
A first look at Dell's 'Sputnik' Ubuntu Linux developer laptop - tanglesome
http://www.zdnet.com/a-first-look-at-dells-sputnik-ubuntu-linux-developer-laptop-7000001166/
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sequoia
"Developer profiles"? What does that mean? It will install node && jshint &&
vim for me or what?

What I want out of a linux ready laptop from Dell (or anyone):

1\. Make the hardware and OS play nice. 2\. Nothing

I can do the rest just please make the display, media keys, battery, drives,
etc. work flawlessly. Profiles & all that stuff are no selling point at all.

~~~
tedmiston
Hopefully developer profiles will come to mean something like a developer
version of Ninite to configure and install common apps, frameworks, and
libraries in literally just a few clicks. This is often a long, painful
process that is all too familar, and should be totally automated.

~~~
w1ntermute
On Linux it's a matter of writing a one-line shell script to automate that
process. I wrote such a script to reinstall packages after doing a clean
install of Ubuntu, and it was entirely painless.

~~~
ninetax
That's pretty useful, do you think I could get a copy of that"?

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makmanalp
> "The Sputnik will allow developers to create “microclouds” on their laptops,
> simulating a proper, at-scale environment, and then deploy that environment
> seamlessly to the cloud. George explained it would use LXC virtual
> environments containers for the microclouds. These cloud applications can
> then be deployed to Ubuntu instances running on the Amazon, OpenStack, bare-
> metal with Management as a Service (MAAS), and, eventually, Microsoft Azure
> clouds. "

Jesus. Can I just have a laptop, please?

I don't think they understand that their target market is going to wipe
whatever they put on there and reinstall their own. Or at least reconfigure
the crap out of it. It's like our house, you can't just dump whatever you like
into _our_ environment.

~~~
davidbrent
Or maybe their target market is in an environment where developers don't get
to just wipe their machines, and rather have to work on the same image as
everyone else.

~~~
omh
But for a corporate environment the image comes from the IT department, not
from Dell.

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ori_b
Just get me a laptop with better battery life and a higher resolution screen.
Give it a better keyboard (none of that chicklet crap). Make it play well with
open source drivers. And that's it.

I don't want extra software. I don't want profiles. I just want something that
works out of the box with any recent Linux I throw at it.

~~~
dman
Thats approximately the exact feedback I gave when I signed up for the Project
Sputnik beta - better keyboard, working suspend resume, rock solid wifi
drivers, use slower processors if that means better battery life and improved
thermals and a great screen resolution ( >= 1600x1200 ). Do that and get out
of the way, dont try to add lock in on top of that.

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lumberjack
By "developer" they really mean "newbie to-be developer". Otherwise I don't
understand what's with all the emphasis on software rather than hardware, as
if an experienced developer wouldn't already have a preferred developing
enviroment and wouldn't already know how to set it up.

And the price tag is outrageous even from the perspective of a to-be developer
that values having everything setup before hand.

~~~
Roboprog
Right on about the price. I recently picked up a MacBook, for a good deal less
than $1500, and while it doesn't have an SSD drive, the rest of the specs beat
out the Dell.

Of course, now I'm just sitting on the couch with my little Acer netbook
running Ubuntu. Getting a newer, slightly larger keyboard netbook would have
put me in driver hell, thus, the Mac.

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mootothemax
I presume that Dell are aiming to make a killing from less-informed buyers
such as bosses at small companies (I have no idea how this might work at large
companies), and parents for their kids interested in programming. Given how
many people buy Dell, the "developer" tag will carry a lot of weight.

I certainly can't see any developer going out of their way to buy this for
themselves. My HP ProBook was cheaper, and came with a whole lot more
(including SSD and 1600x900 resolution). The only improvement I'd like is a
sturdier body, so will probably go for an Elitebook or Lenovo Thinkpad next
time.

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stuff4ben
Personally I'd like 8GB RAM as a standard with the option to upgrade to 16GB.
A slightly higher resolution screen would be nice too, although in that form
factor it may not be possible (or cheap). It may be enough to convince me to
not buy a Macbook Pro the next go around.

