Direct2Dell

I bought a Dell XPS-13 a couple of years ago with Ubuntu pre-installed. It seemed like a good idea to try out something new and give Dell the business to reward their support for desktop Linux. Boy was that a mistake. As I recall the laptop was only about $200 cheaper than an equivalent Macbook Air. In return I got a non-functioning trackpad [1], flaky Wifi NIC, and a lid that takes two hands to open. Oh, and the same non-replaceable hardware and limited port selection that people complain about on Macs. It would have been far better to get a Macbook and just install Ubuntu on it. Say what you will, but Apple hardware is really great. p.s., The Dell laptop and I made our peace after I propitiated it with a USB Mouse. I still use it. [1] http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19616659?p…

Which version? I've got XPS 13 9350 and it's been a constant pain. Boot time is very slow [0], bluetooth connectivity is weak, I've got constant graphic glitches when on battery. Latest update of the video driver introduced annoying coil noise, I had to downgrade. Actually I have two XPS 13s at home and both of them have some issues. I'm also using Dell Thunderbold Dock TB15 and it drops video output and USB connections after 3h (because of heat) [1]. Of course I've got everything updated. I had an excellent experience with XPS 12 years ago but this 9350 is constantly driving me crazy. I would certainly not recommend it. [0]: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19660648/2… [1]: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19677047/2…

xps 13 hasn't been discontinued; it was refreshed last month at the same time as the XPS 15 shown here. Barton George, the project lead, has confirmed that there will be a follow-on Sputnik coming out sometime in the next month. This (long) thread has the information, especially on the last few pages. http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/t/19494…

"A lucrative market that he said is worth $3 trillion," sounds like a nice market to be. In the last couple of years it looked like Dell was meandering. If the whole time they were internally focusing B2B it will pay off. I know our company, runs entirely on Dell's systems, a high end retailer. Michael Dell's supply chain is great. http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/arch…

Hmm, your links imply that my old Inspiron 6400 might be able to take two 2 GB modules (the manual says it can handle a 2 GB module) and have access to something more than 2GB of addressable RAM. Anyone happen to try this with this or a similar model Dell? (The 6400 is equivalent to the 1505, IIRC. Its manual says it's limited to 2 GB of RAM.) EDIT: Answering myself, it appears it can take 2 x 2 GB sticks. The following Dell forums thread describes this, although this particular post linked claims that the configuration will disable dual channel memory access (but then again, other posters are happy and view the expansion as an improvement). http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/18322272/1… EDIT2: I've seen some other comments that dual channel remains enabled (with matched 2 x 2GB sticks). I guess I'll give it a go.

The XPS series is no pillar of Linux support. Turn to Thinkpads for this[0]. In case you can't be bothered with the upcoming wall of text: Dell seems to have entirely different definitions of "support" for the paid OS, vs. the free one. I could pick my own hardware for work, and I went with an XPS 13 9333 "Ubuntu edition" + superspeed dock for over 1300 GBP ($2K USD). I shouldn't have sponged on the extra hundred or so bucks for the X1 Carbon (..."startup"...), but the "Linux readiness" sucked me in. I don't exactly feel like I got my money's worth: - "Coil Whine"[1]. My expectations from a $2K SSD laptop is complete fucking silence unless the fans are going. There is still some serious coil whine happening when some arbitrary conditions are met - If you often work in a quiet environment (any AM workers here?), you will notice this eventually. This also changes pitch when <things>, so you won't be tuning it out. This was noted as fixed by Dell for the 9333[2], when in fact it hasn't been. Not exclusively a Linux issue, but unacceptable in a $2K machine. - Driver support: wifi: Identity crisis. The stock wifi drivers don't quite register as wifi drivers, but at least NetworkManager still kinda works. "Huh?" # iwconfig [...] wlan0 no wireless extensions. Why do I care? Because maybe I wanted to switch out NetworkManager for wicd (not possible). Maybe I wanted monitor mode on my card (nope). Maybe I just wanted to run Kismet - or anything other than…

Before anyone goes jumping on the "best ones" from Dell, take a read through this 35 page support discussion about their UP2414Q: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/f/3529/t/19536… Anecdotal, but a friend and I both have problems with ours, and he got lucky with the 1.1 firmware revision (Dell won't let you upgrade it, you have to go through support for a replacement, and they'll send you a refurb that might have the newer firmware because they decided it would cost too much to update their existing inventory). And even then it might not work. He's waiting on Dell Support for his 3rd unit. Do yourself a favor and wait until DisplayPort 1.3 is widespread and can drive a 4k screen without using Multi-stream Transport. It's not worth the headache. Right now my computer is convinced that the left and right halves of my screen are separate displays and nothing will convince it otherwise. Other times MST will fail to connect and it only picks up 1/2 the resolution in the middle, with 1/4 width black bars on the left and right. From what I remember reading, Dell botched the DisplayPort handshake, and the workarounds that AMD/Nvidia have put into their drivers to try and fix it aren't 100%. I need to return mine for backlight flicker too. But I'll write that off an an excusable manufacturing flaw that's going to pop up occasionally on some number of any model. EDIT: Just for perspective, this is a screen with an MSRP around $1100, though we…

