I'm writing this on the first Dell I've owned since... 1999: a new "Developer Edition" XPS-13 2015 (FHD i5 variant for max power savings, which are pretty incredible).
This is close the best linux laptop I've used, including various my various thinkpads and macbooks.
A couple years ago I met an enthusiastic Barton George showing off the first gen XPS 13 at the ubuntu dev conference. It was sexy but flawed. I wasn't interested in the machine, but I thought Barton was a guy to watch. His project Sputnik group is the only reason I have kept Dell on my radar at all.
They could be doing a lot in a better way: the customer outreach, ordering process, out of box experience: all include some (at times very) rough edges.
Linux on the desktop is happening and, as I've said for a long time, it's happening where it needs to: with developers first. I'm not super excited with their Ubuntu centric strategy, but it's minimal effort to get Arch up and running on the Dell dev units. If anyone is going this route I'm maintaining a kernel for the XPS 13 (2015) here: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/linux-xps13-alt/
I too wish that they had a 16 GB edition. It was the only spec that made me pause and say "Huh what"?. I was running 8bg prior to this but generally I want to max out that ram and they should offer it as a spec option.
This looks alarmingly like the 2014 XPS 15 with i7, 16GB RAM and the GT750m I had for a while last year. Endless GPU problems, coil whine and a Touchscreen that caused general system issues. unless you're prepared to deal with random issues, I'd steer clear of the 15...
My understanding is that the motherboard does not permit it. From what I have read they are marking the initial XPS13 as "EARLY 2015" units -- with Windows 10 and Skylake around the corner you may see another major refresh later this year.
The smaller dev edition is based on an ultra-book design, which unfortunately leads to such limitations, while a workstation design like the Precision will not.
I have an XPS 13 2015 version but it came with Windows 8. I want to try out ubuntu on it to see if it'll run better. Is yours touch screen? If so, how is it working?
Also is there a difference between the windows xps 13 and the developers edition? I heard the developers edition is cheaper, but with less powerful hardware?
I didn't get the touchscreen version intentionally. That's not to say that it's better with/without touchscreen. I just didn't want it, and wanted a lower resolution FHD screen for power savings. I know that gnome has basic support for touchscreens and just switched away from using a Surface Pro 3 with Gnome. It was just ok. I'd say you'll be fine since you've got a keyboard and trackpad as solid backup for the touchscreen.
There is no hardware difference to the windows/linux machines... the hardware on the dev units isn't any less or more powerful. You will, however, want to make sure your BIOS is upgraded to the current rev (A04 as of this posting). http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDet...
XPS13 windows 8 with the QHD/ultra high res screen here -- it has issues scaling windows apps -- Adobe Photoshop CC included. The apps imho are the weak link as not all have been designed for the higher resolution display.
Sure, this will change in time for both OS but its quite annoying on a productivity machine.
Edit: With that said, the XPS13 with 256gb ssd, touch screen and 8gigs of ram is a very smooth running machine. Very happy with my purchase.
I have one generation prior (model 9333). Bought it as a refurb on ebay, immediately removed Windows 8 and installed Ubuntu 14.04. Had some issues with the touchpad and installed 14.10 - now it works like a charm! It's a great notebook and it's awesome to see an Apple alternative that isn't Windows (though I felt bad that some money went to MS since I bought a refurb).
I'm using a different model dell with a touch screen and I'm running OpenSUSE 13.2 with GNOME 3 and the touch screen works pretty good. Linux doesn't have a metro style desktop so it's not exactly "tailored" for touch, but it works.
For a really smooth experience I suggest using GTK3 apps. Not sure how qt compares but GTK3 apps are wonderful.
Ubuntu's Unity is designed to be usable by both touch and mouse.
This being said, the latest incarnation (15.04) is proving to be horrible unstable. About 1 in 5 times I un-sleep the box, there's text corruption in all the open windows, along with a few other problems. Everyone I know using 15.04 on the desktop is having weird problems of some sort.
I've only run a couple of linux laptops before, but they've not had issues with sleep. 15.04 has problems other than sleep, though, enough to make me switch back to debian. I see ubuntu as 'debian-with-convenience', so if the convenience evaporates... :)
I just purchased the same laptop. It's really excellent. But I am a little nervous about occasional panics when entering/exiting standby (15.04 vivid, 3.19.0-18).
