Except orders for monitors; their UltraSharp 27 U2718Q is lovely, and they do seem to handle those orders properly and within a reasonable amount of time.

    Also, the massive ThunderBolt dock

    • This is exactly the kind of thing I'm concerned about.

      We've also been bitten by the Dell supply issue, but that appears to be primarily because of Intel's inability to keep up with demand.

      But having spent a lot of time manually futzing around trying to get Linux to work on hardware, only to find a problem at the 11th hour that I would never have even considered to check for beforehand. It's extremely frustrating, especially when you make the discovery right when you're trying to do something critical.

  • I am happy that Dell is going into this direction, however with regard to Dell (not Linux dedicated though) I had some issues with a Bluetooth driver - kept reaching a state of close to 100%CPU usage - I hope that a dedicated Linux machine will not have any drivers issues.

    I've been using laptops with Linux for a while now, mostly Lenovo (former IBM - not associated with either), their hardware selection is the most friendly for Linux, however it's unlikely I'll continue with them after their latest "bonus [arstechnica.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q4Fry ( 1322209 )

      Despite all of the above the biggest problem is that there are no Linux laptops available with AMD unfortunately, and this would be my key selection criteria - I know, one can always install one, but it's nice to have peace of mind knowing that hardware is being Linux friendly out of the box.

      Seconded.

  • Well, it only took them more than 12 years to begin to take this seriously. Hrmph. "Pre-Installed Linux" suggestion from 2007 that garnered >150,000 upvotes before being buried then deleted. https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]

  • I'm 99% certain that Dell pre-installed Linux on machines over a decade ago. They even reduced the price (not as much as people thought it should be) because no Windows license was included now and then there was very minimal "support" after the sale was completed that people frowned upon.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hall ( 962 )

      Replying to myself, yeap.... Found a C|net article that refers to Dell installing Ubuntu on machines back in 2007 and that this was their 2nd attempt, with a previous one being in 1999.

  • This isn't news (Score:3)

    by sremick ( 91371 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @12:15PM (#58686164)

    Dell has been doing this for YEARS. How is this news?

    I can think back at least 16 years and being able to order Linux on various Optiplex and Precision models. Even if you didn't want to run RHEL or Ubuntu, you save almost $100 or so on the "Windows tax". Hell, some models even offered FreeDOS as an option.

    And those of you hating on Dell: stop buying the low-end shit lines (Inspiron, XPS, etc) that are meant to compete with the low-end race-to-the-bottom shit computers from other manufacturers. Buy Optiplex, Latitude (NOT the 3000-series, though) or Precision. They have a solid, quality build and hardware/materials, are easy to service and upgrade, run Linux GREAT, and the tech support is an entirely different division so support is better.

    I order a few Precisions from Dell with Linux every year, and have for ages.

  • It's one thing to throw Linux on a piece of hardware. It's another thing for said version of linux to run *well* on that hardware without unexpected hiccups.

    Do all the hotkeys work? Does HDMI work? Does audio through said HDMI work? etc etc.

    I learned the hard way that Linux sucks bollocks on Gigabyte laptops. The closest I was able to get to a fully functioning laptop was to use PopOS, but even then there were all sorts of annoying roadblocks that I had no idea *could* be a problem (like audio working

Slashdot Top Deals

Say "twenty-three-skiddoo" to logout.

Close