Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Now Available On Select Dell Precision Laptops

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Now Available On Select Dell Precision Laptops

While it's great that Dell offers the ability to have Ubuntu Linux pre-loaded on select systems, one of their shortcomings is that they are often quite slow in supporting new Ubuntu LTS releases. At least now for select Dell Precision mobile workstation laptops, they have finally switched over to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Dell-Precision-Ubuntu-18.04-LTS

[Dr. Righteous]

Unfortunately those are $1000+ laptop. It never seem (that I have found) you can purchase a laptop native with Linux that is less than $500. But I've had great success with Lenovo laptops. I purchased a new one earlier this year and immediately loaded Ubuntu studio and it for a dual boot. I had to employ several registry hacks in Win10 before it was usable at all.

[MichaelTunnell]

Unfortunately those are $1000+ laptop.

Precision 3530 is $820 so still not cheap but at least it is sub-$1000

It never seem (that I have found) you can purchase a laptop native with Linux that is less than $500.

That is pretty true with few exceptions that don't really count as they aren't very powerful.

[Vistaus]

That is pretty true with few exceptions that don't really count as they aren't very powerful.

But then again, <$500 laptops usually aren't known for their power anyway.

[moriel5]

Unfortunately those are $1000+ laptop. It never seem (that I have found) you can purchase a laptop native with Linux that is less than $500. But I've had great success with Lenovo laptops. I purchased a new one earlier this year and immediately loaded Ubuntu studio and it for a dual boot. I had to employ several registry hacks in Win10 before it was usable at all.

What sub-500$ Lenovo laptop has more than a i5-U series, and and the most a low power NVidia dGPU?
At these prices, I think the Dell Vostro 3568 (and hoping that soon the 3578 will reach similar, if a bit pricier points) gives much better bang for the buck, unless you can find a laptop at these prices that has more power (still U-series here, but DDR4-2400 RAM), an M.2 SSD (the most you can get with these two are 2.5" SSDs), better cooling (this is still low-end, but the cooling here is better than most at this price range), an "HDR" (not really, this is HDR-800) 1080p matte screen, and a user-serviceable 41Wh (some newer models have 47Wh) 4-cell battery (not very good, but name me one laptop in this price range that does more than ~4 hours of battery, these eke out 5-6 hours), and a better chassis.

For anyone that thinks that I am fanboying, I admit that there is a little, however this is mainly based upon the fact that I had not found anything better than this (and I had payed over ~500$ (I do not live in the US) for a worse Lenovo IdeaPad before I had understood the market, with only one year of warranty (the Vostros get 3)).

The only weakness in relation to the competition that I can think of for these laptops, and this can go either way, depending on your wants, is that it has an AMD dGPU rather than an AMD dGPU.

[ThoreauHD]

Having a hard time finding dell's spitnik program. All the links were pulled. Only

[Dr. Righteous]

What sub-500$ Lenovo laptop has more than a i5-U series, and and the most a low power NVidia dGPU?
At these prices, I think the Dell Vostro 3568 (and hoping that soon the 3578 will reach similar, if a bit pricier points) gives much better bang for the buck, unless you can find a laptop at these prices that has more power (still U-series here, but DDR4-2400 RAM), an M.2 SSD (the most you can get with these two are 2.5" SSDs), better cooling (this is still low-end, but the cooling here is better than most at this price range), an "HDR" (not really, this is HDR-800) 1080p matte screen, and a user-serviceable 41Wh (some newer models have 47Wh) 4-cell battery (not very good, but name me one laptop in this price range that does more than ~4 hours of battery, these eke out 5-6 hours), and a better chassis.
For anyone that thinks that I am fanboying, I admit that there is a little, however this is mainly based upon the fact that I had not found anything better than this (and I had payed over ~500$ (I do not live in the US) for a worse Lenovo IdeaPad before I had understood the market, with only one year of warranty (the Vostros get 3)).
The only weakness in relation to the competition that I can think of for these laptops, and this can go either way, depending on your wants, is that it has an AMD dGPU rather than an AMD dGPU.

The one I purchased was the IdeaPad with a AMD A12 APU.
It was about $340. Low end? Yeah;but I am not looking for a laptop to replace a PC workstation. I just needed something for when i'm in the field and on nice days when I feel like working from the front porch. Point being I chose Lenovo because it is generally linux friendly. With Ubuntu Studio loaded it runs like it was made for it. And it seem this model was well suited. I'm getting perfect low latency audio recording. Never a XRUN error using JACK. For the price and the kind of performance I was after, I would say it is a win-win and we don't come across those too often.

[moriel5]

The one I purchased was the IdeaPad with a AMD A12 APU.
It was about $340. Low end? Yeah;but I am not looking for a laptop to replace a PC workstation. I just needed something for when i'm in the field and on nice days when I feel like working from the front porch. Point being I chose Lenovo because it is generally linux friendly. With Ubuntu Studio loaded it runs like it was made for it. And it seem this model was well suited. I'm getting perfect low latency audio recording. Never a XRUN error using JACK. For the price and the kind of performance I was after, I would say it is a win-win and we don't come across those too often.

Yeah, that certainly makes sense, and the price certainly sounds good for those specs.
I'm glad that things had worked out that well for you.

By the way, can you check whether you have a WiFi whitelist? I have a thread over at BIOS-Mods where I am investigating the possibility that Lenovo may have finally stopped that evil practice.
My IdeaPad 300-15ISK does not have one (proof, I had put in an Intel Wireless-AC 9260 in, which was released over a year after the last firmware (UEFI) update was released for my laptop, and it works great with it).