
Ditching Windows: 2 Weeks with Ubuntu Linux on the Dell XPS - humility
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2018/07/19/ditching-windows-2-weeks-with-ubuntu-linux-on-the-dell-xps-13/#56a840d41836
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JorgeGT
The lack of a "this is a serious machine" setting in Windows is baffling. I
have Windows 10 Enterprise installed in a 20 core/128 GB RAM workstation that
is used for lengthy numerical simulations. And yet it happily reboots randomly
_and_ it keeps filling the start menu with silly game icons (candy crush,
etc.). Super fun for your boss to point out and say "so this is why you use
this machine, for candy crush?"

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Someone1234
Isn't that exactly what LTSB is designed for?

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JorgeGT
Not sure that my Uni can support these, plus they have no Linux subsystem
(which is quite useful) and last time I heard, they are ditching Office 365
ProPlus support for that branch (which is the Office we use on campus, and I
require in my workflow).

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Someone1234
I thought it was a "serious machine" used only for "lengthy numerical
simulations." Seems more like your person desktop computer, that you happen to
run some numerical simulations on.

Plus if you're at Uni you likely DO have access to Windows 10 Education
Edition which is a version of Enterprise without several of the things you
complained about.

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JorgeGT
The word "only" appears nowhere in my comment. It is a workstation, in which
additional tasks are expected to be completed while simulations are running
(some LES cases take several weeks), including CFD pre- and post-processing,
CAD work, typesetting publications, preparing lectures and tests, etc. I fail
to see how, in your opinion, this makes the use of the machine not serious, or
makes random reboots and installing silly games pertinent or understandable.

Windows 10 Education Edition does not seem to be available in the software
repository of my Uni. Which obnoxious features do you say are absent in this
version, compared to Enterprise?

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Someone1234
> Which obnoxious features do you say are absent in this version, compared to
> Enterprise?

The bundled games and other apps aren't provided in the Education edition.

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mohn
I know I'm preaching to the choir here at HN, but I feel like there is a very
important point that the author has skipped over:

Part of why the install process and general use experience went so well is all
the time and effort Dell put into explicitly developing Linux support for this
exact model. They likely made hardware choices (e.g. Intel wifi chipset
instead of Qualcomm/Atheros) based on existing Linux driver availability. And
in cases where a driver wasn't available, or didn't work perfectly off the
shelf, Dell probably put coders to work customizing that driver to suit the
configuration of the XPS.

In a way, this is a bit like buying a Microsoft Surface and then being
thrilled at how Windows installs and runs on it. For the sake of people who
read this article and try installing Ubuntu 18.04 on an arbitrary laptop, I
think the author should mention that there was already a ton of bigco effort
to make this configuration of HW/SW work smoothly.

In my experience, Ubuntu gets more polished and newbie-friendly with every
release, but I do think some readers might try to follow in the author's
footsteps with their own miscellaneous laptop, get discouraged, and then be
soured on Linux again for a while. I don't want that to happen. I want to see
Linux gobble up more of Windows 10's market share. If that means the
population needs to homogenize a bit on the hardware front, so be it.

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webbrahmin
You have hit the nail on the head. I moved from Windows to Ubuntu many years
back. I installed Ubuntu 12.04 on my windows machine in 2010 and by chance
everything worked like magic. I purchased a new machine in 2015 without much
thought and installed Ubuntu. To my horror it would not detect my Qualcomm
wifi and AMD Radeon Graphics. Banged my head around to find a solution to
Qualcomm wifi. But the 2gb graphics card is just a piece of silicon on my
motherboard which does not work.

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greenhatman
Ubuntu 12.04 wasn't out in 2010.

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AnIdiotOnTheNet
I'm sure they meant 10.04. As I recall, 10.04 was the first time I ever
thought Linux might actually have a shot at the desktop, it was that much of
an improvement. Had Canonical not gone crazy a few years later, who knows if
that would have panned out or not.

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kalekold
'Linux' tends to have a reputation as being complicated to use or it's just
for developers, etc. But nothing could be further from the truth. If you
install one of the more modern distributions like Ubuntu, the OS runs faster,
easier to use and much more friendly for just getting stuff done.

