
Dell's XPS 13 Developer's Edition: My Missed Opportunity - autotravis
http://linuxterm.com/dells-xps-13-developers-edition-my-missed-opportunity.html
======
hapless
It is worth mentioning that Lenovo has a very significant "Certified for
Linux" program. Virtually every laptop model has at least one "Certified" SKU.

<http://lenovo.com/think/linux>

This is the major reason I ended up with a PC instead of an MBA -- I was just
going to install linux on it anyway.

~~~
rogerbinns
Note that it is Ubuntu etc certifying the laptops. You can't buy the laptops
with the certified version of Linux on them, and for the model I own (T430s)
the only version they list (11.10) is end of lifed in ~3 weeks. However Linux
is likely to just work on Lenovo Thinkpads, although binary drivers may be
problem if you pick an Nvidia GPU.

I'm also a member of the Thinkpad faithful. Other than screen resolution
(grrr) and bezel size, they are delightful machines. It is trivial to
change/update much of the hardware - they don't solder memory down, nor SSD
drives. And Linux works perfectly - the only thing it doesn't support is the
fingerprint reader which ironically is made by a company Apple bought not too
long ago.

~~~
acabal
Just as a heads up to those thinking of buying an X1 Carbon, the RAM _is_
soldered in on that model, and the SSD is a non-standard size making it
difficult/impossible to upgrade.

~~~
cjh_
very good point, you literally get what you pay for (and are stuck with it).

I am really liking my x1 carbon and it performs very well with linux.

I do wish I had stretched for the 8gb of ram but the 4gb has never been an
issue (despite me sometimes running windows in a VM), however my general
toolset is quite light (mostly command line based) so YMMV.

------
gambiting
Yeah I don't understand Apple - why still put old and slow 500GB 5400rpm
drives in brand new 15" Pros? Go to an Apple Store and try running anything on
the 15" Pro and on an 11" Air - I guarantee that Air will load it faster. I've
got the 2012 13" Air and it's a perfect tool for a developer, very quick,
completely silent and very portable. I am pretty sure that guy would be very
happy with his Mac,but he really needs to change that HDD for an SSD.

~~~
bdcravens
For casual users, that's probably not as big a deal as you'd think. Besides,
those folks definitely aren't comparing it to machines with Ubuntu.

I prefer the 5400 RPM machines, as I'm replacing machines, not buying new
ones, and my old upgrades (SSD and RAM) always come with me (put "new" hard
drive in old machine and eBay it)

~~~
LordIllidan
They are Macbook Pros - intended for Professionals.

They are extremely pricey laptops - but the hardware can stand to be improved
a lot.

~~~
stock_toaster

      > They are extremely pricey laptops - but the hardware can stand to be improved a lot.
    

You certainly can upgrade (at a cost of course) to a 7200rpm or SDD drive.

~~~
LordIllidan
You certainly can do this - I would have liked the 7200rpm or even a SSD drive
to be included on the base models though.

~~~
stock_toaster
You and me both. ;)

I am hoping future hardware refreshes round out the baseline systems a bit
more nicely, especially on the retina models.

~~~
LordIllidan
I'm also not too satisfied with the 4GB default on the MBP - I needed to
upgrade to 16GB to work properly. Getting a 16GB MBP from Apple, however,
proved to be more exp then getting a 4GB and upgrading it manually to 16GB
vengeance ddr3 ram. (best upgrade I ever did)

------
chadcf
I'm not sure why you'd want to trade, the biggest killer would be the 8 GB non
upgradable ram. Ouch. You can upgrade the macbook pro to 16GB and throw in a
SSD and your complaints will be gone. And yes, this will cost a bit more than
the dell but you'll get a bigger screen out of it at least. My machine is
upgraded to 16GB and a 500GB SSD and it's worth every penny. If you are ok
with a 250GB SSD you can do it even cheaper (last year, I paid about $80 for
the 16GB of ram and $500 for the 500GB SSD, 250GB SSD is significantly
cheaper)

~~~
gfosco
I have the 15" Retina MBP with 16GB RAM and an upgraded CPU... It's incredible
and I love working on it. Ordering a machine with 4GB RAM now is asking for
trouble, no matter the OS.

~~~
wazoox
All my linux desktops do perfectly fine with 2 GB. Mac OS X is a slow memory
hog, face it. That's one of the reasons I've bought the XPS 13 to replace my
old macbook: with similar hardware my linux machines feel just much, much
faster than my mac.

------
tinco
TL;DR: he compares a computer without an SSD to a computer with an SSD, the
computer without an SSD is slower.

Why do stories like this get upvotes?