I've also experienced occasional panics when entering/exiting standby, but only when a JVM instance or Virtualbox were running at the time. Otherwise standby/suspend seem to work fine (though maybe that's just a coincidence).
I'm having a very good experience so far (14.04, 4.0 mainline kernel). Palm detection was broken, but the fix in [1] seems to have solved that as well.
I jumped immediately to Arch, so can't speak to the situation with Ubuntu, sorry. I did walk through the initial out of the box boot/config of Ubuntu but was not impressed with the Dell tweaks and setup process, so dumped it. I'm definitely happier on a 4.0 kernel.
As of 4.0, yes. 4.1 may be a different story, but as of rc2 I didn't think it was worth it and rolled back to 4.0.x. Another user has written a great arch wiki page on the general issues here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(2015) , but I have no problems right now running on my patched kernel (linked to above, though I'm actually building a new package right now).
I'm a huge fan of this Sputnik release because it means there is a "Macbook" of the Linux world now.
At that, it is insane how much of the hardware in this thing is anti-freedom, and how much barely works. I have a Clevo 740su notebook which is what the System76 Galago Ultrapro is based off (I just got the model from another vendor because it was in the middle of a wave of bad customer service reports from system76) and everything worked out of the box (with a replacement to the broadcom NIC, I love the Atheros 9462). None of this multitouch patching or bios updating so the audio works or other nonsense. Only downside is that it does not have working keyboard resume from suspend, I have to hit the power button. Probably not the end of the world.
I hope in future releases the Sputnik guys have enough sway in the general XPS 13 hardware selection process to get fewer poorly supported parts. The amount of hacks necessary to make a computer shipping with Ubuntu work is distressing.
I'm more and more surprised by my MacBook Air 11'' 2012, where everything worked flawlessly under Linux mainline when I purchased it back in 2013.
It's really sad that even a device which is selected with Linux in mind requires a patched kernel.
If you look into stuff which is not only supported by Linux, but also has good power management the list of devices is tiny. Essentially there's no laptop where everything just works. This is absurd.
Things work pretty well using Intel components, but they're including things such as TPM which worry me quite a lot.
I think there's an enormous opportunity for a startup that produced good ARM - Coreboot devices as open as possible and with developers in mind. The Pyra guys are doing something similar to handheld devices. Perhaps they could scale up.
> Essentially there's no laptop where everything just works. This is absurd.
Like I said though, my Clevo 740su did work perfectly out of the box. I don't have to fuck with the trackpad, my sound worked, my pic works, webcam works, battery life is alright considering the SOC (I get about 4 hours idle and 2 hours load). The only missing thing is keyboard resume, which is barely a blip on my radar.
There are combinations of parts that work perfectly out of the box in Linux. It is just nobody is putting them all together on average, and Dell seems to rather brute force unsupported hardware rather than field parts with comprehensive support. They exist, you just have to use them instead of their belligerent competitors.
Macbooks are always strange, because there are dozens of hackers who will spend night and day reverse engineering each new Macbook to work on the Linux kernel. You don't get that kind of hobbyist support for pretty much anything else.
Well, modern MacBooks are much less well supported, but I see your point.
I think we need some company that cherrypicks components for Linux. Dell could do it. They already have a gazillion models, why not a Linux specific one? I still applaud their XPS model though. It looks pretty amazing.
If your definition of "Linux on the desktop" is "I see it everywhere I go" then your metric is well behind the early adopter curve.
If, however, your metric is to look at influencers and early adopters, it's clearly happening.
I think back to 04 when I switched to a Mac (from Windows). The idea that Macs were "happening" was inconceivable to many. Forget finding mainstream software. Forget drivers for hw support. Forget file exchange. Forget networking with anyone doing real work at your company. It was all uphill and hard. That was just 2004.
Back then it was generally either hold outs from the dark, pre OS X days or early adopters switching over (or back) to a Mac. If you had your eye on the market, I think in hindsight it's clear that there was a groundswell of interest in the platform (from passionate early adopter switchers, etc). But at the time, nothing was obvious and early adopter advocacy to just "buy a mac" fell on usually deaf ears.
We're in a not dissimilar situation today with Linux. The early adopter segment is different and much more dev oriented, but that's not a bad thing. Add to this that there are some fundamental and very important technology shifts happening that I think are going to make a positive impact on the desktop linux experience over the next several years (wayland, systemd, container/virtualization improvements, packaging and distribution rethinks).
