
Ubuntu is coming back to Dell Laptops - bkerensa
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/18/dell-gives-linux-laptops-another-chance/
======
acabal
This is a good idea in theory but potentially bad in execution.

What I'd like (and I suspect many other developers would too) is a nice laptop
that _I_ can install Linux on, and have it Just Work.

What it looks like Dell is providing is a nice laptop, but with a custom build
of Ubuntu installed. If Dell's Windows installs are any indication, that means
it's going to be loaded with crapware or custom non-OSS drivers. This is just
speculation, but the fact that you can't dual-boot Windows on it is a big
hint. Who knows what crapware they're going to load up on it, and then you'll
be tied to their special brand of Ubuntu if you want upgrades or support.

What Dell should do instead is work with hardware manufacturers to iron out
Linux driver bugs for just _one_ nice laptop. Then sell that laptop with a
stock Ubuntu build and let developers go to town. I'd pay a _lot_ of money for
something like that. Instead, today I have to buy a cheap Dell laptop, install
Ubuntu, and deal with the driver headaches that exist to this day. (And don't
tell me Linux is a magical fairy land because it Works For You, because it
_doesn't_ Just Work for me. It hasn't for years and it still doesn't today.)

~~~
user49598
The majority of new laptops work out of the box with ubuntu 12.04. The driver
complaint, while still fair in many cases, is not nearly as relevant as it
used to be. Peripherals can be tough, but built-in hardware has come a long
way.

Also, IMHO, weather dell is doing exactly what you want or not, they are
continuing to support freedom of choice, freedom of software, and the hacker
community in general. I commend them for the effort, and would love to see
other vendors follow suit.

~~~
joezydeco
So, and I'm honestly curious here because I'm in the market, what _is_ the
best Linux laptop out there?

I hear people swoon over a particular Lenovo/Thinkpad model, but have no idea
which one it is.

~~~
scarmig
Right now I'm on an x220.

IIR I had some acpi driver issue--in fact, had to manually white list my model
in it--and power management is mediocre, even with powertop. But it gets the
job done decently enough.

~~~
SeppoErviala
I have x220i and I needed to fix mic mute button [1] and add a power
management script [2] for saving power while on battery. I still get some
graphics corruption with gpu accelerated chrome but it's not too common and I
can live with it.

It would be nice if Lenovo or Dell would check how well their laptops (or even
some model) worked with linux and tried to get this kind of stuff as default
on major distros.

[1] [http://askubuntu.com/questions/125367/enabling-mic-mute-
butt...](http://askubuntu.com/questions/125367/enabling-mic-mute-button-and-
light-on-lenovo-thinkpads) [2] <http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/11954>

~~~
einhverfr
It gets a little complicated. I got a Lenovo g560 with an Ath9k wireless card,
and installed Fedora 14 on it and everything worked. I upgraded to Fedora 16
and everything worked except the wireless card. Apparently there is no way to
tell the OS anymore that the wireless card is turned on. Filing bugs with
Fedora and asking on the ath9k-devel email lists got no help at all.

What worked before no longer works. The card is permanently hardblocked.
Supposedly the fix is to install Windows, flip the switch a few times, and
then install Linux. I don't want it that badly. I will just figure out
ndiswrapper.....

~~~
SeppoErviala
I know nothing about non-Thinkpad Lenovos and but with a quick googling I
wouldn't put my money in one. As far as I'm concerned they might as well be
Acer laptops.

When people say that Lenovo laptops work well with linux they mostly mean
Thinkpad series and even then there are some exceptions. Best out-of-box
experience will be with one that has intel cpu+intel wireless+intel gpu and
was released a year ago. It's about as safe bet for a high quality fully
working linux laptop as you can get.

------
dkhenry
Why can't I just get any computer with no operating system installed
whatsoever. This isn't rocket science here, just format the hard drive and
give me the computer. Then subtract the money you pay Microsoft for the
windows license. If there is some contractual obligation Dell has with
Microsoft to not do this then we need to start considering another round of
antitrust proceedings.

~~~
dchest
_If there is some contractual obligation Dell has with Microsoft to not do
this then we need to start considering another round of antitrust
proceedings._

There is, that's why some computers come with FreeDOS.

~~~
dkhenry
Even with FreeDOS why can' I get that option on _all_ computers. And lets say
there are some hardware concerns with FreeDOS why not just ship it with no OS
at all ?

