Got a shiny new Dell XPS 13 Laptop which I specifically bought to put linux on. The general impression from online comments is that linux works well on XPS 13 and 15 Laptops (you can even buy them with linux preinstalled, which I did not).
I want to use this device primarily for meetings but also occasionally to develop on-the-go. So actual day-to-day development performance is not as important. The XPS 15 would offer more performance (from benchmarks about 20-25%) as it has a better CPU but being light and small was more important to me for this device.
After about two weeks of using it (one with Windows 11, one with Fedora 35) I have the following remarks:
- Windows 11 is a nice update from Windows 10, I do like the design improvements.
- Linux does work well on this hardware, which is very current. This is what I had hoped for.
- I did get a BIOS update on linux (which worked easy, like all other software updates) but not on windows (using the preinstalled Dell Software), which is a shame. As it contained security updates.
- I have used Ubuntu (10+ years) before moving to Arch Linux (also over 10 years already) for all my private computers. I did choose to give Fedora a try on this device because I want something more tested and stable than Arch. I do have very good experiences with Arch and I like to be very current but getting update notifications every day is distracting for work. Fedora seems to be pretty current to upstream (small delta) and I will see how updates will work out. I could still switch to Arch later if I do not like the Fedora way.
- After installing Fedora I had initially problems with Bluetooth. I have the impression that was related to Windows and the way it shuts down hardware. So Linux was not able to correctly initialize the Hardware anymore. It disappeared after a few reboots and the BIOS update (which likely reset the hardware). It does work well since then.
- I do enjoy using the Gnome gestures to manage and move between workspaces on this laptop. They work smooth and might get me to use workspaces even more now.
- Flatpak is not good for IDE Software. E.g.: it is not able to find the installed SDKs like dotnet.
- Flatpak Firefox is not able to install Gnome Extensions, which is a shame and the only reason to not install it using Flatpak. To me the extensions story is broken here. Maybe in the future the Gnome Extensions App can also search and install extensions, which, I think, would be more what is expected from Users. Using the browser has always been a rather odd choice.
- I did not setup the Fingerprint reader or Camera (Windows Hello). I might give the Fingerprint reader a try on linux when I find some time for it. Camera works fine for Video Calls.
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