It's happening because people like me are using Linux on the desktop every day for real work, and for many of us it's eminently preferable to any other OS out there. It's happening because we, the early adopters, are not "on the fence" about Linux: I no longer think "Linux is nice but OS X just works". It's happening because a shift to the web has made app lock in on a specific platform less of an issue. It's happening because vendors like Dell are throwing actual resources at the market. Small though it may be, this market is made up of influencers that are the thin edge of the adoption wedge.
Personally I perceive the shift to a more and more locked down platform (appstore, gatekeeper) a betrayal of the crowd that made OSX a viable desktop alternative through early adoption. I refuse to accept that I have to sign up to the app store before I can get a compiler (xcode).
So I canned OSX for a 2014 xps13 after my most recent mbp meltdown, and finally put my money where my mouth is.
The pain is obviously when I need an iDevice simulator.
Unlike MS with its IE compatibility images, Apple hasn't yet taken steps to make this available for everyone.
I actually switched to Linux years ago, and have been using it exclusively since. Even my MacBook has Ubuntu on it, and, while there are some minor annoyances, my annoyances with OS X are less minor. All my immediate family runs Ubuntu too, and they are completely fine with it (they only need a browser and a file manager, anyway).
> All my immediate family runs Ubuntu too, and they are completely fine with it (they only need a browser and a file manager, anyway).
Honestly, as far as I can tell, Windows is _way_ harder to use for the completely non-tech-savvy than Linux is.
I switched my dad over to Ubuntu (his new comp has Linux Mint) in ~2008 because I couldn't stand getting biweekly phone calls asking for help doing X or dealing with perceived problem Y on Windows. I haven't gotten a single complaint since then. Mind you, this is someone whose level of desktop-UI savviness is low enough that he hasn't quite mastered copy and paste yet.
Oh yes, the lack of viruses and general confidence this gives them that the computer won't break if they visit a random site makes Linux completely worth it.
Hell even in terms of sheer usability, the fact that it dumps everything into your taskbar/autostart makes it unusable for anyone who doesn't want to go to the trouble of deciphering 30 different hieroglyphs.
Well, he said "developers first" which I agree with. It only makes sense to use windows or mac os if you are developing for the said platforms. Most of the server market however is dominated by linux, so I'd say it makes sense to use linux if you're developing for linux. I personally have converted maybe a dozen devs who develop for linux servers using windows or mac.
Most people don't know this, but Dell actually has an amazing line of computers that come with Ubuntu on them already. Best part - there's a team of people who make sure there's 100% driver support for everything on the computer.
It looks like the new XPS models have a single trackpad soft-button area (as all new laptops seem to). Have you been able to middle click to paste in X with this configuration?
I have a Dell E6320 (Core i3-2310M) from 2011 that I'm running Arch on with a 6 cell battery. The laptop can easily go for 6 hours with WiFi on if you're just editing code or managing some servers via SSH.
Upgraded to 16GB of RAM and an SSD. The only thing I wish was that the screen was higher resolution than 1366x768, but otherwise it's absolutely fantastic for Linux. The dock works so seamlessly it's amazing.
On my 2015 XPS 13 I my power will idle (with wifi/bt on and 50% screen brightness) down to under 5W. You can be more agressive with power savings (I run TLP, but in a pretty middle of the road configuration) and get better use out of it. 10 hours is reasonable use for general work, less if you're compiling while watching netflix of course :)
No, there totally isn't. I'm returning an Ubuntu certified Dell m3800. The hardware specs on the thing are amazing, but Ubuntu has no centralized method of controlling the UI, much like in Windows, it's up to the developer.
All the crashing aside, when I scroll from the left to the right side of my screen, I get 3 different cursor colors and sizes. Some apps are unusable on the 4k screen because of font DPI scaling.
The crashes are insane. When I turn it on, sometimes there is screen corruption before it even boots. Sometimes it works fine until it gets to the grub screen, but then it corrupts.
Sometimes it never boots up and gets stuck on the ubuntu loading screen. Sometimes it never shuts down and gets stuck there too. Sometimes the thunderbolt monitor works, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the touchpad works and sometimes it refuses to pick up multitouch unless I'm pressing firmly with the flat side of both fingers hard enough to almost click the button. Sometimes it registers button clicks when I'm hovering my palm or finger over the touchpad.