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dfrey
When Dell sold Linux laptops before, the problem was always that they treated
the Linux version and the Windows version as a separate SKU. So you were
buying the Dell Latitude 4100 Linux version or the Dell Latitude 4100 Windows
version. You couldn't just go to the Dell Latitude 4100 web page and select
Windows or Linux from the Operating System drop-down menu.

The regular price of the Windows version would be $1000 and the Linux version
would be $930. The thing is, nobody buys Dell products at full price. They
wait for the sale. The Windows versions would be on sale all the time and the
Linux ones never were, so the Windows version was often actually cheaper than
the Linux version.

~~~
user49598
Bummer, but not a problem. They are different products targeting different
markets. You don't want users being able to switch between windows or linux
pre-installed via a simple interface. You want them to know exactly what
they're doing. (Or in case they don't know what they're doing, you want them
to buy windows)

Dell also needs to be able to promote their laptops using features of the OS,
or software that comes with it. They also need to mark down the OS versions to
coincide with promotions or market activity.

Plus, if you're a linux guy, and the windows version is cheaper, just buy that
and get the ubuntu image or drivers from dell support. It's not like canonical
is missing out on a sale.

~~~
slowpoke
>Plus, if you're a linux guy, and the windows version is cheaper, just buy
that and get the ubuntu image or drivers from dell support.

This is not an option if you are opposed to the Windows Tax on principle. I am
extremely uncomfortable with artificially boosting Windows sales and
indirectly supporting a monopoly.

And no, this by no means _not_ a monopoly. Windows comes preinstalled on the
overwhelming majority of computers today, and most of the time, there is no
way around that. Most manufacturers even deny refunds, even when they are
required to do so by law ("whatcha gonna do, _sue_ us?").

For the record, I've been having "fun" with Lenovo trying to get my rightly
deserved refund. I'm actually not adverse to taking this to court, but I'm a
student and not exactly rich, so I don't know if I could afford that.

It's my firm opinion that forced bundling should be outright illegal, and it
somewhat already is. There's a consumer protection directive from the EU that
forbids "agressive or unfair practices", which this most certainly falls
under.

------
celerity
There seems to be a lot of confusion in the comments about what Dell is doing
with this Laptop. Here are some observations that I've made:

* The image is custom, but it is maintained by Canonical, and one _can_ download Ubuntu independently and then enable a bunch of Dell PPAs for hardware support (see <http://hwe.ubuntu.com/uds-q/dellxps/>).

* Dell _is_ contributing to OSS with this project. They have, with Canonical and the manifacturer, already built open source touch-pad drivers that seem to be working very well (a rarity on Linux).

* Selling an OS-free website is actually doing the Linux community a disservice. The reason is that it takes time and fidgeting in order to make everything work on Linux (and you can, in fact, screw up your computer if you don't set up fans correctly, for example), and the average developer (and, of course, any other user) doesn't want to waste time making suspend function when they can be working. For this reason, desktop Linux will _not_ gain any significant market share if it is not pre-installed. This project will raise the Linux desktop market share, and thus encourage others to do something similar.

* This project started as a pilot in order for Dell to gauge interest, and they deemed it having enough potential to actually launch. The buzz from Dell (really, the "Project Sputnik" blog) is that if it is successful, there _might_ be a follow-up.

With all that said, I will still _not_ be buying this computer. The high-end
version that they're selling is too expensive because of a large SSD (still
too expensive), while only having 4GB of RAM. In the age of streaming and
Dropboxes, I'd rather keep $200 and have 128GB SSD with 8GB RAM. Plus the
screen is mediocre (although the keyboard feels amazing, I tried it at Best
Buy).

Edit: Added newlines.

------
pessimizer
I'm posting from one of their old ones right now, and I hope they do a better
job this time. Bug city last time, and took a lot of work and a lot of time to
pass (and a switch to Debian unstable) to make it completely workable.

I don't know how you ship laptops where the headphone jacks don't work and
every update borks the sound completely unless you want them to fail. Did they
not have anybody actually turn one on before selling them on their website?

