I've been given this laptop at work, I use it with Ubuntu.
It's an amazing machine. Perfect under every aspect. Way better than the XPS13.
It's really, really remarkable. It's thin yet it has ALL the ports you might wish for in a modern laptop, 2xUSB type A, USB-c/Thunderbolt, HDMI, Ethernet, regular power plug, audio jack, sim card, micro-sd.
I'm glad it only has the intel integrated video card so I don't have to deal with proprietary drivers. The only downside is that the fingerprint reader isn't recognized and doesn't seem to be supported under gnu/linux.
Otherwise it would be 100% supported.
Wifi, bluetooth and camera all work out of the box. There's an IR camera, but I haven't tested it.
Had it had the trackpoint, I would have declared the TinkPad definitively dead and would have switched my personal laptop to this exact dell model (I currently use a ThinkPad T440 for personal stuff).
Mine came with a 4c/8t i7, 16 gb ram and a 512gb nvme disk.
It's really, really a remarkable small but capable machine.
It sounds to me like you just described the t480s, I'm having a hard time imagining why I would choose the Dell over the Thinkpad. How is the screen on the dell? The T480s is still a killer daily driver. Is the Dell as serviceable as a thinkpad? Easy disassembly?
My work laptop is a 7490, and it's great. Dell really blew it out of the water with this model.
Also: I appreciate that it comes with a "regular" power plug, but mine also supports charging over USB-C. I think more laptops should give that option.
Unfortunately dell doesn't sell this model anymore, they've replaced it with the Latitude 7300 which is basically the same laptop except they removed the eth port for no real reason as the dimensions aren't discernibly different. Kinda frustrating, especially bec it means that if someone wants to logon to the domain for the first time you need to give them an eth adapter.
I got this model refurbished or resold (not sure) from Newegg for 500USD and it's worked perfect under Debian out of the box[1]. For those wondering about using Linux, you don't need fancy mac hardware. You don't need the retina display and multi-gesture touchpad and you don't miss them when they're gone. This things got a battery that lasts forever, all kinds of ports, lightweight, and a nice keyboard. But most importantly, everything just works and was trivial to setup if it required it: UEFI secureboot, full disk encryption with luks, suspend and lid close, WiFi, sound, function keys. My model is the one without the finger print reader, so as far I know, everything is supported. "The Law of Linux Threads" states that every anecdote will replied with an equal and opposite anecdote, but this was a night and day experience from the old 2012 MacBook Air that I ran and a suite of weird Asus 200-300USD range laptops that were always sketchily supported at best.
[1] Using the firmware ISO image instead of the regular one so that the intel-wifi package would be in the image at install time.
> You don't need the retina display and multi-gesture touchpad
I may not need those things, but I definitely want them.
When you work with text all day, a high dpi screen is wonderful. I'd like to see it get to the point where it's comparable to a page out of a laser printer.
For me the issue hasn't been losing things like the display or the touchpad as much as the ecosystem. The ability to copy and paste between my devices, the ability to receive a text that I can interact with, the ability to quickly switch my earbud connection between my phone and laptop, the ability to use one device to tell me where another device is or made a locating sound, the ability to use my tablet as an external display, etc
I am always impressed by the serviceability of Dell computers, including this laptop. Servers, for example, can be opened and services without tools. Blue plastic levers and knobs are for parts that can be removed with the power off; red plastic is for parts like internal cooling fans that can be hot swapped while the server is running.
I wish Apple hadn’t completely given up on the market that includes most of the computer purchases I want to make: software development, a few network servers, NAS, content creation, home automation, gaming.
I have no major beef with the rackables, despite having just had ALL 8 2.5"SAS drives RMA. They do understand 'no screw' replace issues in cramped locations. (iDrac is crap. just sayin)
But I got burned on the laptops, and the company got burned on the laptops, and repeatedly the worldwide warranty experience was poor, compared to what was IBM and is now Lenovo. We moved to ThinkPad and apart from a cooked batch of R- series with faulty ethernet, never regretted it.
