
Dell XPS 13 Kabylake Makes for a Great Linux Laptop - satai
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=dell-xps13-9370&num=1
======
AdmiralAsshat
> There is, of course, the Dell XPS Developer Edition models that come
> preloaded with Ubuntu 16.04 (or just in the past few days, Ubuntu 18.04).
> Though for my purposes I went with the Dell XPS 13 preloaded with Windows 10
> due to running some benchmarks there prior to wiping the disk, faster
> shipping time going from B&H Photo Video over Dell.com, and running Fedora
> Workstation as my preferred main OS rather than Ubuntu.

Unfortunately, from what I've been told by one of the guys in Dell's Sputnik
program, they gauge interest on the Linux Dell laptops _strictly_ by the
number of people who buy Developer Edition laptops. So the author is not
helping the cause by buying a Windows 10 laptop and loading Linux onto it.

Believe me, I get it. The Windows ones go on sale, while the Developer
Editions pretty much never do. I'm guilty of buying a Win10 one myself before
this was explained to me. Just passing that info on. If you want to support
the future of Linux on Dell laptops, I strongly urge you to buy the ones with
Linux pre-loaded, from Dell.

~~~
dsego
Do you know what the best way is to get my hands on one in the EU, preferably
with a US keyboard layout?

~~~
Symbiote
Dell offer a choice of local or US keyboard:

[https://www.dell.com/en-
uk/work/shop/laptops/xps-13-9370-lap...](https://www.dell.com/en-
uk/work/shop/laptops/xps-13-9370-laptop/spd/xps-13-9370-laptop?~ck=bt&appliedRefinements=301)

This is probably a better plan than importing something without paying taxes.
If Brexit happens, there's still Ireland for an English Dell website in the
EU.

(Like most other European layouts, the British/Irish one will mean the ISO
layout rather than the American (ANSI) layout. Other than the additional key
giving space for £ and ¬, there's not much difference; so you might prefer
that if you want to keep a vertical-shape enter key.)

~~~
dsego
There's a 9370 on mindfactory.de, doesn't say it's the dev edition, but the os
is specified as Ubuntu. And the exact configuration I want, i7 16/512 FHD. The
price seems ok, the only flaw being the german layout with the vertical enter
key.

------
extr
About a year ago I was looking to upgrade from my Thinkpad x220 and I ended up
with an XPS 13 9360, a year later am comfortable saying it's the best laptop
I've ever owned by a long shot. For my personal DD I like to use Arch and I've
discovered basically no "linux-y" issues unique to the laptop hardware.
Battery life is impressive, usually lasting 8+ hours of web browsing/casual
usage with no tweaks (imo usually linux sees a much larger drop off). I'm
definitely glad I went with the 1080p version, the PPI is already very high
with such a small screen and I think the touchscreen/4K would have been
overkill. Build quality is great and the laptop has a super premium feel. I
know others have complained about build issues, I guess to them I would just
repeat the old adage that you only hear about the people with issues, never
from the satisfied users.

I would also say that the newer ones with multi-core are probably not worth
the premium, if you can get last year's model for a good price then go for it.
I got mine for $850 brand new, a few months before the multi-cores were
announced. I don't think I really missed anything.

~~~
touristtam
I'd like to try the new multicore from Intel. The dual core with HT on my XPS
13 is total trash when throwing at it more than a couple of tasks. And I am
not the only one with this issue at work where we use a mix of Fedora 27/28
and Ubuntu 17.10/18.04. The only redeeming aspect of this otherwise overprices
machine is the screen. Although I just wished the screen would be flushed with
the bezel like for the touch screen version.

------
ironjunkie
I used Linux for 10 years (mainly on Lenovos and some early Dell XPS back in
the days), then I switched to MacOS about 3-4 years ago and over the last
couple weeks I have been trying to go back to Linux because I am sick having
to use MacOS everyday. It is a great OS for an everyday user, but not for a
developer.

Here is what I tried so far:

1) Dell XPS 9370 Developer edition: This comes preloaded with Ubuntu and it is
actually amazing that everything works out of the box. It was too small for me
though, and the fan made a rattling noise so I decided to return it. The 4K
screen is probably overkill on such a small display. Based on the review
people recommend taking the normal screen, it saves a lot of battery and there
is not that much difference.

2) Lenovo X1: I didn't like the feel of the Keyboard, and the screen was not
that good. Installing Linux (Arch) was easy, but decided to return it.

3) Dell XPS 9570: I have this one for the last two weeks and so far I love it
on the hardware level. I would even put it as somehow superior to my MacBook
Pro. The downside is that Linux is not well supported at all. I have installed
Arch so far and spent all my evenings trying to fix all the drivers. So far:
The Nvidia drivers are barely working, ACPI needs a lot of tweaks (but it
seems I got it working and got my 7 hours of battery). I still need to work on
the Touchpad, and couple other things.