It has been a nightmare. I was trying to move away from Mac OS X because I'm so tired of their lack of uniformity to keyboard commands. Each application decides if ctrl+arrow is going to be line home, page home, or previous word... I'm a system architect and that stuff is important to me. However it just isn't worth the struggle and I'm going to return this laptop tomorrow and order a Macbook Pro. I need 4 cores and 16GB of RAM. My Macbook air's 2 cores isn't enough for me to run the number of virtual machines I need to be able to use together.
I refuse to believe that what you described was a default experience.
I've used the same model my self and never seen the issues you described. I've looked for reviews and all the ones I find only mention poor high DPI scaling, which has gotten better.
If what you described is what it's really like out of the box then there should be a lot more scathing reviews. I have a feeling you probably installed some third party software from some random website.
If what you described is what it's really like out of the box then there should be a lot more scathing reviews. I have a feeling you probably installed some third party software from some random website.
The parent comment mentioned a Thunderbolt monitor. That's a more likely explanation for glitching issues. Linux users generally don't install random software from random websites.
A "thunderbolt" monitor is likely just Mini DisplayPort, unless he's talking about some funky thing that daisy chains a USB hub through the same cable.
I don't use any laptop without reinstalling the OS from known good media. I work on security code for a financial site.
I've also been running Linux since the 90's. I've got a pretty good idea on how to make things work. Unfortunately, the thunderbolt drivers aren't there yet, and high DPI support is weak. The trackpad or driver is garbage compared to Apple's touchpads, and screen corruption on boot is unacceptable. It's possible that I just had a bad unit, but with so many things bad, I think that's unlikely.
I'm not hating on Dell. Most of the people I know work for Dell. I love their servers. I just don't appreciate something being labeled as Ubuntu-certified, and the hardware doesn't work. They installed a binary driver for the network card rather than putting an intel network card in the thing... Total crap.
> > Best part - there's a team of people who make sure there's 100% driver support for everything on the computer.
> No, there totally isn't. I'm returning an Ubuntu certified Dell m3800.
OP was referring to the Sputnik laptops, which he linked to at the end of his post, not the m3800.
The Sputnik line actually has a team (albeit small) working on supporting Linux for the Sputnik machines specifically, including driver patches and all. What's more, they've pushed the patches upstream to the kernel, so you can actually get the benefits regardless of which distro you choose to run on it.
I have the original XPS 13 (though not the 2015 line... yet). There were initially reports of issues with the latest XPS 13 (which is why they pushed back the release of the Linux edition), but from what I've heard, those seem to be fixed now. And again, that's the point: there's a huge difference between having third-party/community support for Linux on a machine you buy and having the actual manufacturer offer support for it.
I currently use a Thinkpad that I had to get for work, but honestly, at my next job I'm going to make sure I get one of the new Sputnik machines. Even given Thinkpad's reputation of good support for Linux, the Sputnik was a better experience.
I ended up buying the XPS 13 developer edition (with the i7 CPU) and promptly returning it after the touchpad drivers didn't work correctly, causing glitching of the cursor and the X server seemingly frequently crashing (I'd get kicked back to the login screen in the middle of a session).
Additionally I had issues with the keyboard repeating characters multiple times. This was whilst running the latest version of the BIOS (A03), using the OS which shipped with the laptop with minimal changes (some users have stated that 15.04 fixes the touchpad issue - then why does the laptop ship with 14.04?) and after trying to apply kernel parameter workarounds to no avail. I also tried adjusting the keyboard settings with no luck.
Dell stated that the touchpad issues wouldn't impact any laptop built in 2015 and also stated that the keyboard debounce issue had been fixed. I experienced the issues above a few weeks back and got my money back yesterday after requesting a return (on a side-note, customer service was pretty good for returns).
I did experience some issues with the high-DPI scaling, but I was able to work around most of these and I don't think this was an issue with the laptop itself anyway/
I was really disappointed given the positive reviews I'd read and the previous good experiences I've had with Dell, but it was as if the unit hadn't been tested and I wasn't happy given the amount I'd had to pay.
I bought a dell 1525n in 08a with ubuntu preinstalled. Used it exclusively for several years. Tiday it has an ssd, 2 gb of ram xubuntu 1404, and boots tk login in 10 secs.
I see some Apache licenses on Github, but that seems to be tools built on top of the actual libs, and any blobs probably aren't on Github to begin with.
I know this is a Dell thread but for those interested in running Linux on a sweet ultrabook, check out the Asus UX305. I've been running Ubuntu 15.04 on it and it works beautifully, no special instructions required. Also only $800 - probably one of the best deals going in linux laptops these days.
