Dell’s Linux PC sequel still just works, but adds 4K screen and rough edges

Oh interesting, this is the M3800 which is Dell&#x27;s beefy 15&quot; Linux laptop. Glad to see it getting some light.<p>If you&#x27;re looking for something more portable, the New XPS 13 is in development and is supposed to launch soon. I follow the project lead&#x27;s blog here: <a href="http://bartongeorge.net/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;bartongeorge.net&#x2F;</a><p>My hats off to the Dell team; they&#x27;re very open about what they&#x27;re doing, making better drivers etc. before launching the product.<p>For now I&#x27;m trying out a 2015 Chromebook Pixel with Debian GNU&#x2F;Linux install..ing. Still working on it. It has a lot of the same problems mentioned here: - Suuuper glossy screen (basically a mirror with a dark background) - Limited keyboard: no pageup&#x2F;pagedown.. even more limited than the Dell, it doesn&#x27;t have a DEL key, just Power in its place... much key remapping will be required to make this usable. - No physical trackpad buttons, and that&#x27;s a huuuge problem, because even Google&#x27;s touchpad driver fails some basic tests of operation as compared to a Mac (e.g. cursor stutters its motion if you click while moving the cursor). The lack of touchpad buttons across most laptops now is shocking. - Keys are a bit shallow

I received mine a couple of weeks ago and have been pretty happy so far. Everything worked out of the box in ubuntu (camera, multimedia keys, trackpad, touchscreen, bluetooth, wifi, etc). My only complaints are:<p>- The Glossy monitor is incredibly reflective. I wish there was a matte option.<p>- I got the UHD screen option but there are still too many scaling issues in linux. Ubuntu looks fine with some minor tweaks but a lot of programs look horrible (ie. chrome). I ended up just lowering the resolution for now.<p>- The power cable sticks out really far when it is plugged in. It also makes me worried I&#x27;ll break it if I forget I&#x27;m attached because the input seems a little wobbly.<p>- I like the keyboard for the most part but a few of the keys squeak occasionally.<p>- The trackpad also is pretty good, but it feels overly sensitive and jumpy compared to my macbook air.<p>- WIFI seems a little spotty. It might be that my wireless router isn&#x27;t very good but my signal is much weaker than it is on my macbook. I need to play around with setting a little more before coming to a conclusion.<p>- If you open it up on your lap you might pinch your legs!<p>*edit: I used a 20% coupon I found online somewhere. Not sure how long it was good for: MXPX2T1N9HGH12

Why in god&#x27;s name does a laptop that large not have independent home&#x2F;end&#x2F;pgup&#x2F;pgdn keys. This trend drives me nuts.

Dell has achieved feature parity with the Retina MacBook Pro, and has made huge improvements on their last &#x27;MBP competitor&#x27;, the XPS 15.<p>However, looking at it objectively, the article pretty much sums it up:<p><pre><code> Thunderbolt port doesn&#x27;t really work in Ubuntu Application-level 4k scaling issues are pretty much all over the place If all you&#x27;re after is Linux on a laptop, you can do it for cheaper than the M3800&#x27;s starting price I kind of hoped the Dell logo on the back would light up, but sadly it doesn&#x27;t Battery life with the Nvidia GPU enabled is far too short for a day&#x27;s worth of working </code></pre> Not quite a MacBook, but if you absolutely must have Linux instead of OS X, and don&#x27;t want to fiddle with installing and tweaking it, it&#x27;s very serviceable. But if you don&#x27;t need the NVIDIA GPU there are cheaper options.

I wish all manufacturers would just allow buying computers without an OS.<p>I recently tried to check if Lenovo offers Windows refund for those who reject the EULA. No dice. They still claim Windows tax is mandatory even if you don&#x27;t need Windows.<p>What I never understood though is how can they legally do it. Doesn&#x27;t it violate product tying laws?

Really disappointing that it only gets 5.5 hours of Wi-Fi browsing with a 91 watt-hour battery (on integrated graphics). The rMBP pushes 9-10 hours under those conditions.