I am glad Dell is maybe back on form in Laptop land. I probably won't be trying yet.
> my System76 Galago Pro had its second experience with a dead/swelling battery.
I used to have a Dell laptop which had exactly the same problem with my first battery. Running laptop plugged into AC adapter 99% of the time was one reason for that happening, I imagine.
Fix was ridiculously simple - I bought a new battery (original) + a knock-off power adapter (a more expensive one - hoping it's built well enough so it wouldn't burn my house down - and as luck had it, it didn't). Knock-off adapter doesn't speak magic Dell charging protocol, so laptop runs off of it, but refuses to charge.
I kept original AC adapter for (infrequent) travel only, all the other time powering from a knock-off. Worked a charm - second battery held something like 90% of charge 3 years later, with no signs of swell whatsoever. Compare that to first battery, that lived on constant top-up charge (original adapter), and after less than a year swell up to the point it wouldn't clip in anymore.
You can tell your Dell laptop to not charge the battery to 100% in bios now. Since mine is often plugged in I enabled this setting and the capacity seems to stay stable (I've had it for two years now)
>I used to have a Dell laptop which had exactly the same problem with my first battery. Running laptop plugged into AC adapter 99% of the time was one reason for that happening, I imagine.
Except Dell laptops have a configuration in the BIOS to better handle to be always plugged. I changed this BIOS option, and it basically never uses or charges the battery unless AC is off.
So, the fix is even more ridiculously simpler than you thought.
I also have the Intel 8265 chipset in my T480. Currently only 802.11g speeds are supported in FreeBSD, but good news is that work is starting on bringing AC support to the relevant driver: https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-wireless/2020-Ap...
As far as I can tell it is pretty much up to the user, in the port [0] there is 16 config options for what you want to have, it also seems that the above referenced bug got fixed only a few hours ago in the commit history.
Considering replacing my t410. Is this a good contender for Linux? I’m reading the fan is loud, speakers subpar (quiet), and the keyboard isn’t great with very low travel.
The fan on my laptop is quiet unless I'm doing something very power-intensive like an 8-way parallel compile. It will probably depend on the CPU model you get though.
The speakers and keyboard feel fine to me, but that's very subjective. Speaking of subjective, this feels like the most solidly constructed laptop I've ever used.
> How come some config goes in /etc/sysctl.conf, and some goes in /boot/loader.conf?
As cperciva notes, sysctl.conf is read by userland during rc(8) "multiuser" boot. loader.conf is used by the bootloader to set tunables (knobs that can only be changed at boot time), load kernel modules early, and configure other bootloader settings.
Some sysctls are also tunables; for backwards compatibility or in case it is useful for the value to be set during boot before userspace runs.
> Is there a systematic way to know what config goes in a syctl-style file, and what goes in a rc-style file (via sysrc)?
The things in /boot/loader.conf are things which are needed early in the boot process -- typically for driver initialization. /etc/sysctl.conf is processed later, as part of the (userland) boot.
I have never used FreeBSD, but i am excited to see that there are only four (?) config interfaces used in these instructions!
That sounds about right, depending on how you count "copy this sample configuration file into place".
FreeBSD has the concept that /etc/rc.conf is a "master configuration file", not just for turning features on and off but also for setting command line options. More complex daemons -- e.g. devd and crond -- have their own configuration files as well, but in most cases they also have configuration directories allowing you to add configuration by creating new files rather than editing an existing one.
I know that when I bought my XPS15 Dell didn’t officially support Linux on it. I think I was told I could order the more expensive equivalent latitude model. However the XPS15 has been well supported, with plenty of Linux specific BIOS fixes (auto updated on Ubuntu).
Aside to author: your page breaks mobile Safari hard on an iPad! Looks like a Safari bug (unless author is being tricky!). Anyone else wanting to read on iPad, use reader view.
