[HN Gopher] Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 serie...
___________________________________________________________________
Linux Developer Laptops: Dell's Precision 5500 series reigns
supreme (2019)
Author : skadamat
Score : 111 points
Date : 2022-03-11 17:53 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (wesmckinney.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (wesmckinney.com)
| switchbak wrote:
| This is from 2019, does not appear useful at all.
| leephillips wrote:
| Shallow dismissal. Don't assume everyone lives in the same year
| as you.
| francislavoie wrote:
| Huh? Are others time travellers?
| adolph wrote:
| Technologically, it can be cheaper to live a couple years
| back. Look at all these first gen iPhone SE's for about
| $100.
|
| https://buy.gazelle.com/collections/iphone-se
| leephillips wrote:
| That's what I do with everything possible. Tech becomes
| quite cheap, and if something breaks (which it does less
| often than with new stuff), there is no getting upset
| when the company refuses to honor the warranty, because
| there is no warranty. Just buy another one.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Absolutely! For instance, Jacob Rees-Mogg lives in roughly
| 1840 CE.
| version_five wrote:
| Have you seen any major changes between now and then? I looked
| for a linux developer laptop last year and ended up with a
| lenovo P1 after a previous bad experience (with power
| management) on an XPS13 (which I used while traveling - I don't
| travel now).
|
| I didn't see any other alternatives last year vs what he's
| discussing. I would love to hear if there are new competitive
| linux-friendly laptops out there now
| StopDarkPattern wrote:
| Because everyone loves CCP sponsored back doors in their
| hardware. I am a solid pass on lenovo for life.
| version_five wrote:
| I don't think this is remotely credible. Without some
| evidence it's just scare mongering (although I find it hard
| to take anyone who automatically jumps to saying CCP when
| talking about China seriously)
|
| Anyway, as someone without even the remotest business or
| personal connections to China, if someone is spying on me I
| hope it's them, rather than someone who can actually impact
| my life
| perihelions wrote:
| I think GP was referring to SuperFish,
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072424 ( _" Lenovo
| Caught Installing Adware on New Computers"_)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9074110 ( _"
| Extracting the SuperFish certificate"_)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9524536 ( _" Class
| action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish"_)
|
| etc.
| version_five wrote:
| This seems to be a windows spyware, the OP refers
| specifically to hardware, and this discussion is about
| linux so I don't think he was referring to Superfish.
|
| Incidentally, the OP is troll account with -3 Karma so I
| think he was just trolling anyway, I didn't notice that
| when I first replied.
| flylikeabanana wrote:
| Well, the Framework did come out since then. That's no small
| news in the linux laptop world
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| The article states they want discrete graphics. Framework
| don't yet have this capability.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Anecdotal, a colleague of mine absolutely hated his to the
| point where he didn't even sell it, it just ended up in a
| drawer until he's calmed down enough to sort it out for
| sale >_<
| belval wrote:
| No offense to your colleague, but if you get angry
| against a piece of tech to a point where you can't even
| stand to sell it, I think you have more issues than a bad
| laptop...
| agallant wrote:
| Laptops from the same series are still offered, and (for good
| or ill) still pretty similar to 2019 - https://www.dell.com/en-
| us/work/shop/workstations-isv-certif...
|
| I have a 2020 model, and would concur with this post - good
| screen, build, thermals, lots of ram, no having to fight with
| drivers. Even firmware updates "just work" (apply as snaps).
|
| I did find this review more helpful when making the purchase
| decision - https://www.engineering.com/story/dell-
| precision-5550-review...
| qchris wrote:
| I largely agree--the post definitely seems to show its age, and
| explicitly doesn't really cover any laptops besides the Dell
| Precision 5540 vs. the Thinkpad P1. Not the author's fault--
| this is a great reason why post's dates are useful, but I think
| that any current review of the Linux development laptop
| landscape has to include options like the Framework or System76
| offerings and exclude models like the x230 (no shade at the
| x230; I ran it as a Linux dev machine for several years, but
| it's now significantly handicapped for modern software
| development).
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| If I read dmidecode correctly, I'm writing this on a laptop
| from 2013, which remains not only fully functional but which
| has high enough specs that I don't even see it _struggling_ for
| quite some time. When I someday get another laptop, it 's
| likely to be from eBay, and I would very much like to know what
| the best laptops were 3-5 years ago. Being from 2019 is
| _important_ context, but it 's not disqualifying.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I used to be the same, rocking a late 2013 MacBook Pro. I
| then bought a Radeon 5000 series and put it in and old PC I
| had lying around (Xeon E5-2667 v2, Q3'13 according to
| ark.intel.com).
|
| I was amazed at how well they kept up, and even how they were
| faster than my 2018-2019 work laptop (an 8th gen
| i5u-something) when comparing Rust build times.
|
| Then I got a new one with a Zen 3 (5650u) in December. Man,
| it feels sooo smooth and snappy when compared to the older
| computers. And I'm running Linux/i3, so nothing that requires
| fancy graphics or anything. What's shocking, is that the
| other computers never felt slow, laggy or struggling.
|
| However, this laptop is an absolute steaming PoS on multiple
| other aspects (chief amongst which a broken BIOS and absurdly
| bad screen), so I would absolutely not recommend it.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Then I got a new one with a Zen 3 (5650u) in December.
| Man, it feels sooo smooth and snappy when compared to the
| older computers.
|
| > However, this laptop is an absolute steaming PoS on
| multiple other aspects (chief amongst which a broken BIOS
| and absurdly bad screen), so I would absolutely not
| recommend it.
|
| I think you meant to argue that new hardware can be good,
| but that's really not the conclusion I walked away with.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| My point was that there have been noticeable improvements
| in computing power. I wouldn't recommend this particular
| model, but it's likely that an equivalent ThinkPad would
| be an all round much better experience and have the same
| performance, or maybe even better.
|
| This particular new laptop is a "business" series, so it
| tries to look fancy, but it's just cheap crap sold at a
| high markup. I have older models at work, and they have
| all failed in various ways. They're barely moved outside
| the office, too, so it's not like I beat on them all day
| every day. It's a line I would never recommend to anyone
| under any circumstance, be it new or old. But it _is_
| fast.
|
| My general opinion, though, is that instead of buying
| cheap models often, it's usually much better to buy
| nicer, "higher-end" models less often, at least as far as
| perception is concerned, especially if you don't have
| anything (new) to compare it to. This can afford better
| "peripherals", such as a screen, keyboard, silence, etc.,
| which cheaper models tend to never have.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| It will probably more useful, because with the passed time
| since introduction, the drivers had a chance to mature. In
| opposition to the newest gadget, which lacks support of
| feautures to varying degrees.
| sireat wrote:
| My maximum spec Lenovo P1 Gen 1 that I have been using for the
| last 3 years has been really underwhelming. It feels just very
| average. No premium feel whatsoever. XPS13 by comparison feels a
| bit more premium.
|
| Most damning, out of the two M2 SSD drives in Lenovo P1, the main
| one was some no name Chinese make that failed without a warning
| after a year. For a premium model that is just unacceptable.