I've now realised that I will never buy another Microsoft OS after using
Windows 10. I had to download a separate program to switch off all the spyware
and to disable crippling updates. This isn't even a problem with Ubuntu.

~~~
collyw
I think there is still a fundamental difference in the way you troubleshoot
things between Linux and Windows. In Linux you can usually find something on
Stack overflow or Ask Ubuntu, copy a few commands into the terminal and get
things working. In Windows you can find some icons in the settings related to
what you are doing and randomly click until things work again. While I prefer
the first option I can understand why others (who are not IT professionals)
prefer the second.

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zrobotics
By the same token though, I find it much easier to fix remotely. I got tired
of having to talk my father through tech support issues, since under windows
it often required me walking him through all the steps. Far easier to email
him a command string and tell him to paste it into the terminal. Sure, this
doesn't help him learn how to fix things himself, but he has zero interest in
learning to use the computer for anything more than a web browser anyway. And
the lack of malware is a nice plus.

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massysett
If he just needs a Web browser, I've found that the iPad is the best solution
here. Both hardware and software are very durable, and portable. Get a
Bluetooth keyboard and some sort of stand for the tablet and you're set.

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__sr__
I had a similar experience a few months ago. I run Windows 10 Professional on
my iMac using Boot Camp for Windows specific stuff — hard to believe, but such
things do still exist in 2018. I was facing some slowness while working on
something urgent, so I decided to go with the old standby — a reboot. To my
dismay, I was greeed with a “Windows is updating — don’t power off” message
which stuck around for more than an hour. The work I was doing was on the
local drive and quite urgent. I ended up having to pull out my laptop and do
the whole work from scratch while Windows was “updating”.

I am sure there is a setting which could have prevented the machine from
updating my machine in the background, but that is not the point. Why can I
not be allowed to update/reboot on my own schedule by default instead of being
forced into it unless I opt out? Why is it opt out instead of opt in? The fact
that it is an opt out tells me that Microsoft actually knows that no one will
actually opt into this madness by choice. And why was I not at least warned
that my machine is going into a self induced coma which would leave it
unusable for more than an hour when I tried to reboot?

And let us not even forget about the adware that gets installed with every
major upgrade. I bought the Windows license for the full price — surely I
deserve a break from this nonsense?

Behaviour like this is the reason I prefer macOS for serious work — despite
its problems. Linux, while good on server side, is just not polished enough to
be my daily driver on the client. A few (~4-5) years ago, I used to run Linux
on my main work a laptop - a Lenovo. But I ended up having to act the sysadmin
way too frequently for my liking. Touchpad going dead randomly (won’t come
back without reboots), battery life going from decent to horrible after
certain updates, overheating at times for no obvious reason, not so great
media playback, trouble with sound and Bluetooth etc were some of the common
problems. I fixed many of them, but every update brought its own share of
headaches until I decided it just wasn’t worth my time. And I am saying this
as someone who makes a living working on Linux on the server side. I can’t
imagine an average Joe going to the lengths I did to fix the boatload of
issues that come bundled with Linux.

Eventually, I ended up buying a Mac for my daily driver. While I can’t say
everything has been completely smooth, it has been relatively headache free. I
still run Linux on EC2 for my Linux needs, but I don’t see myself going back
to it on the client side in the near future. With macOS, I get the UNIX like
interface with a decent GUI and hardware support.

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Waterluvian
I had one of those stupid expensive macs for years before changing jobs and
getting an XPS 15. I love the machine with Ubuntu except for one critical
flaw: the stupid thing goes into this thermal safety mode so damn easily. I'll
be compiling code for five minutes and suddenly my browser that I'm developing
in becomes a choppy unusuable mess. No matter how long I wait nothing recovers
until I reboot.

Also gaming is nearly impossible because of the same issue. I suspect the
xps15 is more powerful than its cooling can handle. I'm not sure how normal
that is for laptops.

Also: when installing Ubuntu on my XPS I had to toggle some bios option about
drives. Maybe that's the issue he had with Mint and didn't report fixing
Ubuntu.

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SmellyGeekBoy
For what it's worth, I managed to fix the thermal throttling on my 9560
(sounds like you have the same model) by carefully removing all of the old
thermal paste from the heat spreaders using rubbing alcohol and re-pasting it
all. I also added some thermal pads to connect some components to the bottom
case. There are guides online on how to do this if you Google around.

Personally I think it's inexcusable to need to go through all this on a brand
new £2000 laptop but I liked it enough to go to the effort and, like I said,
it did completely cure the issues in my case and has been fine for the past 6
months or so.

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Waterluvian
Damn that's tempting. I really ought to get a professional's help though I'd
probably succeed alone. It's my work laptop.

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qrbLPHiKpiux
I can’t ditch windows, Mac OS, iOS, or Linux. I have a separate device for
each as I need something that one of those OS’s offer that another one won’t.
“You need the right tool for the job” and there is no “one” tool.

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jacquesm
VM's a solution?

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qrbLPHiKpiux
No. Peripherals and proprietary hardware.

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NullPrefix
VT-d passthrough?

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brightball
I need to try that cpufreq for battery life...

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TomMarius
This site doesn't work, it's showing a blank page.

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el-patron
[https://outline.com/JHybEX](https://outline.com/JHybEX) Outline'd it for you
mate - it's safer and easier than removing the AdBlocker!

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TomMarius
This is awesome service, thank you for showing me.

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NightlyDev
I've bought a bunch of XPS 13 laptops because of project sputnik, and the only
bad thing with them seems to be the extreme coil whine.