Dell does this with their monitors [1], first by shipping certain models with IPS panels, then with cheaper PVA panels after good reviews are published. That bit me w/their 2007wfp, which was a great monitor mostly for 1 reason: it was IPS at a great price point. Overwhelmingly positive reviews convinced me to purchase 2 of them. Then buyers started noticing picture quality issues not described in previous positive reviews. After some research, it was found Dell had silently started shipping the 2007wfp with cheaper PVA panels, not IPS. After noticing similar issues with the 2 I purchased, I eventually confirmed they were PVA monitors. I was fairly upset. There's a good thread on Hard Forum about all of this here.[2] And despite very frustrated customers, Dell never acknowledged any problem. In fact, a Dell rep can be quoted: "... a 2007WFP is a 2007WFP ... It does not matter what panel is installed." [3] I stopped buying Dell products after this experience. [1] http://en.community.dell.com/f/3529/t/18107050.aspx [2] http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1111100 [3] http://en.community.dell.com/f/3529/t/18286693.aspx

This. My 3 year-old MacBook is starting to show its age, so I took a look at what's out there. I was intrigued by the HP Envy 14--at long last, it seems somebody besides Apple figured out how to build a nice laptop. And you seem get a lot more for your money. Of course, going back to Windows after 3+ years on OSX is no option, so I looked into Ubuntu. I use Ubuntu on a machine at work and have been very impressed--we've certainly come a long ways since the dark days of Slackware `96! I am enough of a "power user" that I could weather the switch just fine; really the only thing I would miss is iTunes since I have two iPods. Anyways, I started Googling around on the topic of "hp envy 14 +ubuntu". And that's when I was instantly transported back fifteen years to the days, weeks, months I spent tinkering with past laptops in order to get everything working on them under Linux. I had all but forgotten about 30-page hardware HOWTOs on getting Linux to work with your specific laptop; the 20% battery penalty you pay because pm never quite works; the inability of some things, usually network and sound cards, to wake from sleep; the lack of hibernate; buggy graphics drivers; etc. etc. etc. I am aware that the situation has improved considerably since then, but problems still remain. I just don't have the time like I did in my teens and early 20s. Or rather, my time is worth considerably more now--I'm happy to pay the Apple tax if it means I don't have to deal with this shit. That…

2/4 CCX’s lack direct memory access. This is kind of a deal breaker. Threadripper is already memory bound, so the 2 new packages will just be waiting on RAM most the time. Cite: http://en.community.dell.com/cfs-file/__key/telligent-evolution-compon… It would be nice if L3 wasn’t an eviction cache :/

I'm totally on the same boat! Failed XPS 15 9550 and migrated to ThinkPad X1 5th gen. Now perfectly happy with the latter. The XPS had failed with ridiculous reason, I try to access the BIOS/UEFI with some key while boot up. After some tries, the machine never boot again. It founds that by pushing F8 in the wrong timing/combination while booting can cause the machine to brick forever. This is beyond the expectation of how any computer should work ! http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/20013272

> This voids the warranty of the machine. That shouldn't be the case: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4457/t/19585… > You also do not get their professional support this way Why not? How do they know you got one with Windows if your invoice says Linux?

That is from June, this is the latest from December: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/p/19992… A motherboard change and a BIOS update (2.4.2) are supposed to lower the noise as much as they can, while still deeming it "working within specification". Users report the 2.4.2 update didn't help much or even made it worse.

Quoting Barton George: > We are definitely looking into the coil whine issue, this has senior management visibility, and pursuing several avenues for the current system as well as solutions going forward. Source: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/p/20014…

well this monitor also can daisy chain another monitor. which is awesome per se, and actually the daisy chained monitor gets switched aswell. (http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/f/3529/t/19996… but 800 bucks for a monitor :/ I've always looked at these dell monitors. but I never use a external monitor when I'm at home (laptop). But at work my boss would never pay for any of those.