So far, the Dell XPS 9570 is a good challenger to the MBP, but installing
Linux is still going to be a small challenge

~~~
copperx
> I am sick having to use MacOS every day. It is a great OS for an everyday
> user, but not for a developer.

Could you expound on that? I'm curious as to why OS X isn't satisfying for you
as a developer.

~~~
tomxor
A lot of the GNU userland used in macOS is _ancient_ I think this is partly
due to new GPL3 incompat? Then the BSD userland is _also_ ancient... for no
apparent reason... Then there is no native package manager, so you have to use
stuff like brew - which kinda sorta works but doesn't really feel anywhere
near as consistent, integrated and up do date as basically _any_ linux package
manger.

Then there's MacOS itself... which is just getting more annoying, I quit after
10.6 (which was best version IMO), everytime I use a mac now I compare it to
the relative simplicity and stability of this version, and it's just so much
worse. I'm sure others who have more experience with up to date MacOS can give
more detail on this.

That said, for non developers I'd still recommend a mac over windows, although
in recent years it's gone down hill, and personally I don't want to trade my
freedom for closed source OS that have their own agenda - I understand that
most users don't have the luxury of really being able to use anything not as
friendly to basic users.

~~~
kyriakos
on the other hand some of the problems you mentioned were solved on Windows
with WSL.

~~~
tomxor
WSL is not a good solution from what i've seen, most of it's proponents have
never used Linux on real hardware and are comparing it to gitbash for windows
or whatever, or have never used linux before. Some things run fine, others are
insanely slow due to either slow translation layer or simply because the
behaviour of the underlying windows kernel actually is really many times
slower than linux, e.g forking - I didn't know this, just found out first
hand. The file-system integration is a bag of shit - the common issue being
trying to use git in linux while editing files from a GUI in windows will
cause frequent explosions, failed fs updates to to arbitrary windows locking
are not fed back to linux which really fucks with git. (i'm talking about
using the linux fs from windows which is the way with the least issues - doing
the reverse has even more severe consequences). Also the terminal app is the
worst i've ever seen. FYI I'm talking from experience helping my colleagues
who use windows. </rant>

IMO, if you must use windows and need linux/gnu stuff, just stick linux in a
VM with a full GUI, it may seem more resource intensive running a whole other
kernel and GUI, but it will work reliably without horrible surprises.

------
ortuna
If you want to use NixOs:
[https://gist.githubusercontent.com/Ortuna/b6e95d6baefd2a1683...](https://gist.githubusercontent.com/Ortuna/b6e95d6baefd2a1683ddd848f485bf00/raw/94331b994bc7d73a762d177d1605115443d7a786/configuration.nix)

\-- with the latest kernel, even the webcam is working now (the only thing
that didn't).

------
chx
I have been using Linux on servers since 1993. I have been dual booting SUSE
with Windows 2000 on my desktop between 2000-2004. Ubuntu and then Arch has
been my daily driver 2004-2017. I am not exactly a Linux newbie. But, based on
these long, long years, I swear Linux desktop advocates have Stockholm
syndrome. Some experiences: Samsung stopped making drivers for their MFCs so I
needed to toss a perfectly working laser MFC because it stopped working with
Linux, just like that. Later, a HP MFC caused endless pain, seemingly every
other Arch update broke one of Bluetooth / printer of MFC / scanner of MFC.
Plain Wifi eventually worked more or less (but see the endless string of bugs
with 5GHz) but enterprise wifi always has been a pain. The strange F5 VPN our
company used was not particularly Linux friendly -- I could only get it to
work by running Firefox as root (yuck!). The only reference to the entire
shebang was our IT asking around on various forums how to get it work under
Linux and noone answering. And then Firefox stopped supporting extensions and
I needed to tether my phone to get on the VPN. We now have a different VPN, no
idea about the Linux support.

I am now using Windows 10 with the Linux Subsystem. O&O shutup takes care of
the privacy concerns. I have a Lenovo Graphics Dock and docking and undocking
is a nonevent. Do you want to be the one who gets an nVidia GPU hotplugging
working on Linux -- and keeps it working through all the improvements the
Linux desktop goes through? Worse, get IOMMU passthrough working with this
setup because most of the games are still Windows only? I don't, that's for
sure. I am 43 years old today and there is not enough time left to use a
tamagotchi OS. The Linux Subsystem could have a better I/O performance but I
will live. It's a surprisingly frustration free life. Some useful
configuration tips [https://github.com/chx/chx.github.io/wiki/How-I-set-up-my-
Wi...](https://github.com/chx/chx.github.io/wiki/How-I-set-up-my-
Windows-10-\(coming-from-Linux\))