~~~
fjellfras
The screen resolution is an issue for me as well. I think they should have
been able to fit in 1440x900 in a 13.3 inch size, similar to what the larger
macbook airs ship with, which makes working on two editor or IDE panes side by
side somewhat possible.

~~~
sigkill
Good point. Asus manages to fit a 1920x1080 screen in the same size.

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jiggy2011
1366x768? My old P4 laptop had 1400x1050 (or something very close)

At least 8GB RAM , 15" 1600x1200 screen , a proper mechanical keyboard and a
blank SSD. Now that would be a developer laptop.

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sharms
As someone who loves Ubuntu, this would be a great laptop except for the
resolution. Screens matter, especially for developers who will be using it day
in day out. In my experience 1366x768 has been a rough resolution to work at,
and the panels themselves are not very high quality. In comparison to the
Thinkpad and Macbook lines, it is a hard sell.

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codex
This illustrates a key problem selling Linux. Linux hardware = commodity.
Linux software = commodity. commodity + commodity = commodity.

There's no differentiator here, for anyone. You might as well put a pinstripe
on it, or tint the windows, or put on a Type-R muffler: in the end it's still
a Honda Accord.

The best you can do is make sure that Linux runs well on your hardware, but as
the hardware is a commodity, that's not much of a differentiator. And for
sleep/wake issues you may not have the skills to make Linux work well on a
laptop, because nobody does.

This problem also exists with Android, but in the mobile space handset makers
are having some success differentiating on hardware and adding custom UI.

IBM makes a good chunk of change on Linux, but their model (admitting their
solution isn't turn-key and charging a bunch of money on customization)
doesn't work for laptops. And, of course, it offers no incentive to actually
create turn-key software.

~~~
ori_b
> _This illustrates a key problem selling Linux. Linux hardware = commodity.
> Linux software = commodity. commodity + commodity = commodity._

Sure, I don't disagree. I just don't see how the situation is different from
Windows. Selling Wintel boxes is a low margin business, and it seems that
selling Lintel boxes will be in the same boat.

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bsphil
>i7 2GHz Intel Core2 Duo processor

A what?

~~~
bicknergseng
I did a double take, too. No the real question is who made the mistake... just
the editor, or did it propagate all the way down from some hapless Dell
spokesperson?

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well-duh
Agree with several other commenters. My priorities, most important first, are:

0\. Everything must work with a free OS without requiring binary blobs.

1\. A good full-sized keyboard with a sane layout, preferably mechanical with
blue Cherry switches (hey, a guy can dream) even if this adds a few
millimeters and a few ounces. If this is impossible, the bare minimum is the
equivalent to last year's Thinkpad keyboard. I was all set to buy a Thinkpad
this year, but they lost me when they dropped the traditional keyboard. I
tried their new chicklet keyboard in a store and... well, it's a chicklet
keyboard.

2\. 15 inches Macbook-like quality screen with at least 1920x1200 resolution.

3\. Fast SSD and at least 8GB ram, expandable of course.

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justauser
Regarding the use of LXC, I presume since it is a container you're still on
the same version/release as the host which in this case is Ubuntu 12.04? So
this is the new open-source lock in?

When is someone going to create a tiny gui-less linux distro meant for
purposes like this (local and uploaded to your hosting provider) which can
then run in KVM and company? And by tiny, I don't mean Debian minimal or an
equivalent Fedora. I mean a default size of probably 50MB and not much more
for your choice of localization/i18n. Then simple package management to
install your language platform and database support.

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kevinherron
I've been following this and giving feedback on the IdeaStorm site for a while
now.

A lot of people have the same feedback: Upgrade to ivy bridge, give it 8gb
ram, give it a 1600x900 screen.

Until then it's too sub-par to consider my dev machine.

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edwinnathaniel
I used a Dell Latitude e6510 laptop before with 8GB RAM, standard HDD (no
SSD), Intel Core 5. I was running GlassFish 3.x, WebSphere Portal Server
(don't ask), DB2, Eclipse 3.4 with plugins, Chrome with multiple tabs, and a
VirtualBox running Windows 7 (don't ask). Pretty damn fast.

Given a reasonable price and a better battery support, and a wee bit lighter
design with barebone Ubuntu + additional drivers, I'd definitely buy that
machine to replace my MBP.

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durpleDrank
Does this mean that there will be an open wifi driver coming out of this ?
Will I be able to install gNewSense or trizeal on this?

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pnathan
Hmmm.

What I, in particular, would pay for, is for Dell to have a repository of
reliable & tested drivers that they maintain for that particular hardware
setup. That way I could simply install a (relatively) standard distro (gentoo,
debian, red hat, arch, etc), and have a very high confidence that the drivers
worked seamlessly.

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typicalrunt
It's a laptop targeted at developers and they give a measly 4GB of RAM? I hope
it's upgradeable. I like to run VMs and other developer-ish applications, some
of which use up a lot of RAM.

But on the top of my priority list is a good battery. Drop in an 8-10 hour
battery and I'm ready to buy.

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mindcrime
As long as it will run Fedora, I might be tempted to buy one. And if the
hardware is "linux compatible" enough for Ubuntu, I'm guessing Fedora will run
just fine on it as well. I hope so anyway...