| Secondary drive is a WD that is still alive.
|
| By comparision 10 year old Dell Precision M6700 and M4700 are
| built like tanks have ports and upgradability to the max. Same
| goes for Lenovo T440p that I bought for 200 Euros for my kid's
| schoolwork. Same goes for older HP ProBooks. Another kid has a
| Macbook Air M1 and that is just alright.
|
| The laptops from early 2010s just feel sturdier and better built.
|
| The question is which will be the well built professional Alder
| Lake laptop to get? Will it be Lenovo, Dell, HP, Asus maybe MSI
| or maybe even Framework?
|
| Intel 12th gen offers some impressive gains over AMD and 11th gen
| Intel so it makes sense to wait.
| thecrumb wrote:
| I'm tired of the 'thinner is better' progress of laptops. As a
| developer I _want_ ports, I want more cooling so the fans don 't
| run all the time. I want a laptop I can actually place on my lap
| without getting burned LOL. I love my old T420. Currently have
| P15 from work. Horrible layout because they crammed in a numpad
| so now the trackpad is offset to the left. If I had to buy a
| laptop myself I'd lean either to System76 or the Framework
| laptop.
| hbn wrote:
| Well thankfully, Apple seems to have gone in that direction
| with the last MBP releases. And with them being the
| trendsetters they are, I wouldn't be surprised if other OEMs
| saw that as a green light to start putting out thicker laptops
| with decent ports again.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Perhaps look at HP zBooks; I have one that is almost 6 years
| old and still kicking; plenty of ports definitely not thin.
|
| I just looked at the current offering and the only negative
| compared to mine is that it seems to no longer have any USB-A
| ports on the left; just on the Left.
|
| Now they can come with Ubuntu pre-installed; at the time I had
| to install it myself.
|
| Only downside is the price; they start around $2k; the one I
| purchased was $3k, and I justified it by hoping it would last
| me a while. Given that this was in 2016, I think I made out
| alright.
|
| Only thing I would change is I'd like a 1440p display. At 15" I
| think a 4k is wated, but 1080p is a bit confining.
|
| Also, if you do get one, do spend the extra $60 for the better
| IPS screen; all the reviews I checked said the base screen is
| garbage.
| synergy20 wrote:
| I was assigned a Macbook Pro at work and I asked for a non-Mac
| laptop, reason being I'm a Linux developer and Macbook did not
| work well for me(keyboard,etc).
|
| I ended up with a XPS 15 that has 64GB DDR and 2TB PCIe NVMe SSD
| around $2750, comparing to 32GB+1TB of MacBook Pro it is about
| $800 less expensive.
|
| I did not realize Precision 55xx series is even better built than
| XPS15 otherwise I will probably go that route. Time will tell how
| this goes(still waiting for XPS15, it's shipped).
|
| Side note: My family had an xps13 and the hinge broke after 3
| years, after opening it I found it's made with plastic, I was
| disappointed that XPS did not even use a metal hinge, which is
| probably just 25 cents more. so yes XPS does not use the best
| quality parts from my experience. Next time I will try Precision
| series.
| nly wrote:
| I'm pretty confident the Precision 55xx series are exactly the
| same, they just have different chipset features.
| laurent92 wrote:
| > I did not realize Precision 55xx series is even better built
| than XPS15
|
| Bought an XPS15 for an intern. I pulled the screen to open, and
| it remained stuck with the base, because they didn't even tune
| the hinge. How can someone work with such a device, you can
| hear the fans and feel the heat through the keyboard: If XPS15
| is in the top 3 money can buy after System76 and Precision
| 55xx, then Apple can double the prices and they would still
| have customers.
| bdlowery wrote:
| > I was disappointed that XPS did not even use a metal hinge,
| which is probably just 25 cents more. so yes XPS does not use
| the best quality parts from my experience.
|
| This is why it's $800 cheaper than a MacBook Pro.
| Lio wrote:
| Only the XPS 13 from te XPS range is "Linux compatible". The
| rest are a crapshoot.
|
| I had a little look at the Precision 7760. With Ubuntu there's
| only 1 version available in the UK and it's a beast with 64GB
| RAM and 4TB SSD. It cost PS6,091.39[1].
|
| Looking at Apple for a rough equivalent[2] I spec'd a 16" up
| with 64GB and 4TB and it's PS4,599.00
|
| I'm an XPS 13 Dev Ed owner myself. It's OK for the most part, I
| don't have many problems with it.
|
| I'm not in the market for a 16"/17" laptop right now but when
| it's time to replace this it's going to be hard to look past
| what Apple are offering.
|
| 1. https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptop-
| computers-2-in-1...
|
| 2. https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/16-inch-
| sp...
| secondcoming wrote:
| Change the RAM and SSD to the minimum and buy upgrades
| elsewhere.
| secondcoming wrote:
| I normally hate laptops but I had to buy one due to Covid and
| went with a Precision 7750. I didn't bother with a dedicated
| graphics card, and chose the minimum spec RAM and NVMe, but I
| did opt for the 4K display with WWAN for the 4G modem. I
| purchased 128GB RAM and a 2TB NVMe elsewhere and just put them
| in. Final cost was under PS4k
|
| It's actually quite decent. I'm not sure I can upgrade the
| modem to 5G though.
| synergy20 wrote:
| That's what I'm going to do: replace DDR and NVMe myself to
| save a bit.
|
| I am also keen on something between a NUC and mini-tower,
| that is small enough to carry, powerful enough to build heavy
| code bases. You do need find a display with keyboard etc to
| use them, which works for home and office and lab settings
| well. Or, just use it as a build machine connected to the
| network, headlessly(no need keyboard,mouse and display)
| alkonaut wrote:
| What's a good high perf laptop in 2022 that manages high load for
| hours (with power cable) without being noisy or
| overheating/throttling
|
| The Dell precisions I have had have been crappy with swelling
| batteries after a year or so of hard use. The current one has had
| two battery replacements with touchpad and keyboard replacement,
| within the warranty period. I just recently swapped the CPU fan.
| The last precision before that had to get a screen and
| motherboard replaced.
|
| Anything that has proper cooling and latest gen CPU seems to be
| plasticky gaming models (Alienware, Legion, ..). No one makes a
| good developer workstation for 99% stationary use it seems. Yet
| almost all developers I know use external power, keyboards and
| screens almost all the time and just occasionally move between
| e.g home and office. The niche of "movable workstation" seems
| underserviced despite a huge market, right?
| vwoolf wrote:
| Did you miss all the M1 MacBook Pro hoopla?
| https://hn.algolia.com/?q=macbook+pro+14%22
| seqizz wrote:
| For heaven's sake. Is there a laptop which works OK with docking
| on Linux? I have an XPS 13 now, used Thinkpad t460p before. Both
| of them has roughly 1/3 chance I didn't see anything on the
| screen after docking/undocking.
| nix0n wrote:
| I've got a 5520 with Ubuntu, and my advice is to use the HDMI
| port on the side of the laptop instead of running video through
| the dock.