I love my Dell Latitude 7280 that I got for €300 (second hand). Almost brand new. I shelled out €150 for the `official` dell dock later (second hand) and then €150 later to upgrade the nvme drive from 256gb to 1tb and the RAM from 8gb to 16gb.
Only thing I miss and somehow can feel is the lack of dual channel. I'd trade one 16gb dd4 for two ddr3 slots any day.
edit: forgot why I wrote it down: it runs linux fine ^^ (kubuntu 18.04)
Do you use Linux? One of the reasons why I chose a thinkpad is having a docking station that reliably works on linux. Any past experience with thinkpad docks? How do they compare?
This has already been posted, so I'll paste my comment on that post:
I've been given this laptop at work, I use it with Ubuntu.
It's an amazing machine. Perfect under every aspect. Way better than the XPS13.
It's really, really remarkable. It's thin yet it has ALL the ports you might wish for in a modern laptop, 2xUSB type A, USB-c/Thunderbolt, HDMI, Ethernet, regular power plug, audio jack, sim card, micro-sd.
I'm glad it only has the intel integrated video card so I don't have to deal with proprietary drivers. The only downside is that the fingerprint reader isn't recognized and doesn't seem to be supported under gnu/linux.
Otherwise it would be 100% supported.
Wifi, bluetooth and camera all work out of the box. There's an IR camera, but I haven't tested it.
Had it had the trackpoint, I would have declared the TinkPad definitively dead and would have switched my personal laptop to this exact dell model (I currently use a ThinkPad T440 for personal stuff).
Mine came with a 4c/8t i7, 16 gb ram and a 512gb nvme disk.
It's really, really a remarkable small but capable machine.
Please don't copy/paste comments on HN. It lowers the signal/noise ratio and makes for pain when we go to merge duplicate threads. I've consolidated all the replies to your comment under the other one (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23269802).
If you want to refer to something you posted elsewhere, please use a link. Better still, when you see a split discussion, email [email protected] so we can merge them. We'll make sure your comment ends up in the winning thread.
[+] [-] znpy|5 years ago|reply
It's an amazing machine. Perfect under every aspect. Way better than the XPS13.
It's really, really remarkable. It's thin yet it has ALL the ports you might wish for in a modern laptop, 2xUSB type A, USB-c/Thunderbolt, HDMI, Ethernet, regular power plug, audio jack, sim card, micro-sd.
I'm glad it only has the intel integrated video card so I don't have to deal with proprietary drivers. The only downside is that the fingerprint reader isn't recognized and doesn't seem to be supported under gnu/linux.
Otherwise it would be 100% supported.
Wifi, bluetooth and camera all work out of the box. There's an IR camera, but I haven't tested it.
Had it had the trackpoint, I would have declared the TinkPad definitively dead and would have switched my personal laptop to this exact dell model (I currently use a ThinkPad T440 for personal stuff).
Mine came with a 4c/8t i7, 16 gb ram and a 512gb nvme disk.
It's really, really a remarkable small but capable machine.
[+] [-] earthscienceman|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brendoelfrendo|5 years ago|reply
Also: I appreciate that it comes with a "regular" power plug, but mine also supports charging over USB-C. I think more laptops should give that option.
[+] [-] sneak|5 years ago|reply
The display is 1920x1080 and 167ppi.
4k content is common now, as are vector fonts.
I feel like to be called “perfect” a laptop display should be at least 200ppi, and at least 1500 pixels tall.
Historically “PC” display standards seem to be closer to 2000 than 2020.
[+] [-] vxNsr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisseaton|5 years ago|reply
What's a 'regular' power plug? I thought these weren't standardised beyond USB-C?
[+] [-] m-p-3|5 years ago|reply
I'm not sure if there is a model with an AMD GPU, if there was I'd go with that.