~~~
autotravis
Real TL;DR: I compared a computer without an SSD, but with an Intel Core i7
clocked at 2 GHZ (quad-core, 8 threads) with a unix-like OS often cited as
comparable to Linux to a 7 year old Core2Duo (2 threads) machine with 7 year
old RAM and an SSD running Ubuntu (an OS not known as efficient).

The older machine with the slower CPU was faster.

It wasn't about the comparison, actually. It was about my surprise at how slow
such an impressively spec'd machine can be -- and my regret that I didn't get
the XPS 13.

~~~
tinco
Even a 10 year old machine with an SSD would be faster than a machine with a
5400rpm disk. Other things just don't matter when comparing operating system
performance.

------
nnutter
The author is promoting a machine he has never used and is comparing a non-SSD
machine to an SSD machine. This would have been semi-interesting if it was
discussing the XPS 13 DE under actual use.

~~~
autotravis
Where do you live? May I bring you some tea and massage your feet while I
rewrite my post to please you?

I linked to an exhaustive review of the XPS, if you read my entire post:
[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/04/it-just-works-dell-
xp...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/04/it-just-works-dell-
xps-13-developer-edition-linux-ultrabook-review/)

------
general_failure
Mbp 2012 15" is actually dual purpose. I own one. Apart from computing, it
doubles up as a room heater.

------
henryw
The author could just replace the hard drive with a SSD and add more RAM.
Probably will run $200 to $300 depending on the size of the SSD. I did that
with a 17" MBP, and it's still doing fine after 3 years.

[http://blog.laptopmag.com/how-to-replace-your-macbook-
pros-h...](http://blog.laptopmag.com/how-to-replace-your-macbook-pros-hard-
drive-with-an-ssd)

~~~
bluedino
Apple's inflated prices for 128GB SSD and 8GB of RAM is 'only' $300. You can
do better from NewEgg but when you have time ordering parts and installing
them and warranty issues it works out.

~~~
chadcf
I've never had warranty issues. I had to send in my macbook pro with a 3rd
party ssd and 3rd party ram for repairs, and they fixed it no problems. Even
better, they swapped out my budget brand ram for OEM.

------
doktrin
The specs on that MBP are bizarre. Why would anyone order a new machine with a
5400rpm drive and 4gb of ram? That was a bad purchasing decision.

I think the article would have been more helpful with some kind of first hand
account about using the device. I'm super curious about it, but am still
leaning towards a think pad x series. The keyboard alone is almost too
attractive to pass up, and they appear to be quite Linux compatible.

Edit : correction, MBP not MBA. Typo.

~~~
bluedino
That's the base config of almost every laptop out there. At least Lenovo has
almost all the T-series coming with a 7200RPM drive now.

~~~
doktrin
I suppose I should have clarified that the specs are bizarre for a developer's
laptop. The cost associated with the upgrades are relatively minor,
considering the life of the machine, and devs are typically customers that
know how to spec out machines.

~~~
autotravis
When they were ordering it, all I knew was it would be MBP 15-inch. I didn't
know they would go to the low end on the HDD and RAM. I was a little hands-off
to be polite with coming into a new job.

~~~
doktrin
Fair. I totally understand that. It's a habit I share myself, although having
been stung by it as well I now try to be as assertive as possible about my
needs.

------
mehrzad
I personally find Mountain Lion more bloated than either Ubuntu or Windows.

~~~
bluedino
If I boot up my Mac and Linux workstation with our environment setup and open
up my day-to-day apps, the Mac is about 1GB ahead in RAM use. But after you
start using them for a few hours they even out.

Firefox, Chrome, terminal windows, some Ruby sessions MySQL Workbench,
FileZilla, a couple LibreOffice documents...

------
niggler
I'm terribly confused here.

"continue to run Ubuntu in a VM on the MacBook with its relaxed HDD"

Did he try with bootcamp on Ubuntu 12.04 (the LTS version)? I just tested on
two macbook pros (mid 2011, early 2013) and both seem fine.

~~~
natermer
Apple hardware sucks at running Linux.

If you are a kernel hacker and the idea of fixing compatibility bugs sounds
like a regular afternoon then Apple hardware isn't so bad.

------
bluedino
Why didn't this guy just buy a 13" MBA in the first place?

------
OrsenPike
Any word on if the SSD it user changeable? I know the RAM is not which is a
shame.