| tga wrote:
| I am still running Debian stable on a T460p and all I can tell
| you is that there is hope.
|
| I used to have major issues with suspend and dock on this
| machine, with Ubuntu and then Debian. I lost many work mornings
| to getting the machine to show anything on the screen after
| docking. I tried various drivers, tweaks, everything --
| sometimes it would work for a while and then trouble would be
| back with the next reboot or kernel upgrade.
|
| Then one day I hit the right tweak -- or Debian flipped the
| right bit -- and at least for the last ~year I've had _zero_
| problems with it. Dock, undock, suspend, resume, it 's 100%
| there and I don't even think about it anymore.
|
| I believe it's because I finally managed to turn off the Nvidia
| card and use the Intel one instead, but I can't be sure. To be
| honest, I'm afraid to touch the video setup or reinstall Linux
| because I might land right back in driver hell.
| rr808 wrote:
| Doing more and more in the browser these days I'm thinking of
| just getting a Chromebook. If only there was one with a good
| quality large screen.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Connect it to a monitor?
| ranqet wrote:
| It does seem like in the last several years, the quality of
| ThinkPads has declined as other business lines like Dell
| Latitude/Precision and HP EliteBook/ZBook have improved.
| Shadonototra wrote:
| i find it very hard to suggest an intel/amd laptop nowadays now
| that M1 macbooks exist..
|
| M1 is a league on its own, everything else is just tech junk at
| this point
| krzyk wrote:
| Does it run Linux?
| ComradePhil wrote:
| First of all, Desktop linux barely works on the hardware it
| is designed to work on.
|
| Let's say that because of some miracle, Linux becomes usable
| on M1 macs... and people start buying M1 macs to run Linux,
| Apple will have incentive to lock the bootloader (which they
| don't currently do) so that people are forced to run macOS
| only... because their value does not come from the hardware
| itself but the "ecosystem" (a.k.a. vendor-lock-in) they have
| built around it.
| ModernMech wrote:
| There are still zero Apple laptops with touch/pen displays. M1
| gives good performance per watt, but at the same time my
| computer's longevity has been more than enough for probably a
| decade now; as long as I get a good solid 10 hours on a single
| charge, that might as well be 20 hours because it'll be hooked
| up to my home monitors before too long. And yes, M1 performance
| is very good, but so are a lot of other machines out there, and
| most laptops today, even the slowest worst ones, are more than
| sufficient for the everyday computing needs of most people.
|
| So the value of a amd/intel laptop is all the performance you
| need, all the battery life you need, and also you get extra
| features you'll never see on a Mac like pen and touch screen,
| plus compatibility with all of your games, programs, and
| hardware. That's not tech junk, imo.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| M1 is overrated. I own MacBook Pro with M1 Max. It's fast, but
| it's not something that helps in day to day use. And ARM
| compatibility issues not really helping. Battery is not that
| amazing either. I spent 30 minutes in discord and battery was
| at 91%, 5 hours is not something unique. It's good, fast and
| expensive laptop. But not something that I could call mind
| breaking.
| brimble wrote:
| Discord in particular is a horrible battery hog--we used it a
| lot over the worst stretches of the pandemic in my social
| group, and it was _constantly_ killing laptop batteries that
| could reasonably last 8+ hours, in like 3 hours flat. I 've
| always had to avoid Electron (and leaving enormous web-apps
| open all the time, like Gmail) and use Safari to achieve (or
| sometimes exceed--they're relatively conservative about it)
| Apple's battery life claims. Unfortunately, a handful of
| common programs seem to be the equivalent of having your
| computer to find more digits of Pi _constantly_ , on _all
| cores_ , while what they're actually doing justifies _maybe_
| 10% of their actual power use. Mostly, it 's webshit doing
| it.
| AitchEmArsey wrote:
| My regular M1 MBP is comfortably managing 18 hours of normal
| use (non-video browser and terminal) or 12ish hours of more
| intensive use (video and Slack). Sounds like putting the M1
| Max in a laptop form factor is a bit of a waste, as I've
| never even strained the base level processor.
| diegorbaquero wrote:
| Try the Discord PTB which is native to M1.
| https://discord.com/api/download/ptb?platform=osx
| Ologn wrote:
| > And ARM compatibility issues not really helping
|
| There were two things I wanted to try on my MBP w/ M1 -
| compiling an Android app that has some C code, and also to
| run Fidelity's Active Trader Pro program (not that I would
| use it that actively). I also installed the Rosetta stuff it
| prompted for.
|
| The Active Trader Pro program would not run.
|
| In Android Studio, the production version can not compile
| with CMake as it can on Intel-based Macs yet (
| https://github.com/android/ndk/issues/1299 ). They say there
| is stuff in the beta/alpha/canary branches where it is
| working, but I am not in a rush and will wait for that to
| make its way into production.
|
| > It's good, fast
|
| Yes, I did see the speed, especially with a normal
| Kotlin/Java Android Studio compile, on 16GB RAM.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Hmm, I have the air with m1, and my battery life is insane.
| Like 20 hours, even with a parallels vm running some of the
| time.
|
| I do however have no idea what discord is. Isn't it some
| kinda forum?
|
| Also using safari when on battery doubles your life, fwiw.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Discord is like Slack, with video calls. I'm using Safari.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Slack has video calls... they're Shite though ;)
| brimble wrote:
| > I do however have no idea what discord is. Isn't it some
| kinda forum?
|
| Budding Slack competitor that started with a focus on
| gaming. If you couldn't guess from the context of its
| eating battery like crazy, it's a webtech "application".
| davidatbu wrote:
| qumpis wrote:
| I'm very curious about counterpoint to this from a causal unix
| user perspective
| ComradePhil wrote:
| The counter-point is it may be "unix" but it is not Linux and
| if you think it is, it will bite you in ways you don't expect
| (why does the sed command that works completely fine on Linux
| fails weirdly... oh because even though it is mostly the same
| sed except it is not really... it's the BSD sed from whenever
| Apple forked it).
|
| The "package manager" brew is it's own thing because it is
| not first party, will never be and will conflict with your OS
| in unexpected ways when you least expect it.
|
| And then, it's not even amd64. So, if you use docker for
| example, you have to remember to cross build for linux/amd64
| if you are deploying to an amd64 server, which is much more
| likely than you deploying to arm64... and then, you have to
| run an emulated VM in the background for this purpose.
|
| Do you rely on specific software/libraries? Well, you may
| read that it is supported now for M1, but you don't really
| know what bits aren't supported... and you may find that the
| hard way.
| Underphil wrote:
| The counterpoint would be that huge swathes of the public
| (myself included) despise using Mac OS for anything more
| serious than browsing, so that entire line of laptops would
| be dead to us.
| prototypeasap wrote:
| Need to have a thorough comparative analysis to claim something
| reigns supreme. My laptop is Lenovo Carbon X1 7th Gen - with
| custom Debian 10 install.
|
| I chose it over Dell offerings due to better keyboard and
| substantially lower weight. I don't really care about operating
| system that comes pre-installed; As, i always do a fresh
| 'bloatware free' install of Debian anyways. The only thing that
| doesn't work is fingerprint reader. I absolutely love this
| laptop; But wouldn't go as far as to claim it reigns supreme.