[+] [-] gigatexal|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] autocorr|5 years ago|reply
[1] Using the firmware ISO image instead of the regular one so that the intel-wifi package would be in the image at install time.
[+] [-] criddell|5 years ago|reply
I may not need those things, but I definitely want them.
When you work with text all day, a high dpi screen is wonderful. I'd like to see it get to the point where it's comparable to a page out of a laser printer.
[+] [-] bdcravens|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] todd8|5 years ago|reply
I wish Apple hadn’t completely given up on the market that includes most of the computer purchases I want to make: software development, a few network servers, NAS, content creation, home automation, gaming.
[+] [-] ggm|5 years ago|reply
But I got burned on the laptops, and the company got burned on the laptops, and repeatedly the worldwide warranty experience was poor, compared to what was IBM and is now Lenovo. We moved to ThinkPad and apart from a cooked batch of R- series with faulty ethernet, never regretted it.
I am glad Dell is maybe back on form in Laptop land. I probably won't be trying yet.
[+] [-] kees99|5 years ago|reply
> my System76 Galago Pro had its second experience with a dead/swelling battery.
I used to have a Dell laptop which had exactly the same problem with my first battery. Running laptop plugged into AC adapter 99% of the time was one reason for that happening, I imagine.
Fix was ridiculously simple - I bought a new battery (original) + a knock-off power adapter (a more expensive one - hoping it's built well enough so it wouldn't burn my house down - and as luck had it, it didn't). Knock-off adapter doesn't speak magic Dell charging protocol, so laptop runs off of it, but refuses to charge.
I kept original AC adapter for (infrequent) travel only, all the other time powering from a knock-off. Worked a charm - second battery held something like 90% of charge 3 years later, with no signs of swell whatsoever. Compare that to first battery, that lived on constant top-up charge (original adapter), and after less than a year swell up to the point it wouldn't clip in anymore.
[+] [-] icefo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rewoi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shorel|5 years ago|reply
Except Dell laptops have a configuration in the BIOS to better handle to be always plugged. I changed this BIOS option, and it basically never uses or charges the battery unless AC is off.
So, the fix is even more ridiculously simpler than you thought.
[+] [-] yourad_io|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dddddaviddddd|5 years ago|reply
I've tried doing PCI passthrough to get full wireless speeds but never figured out how to make it all work with suspend/resume https://www.davidschlachter.com/misc/t480-bhyve-wifi-pci-pas...
Other than frustrations with WiFi, using FreeBSD as my main OS has been an interesting learning experience.
[+] [-] floatboth|5 years ago|reply
Wow! I've been thinking about this (for unsupported Broadcrap etc. cards) ages ago, very nice to see that someone actually did it :)
[+] [-] wolf550e|5 years ago|reply
Why qmail? Is it really original qmail, or qmail with freebsd patches, or notqmail, or what?
(In light of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23247196)
Why not postfix?
[+] [-] erk__|5 years ago|reply
[0]: https://www.freshports.org/mail/qmail/
[+] [-] ornornor|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cperciva|5 years ago|reply
The speakers and keyboard feel fine to me, but that's very subjective. Speaking of subjective, this feels like the most solidly constructed laptop I've ever used.
[+] [-] twic|5 years ago|reply
Is there a systematic way to know what config goes in a syctl-style file, and what goes in a rc-style file (via sysrc)?
I have never used FreeBSD, but i am excited to see that there are only four (?) config interfaces used in these instructions!
[+] [-] loeg|5 years ago|reply
As cperciva notes, sysctl.conf is read by userland during rc(8) "multiuser" boot. loader.conf is used by the bootloader to set tunables (knobs that can only be changed at boot time), load kernel modules early, and configure other bootloader settings.
Some sysctls are also tunables; for backwards compatibility or in case it is useful for the value to be set during boot before userspace runs.
> Is there a systematic way to know what config goes in a syctl-style file, and what goes in a rc-style file (via sysrc)?
