
What Linux Ultrabook do you suggest? - daddyfix
I am considering the Dell XPS 13&quot; DE or a Suped Up Lenovo IdeaPad 700 for my devel machine.<p>My must haves are...
250+ SDD
8 GB Ram
Intel i7<p>What do you suggest?
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mtmail
This discussion is 7 months old but has some useful comments
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11353245](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11353245)

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daddyfix
7 months is a long time in tech. Ubuntu 16.04 was't around then either. Im
Interested in some recent pro and cons

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peller
This is true[1], but especially for running Linux, I think this attitude might
be shooting yourself in the foot. What I mean by that is, hardware support on
Linux lags behind the closed source OS options by the very nature of Linux
being open source and the developers needing access to the hardware to make
anything work. Intel themselves try to get ahead of the curve, but even they
are not perfect and when it comes to the trickier aspects such as power
management, it often takes a few months of having the hardware in-the-wild to
get things really sorted. And that's not to mention the fact that distros
rarely run a bleeding edge kernel.

[1] Intel CPUs have not changed very much, instructions-per-clock wise, over
the past 3 or 4 generations. You're looking at 5-10% _at most_ for any single
generation. Their _GPUs_ have drastically improved, and the power efficiencies
have improved, but since you're running Linux... well sadly, we don't tend to
get the same benefits closed source peoples do in those two respects. As for
SSDs, buy something with a HDD and install the SSD yourself. It's cheaper, and
you'll get a far better SSD than you would when you let the OEM choose what to
install.

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daddyfix
Thank you. I haven't thought of looking at a HDD model and buying an SSD.

I am going to look into that right now.

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peller
Sure. The one area where this advice begins to break down, however, is with
M.2 PCIe SSDs. I personally don't keep up with laptops, so unfortunately I
can't offer any specific recommendations, but if you can find an otherwise
solid laptop with an M.2 slot that's the way to go. They're about 2-3x faster
than SATA-based SSDs. It's not the same order-of-magnitude jump in speed a SSD
offers over a HDD, so I wouldn't necessarily call it a make-or-break feature,
but it's something to keep in mind (for that, you'll definitely need the
latest-generation "Skylake" platform)

Also, to save yourself some time researching SSDs:
[http://www.anandtech.com/show/9799/best-
ssds](http://www.anandtech.com/show/9799/best-ssds)

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aprdm
I was doing the same search some time ago and the final contenders were:

Lenovo t460 (or t460p) Asus UX305A Dell XPS 13 Dev Edition

However I ended up not buying any of those.

I had bought a toshiba i3 with 8 gb of ram 2 years ago for £300 and I didn't
felt like any of those laptops would give an improvement worth the price.

Laptopts are a little bit stuck it seems. I sincerely tried to buy one but
just couldn't justify... I am running Ubuntu 16.04 perfectly, everything just
works.

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daddyfix
Yes. I too feel like they are over priced and stuck in place where the
manufactures don't know what sell or what price to sell them as. Im going to
search for Laptops with an HDD and see what I find. Im looking at Dell and
Lenovo right now. But I am leaning towards Dell cause of the problems with
Lenovo and SSDs and BOIS with RAID options.

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Solinoid
XPS 13.

That said, I haven't had much luck getting the usb-c dock working 100%
correctly with Ubuntu 16.04. Going from laptop to attached to a separate
monitor and peripherals works, but workstation to laptop more often than not
will leave me with the laptop still 'seeing' the external monitor and treating
the laptop monitor as the secondary display.

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shaynesweeney
Running Arch on a Dell XPS 9350. Not DE, because I dual boot for Windows
specific apps I use.

Overall, great laptop. I have the QHD+ screen which is awesome, but did
require a bit of fine tuning to get the DPI where I want it.

Any specific questions?

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siscia
There is this little company in the south of Italy that makes great computers:
www.santech.eu

Not sure how they handle warranties in US but the whole Europe should be
cover.

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zck
I don't know if it counts as an ultrabook, but I'm enjoying my System76
laptop. There are a few different models, depending on what size you want.

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daddyfix
which System 76 laptop do you own? I was considering getting one, but Im
concerned about the service since I live in Northern Ontario Canada

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zck
I have the 14" Lemur:
[https://system76.com/laptops/lemur](https://system76.com/laptops/lemur) .
What are you concerned about?

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daddyfix
Thank you all for your comments. I'M still undecided. It looks like a tie
between Dell and Lenovo. Hmmm. Ill wait till Black Friday

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eb0la
Before black Friday go to a store and touch the keyboards. If you can write
something that looks like real work(TM), do it.

You spend a lot of time using the keyboard and build some muscle memory about
how far apart the keys are and how much force you have to apply.

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jshupe
I got a xps 13 in 2012 and it is happy with 16.04 - my only reason to upgrade
would be for longer battery life, less fan noise.

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RustyRussell
I was delighted with my ASUS UX305UA for 5 months, now it's been in and out of
repair for 1 month :(

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beagle3
I've had such bad experience with Asus that 4 years ago I decided to never
ever purchase another one again. I guess things haven't changed

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iracic
Happy user of ux32vd here for 3-4 years. i7, upgraded ram to 10Gb. Disk is
slower than it could be, short batery life ~3h. All in all I would buy it
again.

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JoachimSchipper
FWIW, I really like my Thinkpad X1.

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mbreedlove
I've heard the Dell XPS is the best if you're looking to run Linux.

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daddyfix
Yeah. I have looked at this as an option. thanks

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wprapido
just about any lenovo thinkpad might work fine