|
| For the past two years i have been doing more and more coding on
| my home workstation that runs Windows (if you can believe it).
| With WSL2 all the linux apps (including GUI based ones) run
| smooth like butter; And the fact that i can back-up and switch
| between different distros seamlessly really makes my life easier.
|
| So, i would even consider running Windows on my laptop for Linux
| development purposes in the future (sorry if it offends anyone).
| The only thing that is stopping me, is the fact that my X1 runs
| much faster under Debian and battery life is substantially
| better.
| randlet wrote:
| I've been using a Lenovo Carbon X1 4th Gen with Ubuntu
| installed for the last 5+ years and love it. My next laptop
| will almost certainly be another X1 Carbon.
| Bullfight2Cond wrote:
| 5560 is one of my least favorite laptops ever.
|
| The trackpad is unnecessarily big that my hand routinely clicks
| it when typing. Also, it has driver issues:
|
| - on windows if you move the trackpad quickly and then click, it
| resets your cursor position -- I've lost work because of this
| bug: https://imgur.com/a/ibNObJ8
|
| - on linux (tried in fedora) there's an unresolved issue with the
| kernel driver where randomly the acceleration of the cursor will
| drop and the cursor movement will have a large amount of lag:
| https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput/-/issues/61...
|
| Physically, out of the box it looks nice but over the course of
| 2-3 months becomes quite disgusting: it attracts smudges, the
| speaker grill fill up with dust. It's also heavy.
|
| The plastic housing on the edge of the display is so sharp that
| when I went to wipe dust off the screen I sliced my finger and
| started bleeding.
|
| Performance wise, it's okay, but I only get 5 hours in windows
| (VSCode, Slack, Firefox).
|
| The keyboard is okay, but I prefer the thinkpad keyboards because
| the delete key isn't offset from a touch power button like the
| dell.
|
| 3/10 would not buy again
| brirec wrote:
| > Also, it has driver issues: > - on windows if you move the
| trackpad quickly and then click, it resets your cursor position
| -- I've lost work because of this bug:
| https://imgur.com/a/ibNObJ8
|
| This is actually part of the Windows Precision Touchpad
| functionality. I think "it's a feature, not a bug." I hate it
| too, but it's definitely not exclusive to Dell.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| Missing [2019] in the title.
|
| I'm in the market for buying a laptop this year. What is the
| currently reigning developer laptop?
| pthread_t wrote:
| When it's time for me to upgrade I'll go with one of the
| framework machines. [0] It's fully customizable, with room for
| future upgrades. I've been looking into a Dell machine for a
| while, but they just seem to have too many issues.
|
| For what it's worth, I'm currently using an m1 macbook, and the
| battery life is absolutely incredible.
|
| [0] https://frame.work/
| cjaro wrote:
| I have an M1 mac for work and I am seriously impressed with
| the battery life. I prefer my asus laptop that I loaded
| ubuntu on for my daily driver (gaming, coding, fun), but man,
| I can leave my work machine unplugged all day while running
| the work VPN, firefox & chrome, remote desktop, vscode, slack
| and mattermost, and finish out the day with above 70%
| battery. I wasn't planning to like this laptop but I do.
| pthread_t wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. Unfortunately, I have run into odd
| compatibility issues when trying to compile and run a
| handful of Rust projects that are generally meant for x86
| platforms. That issue and macOS prevents me from adopting
| the m1 as my daily driver.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| I think it depends on your needs, really. When I bought a
| laptop in December of last year, I narrowed my options down to
| a Dell XPS 15 and a Thinkpad T15 (both with the Intel CPUs,
| although AMD seemed to perform better on benchmarks, Dell
| doesn't even ship with them and the Thinkpad with AMD wasn't
| available in my region). I didn't consider System76 much
| because I need Windows support, and sadly couldn't go for a
| framework because they didn't ship to where I needed.
|
| I ended up going for the Thinkpad even though it has a worse
| screen, because I read many negative things about defects in
| XPS laptops, the CPU was of a lower tier but apparently more
| energy efficient (also I learned that laptop CPUs are a mess),
| the Thinkpad has more varied ports, and it has the trackpoint.
|
| I was pleasantly surprised to learn that many top of the line
| laptops (not counting Apple of course) now have user
| upgreadable components -- both of my options had upgradeable
| hard drives and ram.
|
| Back to my original point, for my workload I didn't need more
| than 16gb of ram, or a dedicated GPU, or good Linux support
| (although I heard it's pretty good for Thinkpads at least), so
| my option made sense to me -- and still it set me back almost 2
| grand, so not an easy choice. I expect this device to last at
| least 5 years, which puts the cost into perspective to me.
| pjmlp wrote:
| ThinkPad graphics workstations with Windows 10 Pro like P80.
| rgrmrts wrote:
| The Dell Precision 5560 is still a great Linux machine. Most
| things worked out of the box for me (the one I got has an
| nvidia card if that bothers you)
|
| Battery life does not beat my 2019 MacBook Pro but it's still
| pretty good (don't have hard numbers)
|
| Edit: also, nothing so far competes with the MacBook trackpads
| imo. YMMV
| [deleted]
| criddell wrote:
| Depends on what you're developing.
| burntsushi wrote:
| I'm a mostly[1] happy owner of a Framework laptop.
|
| [1] - I have two complaints. One is screen size. I think one
| more inch would be ideal. I bought the laptop in spite of this.
| I can live with it. My second complaint is the battery drain
| when I suspend the laptop. When suspended, the laptop is dead
| within a day or two. (Yes, I have 'deep' sleep enabled. No, I'm
| not using hibernation.)
| Theodores wrote:
| If you are okay with 16Gb RAM the Huawei Matebook Pro will not
| disappoint. The quality is top notch and the price is true
| value for money. For me the light weight, 3000*2000 display and
| how nice the keyboard and touchpad is makes it nice to use.
| Ubuntu works perfectly.
|
| I also have a small armada of XPS efforts and very nice Lenovo
| laptops but the Huawei just feels better engineered.
|
| You also get goodies with it, like fancy speakers and other
| accessories, depending on the promotions available at the time.
|
| Huawei are a tech leader, not a race to the bottom clone. But
| after the Trump ban on Huawei you would never know.
| linuxlizard wrote:
| I've been having very good experiences with my Lenovo P15v dual
| booting Fedora/Windows. Intel graphics aren't speedy but are
| reliable. Absolutely gorgeous 4k screen. The usual nice
| Thinkpad keyboard.
| hereforphone wrote:
| Around 15 years ago I made Linux work well on various laptops.
| This included X and KDE. More recently I've tried the "great
| Linux laptops": Thinkpad and Dell. I had so many issues that I
| had to stop using these laptops altogether.
|
| Some issues I remember off the top of my head are driver support
| (sometimes bluetooth, sometimes wifi, sometimes other), and
| video. Getting the video on high dpi displays to look reasonable
| with Linux on these laptops seemed impossible.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| I like the Lenovos (not affiliated with them).