Sure:
loader.conf: https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=loader.conf
rc.conf: https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=rc.conf
sysctl.conf: https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sysctl.conf
[+] [-] cperciva|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cperciva|5 years ago|reply
That sounds about right, depending on how you count "copy this sample configuration file into place".
FreeBSD has the concept that /etc/rc.conf is a "master configuration file", not just for turning features on and off but also for setting command line options. More complex daemons -- e.g. devd and crond -- have their own configuration files as well, but in most cases they also have configuration directories allowing you to add configuration by creating new files rather than editing an existing one.
[+] [-] nix23|5 years ago|reply
sysctl.conf controls the system example: kern.randompid=1
Booting the system (modules driver etc)loader.conf: fuse_load="YES" << mind the _load
Start Services after loader and sysctl (rc.conf): hald_enable="YES" << mind the _enable
[+] [-] bluedino|5 years ago|reply
But the work at home rush on laptops made them hard to find. You could get them for $100-200 less than a similar spec T-series.
[+] [-] robocat|5 years ago|reply
I know that when I bought my XPS15 Dell didn’t officially support Linux on it. I think I was told I could order the more expensive equivalent latitude model. However the XPS15 has been well supported, with plenty of Linux specific BIOS fixes (auto updated on Ubuntu).
Aside to author: your page breaks mobile Safari hard on an iPad! Looks like a Safari bug (unless author is being tricky!). Anyone else wanting to read on iPad, use reader view.
[+] [-] znpy|5 years ago|reply
The XPS13 7390 is basically the marketing-grade full-BS laptop: no ports and soldered ram on some models.
The latitude 7390 is the good laptop with user-replaceable ram and disk, thin bezels. Looks a bit boring but delivers.
[+] [-] cperciva|5 years ago|reply
That's very weird. I haven't changed the CSS on that site since... uhh... some time around 2006, actually.
[+] [-] blfr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnchristopher|5 years ago|reply
Only thing I miss and somehow can feel is the lack of dual channel. I'd trade one 16gb dd4 for two ddr3 slots any day.
edit: forgot why I wrote it down: it runs linux fine ^^ (kubuntu 18.04)
[+] [-] javitury|5 years ago|reply
Do you use Linux? One of the reasons why I chose a thinkpad is having a docking station that reliably works on linux. Any past experience with thinkpad docks? How do they compare?
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] epistasis|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neogodless|5 years ago|reply
https://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/InventorySe...
[+] [-] 8K832d7tNmiQ|5 years ago|reply
It keeps resizing the font for every second on my iPad.
[+] [-] timc3|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fouc|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beervirus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] znpy|5 years ago|reply
I've been given this laptop at work, I use it with Ubuntu.
It's an amazing machine. Perfect under every aspect. Way better than the XPS13.
It's really, really remarkable. It's thin yet it has ALL the ports you might wish for in a modern laptop, 2xUSB type A, USB-c/Thunderbolt, HDMI, Ethernet, regular power plug, audio jack, sim card, micro-sd.
I'm glad it only has the intel integrated video card so I don't have to deal with proprietary drivers. The only downside is that the fingerprint reader isn't recognized and doesn't seem to be supported under gnu/linux.
Otherwise it would be 100% supported.
Wifi, bluetooth and camera all work out of the box. There's an IR camera, but I haven't tested it.
Had it had the trackpoint, I would have declared the TinkPad definitively dead and would have switched my personal laptop to this exact dell model (I currently use a ThinkPad T440 for personal stuff).
Mine came with a 4c/8t i7, 16 gb ram and a 512gb nvme disk.
It's really, really a remarkable small but capable machine.
[+] [-] dang|5 years ago|reply
If you want to refer to something you posted elsewhere, please use a link. Better still, when you see a split discussion, email [email protected] so we can merge them. We'll make sure your comment ends up in the winning thread.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...