------
michaelbuckbee
Dell's commitment to Ubuntu seems to extend only to the extent that it offers
them a bargaining chip with Microsoft.

~~~
mratzloff
That may be Dell's strategy, but Microsoft doesn't care. Everything about
their strategy indicates that they're taking some lessons from Apple with
regard to beautiful hardware and vertical integration. Microsoft likely
believes that the PC (at least as an upgradable device) is an anachronism that
will be wholly replaced by digital appliances like Xbox and Surface.

Dell doesn't fit into that worldview.

------
andrewvc
The problem I have here is price. This just doesn't undercut an mbp, and it
would have to to get me to buy it

~~~
tikhonj
Isn't the mbp pretty annoying for Linux? That's what I've heard, at the very
least, and some of my friends have had trouble (at least on slightly older
mbps--certainly not the new high-res versions).

~~~
Tichy
Used to be the trackpad didn't work properly, but I think in the latest
version of Ubuntu it might be fixed. Haven't tried it yet, though, only saw
things in the "what's new" text that made me think they probably fixed it.

~~~
trucmuche
I installed Ubuntu 12.04 without problems on my 2010 Macbook Air (with an
external DVD drive). It works well and I am happy with it.

There is a minor problem where the trackpad sometimes thinks I'm double-
clicking after the laptop comes out of sleep, but that's being worked on. It
rarely happens, and when it does, logout+login fixes the problem. That's
pretty much the only quibble I have.

------
Kjeldahl
Good luck with that Dell. 1366x768 resolution and Sandy Bridge chipset (Intel
HD3000), launching soon? It doesn't become a developer laptop just because
you've decided to call it that. You need a high DPI screen, and today it also
needs Ivy Bridge with Intel HD4000 (or better).

~~~
Ralith
You expect it to have the absolute latest class of CPU, launched only a month
ago, or _better_? Just what do you have in mind?

------
porter
I just got my system76 laptop today with Ubuntu pre-loaded. Nothing like
opening the box, turning on your new laptop, and just having it all work.
Can't beat the prices either.

~~~
mistercow
I've been pretty happy with mine too, although it does freeze and require
restarting a bit more often than my old MacBook. Then again, the reboot
process takes less than 20 seconds, so I can't complain all that much.

------
cnlwsu
A "developer edition" laptop with 1366x768 resolution?

~~~
andyking
I'm in the market for a new desktop monitor right now, and I'm finding it
really difficult to find a 4:3 aspect ratio at a decent price. I'm not using
the computer to watch movies, it's a PC, not a TV, and I value my vertical
screen space. It seems the widescreen fad is pushing good old 4:3 out of the
market. I'd pick a reconditioned one up, but I want HDMI input, rather than
VGA...

~~~
TobbenTM
I would rather recommend buying a 16:10 screen and rotating it 90 degrees.
Works perfect for me.

------
freehunter
Okay, how exactly is it not able to dual boot Windows? What is keeping it from
being Windows compatible? It seems like an extreme situation where an x86
would be Linux-compatible but not be able to run Windows as well.

~~~
sounds
The BIOS. Specifically, the installation of Microsoft's signing key in UEFI
secure boot - which requires the other parts (drivers, specifically) of the
UEFI BIOS are signed with Microsoft's key as well.

Windows 8 is "theoretically" only bootable when secure boot is turned on.

~~~
jimbobimbo
No - [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/22/protecting-
the...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/22/protecting-the-pre-os-
environment-with-uefi.aspx)

"Microsoft does not mandate or control the settings on PC firmware that
control or enable secured boot from any operating system other than Windows.

[...]

A demonstration of this control is found in the Samsung tablet with Windows 8
Developer Preview that was offered to //BUILD/ participants. In the screenshot
below you will notice that we designed the firmware to allow the customer to
disable secure boot. However, doing so comes at your own risk. OEMs are free
to choose how to enable this support and can further customize the parameters
as described above in an effort to deliver unique value propositions to their
customers. Windows merely did work to provide great OS support for a scenario
we believe many will find valuable across consumers and enterprise customers."

~~~
sounds
That seems to say exactly what I'm saying, please clarify:

"... other than Windows," i.e. Windows 8 itself "theoretically" wants Secure
Boot turned on.

I've read the link; there's no indication that the Windows 8 Logo Compliance
requirements force Windows 8 to work with Secure Boot turned off. And
obviously, ARM-based Windows 8 systems will require it to be turned on:

[http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/01/microsoft-
mandating-...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/01/microsoft-mandating-
secure-boot-on-arm-making-linux-installs-difficult/)

~~~
jimbobimbo
1) Windows 8 on PC works (and will work) with Secure Boot off. 2) ARM is not a
subject of this discussion.