|
| Had various of their laptops: T42, T500, T440p, X1 Extreme gen2
| (dumb name, but nice laptop).
|
| They usually run Linux without any problems, are solidly built
| (even after being taking over from IBM).
| haunter wrote:
| Personally I'm waiting for the new ARM ThinkPad X13s. I rarely
| buy things on day one but that will be one for sure. Not sure
| which distro will run on it but I like tinkering with it.
| perihelions wrote:
| Do you know that the ARM one will run linux on day one?
| haunter wrote:
| Not by Lenovo. Officially it comes with Windows 11
| AitchEmArsey wrote:
| Same here - I'm ready to move on from my 2015 XPS13, but having
| recently got an M1 Mac for work I'm now not prepared to
| compromise on battery life. If a major Linux distro (Ubuntu or
| Fedora) is shown to work well on the new ThinkPad, I'll be
| getting one pretty quickly.
| haunter wrote:
| The performance will be the real question, like it won't be
| nowhere near the M1 for sure
| pengaru wrote:
| Why wouldn't you just get an AMD X13? At least you know there's
| already sorted GPU drivers in mainline, it's no slouch AIUI.
|
| What I read about the ARM ThinkPad is it's basically a
| smartphone in an X13 chassis... Yay? Seems like a strange Linux
| hardware support nuisance to be looking forward to.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Maybe if you're considering the "major laptop manufacturers", but
| I prefer my System76 laptop any day, since it comes with Linux
| and they support it from the get-go. Also, they write a lot of
| nice software that makes the Linux ecosystem better; I love
| Pop_OS! and how I basically don't have to futz around with
| getting things to work but have the power of a Debian/Ubuntu
| variant so I can install other things easily. I don't know off
| the top of my head any other companies that support Linux like
| this, but there are a dozen or more out there that I've seen and
| forgotten over the last few years. I do have to say that a Dell
| is a good choice for Linux as far as hardware goes, but I prefer
| now to support those companies that give back to the Linux
| ecosystem in some way.
|
| I also think it's funny to call something a "developer laptop" as
| if you can't code on nearly any old piece of junk. If you do
| something very specialized like graphics or neural net ML
| perhaps, but then you're probably looking to get a workstation
| rather than a laptop.
| fullstop wrote:
| I wish that Pop!_OS installed with some sort of hibernation
| setup by default.
| augusto-moura wrote:
| I think the point is that most modern laptops don't offer good
| linux support (which are without a doubt have the best
| developer experience, aside from ~debatable~ macOS'es). Either
| they lack good driver support or need you to hack config
| files/kernel params. So yeah, I still type for "developer
| laptops" or "laptops with good linux support" when I'm
| searching new computers, and no, a basic off-the-shelf Dell
| Inspiron (or any other "piece of junk") doesn't cut it
| pjmlp wrote:
| Depends which kind of developer, there is a big world out
| there beyond UNIX CLI and daemons with Web UI.
| tadfisher wrote:
| There are basically two requirements I have for Linux
| hardware: an Intel wireless card, and a non-Nvidia GPU. I
| haven't really been let down so far by sticking with only
| those two requirements, aside from some teething pains with
| Lenovo's AMD ThinkPads.
| 2ion wrote:
| What happens when such a niche manufacturer's hardware breaks
| down as a warranty case? I strongly prefer vendors or OEMs who
| have strong support. I am not terribly impressed by the overall
| quality of my current laptop by German reseller Schenker/XMG
| but they, as an alternative to the big enterprise suppliers
| like Dell or HP or Lenovo have a stepped up support game as
| well (it reflects in their relatively higher prices vs quality
| they sell).
|
| This is also the reason why I'm sceptical ordering things like
| the "Framework Laptop". If it's a hobby expense it's an alright
| expense and risk, but for productivity, I need assurances, and
| part of that assurance comes from a track record, which not all
| niche vendors have (with me).
| ok_dad wrote:
| > What happens when such a niche manufacturer's hardware
| breaks down as a warranty case?
|
| My System76 laptop came with a year of warranty I think, and
| I never used it. I think there were 2 and 3 year extensions
| available when purchasing, but I never buy the warranty for
| anything. However, 3 years after I purchased it I emailed
| support for a software question and got a great response from
| them and they spent a good amount of back-and-forth (emails)
| time helping me diagnose the issue and resolving it, even
| outside of the service window. That's just my experience,
| YMMV.
| btbuildem wrote:
| I think ergonomics / general slickness goes a long way for a
| dev laptop, not just pure horsepower. Form factor, keyboard
| etc. Everyone has their preferences with these things :)
| ok_dad wrote:
| I am one of those people that don't care what something looks
| like, as long as I can plug it into my docking station and
| occasionally use it stand-alone. However, I can see your
| ergonomics and "general slickness" point as I've had some
| work laptops in the past that had the worst keyboard layouts
| or the touch-pad was placed weirdly or I had to do the Contra
| cheat code on the keyboard to incant the proper spell to get
| it to startup properly. I work on a personal laptop that is
| ~3 years old and I don't think I'll need to replace it ever,
| since I can replace parts and it's faster than I will ever
| need for my use cases.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Prior to buying my Thinkpad X1 Nano I considered a System76
| laptop, but decided against it mainly for a few reasons:
|
| - Many reports of spotty QC in their machines
|
| - Display panel being 16:9 instead of 16:10 or something taller
|
| - Uninspiring design
|
| - Mediocre specs for price
|
| - Barrel power connector instead of USB-PD
| inetknght wrote:
| If I could replace my System76's keyboard with a layout that I
| like, then I would have zero complaints.
|
| I <3 System76
| Freak_NL wrote:
| I like System76, and my two previous work laptops came from
| them (both served me for over four years each; I only had to
| replace the last one due to a hard to diagnose RAM issue), but
| I can't recommend them to anyone outside of the US. By now they
| really should have gotten into bed with an EU distributor to
| handle warrantee, customs, and shipping, because it's just too
| costly and too much of a hassle to deal with System76 with an
| ocean in between.
|
| I'm using a Dell XPS 13 pre-loaded with Ubuntu now. I had to
| order it by telephone because the option to configure it with
| 32GB of RAM and Ubuntu wasn't available on their website (in
| this respect Dell really sucks with their localized web shop,
| but at least you can contact them within the EU), but no hassle
| with customs and shipping, and warrantee isn't limited to the
| US standard of one year by default, but the EU mandated
| standard of two years. If it breaks down, I can get a
| replacement within a week; that's just impossible with overseas
| commerce.
| GordonS wrote:
| Wow, thanks for posting this - a System76 is on my shortlist,
| but it's coming straight off now; I had no idea I'd have to
| ship it across the Atlantic if there was a problem!!!
| kappattack wrote:
| Curious - is your XPS13 touch screen or 4k? I called and they
| insisted the XPS13 only had 32GB RAM options for touch or 4k
| screens. I don't want either of those things, so im SOL i
| guess.