There is hope on page 4 http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/p/19992…

I have "old" one 9550 i7, 4K, 32GB - as a device for this money I wouldn't expect that I will have: - unaligned Jack socket, so that only one channel plays - Flickering backlight, where only one rescue is to downgrade BIOS: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3519/t/19662532 - random freezes: Whole computer hangs, there is no error in Windows log, it's not related to nVidia card, it's not related to load.

Not OP, but got the same laptop. "Jumpy trackpad" [1] and "stuck key" [2] problems are the ones I feel most. They should have been fixed by the latest firmware (apparently still in 2015) but I can still experience them sometimes. I believe I have the latest fw (I'm surely >= 06A), but can't check ATM, so chances are I'm not on the latest. Then again, I admit I can work with it almost seamlessly (dev-work from CLI mainly). [1] http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/t/19637… [2] en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/t/19637021

Not identical, the ubuntu version gets the well supported intel wireless card. http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/t/19634…

This reminds me when Dell refused warranty repairs if VLC was installed[1] Turns out that you could increase the volume causing hard clipping, which caused physical problems on the speakers. [1] http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3517/t/19492918

I wish they'd just focus on making Ubuntu work. I mean, look at one of the flagship Ubuntu laptops, by Dell: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613 I'll still buy the things, because it's important to me to put my money where my mouth is, but it looks like it could use some significant investment to make it a better product.

Always use an OEM Windows Disc. For Business Laptops they make it very easy. For Thinkpad, Latitude, and Precision laptops it's only a couple clicks. Then install ThinkVantage System Update http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/ht080136 or Dell Command Update http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-client/w/wiki/7534.… Be careful of The ThinkVantage System Update, you dont need all the suggested installations.

Not sure why NFS gets such a bad rap. On a low-latency network, properly tuned NFS has very few, if any performance issues. I've personally seen read/write rates exceeding 800MByte/sec on more or less white-box hardware, at which point it was limited by the underlying storage infrastructure (8Gbit fiber), not the NFS protocols. Dell has a 2013 white paper (I'm not affiliated with them, fwiw) about their fairly white box setup that achieved > 100,000 iops, 2.5GBbyte/s sequential write, and 3.5GBbyte/s sequential read: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/high-performance-computing/b/h…

The 2015 Dell XPS 13 sputnik edition is similar and will have full support for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS out of the box. It's still in the last stages of development & bug fixing from what I understand though: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/t/19613…

Strictly speaking, you can get traditional vendors to do firmware signing -- but getting them to put your public key in there will be more difficult, with volume most of the big vendors will be... accommodating. Dell's 12th generation PowerEdge for example has a pretty good baseline outlined here: http://en.community.dell.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/telligent-evolution-c… But that only covers the BIOS really, not things like firmwares in different PCI cards. But its a start.

I have a XPS13, the current 9333 model. It's nice, but it makes an annoying noise, and it seems Dell aren't going to fix it, so I'm going to have to return it. It seems this only effects people with good hearing, and work in quiet environments, though. More info: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19538215.a… I also wasn't impressed with the Ubuntu installation, it didn't work too well out of the box for me (sorry I can't remember specifics, so take this with a pinch of salt). I spent some time installing and configuring the latest Ubuntu, got to something usable but it was some work. I tried the chromebook pixel before, but installing linux was problematic, and the specs are impractical. A shame as I liked the screen. I will probably get a T series thinkpad now.

Not managing keys is asking for trouble. Consider signing your SSH keys to validate that you've properly pruned outdated host entries. See: http://www.openbsd.org/papers/asiabsdcon2011_openssh_whats_new.pdf http://blog.habets.pp.se/2011/07/OpenSSH-certificates http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/b/techcenter/archive/2011/09/0… Spend an afternooon to figure this out.

You can see in the link where they ripped their story right from engadget's RSS feed. http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/05/alienware-x51-ubuntu/?utm_source=fe… Not that Engadget didn't rip it off too. http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/arch…

There is a PPA containing a series of workarounds, fixes, and hacks maintained for this hardware in the partnership between Dell and Canonical: https://launchpad.net/~canonical-hwe-team/+archive/sputnik-kernel Color me impressed, if it is kept up over a three year time scale minimum. Also, here's an example bug report resolved with a kernel fix: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/t/19468… Use of Launchpad is preferred, though, and one can see open and closed bugs here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/dell-sputnik

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/w/microsoft_os… These ISO's should work on any machine as long as you have a valid Windows 7 Product Key. I've always bought at least one OEM copy of Windows, or purchased upgrade copies when a new version is released. I picked up three copies of the Windows 7 DVD set (x32 and x64) for $40 each on Amazon, and you can pick up ISO's of Windows 8 directly from Microsoft for $40 a pop. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/buy?ocid=GA8_O_WOL_Hero_Hom…