Since you started the "not-a-dell" thread, I'll chime in. I picked up a Toshiba Dynabook KIRA V63, which is very similar to the Dell XPS 13 in specs. I'm quite happy with it. It doesn't seem to have the problems described for the XPS and I haven't needed a custom kernel. When it first came out the track pad was virtually unusable, but a kernel update a month or so ago seems to have fixed it.
Anyway, this is a Japanese model, so I'm not sure if/when it will be available in other places in the world. More generally, the Broadwell 5500 i5 is an amazing processor. It is very low power and is surprisingly fast. I thought I would be making tradeoffs for power/battery life, but not so. I have been using this as my main dev box since March (granted, I'm doing web development, so my compile chain is rather forgiving ;-) ).
I don't get anywhere near the rated battery life, but I can easily hit 6-7 hours of real work time (including wifi) without having to plug in. Since I am often working in strange places this is huge for me.
Anyway, the company I'm working for at the moment has a Dell contract and I've been encouraging them to look at the XPS 13 for remote people.
Not an endorsement of Dell or Ubuntu, but Dell appears to offer 8 (mostly lower-end) laptop models with Ubuntu pre-installed: https://www.dell.com/us/p/laptops
Still waiting for Dell to fully support Ubuntu in their 2015 XPS 13 model. I made the switch from a Thinkpad after Lenovo burned me too many times. While the keyboard isn't quite as excellent it's still top notch and it's one of the best laptops I've ever owned.
That being said getting everything working in Ubuntu has been a bit of a fiasco [1]. Luckily after some firmware upgrades and the new kernel in 15.04, a lot of issues have been fixed, but the laptop still does strange things waking up from sleep. The worst issue though is that audio still seems to not work in a dual boot configuration. The laptop can't produce sound from the speakers or headphone jack in both Windows and Ubuntu when booting between the two OS's. It seems the hardware gets put in a strange state by either OS and it takes two full reboots after switching from Windows<->Ubuntu to get the audio device to be recognized.
Also HDPI support in Ubuntu is still a little lacking so the beautiful higher-than-retina display sometimes makes things absurdly small. I've seen a lot of progress on this front though.
I really love this device but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the excellent out of the box hardware support for Thinkpads in Ubuntu.
How did Lenovo burn you? Even minimal distros such as Arch with various DEs/WMs work great out of the box on my T450s, because all of the hardware is supported in the kernel. Reading the 2015 XPS 13 Ubuntu guide made it seem like a painful process that involved downloading drivers, etc.
If you mean that from the left edge of the keyboard you have Fn and then Ctrl, then yes it's correct, however I checked my Bible and (un)fortunately God decided that the order of keyboard keys just wasn't worth divine inspiration.
You need to reboot twice due to change in operating mode for touchpad (I2C vs PS2) and audio (I2S and HDA). In Windows 8 (_OSI=Windows 2013), it is running as I2C/I2S devices, in Linux and Windows 7 (_OSI=Windows 2009) in PS2/HDA mode. This is not Dell specific.
I just installed 14.04 on an 3-4 year old Inspiron. Haven't really pushed it, but it seems to have no issues, and I didn't have to do anything for everything to work; the vanilla install seemed fine.
I've been running Ubuntu on an Inspiron 17R SE since 2012. With the exception of the multi-touch touchpad pretty much everything worked fine out of the box.
How official are publications in Dell's "Knowledge Base"? This one looks like it was written by a non-native English speaker, and doesn't seem to provide much Dell-specific information.
As far as I know they are directly coming from Dell. That's the "breaking" part of this manual, that a retailer as big as them are trying to explain how to get rid of Windows and just install a Linux distro.
They have been selling Ubuntu on laptops for years now, you used to be able to get it on low end laptops like the vostro now days it seems its reserved for developer editions of their xps line only.
I have a Dell Mini 9 that I got for >$200 years (2009?) that came with Ubuntu that I still use regularly. Now it's running Puppy Linux (Slackware based) though.
Since they are providing installation instructions on their website, does this mean they will also do phone / email support for Linux related installation issues?
"Note: If you install an operating system other than the one that shipped with your system, then you do so at your own risk. Dell can't certify that the hardware will be compatible and we may not be able to support the system in that configuration."