| Ologn wrote:
| I got a System76 Serval WS laptop running Ubuntu 2 1/2 years
| ago and have been happy with it. I used it a lot pre-Covid when
| I was traveling more. It also updated well, although I always
| wait two months post-release before upgrading Ubuntu.
|
| I bought a System76 Thelio desktop running Ubuntu in July, and
| I am typing on it now. I am very happy with it. One nice thing
| about it is I know the various parts of the system will have
| decent drivers for Linux. I did get an Nvidia 12 GB GeForce RTX
| 3060 graphics card with it - that is one area (Nvidia) where
| support could potentially be problematic, but I have had no
| problems thus far. The upgrade to Ubuntu 21.10 went smoothly. I
| also bought a 27" inch monitor with it, and working from home,
| it beats my old 19" inch monitor by a long shot, especially if
| I am doing git merges or something.
|
| The first System76 laptop I bought was in 2014, and I have
| helped other people buy them, and I feel they have gotten
| better over time - the machines are better.
|
| I like how much of the system is open, if I want to change
| something I can just drop down and do it - to the desktop
| layer, to the userspace level, to the kernel level. People have
| caveats, and I have run into them, but workplaces have had me
| run Windows or MacOS, and those systems have caveats as well.
| The ability to be able to look at the code and change it is
| something I like.
| gurkendoktor wrote:
| Regarding your last paragraph, I generally agree, but there is
| at least one exception: If you need lots of RAM and nothing
| else, then many consumer laptops won't do the job.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Oh yea, that is so true. I wish I could get a cheapo
| processor with like 32GB or 64GB of RAM. The only choices you
| have are to get a cheap laptop with a minuscule amount of RAM
| and the exact amount of processing and hard drive space you
| need, or to buy some $4000 beast with the amount of RAM you
| need, but too much of everything else.
| mmmpop wrote:
| I got one of the new 14" Macbook Pros recently and am extremely
| impressed by the build quality and no the whole no-more-touchbar.
| I don't feel as productive on it as I do my 3 year old Thinkpad
| X1 gen7 running Fedora, though. It's like a comfy sofa where as
| the Macbook is a desk chair.
| dasloop wrote:
| And you can use multipass in the M1 to generate, for example,
| ARM64 docker images that you can run in a Graviton CPU. Win Win
| :)
| [deleted]
| H1Supreme wrote:
| I'll throw my experience with Linux on Dell's in the ring. I have
| a 13" Dell Inspiron 7000 (i7 8GB ram). I've had it for 4 years or
| so. In terms of drivers and overall compatibility with Linux,
| it's been perfect. I install Xubuntu (have also used Mate), it
| downloads whatever it needs, and everything works. I can't recall
| a single instance of something crashing, or WIFI problems, or
| whatever.
|
| There are two downsides. One, battery life sucks. Relative to a
| Macbook, it's very bad. But, this isn't a surprise to most
| people. Second, the touchpad driver is shit. Oh man, does it
| suck. Palm rejection doesn't work, and I had to enable a setting
| which disables the trackpad for a few seconds after a key press.
| Otherwise, it's unusable. That part, is irritating.
|
| Those downsides don't really matter to me, because I'm plugged in
| and docked the majority of the time. I've considered looking into
| the touchpad issue more, but it's just not worth my effort atm.
| Otherwise, it's a great machine!
| vbezhenar wrote:
| I recently checked and only 3 models of the entire Dell line-up
| offer Linux OS (1 model is XPS Developer edition).
|
| Basically it seems that Dell abandoned Linux compatibility with
| new models.
| stagger87 wrote:
| https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystem...
|
| This link shows their Linux lineup. Seems they cover all 3
| laptop sizes 13/15/17 both in an ultra book form factor and a
| bulkier port rich model. What more were you hoping for? I
| personally think it's a good thing they limit the pre-installed
| Linux models to their professional/business line of laptops.
| Supporting Linux on every model is probably a waste of time.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| I filtered business laptops by using Linux checkbox and got
| only 3 results. https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-
| laptops-and-notebo...
| stagger87 wrote:
| Feel free to use my link to see more business laptops with
| Linux. There's 7 on my link and they are all configurable.
| jiffygist wrote:
| I have latitude 5500 (idk if it's different laptop). I am
| generally happy with it, except for a few minor issues:
|
| - It came with a broken charger, the service replaced it.
|
| - Sometimes when I plug in the charger when the lid is closed, it
| doesn't start charging (the front light turns on and off after a
| second), so I have to open the lid and re-plug the charger. Only
| happens on Linux.
|
| - My touchpad is recognized as "PS/2 Generic Mouse" by libinput,
| so I can't have touchpad scrolling.
|
| - It only has UEFI boot.
| crateless wrote:
| > - My touchpad is recognized as "PS/2 Generic Mouse" by
| libinput, so I can't have touchpad scrolling.
|
| I have the same issue. Different Dell laptop though. It's been
| an issue for a looong time. Scrolling reliably fails at least
| once a week forcing a reboot.
| marune wrote:
| Dell/Ubuntu, never again. Running Pop! on my Lenovo X1 Extreme
| 2nd gen.
| octagons wrote:
| I have been running Linux on Thinkpad X1 Carbon laptops for
| several generations now: Gentoo on Gen 1, Debian on Gen 5, and
| now Arch on Gen 9. I can't recommend them enough for a Linux
| daily driver and development workstation!
| BeefWellington wrote:
| I really think articles like this can help drive Lenovo to go
| back to their old superior keyboards.
|
| However, apart from the missing [2019], should there not also be
| a [Sponsored] tag? The author's review can't reliably be seen to
| be unbiased (emphasis mine below). I just spent
| the better part of this past year year struggling with the
| Thinkpad P1, Lenovo's latest effort to compete with Dell's XPS 15
| and Precision 5500 line. I had had a Precision 5510 in the past,
| which had been my favorite laptop of all time, except for some
| small issues that led me to explore Lenovo's latest.
| I was talking with the Dell folks recently about my experiences
| with (and general fussiness regarding) Linux laptops and **they
| offered to send me a new Precision 5540 to give them constructive
| feedback.** After a few days with the new machine, it was obvious
| that it was the machine for me and I shut down my Thinkpad P1 for
| good.
| davidatbu wrote:
| microtherion wrote:
| The article reminds me a bit of Jerry Pournelle's _Chaos Manor_
| columns. The author writes glowing reviews of the free hardware
| thrown at them, while the actual experience they describe seems
| somewhat dubious for users who can't expect free hardware and
| personal phone support.
|
| If I understand the article correctly, their recommended "Linux
| Developer Laptop" is permanently stuck on a fairly old version
| of Linux, and you better not compile much if you want to get
| decent battery life. Neither of this strikes me as ideal for
| Linux developers, but what do I know...
| deepsquirrelnet wrote:
| Is it an unpopular opinion to hate working on any laptop?
| dasloop wrote:
| Unless you have an external display, keyboard, and mouse. I
| have my laptop always connected to a screen (34'') unless I
| need mobility (a meeting room, a plane). A desktop cannot be
| turned into a mobile solution ;)
| secondcoming wrote:
| You'd think. But I'm with you. I never saw the appeal and
| avoided them until Covid hit.
