Bought a used first or second gen Developer Edition XPS13 last year, installed Mint 17.2 on it and have been very pleasantly surprised. Pretty much just as functional as my old MBP for half the price :)
Did sth similar here with a XPS15 (9530). Installed Ubuntu 15.10 on it, most of it works pretty smooth. A second screen is a bit of a hassle if you don't get a 3200x1800-one. Besides that I didn't really have issues. Touch also works fine ;)