I just bought refurbished XPS 13 with Windows because I wanted to save some money. Ubuntu wont work out of the box. There are whole bunch of issues that I'm still trying to resolve. So even if hardware is compatible, you may have hard time. I think it will take some time, because everything gets smooth. (afaik, hardware wise just wifi card is different)
Thanks. There seems to be another issue of broadcom wifi being active when suspending hence draining all the battery. Have to figure workaround for that as well.
Kudo's to Dell for acknowledging that the world is more than just Windows. I'm the proud owner of a 1st Gen XPS 13 Developer Edition. It's a truly beautiful product and a joy to use (apart from some Wifi issues)
There's lots of love for XPS 13 on this thread. I'm considering a switch from Thinkpad+Asus to something different. Is the "XPS 15" just as good? (Although it looks pricey).
What's the best way to get an Ubuntu/Debian-compatible linux distro on my Mac laptop without destroying my data? The slowness of Yosemite seriously amps my cortisol.
Both of them can boot from removable media (USB, CD, floppies)...
You could just boot forever from a USB, using the same USB as temporary storage until the day when you're ready to partition your drive and install the free OS to your hard drive.
You can set up dual boot with an EFI boot manager such as efibootmgr, refit or refind. First shrink your mac partition with disk utility in Mac OS X or gparted, then use the free space to install Linux. The cleanest way to share data would be to move it to a separate partition which both OSes can mount, although you can mount non-journaled HFS from Linux if you want to avoid doing that.
N.B. "Long time" means an unpredictable value typically between 30-300 seconds
1. Terminal windows take a long time to become ready to accept input.
2. My "irb" program takes a long time to load.
3. Finder takes a long time to list files, even when there aren't many files in the directory.
4. Finder takes a long time to generate previews of files
Only perhaps related to slowness, but extremely annoying: incorrectly implemented iPhone sync leads to my conversational counterparties hearing the ringing chime well after the conversation has begun.
Have you tried to troubleshoot the cause of this slowness? What you describe is not normal behavior for any OS. Some aspect of your system is broken. If it's a hardware problem, installing a linux distro won't help. If it's not, installing any OS from scratch (including Yosemite) will fix it.
Do you have a separate partition for your data? If so, then just install the distro normally. If not, then I don't see a way you can do it without losing your data since they're two completely different operating systems.
The year of the Linux desktop was brought about by Android, at a growth rate and scale far beyond what Linux any enthusiast dreamed about 15+ years ago. And it came at Microsoft's expense, which means prophecy has been fulfilled and the world righted.
Which is nothing for Microsoft. They would have made hundreds of billions if Android hadn't prevented them from transferring their desktop OS monopoly to mobile.
The year of the Linux desktop was brought about by Android.
Oh, right. Ubuntu had nothing to do with it. Definitely not back in April of 2008, with LTS 8.04. No way. It was Android. The mobile operating system intended for smart phones was what brought the Linux desktop to everyone.
Well of course it brought Linux to everyone, it was actually in stores and people bought it.
The number one failing of the "year of the Linux desktop" is the fact that is no channel through which your mother would ever get an Ubuntu computer. They just do not exist in the purview of 90% of the market. And it will take Canonical throwing money at getting Ubuntu computers in stores to fix that.
I've dealt with a lot of overseas developers running Ubuntu, but other than that, not sure how often I've seen it in the wild. Compared with the dozens or hundreds of Android phones I see every day. Many spend more time on their phone than on their computer, so I think it's fair to call it the "new desktop"
Without disclosing how they came to that number it's just marketing puffery. I doubt it would hold up to scrutiny. But even 4 million active Ubuntu desktop users would be impressive.
This is close the best linux laptop I've used, including various my various thinkpads and macbooks.
A couple years ago I met an enthusiastic Barton George showing off the first gen XPS 13 at the ubuntu dev conference. It was sexy but flawed. I wasn't interested in the machine, but I thought Barton was a guy to watch. His project Sputnik group is the only reason I have kept Dell on my radar at all.
They could be doing a lot in a better way: the customer outreach, ordering process, out of box experience: all include some (at times very) rough edges.
Linux on the desktop is happening and, as I've said for a long time, it's happening where it needs to: with developers first. I'm not super excited with their Ubuntu centric strategy, but it's minimal effort to get Arch up and running on the Dell dev units. If anyone is going this route I'm maintaining a kernel for the XPS 13 (2015) here: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/linux-xps13-alt/