Before you inevitably downvote this, please comment where I am wrong. If you
feel all the above are trivial, give me an offer for maintaing my Linux, I
would actually love to get back there but for the time being I do not feel I
can. I yearned for someone to take over desktop sysadmin from me for many
years but I absolutely couldn't find anyone so eventually I just gave up.

~~~
dozzie
> Samsung stopped making drivers for their MFCs so I needed to toss a
> perfectly working laser MFC because it stopped working with Linux, just like
> that.

Erm... The old drivers stopped working with this particular device?

I had a very similar case with perfectly good HP laser printer, which doesn't
work on Window 10 anymore because... dunno? No drivers from HP, though. I'm
sure it would work just fine with generic PCL or PostScript driver under CUPS.

> Later, a HP MFC caused endless pain, seemingly every other Arch update broke
> one of Bluetooth / printer of MFC / scanner of MFC.

Well, that's probably self-inflicted because of your choice of Arch, not
because Linux (e.g. Debian).

> Plain Wifi eventually worked more or less (but see the endless string of
> bugs with 5GHz) but enterprise wifi always has been a pain.

Enterprise Wi-Fi has always been a pain, also under Windows.

> The strange F5 VPN our company used was not particularly Linux friendly

VPNs are usually that way. Very few companies can write sensibly working
software that would run under Linux.

> \-- I could only get it to work by running Firefox as root (yuck!).

You get pretty much the same under Windows, though you don't see it as
clearly.

I don't get why you bash Linux. Windows has the exact same problems.

~~~
chx
> Erm... The old drivers stopped working with this particular device?

Samsung simply stopped producing Linux drivers. Indeed if you look at
[https://www.bchemnet.com/suldr/index.html](https://www.bchemnet.com/suldr/index.html)
there is more than a few years gap here. Also, if you look at the newer
drivers support page now that some models have maximum support versions
[https://www.bchemnet.com/suldr/supported.html](https://www.bchemnet.com/suldr/supported.html)
where I persume you are ... if you update -- and "obviously" you can't not to
update because eventually some API breaks the driver. My printer broke in 2010
with an Ubuntu update.

> Very few companies can write sensibly working software that would run under
> Linux.

Which is the problem itself. You got it in one.

> You get pretty much the same under Windows, though you don't see it as
> clearly.

It's possible I do not see it clearly but the only Bluetooth problem I had was
the April Creators update mysteriously changing Chrome to use the internal
soundcard which was solved in two clicks in Eartrumpet (which was new to me --
finding that software took a little time). I have yet to meet any of the
problems listed: every wifi and VPN I have yet seen have Windows support (and
IT is so much more prepared to help if there is a problem), the Bluetooth
stack actually didn't break, nor have Windows upgrades haven't broken my MFC
yet (although I guess I need to wait -- but how long? I have seen people
install HP LaserJet 4 on Win 10 with some struggle). And as I mentioned, my
Thunderbolt eGPU just works. Are you saying it would just work on Linux...?
Come now.

I love Linux to pieces and I run it on servers and use the userspace
components still but I am writing to warn people: it is still not the year of
Linux on desktop and probably never will be. Or, if you so prefer, it finally
is, it's just Linux on the Windows desktop.

------
jdlyga
I have a Dell XPS 13 and it's fantastic. I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 on it. I've
run into typical issues with UEFI vs BIOS and problems with Secure boot, but
that's typical of nearly every new laptop nowadays. Had problems with Manjaro
running KDE dropping bluetooth connections, but Ubuntu 18.04 runs great.

------
prudhvis
I have a thinkpad T470(Fedora 28) and T470p(QubesOS) that runs Linux just
fine. Without any driver issues. The battery life is excellent once you
install the tlp packages.

------
dsego
Too bad its 16:9 aspect ratio gives you less screen real-estate than the
macbook pro 13.

------
40acres
But did they fix the coil whine?

------
baybal2
FYI: 9370 has _smaller_ battery than 9360 while having same panel and most of
internals

------
std_throwaway
The performance seems great in comparison. But this laptop seems a bit thin
for my taste. There would be room to almost double the battery if the
thickness was increased. There would also be room for USB-A and a LAN port.
Two things I would really like to see.

Also I read a lot of bad experiences here on HN with the XPS line every time
it comes up. Personally I know at least two people who had a bad experience
with it and ended up replacing the machine with something else. Is Dell
improving on that part or has it stabilized?