------
rbanffy
That's an odd to say. I bought my v131 in March and it came preinstalled with
Linux. Dell web store shows a couple machines being sold with Linux.

Of course, the pages show "Dell recommends Windows® 7" because by doing this
their OEM licenses cost a little bit less.

The laptops are at
[http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/laptops.aspx?c=us&l=en...](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/laptops.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&~ck=mn#!facets=80770~0~1791343&p=1)

------
sbi
What is the battery life going to be like? I grudgingly installed Windows 7 on
my (Lenovo) laptop after using Unix exclusively for 15 years simply because
the battery lasts twice as long on Windows.

For what it's worth, I bought a Dell Inspiron Mini 10v with Ubuntu Hardy
preinstalled 2.5 years ago. It didn't suspend/resume properly and video out
was flaky. It died after two years of use (with strange electrical problems).
I don't think I'll buy a Dell in the future.

~~~
tikhonj
I think the recent kernels have had improved power management. I've certainly
noticed an improvement on _my_ laptop running Fedora a while back.

~~~
rch
Which laptop? I desperately want to replace my MBP with the highest quality
Fedora-supporting hardware I can find.

~~~
tikhonj
I have a Sony Vaio Z-series. I really like it, but it's rather expensive.

Also, it comes with a weird dock thing that has an external graphics card.
Ideally, you would plug this in and have better graphics processing when
you're at home. I haven't been able to get this to work on Linux. However, I
haven't been able to get it to work on Windows 8 either :/.

So for me, the whole dock thing is just an overpriced external dvd drive. I
_really_ like the idea of having an external graphics card like that, but the
implementation just isn't great.

Out of all the laptops I've read about online, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon[1]
really stands out. If I was looking for a new one, that's probably what I'd
get. I'm not sure how well it supports Linux, but it just seems really
awesome.

[1]:
[http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/thinkpad/x-series/x...](http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/thinkpad/x-series/x1-carbon/)

~~~
rch
The X1 does look nice, and it would be great to ditch the aluminum without
settling for cheap-feeling plastic.

My old Sharp MM10 had a magnesium alloy case... I still miss that one.

~~~
tikhonj
The Vaio Z-series is also made partially from carbon fiber. Mine also has the
same resolution (1600x900) in a 13" screen.

That said, if the X1 carbon was out when I was buying my laptop, I'd probably
have gone for it. The low resolution of the old X1 was what really turned me
off. Also, I think a 14" screen is a better compromise than 13" between
portability and convenience.

------
icefox
I wonder if this actions is a result of a need to diversify just in case
Windows declines much more rapidly than expected? Hedging their bets if you
will.

------
brudgers
A $1500 laptop with Linux is hardly a game changer.

------
AllTheThings
At first I thought this sort of thing would be perfect for a student market,
but then I looked at the price. The price point is just too high. I'd love to
see something cheaper targeting Engineering students. At this price, if I were
a student, I may as well wait for a decent internship and buy an MBP.

------
jebblue
Welcome back Dell, now if HP and Lennovo join in people will start to remember
the power and elegance of a laptop over a table and a laptop running Ubuntu is
unreal.

Except...Unity sucks (the UI). Gnome 2 rocked.

------
rat87
I hope they test the laptops more thoroughly this time. The Dellbuntu laptop i
bought last time was returned because there was a bug with the graphics
drivers that prevented X from working.

------
irfan
Recently 125,000 Dell Laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed were distributed for
free among Pakistani students by the Government.

------
cypherpnks
Heh. Yeah. Microsoft makes hardware and starts to compete with you. Doesn't
seem insane to start backpaddling a little bit.

------
nubela
1080p screen on a 13" lcd and you got me. god. i'm a programmer and i like my
fonts crisp.

~~~
sigkill
Then the Zenbook Prime is definitely for you sir.

~~~
Ralith
He's a programmer. I think he wants his keyboard to be not completely crap,
too.

~~~
sigkill
The reviews say that the Prime has a pretty good keyboard.

I'm so tempted to buy this one, but I decided to skip this and wait for
Haswell instead. I'm reasonably sure I can pull my Core 2 Duo/Penryn for
another year.

~~~
Ralith
Not the reviews I've read. In fact, they say just the opposite.

~~~
sigkill
Link? Or a name?

I'm talking about review from Mobiletecreview.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVK-9cPRTLw>

------
rayiner
Does battery life still suck?

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brennenHN
Will Newegg let you return these?

