Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition (Linux) Review
arstechnica.co.uk
arstechnica.co.uk
I KNOW Linux isn't Unix.
The Linux layer on Windows 10 is quite functional. Of course, this suggestion presumes both that you're OK with Windows as a replacement for macOS for non-dev stuff and that you don't have an immediate need for the handful of things not yet supported by the WSL, but if both of those are true, it might be worth looking into.
I'm on the same boat. Except I have a chromebox as guinea pig.
I've seen people reporting this transition as a 'surprisingly good experience'. So here's my 2 cents on a 30 minute run (amount of time it takes me to setup a new macbook):
1password: there are options, but omg it just works...
xrandr: I knew things would get hairy when I found myself looking up how to dual monitor + rotate on i3wm
fonts: I don't know what it is, but seems different
I know your experience will vary from distro to distro, but that is exactly the point: it's hard to find that happy place.
I'm sure that sticking to certain distro, under certain hardware, things will go fine. But that at point I ask myself: Sooo... this seems similar to mac ecosystem, why not pay the apple tax and move on?
I don't think 2017 will be the year of linux on the desktop (or any other prophecy along those lines), but for sure it will be 'the year I reconsidered linux on the desktop'.
The Linux experience I saw so far would be enough for me to be productive with some known rough edges that I can either help fix or report.
Worst case scenario I get a macbook pro during the fall update ;)
I had a Dell XPS 13 connected to a Dell monitor running the stock Dell Ubuntu distro and still had to use arandr with config files when I switched from desk monitor to laptop to conference room.
This was a known issue a couple years ago. Maybe it's resolved now.
I was a few years Linux, few years MacOS and now back to Arch Linux and loving it. The only thing that really does not have good Linux alternative is adobe illustrator.
Of course, dual booting comes with its own issues. But I pretty much just game in Windows.
2. I'm sorry but I really can't agree with you at all about stability. Linux is incredibly stable, especially on a laptop designed for Linux. Linux on a MacBook, sure, it's awful. A Network manager update completely stopped my ability to connect to the internet and I had to downgrade it and prevent it from updating for a bit.
On my XPS? Not a single issue, and I'm on an "unstable" distribution.
I think that if there isn't some software that you absolutely need that has no Linux alternative then you should really give it a shot.
Ease of use is very subjective and can't really argue with what people are used to. I do know that from a physical point of view that Linux lets me configure a mouse to not give me RSI.
Sure, you couldn't use both at the same time, but that seems like it'd take care of most (of at least my) use cases.
This issue has been my bane, and the biggest reason I haven't upgraded from my old thinkpad (has dedicated mechanical buttons). I would have thought there would be a resolution by now since more and more laptops do away with the dedicated buttons, but I've never found one.
However, if I use my thumb to move the cursor first, this doesn't work and instead scrolls the page.
Hope that answers your question.
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Suspend/resume works fine.
I've had to restart the network-manager service just once to get WiFi to refresh. Otherwise it's fine reconnecting when you come in/out of suspend.
Other things: battery isn't great but I don't use it away from a desk. On the first couple of days the Ubuntu Software Centre kept crashing; I think it's fine now but I don't tend to use it anyway. I disabled the Dell apt source because it was failing - I don't know if that was a one-off problem or it's just broken.
But, I'm running Linux as my primary development environment again and it just feels _so good_ after a few painful months on OS X.
Most of Dells Ultrasharp monitors from the past couple of years have supported Daisychaining through Displayport. I have an older XPS 9333 DE from 2014 and use it with Dell's U2715H and U2415H monitors through a single displayport connection.
Can you expand on that, please. Why were you months on OS X painful? Just curious to hear the use case that caused this.
I started a new role a few months ago that forced me onto OS X and found physical and software issues. Physically OS X does not let you configure mice properly without installing third party drivers. Of course I ditched the "magic" mouse pretty quickly after my hand started hurting after a couple of days, but even with a normal mouse you simply cannot configure mouse sensitivity and acceleration properly - it cannot treat a mouse on par with what Linux or Windows will. You need extra drivers to even enable mouse buttons 3,4 and 5.
The keyboard shortcuts hurt too, sometimes using Ctrl, sometimes using Cmd, but that could be just fighting 15 years of muscle memory - so take that with a grain of salt (but it indirectly caused more physical finger pain).
