Dell's Current Ubuntu Image For The XPS 13 Developer Laptop 2015 Disappoints

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Dell's Current Ubuntu Image For The XPS 13 Developer Laptop 2015 Disappoints

Earlier this year Dell released their XPS 13 laptop with an Intel Broadwell processor and all-around looks like a great developer laptop. Back when the hardware first appeared, the Linux support wasn't in great shape. Dell is now shipping the XPS13 2015 model with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS preloaded, but sadly, there's still some issues with the initial pre-install...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Dell-Ubuntu-XPS-2015-14.04

[Tuxee]

So much incompetence by a hardware vendor... Painful to watch.

[Serafean]

So much incompetence by a hardware vendor... Painful to watch.

Even on the proprietary side, I have yet to see a competent hw vendor...

[souenzzo]

Waiting for trashed dellubuntu as dellwindows is...

[zanny]

Why would you plug Lenovo products as alternatives? They don't ship with Linux. You get no warranty on it. You get no support on it.

Its the worst kind of self perpetuating cycle that the communities hard on for a company who gives less of a shit about them than Dell does (and that says a lot) continues to throw thousands of developer hours making sure their hardware is supported, and then claiming those are the computers to buy to run Linux on. What an awful precedent "don't give a damn about us in any reasonable capacity, we'll do the work for you, just keep using the IBM branding for your laptops that used to be good for us over a decade ago".

I can't imagine how awful it must be to work on the Sputnik team, because obviously this release demonstrates they have no voice in hardware choices that go into the XPS 13 in the first place. Apparently they couldn't even replace all the unsupported broken proprietary crap with known supported hardware vendors stuff, like swapping the Broadcom NIC for an Intel or Qualcomm one. That must be an extremely frustrating job to have.

[castlefox]

Yeah I'll try out those thinkpads as soon as they stop shipping with Windows. Until then its not really an option i could let myself purchase.

[tuke81]

Why would you plug Lenovo products as alternatives? They don't ship with Linux. You get no warranty on it. You get no support on it.

Its the worst kind of self perpetuating cycle that the communities hard on for a company who gives less of a shit about them than Dell does (and that says a lot) continues to throw thousands of developer hours making sure their hardware is supported, and then claiming those are the computers to buy to run Linux on. What an awful precedent "don't give a damn about us in any reasonable capacity, we'll do the work for you, just keep using the IBM branding for your laptops that used to be good for us over a decade ago".

I can't imagine how awful it must be to work on the Sputnik team, because obviously this release demonstrates they have no voice in hardware choices that go into the XPS 13 in the first place. Apparently they couldn't even replace all the unsupported broken proprietary crap with known supported hardware vendors stuff, like swapping the Broadcom NIC for an Intel or Qualcomm one. That must be an extremely frustrating job to have.

Not sure but Lenovo does have some kind of linux certfication program. And there is a list which lenovo pc:s are certified for linux:

http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/pd031426#2

But yeah, they could and should do more with linux support. You can get lenovo thinkpads with freedos, but not with any linux distribution.

[Timo Jyrinki]

To clarify, my willingness to upgrade the graphics stack to the non-shipped version was because I knew how to, not because it would have been required. I suspect most phoronixers share the love for newer drivers, and the 14.04.x stacks offer that while not needing to abandon other Dell specific fixes. The microphone only got muted with that upgrade, and again got fixed when I switched to the already available 14.04.3 kernel.

I could have just stayed on the original pre-install HWE too, which worked fine after fixing the upgrade issue and enabling the touchpad driver from settings.

[castlefox]

Not sure but Lenovo does have some kind of linux certfication program. And there is a list which lenovo pc:s are certified for linux:

http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/pd031426#2

But yeah, they could and should do more with linux support. You can get lenovo thinkpads with freedos, but not with any linux distribution.

I didnt know you could get Thinkpads with Freedos....

Would anyone only use Freedos on a Thinkpad ?

[madjr]

sometimes the preinstalled image is not the best.

I purchased an Asus X201EP laptop a couple if years ago, from amazon preinstalled with ubuntu.

it came with 12.04 lts, but felt buggy.

upgrading didnt solve all issues, so I fresh installed and everything was much better and faster.

Now with Ubuntu 15.04 is working and feels perfect.

So I would recommend fresh installs to latest version