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What Linux Ultrabook do you suggest?

17 points by daddyfix ↗ HN
I am considering the Dell XPS 13" DE or a Suped Up Lenovo IdeaPad 700 for my devel machine.

My must haves are... 250+ SDD 8 GB Ram Intel i7

What do you suggest?

24 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 68.8 ms ] thread
mbreedlove
I've heard the Dell XPS is the best if you're looking to run Linux.
daddyfix
Yeah. I have looked at this as an option. thanks
mtmail
This discussion is 7 months old but has some useful comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11353245
daddyfix
7 months is a long time in tech. Ubuntu 16.04 was't around then either. Im Interested in some recent pro and cons
peller
This is true[1], but especially for running Linux, I think this attitude might be shooting yourself in the foot. What I mean by that is, hardware support on Linux lags behind the closed source OS options by the very nature of Linux being open source and the developers needing access to the hardware to make anything work. Intel themselves try to get ahead of the curve, but even they are not perfect and when it comes to the trickier aspects such as power management, it often takes a few months of having the hardware in-the-wild to get things really sorted. And that's not to mention the fact that distros rarely run a bleeding edge kernel.

[1] Intel CPUs have not changed very much, instructions-per-clock wise, over the past 3 or 4 generations. You're looking at 5-10% at most for any single generation. Their GPUs have drastically improved, and the power efficiencies have improved, but since you're running Linux... well sadly, we don't tend to get the same benefits closed source peoples do in those two respects. As for SSDs, buy something with a HDD and install the SSD yourself. It's cheaper, and you'll get a far better SSD than you would when you let the OEM choose what to install.

daddyfix
Thank you. I haven't thought of looking at a HDD model and buying an SSD.

I am going to look into that right now.

peller
Sure. The one area where this advice begins to break down, however, is with M.2 PCIe SSDs. I personally don't keep up with laptops, so unfortunately I can't offer any specific recommendations, but if you can find an otherwise solid laptop with an M.2 slot that's the way to go. They're about 2-3x faster than SATA-based SSDs. It's not the same order-of-magnitude jump in speed a SSD offers over a HDD, so I wouldn't necessarily call it a make-or-break feature, but it's something to keep in mind (for that, you'll definitely need the latest-generation "Skylake" platform)

Also, to save yourself some time researching SSDs: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9799/best-ssds

aprdm
I was doing the same search some time ago and the final contenders were:

Lenovo t460 (or t460p) Asus UX305A Dell XPS 13 Dev Edition

However I ended up not buying any of those.

I had bought a toshiba i3 with 8 gb of ram 2 years ago for £300 and I didn't felt like any of those laptops would give an improvement worth the price.

Laptopts are a little bit stuck it seems. I sincerely tried to buy one but just couldn't justify... I am running Ubuntu 16.04 perfectly, everything just works.

daddyfix
Yes. I too feel like they are over priced and stuck in place where the manufactures don't know what sell or what price to sell them as. Im going to search for Laptops with an HDD and see what I find. Im looking at Dell and Lenovo right now. But I am leaning towards Dell cause of the problems with Lenovo and SSDs and BOIS with RAID options.
RustyRussell
I was delighted with my ASUS UX305UA for 5 months, now it's been in and out of repair for 1 month :(
beagle3
I've had such bad experience with Asus that 4 years ago I decided to never ever purchase another one again. I guess things haven't changed
iracic
Happy user of ux32vd here for 3-4 years. i7, upgraded ram to 10Gb. Disk is slower than it could be, short batery life ~3h. All in all I would buy it again.
Solinoid
XPS 13.

That said, I haven't had much luck getting the usb-c dock working 100% correctly with Ubuntu 16.04. Going from laptop to attached to a separate monitor and peripherals works, but workstation to laptop more often than not will leave me with the laptop still 'seeing' the external monitor and treating the laptop monitor as the secondary display.

zck
I don't know if it counts as an ultrabook, but I'm enjoying my System76 laptop. There are a few different models, depending on what size you want.
daddyfix
which System 76 laptop do you own? I was considering getting one, but Im concerned about the service since I live in Northern Ontario Canada
jshupe
I got a xps 13 in 2012 and it is happy with 16.04 - my only reason to upgrade would be for longer battery life, less fan noise.
shaynesweeney
Running Arch on a Dell XPS 9350. Not DE, because I dual boot for Windows specific apps I use.

Overall, great laptop. I have the QHD+ screen which is awesome, but did require a bit of fine tuning to get the DPI where I want it.

Any specific questions?

wprapido
just about any lenovo thinkpad might work fine
daddyfix
Thank you all for your comments. I'M still undecided. It looks like a tie between Dell and Lenovo. Hmmm. Ill wait till Black Friday
detaro
also check out refurbished devices. You can get older models a lot cheaper if they are good enough for your needs. 8 GB RAM has been possible for a while now, and at least a SATA or mSATA SSD can be added nearly everywhere.
eb0la
Before black Friday go to a store and touch the keyboards. If you can write something that looks like real work(TM), do it.

You spend a lot of time using the keyboard and build some muscle memory about how far apart the keys are and how much force you have to apply.

siscia
There is this little company in the south of Italy that makes great computers: www.santech.eu

Not sure how they handle warranties in US but the whole Europe should be cover.