Comment by nfoz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nfoz | Hacker News Reader

Oh interesting, this is the M3800 which is Dell's beefy 15" Linux laptop. Glad to see it getting some light.

If you're looking for something more portable, the New XPS 13 is in development and is supposed to launch soon. I follow the project lead's blog here: http://bartongeorge.net/

My hats off to the Dell team; they're very open about what they're doing, making better drivers etc. before launching the product.

For now I'm trying out a 2015 Chromebook Pixel with Debian GNU/Linux install..ing. Still working on it. It has a lot of the same problems mentioned here: - Suuuper glossy screen (basically a mirror with a dark background) - Limited keyboard: no pageup/pagedown.. even more limited than the Dell, it doesn't have a DEL key, just Power in its place... much key remapping will be required to make this usable. - No physical trackpad buttons, and that's a huuuge problem, because even Google's touchpad driver fails some basic tests of operation as compared to a Mac (e.g. cursor stutters its motion if you click while moving the cursor). The lack of touchpad buttons across most laptops now is shocking. - Keys are a bit shallow

I have yet to use a touchpad that works as well as a macbook's... which is pretty sad at this point.. I understand they reduced the travel of the keys and touchpad in the late 2014 releases though... That and the display are the two main reasons I got an rMBP (right before the new models last year)... but may well go with something else in a couple years.

Agree. The funny part is that Apple's touchpad driver is open-source (under a scary Apple Open Source license, but still). You can read it. Or at least, you could circa 2006.

I've been meaning to hack on the Linux driver since back then, but honestly always expected someone more competent to try a touchpad-driver-rewrite instead. Maybe they have, but we still seem far behind, and I'm pretty sure it's a software issue.

That being said, physical buttons are superior. Clicking one means you know a click registered, so even if the software is doing something stupid, you're assured of your interactions. I don't understand why the buttons have gone away.

I like Apple's physical click-anywhere... it's still a physical click... just contextually sensitive. I don't like tap to click, and I don't like region clicking. My Logitech touchpad on my ubuntu htpc keyboard does this, and pisses me off when it right-clicks because I'm in the bottom-right quarter of the pad (not sure if it can be changed in windows, no option in ubuntu).

I agree tap-click is awful. MacOS does a fantastic job at supporting both modes.

Other laptops... not so much. They seem to expect tap-click, because they get so confused when there are two fingers on the pad. I want to move with one finger and click with another. This requires some real software intelligence, to know that the click-finger should not affect the move-finger's motion, and detect when you're doing a multi-touch gesture vs.just clicking.

I'll be getting a new laptop soon and am interested in the XPS 13.

1. Is the only difference in the Developer edition that Ubuntu is install by default, and drivers are made to work with it? Otherwise the build is exactly the same? (The New XPS has a matte screen which I would like.)

2. I don't particularly trust an operating system that ships with a computer. I assume if I wipe it and install Ubuntu from scratch it'll still work the same as intended?

3. Will the price be lower due to no Windows license?

4. Do you have a ballpark figure of when it'll be out?

Thanks.

Afaict it's not yet known if there will be any hardware differences between the Windows and Ubuntu models.

Yes, of course you can wipe the OS in either case. Dell's Linux extensions are open-source as far as I know, e.g. their touchpad improvements that they're working on. But you might have to build your own kernel in order to compile those drivers yourself, or perhaps wait a long time before they're mainlined.

This is conjecture based on my understanding. I'd look around the Dell-Linux forums/blogs, the dev team is pretty open about discussing this stuff.

In the linked article the M3800 is a hundred dollars cheaper with Ubuntu.

I ordered a Lenovo X1 Carbon upgraded to 8gb and i7. Planning to run ubuntu in virtualbox. If that doesn't work out I'll try a dual boot.

I run various distros on my first-gen X1 Carbon and it's awesome. Everything just works. You don't even have to go driver hunting as you do with Windows. The most I had to do was add a kernel parameter to the bootloader to get the brightness keys to work with more granularity. I would highly recommend going native if your workflow allows it.

Been trying to do this with ubuntu on a desktop, but couldn't get a juniper VPN with remote desktop working. I couldn't get the cert installed to log in through the web interface.

I'll give it another shot.

I have a 2nd gen. X1, (the one without the dedicated function keys) and run Arch on it. It's my Dev and play machine, no problems whatsoever and the 2560x1440 screen is addicting. Can't imagine going back to something with less DPI.

>> the M3800 which is Dell's beefy 15" Linux laptop.

Actually, the 6.3lb M4800 is Dell's beefy laptop.

The M3800 is Dell's beefy 15" Linux laptop.

Yep! Just got an m4800 and I love it. Linux isn't the easiest to use, though... and it looks like I currently have to run the nv binary driver to use my graphics card. :( So I definitely wouldn't classify it as a Linux laptop - even unofficially.

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