Re:Ask HN: Is an ARM-based laptop a viable development machi...
by KaiserPro on Saturday November 14, 2020 @05:19AM
(#25091348)
THe support is good on the XPS. Everything works out of the box (apart from the standard linux trackpad multi touch issues.)
a word of caution, the 2019 13" has a stupid[1] keyboard layout. They cram the pageup/down keys above the left right keys. This caused huge amounts of issues for me, making it unusable. If this were to be fixed, it would be a very compelling machine.
[1]subjective
Re:Ask HN: Is an ARM-based laptop a viable development machi...
by philliphaydon on Saturday November 14, 2020 @04:53AM
(#25091248)
If you get an XPS with windows. It’s a pain to install linux because of some weird Intel thing needing to be disabled first. Caused me a lot of headache. Runs great once you get past that tho.
Lenovo on the other hand. Just works.
Re:Ask HN: Is an ARM-based laptop a viable development machi...
by robert_foss on Saturday November 14, 2020 @04:54AM
(#25091253)
Personally I'm on my 3rd XPS running Linux, and the install has mostly been smooth sailing.
Re:Ask HN: Is an ARM-based laptop a viable development machi...
by heelix on Saturday November 14, 2020 @10:34AM
(#25092883)
The BIOS is configured for RAID rather than AHCI/SATA by default. Bumped into that with mine. It was fairly easy to modify Windows to not use the RAID version so I could boot into Linux on one drive and boot into Windows on the other. Suspect I could get Centos to go the RAID route, but did not want to mess with it.
Re:Ask HN: Is an ARM-based laptop a viable development machi...
by kinix on Saturday November 14, 2020 @04:58AM
(#25091266)
I had one of the first XPSs, and it was a 'mare for the first few months - I'm kinda surprised it's still that much of an issue to be honest.
Re:Ask HN: Is an ARM-based laptop a viable development machi...
by blackrock on Saturday November 14, 2020 @05:28AM
(#25091384)
I love my Lenovo T4xx. Linux was a breeze to install.
I just wish the Fn and Ctrl keys were swapped. Although you can change it in the bios.
Re:Ask HN: Is an ARM-based laptop a viable development machi...
by SweetestRug on Saturday November 14, 2020 @07:30AM
(#25091912)
I did this and it was smooth sailing. All I had to do was set the hard drives from RAID to ACHI in the BIOS.
Re:Ask HN: Is an ARM-based laptop a viable development machi...
by philliphaydon on Saturday November 14, 2020 @07:50AM
(#25092010)
I should have mentioned I was trying to dual boot too. And Windows doesn’t like the flat out change. You need to change the settings in windows before changing the bios. Something I didn’t need to do on my Lenovo.
Re:Ask HN: Is an ARM-based laptop a viable development machi...
by qppo on Saturday November 14, 2020 @06:27PM
(#25096638)
My XPS with Linux (installed by dell, no customization except for user space packages) will freeze/stall about twice a day and needs to be rebooted with the power button, losing all unsaved work.
Dell does not offer any support for this computer's software so there's not really a remedy except keeping drivers up to date and hoping it gets fixed someday.
Would not recommend it for anything but personal work right now.
Re:Ask HN: Is an ARM-based laptop a viable development machi...
by bradwood on Saturday November 14, 2020 @05:03AM
(#25091285)
Or stump up for the Precision 5540 if you have the cash. That running arch and i3 and you are cooking with gas!
Re:Ask HN: Is an ARM-based laptop a viable development machi...
by secondcoming on Saturday November 14, 2020 @06:26AM
(#25091606)
I recently got a 'Build Your Own' Precision 7750. After-market RAM and SSDs were far cheaper than Dell's offering.
I'm a bit gutted though, no Ryzen CPUs were offered and considering how much I spent I won't be buying another laptop for at least 10 years.
- Dell XPS (mac-like comes with Linux)
- Lenovo Thinkpad (excellent Linux support, as it is used by a lot of Linux devs)
- Any of the Linux CTO laptop builders (Librem, Tuxedo, ...) will have excellent support, but will not look as good as the Dell
- Anything else: YMMV, check the reviews.