Software-wise I don't know how objective I can be, but it feels faster/simpler to install software and things like the terminal are much better integrated - I can auto-complete git branch names on the command line for instance. Maybe OS X can do that kind of thing, but certainly not out of the box. To me, OS X feels like a 95% emulation of Linux, just that slightly bit lacking.
Then there are the embarrassing things like I couldn't find the shortcut to go to the end of the current line. On Linux it's the End key - on Mac I assume it's some combination somewhere.
I'm now questioning myself on this comment. I have med-large hands and the magic mouse, even though not intuitive at first, became my favorite mouse. I've tried many difference mouses (I believe that's the plural of the computer kind) since swiping to go back/forth on web pages is so much easier.
I guess its dogmatic; I freely use shortcuts on web browsers to switch to specific tabs or going back/forth when doing research/googling/SO but when I'm browsing/reading/wasting time, and only using the mouse, the swipe is quite intuitive.
Now I have to see if: it's easier to swipe between pages or use a 3rd/4th button to perform similar tasks...i'm sure it's nerdy/geeky but its an interesting question nonetheless, from the daily routine standpoint.
Crt+a. Every emacs shortcuts work everywhere in MacOS.
The laptop came with Windows 10 preinstalled (Dell did not offer Linux preinstalled in Australia).
I installed Fedora 25 on it. I hit a major issues with the Linux installer failing to recognize the Laptop's built in SSD. I was able to fix this by entering the BIOS and changing the SATA controller to AHCI mode and disabling Secure boot (apparently intel is to blame because bios default SATA "RAID mode" only works under Windows). After I made bios changes Windows partition would no longer boot (not a huge deal for me as I nuked this partition during Linux install).
The first time I closed the lid it failed to wake from suspend and I had to power cycle it. However since then I've updated the system packages quite a few times and it has successfully woken each time I have closed the lid subsequently. So suspect newer kernel fixed this.
For dual monitor support I haven't noticed any issues. But rarely run with an external monitor attached. WiFi worked out of the box. Never used bluetooth on it.
Trackpad is probably biggest issue it feels very poor to use and often does not register clicks. When I mentioned this on LWN some people mentioned changing from synaptics driver to using libinput driver for touchpad - for time being though I have been using an external mouse.
Overall I'm mostly satisfied. For hardware as new as what I purchased everything has worked remarkably well.
Wifi and Bluetooth work just fine. Yet to have an issue.
I drive a 4K Dell screen via a Kensington dock - this is a nice solution, one USB-C connector into the laptop, supplies power, and gives me Ethernet, 4k60 DP (which also allows chaining, but I haven't tried that, yet).
However, I skimmed the article and searched for terms like resume/sleep/wake/suspend without a hit - which I assume means they're working fine.
The article did quote that everything is running out of the box, so, again, the presumption is that those features work.
Bluetooth and Wifi work but who knows in Real World experience since the more you tinker with Linux the more issues you run into (unless you're seasoned).
Dual monitors I have no idea.
Also, those are all valid questions which I think most intro-level folks to Linux ask.
My personal issue with Linux has always been printing. At times, the drivers just stop working or crash a network company printer for no good reason. Not sure if its the novice in me or a SOP for most Linux users.
The two models we have are 283 and 284e; both have similar issues.
I spoke with a tech thinking it was my ignorance when downloading drivers but they told me "I've never seen this issue before". I chalked it up to doing something wrong and quit trying.
The Linux machines at work don't really need to print and I've attempted several times from different distros with similar results.
Again, can totally be my ignorance and lack of time to tinker with so YMMV.
Of course, mind you, dual monitor support on Ubuntu (or any other linux distro) sucks (I guess it's because X is crap). It is, however, functional. You get some annoying glitches when hot-plugging monitors, etc. Sometimes apps crash when both monitors "disappear" (laptop is closed an you disconnect the external monitor). But it works WAY better than I expected.
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Pretty standard overzealous boilerplate that companies get away with these days, but I don't like it so I don't agree to it.
The word "international" is rather worrying, suggesting it might have one of those upside down L return keys...
I think I'll spring for the XPS 15 in the end, since it has a better graphics card as well, and I could do some light gaming on it.
The XPS 15 has the advantage that the RAM is user replaceable, and as I understand it, the 16GB model comes with a single 16GB module, so should be fairly cheap to upgrade to 32GB yourself if you'd like to save a few $ initially.
It's the first thing I look for and most often the first source of disappointment.