| hughrr wrote:
| No.
|
| I have a 5550 which is I assume what the author is referring to.
| It's garbage. Overheats constantly, the touchpad is dire, the
| screen has bad vignette around the edges, it's noisy, the thing
| hard freezes when you plug it into a dock, the webcam only works
| 50% of the time you power it up and if you pick it up by the base
| it flexes so badly the touchpad clicks. The keyboard is also
| soggy as hell and the battery lasts 3 hours if you're really
| lucky.
|
| It's the worst laptop I've ever had the displeasure of using. I
| am just glad I didn't pay for the thing.
|
| But a Thinkpad or a MacBook and just give this a hard pass.
|
| I'm using a 14" MacBook Pro which was much cheaper and it's a far
| more productive machine without all of the above problems!
| Underphil wrote:
| I have a Precision 7510 running Linux and don't have any of
| these issues so I wonder how different those two series
| actually are.
| dasloop wrote:
| We used to buy Precision 5500 series laptops (latest model:
| 5560), but they have issues with thermal management. Over
| time, the battery expands due to temperature to the point of
| moving the trackpad up. Now we are giving Dell a new chance
| using the 7500 series (now 7760).
|
| The 5560 is between 7.7mm (0.30") (front) and 11.64mm (0.56")
| (rear) thick. The thickness of the 7560 is between 25 mm
| (0.98") and 27.36 mm (1.08"). The increased thickness should
| solve (or help solve) the overheating.
| sly010 wrote:
| > If you pick it up by the base it flexes so badly the touchpad
| clicks.
|
| The XPS15 does the same. What's your USB vendor id / device id?
| I am working on a libinput patch that mitigates that [0].
|
| [0]
| https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput/-/merge_req...
| shawnb576 wrote:
| Same. I bought an XPS 15 last year and the thing didn't work
| that well with _windows_, let alone linux. All the same
| thigns, the touchpad clicked (I even had them come try to
| repair), it got so hot I couldn't put it in my lap, and even
| with light usage, battery life was well less than 4h. Just
| garbage. It's too bad, the screen is lovely and I actually
| liked the keyboard, but I saw that I had a made a mistake and
| sold it while I could. Never again.
|
| In comparison, I have a 2018 era XPS 13 9370 and it runs
| Linux pretty well. I think Dell is trying hard to come up
| with nice hardware but they don't have the chops to make it
| all come together including heat management, assembly, power
| usage, etc.
|
| I'm sticking with my XPS 13 and interested to see what a MS
| Surface Laptop 5 looks like when they come out later this
| year.
|
| I think Dell
| gshulegaard wrote:
| Hmmm, I have a 5540 currently and don't have the problems you
| had (and I actually replaced the factory Ubuntu with PopOS
| after a year or two).
|
| Although battery life is not great, but I am not sure that is
| as much a hardware issue as it is a software one. Although I am
| waiting on baited breath for AMD based hardware.
| krzyk wrote:
| I have 5560 and I don't have such issues also.
|
| I don't like the touchpad because it is too big and lacks
| separate physical buttons.
|
| And I don't like that TB ports don't work with WD19TB docking
| station (from Dell!).
|
| The wifi range is poor and it is heavy when comparing to
| ThinkPad.
|
| But besides those issue. I like it.
| brightball wrote:
| For what it's worth, I bought a Precision 7200 Developer
| Edition and it's been great. I came from using Mac's for 10
| years before the switch.
|
| I can't speak for the 5500 and I haven't used it with a dock at
| all, but then I've never used docks in general. At this point I
| think a USB-C plugged into a monitor with several ports would
| be close enough.
|
| A lot of it just has to do with you making a choice that you're
| happy with. I loved using Macs for a decade and I know plenty
| of people who HATE them because they have to use them at work
| and they simply didn't have a choice. Because they didn't have
| a choice, they focus on the things they don't like.
|
| When I picked my Dell I looked a lot of options and eventually
| came down to Dell or System76. Ended up going with Dell mostly
| because of past good experiences with their support and that
| made me more comfortable. It took a little getting used to and
| there were things I had to figure out along the way but it was
| my choice so I saw it through.
|
| My next laptop will probably be a System76 or a Framework, but
| this beast from Dell is doing great right now. It's a portable
| desktop for me.
| flakiness wrote:
| If you're OK with MacOS, you don't need Linux laptop. Linux
| laptop users (like me) have reasons to go into this constrained
| space :-(
|
| That's said, I roughly agree with you. I have 5530. It's
| throttled quickly. The battery goes out in a few hours, and
| yeah, the fan noise.
|
| I'm thinking about giving up Linux and switching to
| Windows/WSL. It's a bit too much to live with Linux over this
| mediocre laptop. I guess Dell laptops will work fine with
| Windows.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Dell universal docking is hot garbage, and they don't really
| support it unless to pay for a higher tier.
|
| I understand why people would rather not use Apple, but to me
| going through the drama of dealing with Linux laptops and
| shitty OEMs, I'd rather go with a pleasant MacOS experience and
| use separate Linux VMs if needed for builds.
| mathematicaster wrote:
| > No.
|
| Completely OT. Is the rhetoric of authority on the internet
| being fined tuned for superficial social media interaction?
| Vaguely reminds me by analogy the thumbnail engineering on
| youtube.
| tedunangst wrote:
| I rather prefer comments that telegraph agree or disagree.
| You can tell me all about how long you've had your laptop and
| what you do with it later, but start with the point.
| pjerem wrote:
| I was going to write exactly this.
|
| I don't know about Linux support since I have to use Windows on
| it but oh boy it is crap. The fans are always on whatever you
| do, the left part of the keyboard is frequently burning hot.
| Touchpad is mostly really good ... when it works, because as
| soon as I wash my hands, it stops detecting anything. The audio
| part, at least on Windows, is pure random. USB docks randomly
| works and once a USB-C device is plugged in you are good for
| overheating near the connector.
|
| For me it's total garbage and I'm just waiting for it to die
| and my employer to change it for something better.
|
| Our newest Dell laptops looks good but I'm never trusting this
| company again.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > I was going to write exactly this.
|
| Same. I made the mistake of getting a Dell 2-in-1 without
| trying it first.
|
| Whether on Windows or on Linux, it's a pain to use.
|
| I found serious ACPI bugs (not just the kind that can be
| easily fixed with iasl) which made me conclude power
| management could not work reliably, whether on Windows or on
| Linux.
|
| It's was usable at all on Windows 10 only thanks to Microsoft
| extremely careful approach: waking from suspend every now and
| then, checking the % of battery consumed, giving up on
| suspend and powering off should the hardware be caught lying
| about the power envelope while having been "sleeping".
|
| No wonder why Dells risk catching fire if put in a
| backpack...
| pjerem wrote:
| > No wonder why Dells risk catching fire if put in a
| backpack...
|
| omg I also had this and forgot to add it to my rant ! One
| night I was going down to the kitchen to drink a glass of
| water and I heard a loud fan noise coming from somewhere.
