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How Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops (and why it's called 'Project Sputnik') (www.zdnet.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Today, the Dell XPS-13 with Ubuntu Linux is easily the most well-known Linux laptop. Many users, especially developers -- including Linus Torvalds -- love it. As Torvalds recently said, "Normally, I wouldn't name names, but I'm making an exception for the XPS 13 just because I liked it so much that I also ended up buying one for my daughter when she went off to college."

So, how did Dell -- best known for good-quality, mass-produced PCs -- end up building top-of-the-line Ubuntu Linux laptops? Well, Barton George, Dell Technologies' Developer Community manager, shared the "Project Sputnik" story this week in a presentation at the popular Linux and open-source community show, All Things Open.

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[–] 37 points 2 years ago (10 children)

Ubuntu needs to stop being a standard. There are better alternatives at this point

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  • [–] 39 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Popularity makes all forms of support infinitely easier. I'd struggle to come up with any technical reason that could be worth giving up the ability to easily google for issues or install software. That doesn't mean I think you shouldn't use other distros, just that I believe Ubuntu is the best choice for a default install targeting average people.

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  • [–] 26 points 2 years ago

    Yes, that's me. I have no interest in a nerdy deep-dive into esoteric distros that may be "better" according to whatever metric you suggest. To me, it's just a machine that needs to work.

    With Windows, getting help when things break is easy. For a non-nerd USER, it has to be the same for Linux. Ubuntu was intended from the start to be made for people like me, and with AskUbuntu there's a large support site.

    I know you can tweak your distro better, and it's faster, and so on. But it requires knowledge that I don't care to learn - just as I am not an auto mechanic, I just drive the machine.

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  • [–] 30 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    If you want it to stop being a standard, help your distro do a better job at marketing. Ubuntu is one of the few that do some actual market research and dedicate resources to getting the OS into the hands of people by getting them interested in it. It's one of the things we are looking forwards to doing better in Fedora.

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    As much as people don't like Ubuntu, for users who aren't enthusiasts they don't want a million different options to choose from

    If we keep changing the standard it'll drive people away and leave behind support

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  • [–] 21 points 2 years ago

    There may be, but realistically it's probably the most well known.

    I'm just happy to have Linux as a standard at all. If it works on Ubuntu, there's a high chance it works on other distros and can be easily replaced

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Ubuntu sucks for many reasons, but new user experience is on the better side. I don't want to use Ubuntu over Debian myself but I feel like it's the mandatory corporate evil that can make Linux more appealing to more than just techies while also making Linux desktop more appealing to corpos in Microsoft's ecosystem. Intune already has some rudimentary support for managed Linux Desktop, with Ubuntu currently supported.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I don't know the last time you used Ubuntu but its user experience is not on the "better side". They are pushing snap so hard that they are blind

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    hi, can you please elaborate why that is wrong? I am fairly new to Linux and have been using Ubuntu for the past month and so far I am satisfied with it..

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Snap is a package manager like apt but I'm not sure why that other user is so upset about Ubuntu using/pushing it

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Because it's shit.

    If I apt install an app, I expect it NOT to be a snap. I want it to use shared libraries, not bring its own along. They hide from you that they are installing the snap not deb package.

    Then you run into all sorts of permissions issues accessing the filesystem from the snap app... Because snap is rather broken in this regard.

    Functionally snap is a worse solution then deb, but I guess it's easier on the developer/maintainer as you don't get lost in shared dependincy hell.

    I feel snaps should be an option if you need cutting edge version of a software that can't use your shared libs, but never the default install method.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    Snap packages are files that contain a file system and get mounted. They contain the application and libraries and such it depends on.

    It doesn't sound like such a bad idea on paper, and speaking for myself and from what I've gathered from stuff I see in the community, a general bias against Canonical probably plays a part.

    But specifically as a desktop package solution, I do think it's a poor one. It's messy, slow, bloated and sandboxing creates usability issues (though it has benefits too, of course).

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    This one is tough for me. I'm opposed to any distro being considered the "standard". It feels so antithetical to what makes Linux great.

    But it's also probably what we need for better user adoption. I don't know which I'd pick if I had to, but I know it wouldn't be Ubuntu.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago

    It's fine, I bought an XPS 13 years ago with Ubuntu and immediately put OpenSuSE on it. At least I'm not paying Microsoft. I still have that laptop, and it's great. I think Lenovo deserves an honourable mention here, too - we buy T and X series laptops at work with Ubuntu and they work great too.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    such as?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Linux mint, Fedora, openSUSE and tons of other options

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Yeah and there is a big issue. I would place myself as quite tech savvy, but last time i looked for a distrobI got overwhelmed... Good thing: there are questionnaires that lead you to a good enough suggestion... Back then it proposed mint

    But then the next question: which desktopp environment?

    I installed on my huawei matebook and it worked okay-ish, but it had one dealbreaker: even with a lot of tinkering there was no way I got standby or hibernation to work. Which is a must for me...

    So I removed mint and installed kubuntu... Now standby and even hibernate work (kind of) But it totally craps up when I try to use my external monitor together with the internal screen... Even a lot of terminal tinkering later I don't have it working... Oh and the speakers still crap now

    There is a lit of information around how to maybe get stuff working, but a lot of it requires a lot of upfront knowledge:

    • a lot of questions are answered with "yeah, enter that in your terminal" without any explanation what exactly it does (which is bad in two ways in my opinion)
    • a lot of official documentation doesn't explain very well what the configs do and what syntax etc. is expected
    • there is often a lot of elitism around that really pushes away newcomers

    EmI do love tinkering, but sometimes it's really frustrating even for me. No way I could my GF to try that out..

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Agreed, still when you sell a laptop and want to put in an OS that's going to be supported for the whole lifetime of the device then there are not options for people who don't tinker.

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  • [+] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)
    [removed by mod]
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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It also runs terribly. What we need is a more diverse ecosystem that is more than just ubuntu

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