How do these ones hold up over time? I haven&#x27;t had a Dell PC of any kind, laptop or desktop, last longer than two years (and thanks to switching jobs a few times and being the family PC tech support, I&#x27;ve seen quite a few Dells). I had given up on the brand completely, but this is a very tempting piece of hardware.<p>I hate how hard it is to find the specs I want in a laptop computer. Some sites will let you filter by specs, but sometimes I&#x27;d be willing to compromise on some specs if other specs hit certain thresholds. And then, it seems like some products get selected by the filter that should be, and others get filtered out that do match the specs, so I&#x27;m just back to reading pretty much every product page until I find what I want.

Sadly, the Sputnik version of the XPS 13, the one I was more interested in, still has issues&#x2F;hasn&#x27;t come out yet. This 3rd-party article&#x2F;thread seems to be a good place for tracking those developments: <a href="https://major.io/2015/02/03/linux-support-dell-xps-13-9343-2015-model/" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;major.io&#x2F;2015&#x2F;02&#x2F;03&#x2F;linux-support-dell-xps-13-9343-2...</a><p>Issues w&#x2F; the XPS 13 include keyboard repeat issues (fixed w&#x2F; BIOS A01 update), trackpad issues (kernel patches, switching from I2C to PS2 mode), sound (switching from I2S to HDA, requires ACPI jigger-pokery including another kernel patch since the BIOS breaks sound init when ACPI is sent properly <a href="https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/3/12/149" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lkml.org&#x2F;lkml&#x2F;2015&#x2F;3&#x2F;12&#x2F;149</a>). Also the XPS 13 uses a somewhat flakey Broadcom wireless card as well. And people have reported some S3 sleep issues.<p>My main goal was to replace my MBA11 w&#x2F; something about the same size w&#x2F; better battery-life (my Yosemite battery-life is pathetic, about 4hrs even just web browsing). The FHD XPS13 claims 15 hours, but I couldn&#x27;t wait anymore and ended up going w&#x2F; the new Lenovo X250 - slightly less sexy but more or less equivalent and only a tiny bit larger, largely works OOTB w&#x2F; Linux, and has 20 hours claimed battery life w&#x2F; the 6-cell battery option.

I have had the previous m3800, with 3.5K screen, and a 512GB SSD. I&#x27;m running dual-boot windows 8, but with Ubuntu 14.10 as my primary OS. The touchscreen and scaling of windows is great. On Ubuntu they are non-existant. I can&#x27;t use my finger to scroll, but can launch apps with my finger. Using my fingers is something i&#x27;m really getting to like. Things like getting a putty connection to my server in 2 seconds works now with three quick touches. The big problem has been that suspened doesn&#x27;t work now - both on windows and ubuntu. I &quot;upgraded&quot; to 15.04, still no joy. I assume it&#x27;s a motherboard problem, but I don&#x27;t time to leave it back. Killer for my productivity, though. Pity, as it ruins an otherwise nice laptop.

looks like a good notebook. but I have lots of issues with nvidia gpu under linux. everytime the kernel gets updated, I get a black screen.

Apple announced the 2880x1800 Retina display in June of 2012. It has been almost 3 years and only 2 of the 4 desktop operating systems have an interface that works reliably at pixel doubling resolutions: Apple OSX and Google Chrome OS.

That&#x27;s all great, but I have a bundle of cold hard cash here waiting for the XPS 13 developer edition. All this time I see lovely things to spend it on but still I wait...

I have an XPS 13 from 2012 that I run Fedora on. I sometimes wish for a larger&#x2F;newer&#x2F;faster laptop (even though I do most of my serious work at a desktop with 2x27&quot; 1440p monitors).. I wish to be more comfortable when working in various places. I&#x27;m seriously eyeballing this one, because I love the feel of these contraptions. Aluminum upper, carbon fiber lower, shark dick interior..

I&#x27;ll be interested to see how these work out. There were two issues that scared me away from the predecessor: Reported wifi issues and coil whine. If they can avoid significant issues, then it&#x27;s a nice laptop, although the battery life could be better.

<a href="https://system76.com/laptops" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;system76.com&#x2F;laptops</a>

How do you do a middle click on the pad?