| Sure enough it came from my backpack. I opened it and it
| was extremely hot inside. I wonder what could have happened
| if I had a good sleep that night.
| tmm wrote:
| I've been running Linux on a 5550 for about six months now,
| and the hardware is rock solid.
|
| Everything works fine. I've experienced no overheating,
| network is stable, all the USB bits work, it docks and
| undocks without issue, the web cam works, audio works, it
| sleeps, hibernates and wakes up fine. Fans aren't very loud
| and I've only ever heard them spin up when compiling (I would
| say the full speed fans on the 5550 are about as loud as full
| speed fans on a 2016 Macbook Pro). The large touchpad works
| well enough. The 4k screen is OK, and matte, which I consider
| a bonus. The keyboard is average, certainly not the worst
| laptop keyboard I've ever used, but far from the best.
|
| However, I wouldn't buy one for myself. Simply because of how
| flexible it is. It is nearly unusable when sat on anything
| but a hard flat surface. It's like the designers never even
| tested it as a LAPtop. Tiny, imperceptible flexes, or even
| just more pressure on one side than the other and the
| touchpad generates clicks.
|
| Also, a USB-A port would have been way more useful than an
| SD-card slot.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| This has been my experience with this hardware too. Agree
| 100% about the USB-A port, but Ethernet would have been
| nice too!
|
| I use it as a portable workstation, so it is always on a
| desk with a keyboard and mouse. Definitely not suitable for
| lap use, but that's no problem for me.
|
| Way nicer than the XPS13, that's for sure!
| ModernMech wrote:
| I have a Dell Precision 5560 with Ubuntu installed from the
| factory. While the article says that they find power management
| is where the laptop shines, I have had the opposite experience.
| I've found that often my 5560 is dead because the battery quickly
| drains when its off. Does anyone have a fix for this? It seems
| this thread has attracted some fellow users. Do you have this
| problem as well? It's really surprising to me that this was an
| issue out of the box from a vendor who has been selling Linux
| systems for a while now.
| gnfargbl wrote:
| I recently bought an LG Gram 17" for use as a Linux developer
| laptop. So far, I'm absolutely delighted with it: huge 2560x1600
| screen, fast, silent, hardly weighs a thing, decent battery life,
| Thunderbolt 4 and everything works in Ubuntu 22.04, without
| special drivers. Definitely worth a look.
| christophilus wrote:
| I can't do an off-center keyboard. I wish there was a Linux
| laptop with really good build quality and a centered keyboard.
| For now, my crummy old XPS will do.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Coincidentally also a great doorstop. 2 kilos puts this laptop
| way out in niche territory. Pretty much nobody wants that. The
| perfect Linux developer laptop is anything with an xterm and a
| radio that can reach the Linux box where you are actually
| working.
| OrderlyTiamat wrote:
| I think this should say (2019) in the title, I was somewhat
| surpried to read "Dell ships a pre-installed a customized Ubuntu
| LTS release (currently 18.04) "
| reincarnate0x14 wrote:
| Chromebooks and Mac Airs are still better for actual travel use
| just due to size and power draw (airplane sockets are typically
| only good for about 180W before they trip. Varies by plane a bit,
| only one I've seen meaningfully higher was an A380 for Emirates
| that seemed good to about 250W).
|
| Outside of the big names, I've had a lot of luck with FreeBSD and
| recent Linux on the MSI G-70x "gamer" laptops, getting the nvidia
| cards to work in the GPU-switching mode with the lower power
| Intel ones is finicky but if you don't need to run games or CAD
| or whatever on it that's not a concern most of the time.
| Typically 50-75% of a similar Mac and available with NVME ssds
| and 32GB or more of memory. Atheros/Killer network adapters are
| not amazing but works and most have a RJ45 gig or 2.5g ethernet
| port if you need it.
| sgadimbayli wrote:
| Yeah, had a friend who always complained about this machine.
|
| I personally finally found Thinkpad T14 to work properly with no
| issues with 4 hours of battery life on Ubuntu(Regolith) out ot
| the box.
|
| Only issues with this model for me is that the speakers are very
| weak, you can barely hear anythint most of the time.
| andix wrote:
| Edit: oh it's an old post. I got the 5560.
|
| Got one from my company (with Windows 10 though) and it's an
| amazing device. Really fast, but still not too loud, too hot or
| too heavy. Good 16:10 screen and battery lifetime is also good.
| anyfactor wrote:
| Unrelated.
|
| Why do people hyperlink the title text? It is annoying. I wanted
| to mark and search the "Dell's Precision 5500" bit to see what
| the machine looked like. Then I tapped the link. Hyperlinking
| makes mouse highlighting difficult.
|
| Hyperlink title is all over the internet and it is annoying and
| it serves no purpose.
| lucideer wrote:
| Somewhat unrelated.
|
| Why do browsers make it so difficult to copy text within
| hyperlinks. The Presto layout engine handled this perfectly 15
| years ago - how have other browsers not managed to fix this in
| the intervening period?
| anyfactor wrote:
| I think mobile-friendliness has to be blamed for this. Most
| browsers these days have "copy link text".
| andrewxdiamond wrote:
| See my sibling comment.
|
| tl;dr hold alt
| [deleted]
| andrewxdiamond wrote:
| If you hold alt while highlighting, it bypasses the click
| events letting you highlight to your hearts content.
|
| Sometimes this doesn't work when the site is using JS to do
| some kindof click handler, but it should work fine for an a tag
| anyfactor wrote:
| TIL. Thanks.
| [deleted]
| twstdzppr wrote:
| I have a Precision 3561 running Ubuntu and it's pretty great if
| you ask me.
| psanford wrote:
| I've not had a Precision laptop, but I did use multiple
| generations of the XPS 13 with linux, and I was fairly
| disappointed with that experience. My XPS 13s had keyboards that
| would occasionally miss inputs, they had annoying coil whine, and
| the port selection got worse and worse over each generation.
|
| I've been much happier running linux on the Lenovo T series
| recently. It is less flashy but seems to be made better. The only
| real complaint I have with Lenovo is the mediocre speakers.
|
| I am excited about asahi linux opening up the possibility to have
| my next machine be an M1 macbook.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| My Dell Precision 5520 was a big disappointment. In spite of
| having a Xeon CPU, Dell decided that this specific model would
| not get ECC RAM support. Other Dell laptops from that era using
| the same CPU do support ECC RAM, but then you have to give up
| portability. It's my most regretted laptop purchase.
| vernie wrote:
| Pfft MacBook? This 12 year old ThinkPad is great, you gotta
| believe me!
| halz wrote:
| I think a great deal of success with this laptop and Linux is
| owed to the stewardship provided by Mario Limonciello while he
| was with Dell
| [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Dell-
| Mar...]. Hopefully Dell can continue to carry the torch. Being
| able to use fwupd to keep platform firmware (including the
| docking station) up-to-date has been a treat. "It just works",
| even.
|
| But for this Precision line specifically, there are only a
| handful of laptops that can run linux with (nearly) full platform
| functionality _and_ be outfitted with ECC memory.
| [deleted]
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