~~~
chimeracoder
I'd imagine so - there's very little incompatibility of this sort between
different Linux distros, and when it happens, it's almost always because of
bad developing practices (ie, system-dependent compilation of a closed-source
binary... statically compiled binaries are binary-compatible, and if it's open
source it can be patched).

The only thing that could be a problem are the drivers, but if those are open
source, you bet there'll be a patched package for any mainstream distro, and
even closed-source drivers on Linux these days are very good. I can't remember
the last time I ran into driver problems. What's more likely is fundamental
limitations of the hardware itself, rather than the drivers, but that won't be
a problem here.

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chimeracoder
Have they announced when this will be available for purchase? I was
considering getting an XPS 13 Ultrabook now, but it sounds like it won't be a
long wait for the Sputnik?

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brunoqc
Anyone knows if Dell is done selecting people for the Sputnick program? I'm
waiting to buy a new laptop and I would hate to be selected a couple of days
after I order one.

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peterwwillis
Holy shit. They replaced a journalist with a buzzword machine.

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mey
Was talking to a dell rep the other day at OSCON, (they gave away 3), they are
looking to get the vendor specific drivers upstream but don't have a timeline
for it.

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stupidhurts
give me a t42 with a 2nd gen i7 then stfu.

why is this so hard?

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nicholassmith
That screen resolution spoils it. Devs like designers appreciate the
additional pixels.

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DannoHung
What the hell is a "microcloud"?

~~~
gosub
apt-get install virtualbox?

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skadamat
Hahahah what a joke. 1,500 for a laptop like this

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accountswu
This 1366 x 768 is worse than what Lenovo offered more than four years ago.

In 2008 Lenovo came out with X300, a 13" 3lb laptop with DVD drive built-in
and 1400 x 900 resolution. It was priced about the same as a 13" Macbook Air,
it had lesser battery time than MB Air, slightly more weight, but it had
optical drive in that weight, replaceable battery and it came with plenty of
ports (USB, VGA, LAN).

Too bad they don't make any 13" ones any more (X1 doesn't count, it is not a
true Thinkpad). They replaced it with the 14" 4lb T400s (1400 x 900), then
T410s (1400 x 900), T420s (1600 x 900) and newly announced T430s. I think many
developers would want to get an X330 with i7 and 1600 x 900 at 3lbs.