On paper the machine looks really good but right now I just can't justify
pulling the trigger to replace a Retina-MBP.

~~~
Boulth
> Also I read a lot of bad experiences here on HN with the XPS line every time
> it comes up. Personally I know at least two people who had a bad experience
> with it and ended up replacing the machine with something else. Is Dell
> improving on that part or has it stabilized?

Haha, yes, I'm one of the unfortunate people that use XPS 13 9350 and have had
a lot of issues with it. On the other hand I installed Arch recently and
everything works out of the box, including touch screen, that really surprised
me.

Personally I would blame Intel for their crappy hardware (all issues were with
Intel peripherals), but that's me.

------
rootbear
I have the previous model, the 9360, and my only real complaint is the touch
pad. Palm rejection is just terrible, so much so that I've considered just
turning off the touch pad and using a mouse.

One nice feature of the touch pad is that the scrolling direction for the
mouse is independent of that for the touch pad. This means I can set the mouse
to work like mice always have, before Apple invented "natural" scrolling, but
have the touch pad use "natural" mode. For some reason, this actually feels
right to me. I wish my Macbook Pro could do this.

~~~
KSS42
I haven't used it but try:

"Scroll Reverser is a free Mac app that reverses the direction of scrolling.
It is available for macOS 10.4 through 10.13.

It has independent settings for trackpads, mice and Wacom tablets, and for
horizontal and vertical scrolling. "

[https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/](https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/)

~~~
slavak
I've been using this for a while now, and it has been a godsend.

That said, I do consider it a ding against MacOs, because it's ridiculous that
I'm forced to use third-party tools for such basic functionality. (Other
examples: USB-tethering with non-Apple phones requires hunting down and
installing third-party drivers. A feature that just works, out-of-the-box, on
every other system I've ever used.)

------
ianai
Personally, my 9350 has me never wanting to own a Dell again. Touchpad alone.

~~~
arendtio
Same here, I am still pissed because of the flicker issues I have with the
screen of my XPS 15 9530 and today I saw that the builtin battery is down to
70% of its original capacity.

Sure, they look pretty and the Linux support is good, but the build quality
didn't satisfy my expectations.

------
pmontra
I use middle click to paste all time and it's one of the reasons I bought only
laptops with 3 hardware buttons on the touchpad so far. How does middle click
work with the kind of touchpad on the XPS?

~~~
dsego
Seriously, why not learn keyboard shortcuts? Strange to depend on such an
idiosyncratic feature.

~~~
Symbiote
> "You're holding it wrong"

Many people select text using the mouse, then reposition the cursor using the
mouse. It's convenient to then insert the selected text using the mouse — the
entire operation is done without touching the keyboard.

------
ezoe
Nobody sell my ideal laptop.

It must have 15 inch Builtin 4K display, Ethernet, display port, multiple USB
ports and No Nvidia GPU.

I usually don't move my laptop so I prefer 15 inch over 13 inch. But I like my
primary computer ready to be carried anywhere so I don't want desktop.

I don't play video game or graphics on my primary computer so I don't need a
dedicated GPU. Also Fuck you Nvidia.

There are 13 inch laptop which satisfy everything else or 15 inch with Nvidia
GPU. I guess there is not much demand for my ideal.

~~~
xutopia
Why Nvidia hate?

~~~
sethhochberg
If OP is at all involved in using or developing for Linux, it seems
justifiable... Their approach to linux support has been anything from "poor"
to "outright hostile" for a long time. AMD and Intel do a far, far better job
of enabling and contributing to open source development and drivers, using
standard kernel APIs, etc.

~~~
newen
But my deep learning...

As in, Nvidia's support for deep learning in linux is very good.

~~~
satai
AFAIK is deep learning the only reason to consider Nvidia at Linux. But if you
do deep learning there is very little alternatives to Nvidia.

------
wintorez
Other than its weird webcam location, it looks great.

------
kristianp
One problem I have with my XPS 13 is the keyboard. It's too small for me to
type without making lots of errors (I'm used to the size of keyboards on 14
inch laptops and full size pcs). Also the feel of the keys has no click and
feels stiff. I often don't push the left shift properly due to the stiffness.

------
blubb-fish
two of several appeals of Linux to me are the fact that it is free and modest
on resources.

from that angle it seems slightly ironic that all those great Linux laptops
leave the 1000 usd mark way behind them.

thing is, I'm actually intending to buy a laptop and have Mint run on it.

any suggestions for a laptop cheaper than 1k?

I'm eyeing Dell latitude 5480.

~~~
kobrad
I bought a used acer from 2012 and the only bad thing is battery life of
around three hours. Can't imagine paying for a new laptop

~~~
blubb-fish
i had very bad experiences 1st and 2nd hand with Acer, though. unprovoked
crashes, WiFi not working without significant research and fiddling. multiple
models.

------
paulie_a
The Dell XPS 13 is what a mac book pro is supposed to be.

------
jhack
Except for the 16:9 screen. I'm so done working with such a narrow aspect
ratio.

~~~
rhizome
Everything old is new again:
[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/D_Lka7Tsmkk/maxresdefault.jpg](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/D_Lka7Tsmkk/maxresdefault.jpg)

