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Comment by whyonearth | Hacker News Reader

Are you saying Linux won't work out-of-the-box on an XPS 15? Because Dell literally sells those pre-loaded with Ubuntu, even saves you $100.

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I don't think there's a developer edition of the 9570 model (there's no linux driver for the fingerprint scanner for example), and in any case we rarely get the Dell developer editions here in Australia.

I am certainly saying that a fresh install of Ubuntu (and a reasonable attempt to get over the initial issues eg. using a respin available on github) has too many problems for me to either live with or spend time investigating. Others may have more tolerance for fiddling around with OSs, but I've done my dash with that kind of stuff.

I think it's a bit contradictory to choose an insecure OS because a more secure one doesn't support a nice-to-have piece of security hardware. That aside, I'd be interested in the specifics of the "too many problems" that you anticipate on supported hardware (which includes most configurations of the XPS and Precision).

> I think it's a bit contradictory to choose an insecure OS because a more secure one doesn't support a nice-to-have piece of security hardware.

Maybe. But that has nothing to do with what I wrote.

> I'd be interested in the specifics

Would you? Or would you like to gather factoids in pursuit of your belief that everyone must make the choices you make?

> that you anticipate on supported hardware

Not "anticipate". Experienced, after installation (more than once). It was more trouble than it was worth to me.

> on supported hardware

As I say, I don't think there's a developer edition of the 9570. There isn't an extant linux driver for the fingerprint scanner, which surely there would be if Dell preinstalled linux on this model.

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