A whole lot of initial feedback

Quitetall, it sounds as if you may not have the Sputnik PPAs enabled. Could that be the case?

Just checked, and yes they are both showing as available.

Is there anything else I can check / try?

huh, and a bit later Update Manager found some updates.

And a restart later now brightness controls are working find

Is there a chance that the sputnik project will be extended to the XPS12?

I run the latest build of 13.04 on my XPS12 and expect two thinks everything is working perfectly (probable because the XPS13 has very similar hardware I guess).

However the first annoying think is the backlight being turned to brightness level 0 on every startup (backlight is turned of, but can be adjusted with the buttons).

The second one affects the touchscreen - after some time (seconds to several minutes) I'm not able to do a primary click with the touchscreen on the desktop/launcher/dash and in nearly all program-windows. Curiously, gestures still work as well as onboard and even in nautilus I can open a file (but not access the menu in the dash), even scrolling through a pdf in evince still works. Logging out and in again restores the functionality for a short moment. I can't say what may cause this behavior, my only knowledge is that there had been a missing touch-end event reported on launchpad, but in this case there seems to be a touch-end signal at least for some time/touches.

It would be really great if you professionals could take a look on this issue.

Thanks in advance

Hello Barton George,

thanks for your answer.

In my opinion the XPS12 is the best choice on the market of convertible devices (I don't like the Yoga's keyboard and the Twist has a low screen resolution).

The XPS12 runs fine with Linux just the touchscreen is annoying. There are more people like me, who would like to use Linux on it and hope for a workaround for the touchscreen. I suppose a little reset-script would help.

So please consider expanding the project or just providing some workarounds.

best regards

L.J.

I just got my xps13 (L322X) last Friday.

My first impressions are:

Pro's

• Quick and easy initial install and setup.
• All the hardware "just works" out of the box, I think it's the fist time I have experienced that, with ubuntu.
• Multitouch gestures.
• From what I'm used to, the battery life is good, 4-5 hours
• I haven't found any bloatware on the system :)

Con's

• The keyboard gets very hot between "P" and "L"
• After the initial installation, I had to upgrade the system with around 550MB worth of downloads.
• the "Super" key didn't work as expected, as a shortcut for "Dash home" until after the upgrade(apt-get update && apt-get upgrade)
• The charger stick isn't compatable with my older latitude charger.
• Since this laptop is ment for devs. etc. I expected the ssh client to be installed by default.
• Missing Ethernet stick, like in hp spectre xt, tho they are missing ubuntu :)
• Windows resizing is next to impossible with the touchpad, because the boarder is very narrow(I'm guessing 1px)

Overall I would give it a score of 7-8 of 10, because most of the stuff under Con's are minor.

Thanks @Ejdesgaard for the feedback!

Pros

• great build quality
• fantastic screen
• faster than off a shovel

I have a question that I cannot see answered anywhere:

how is the multitouch gestures while browser the internet? Can you swipe left/right to go to previous/next page? Is it possible to pinch-to-zoom?

I am looking into these things before ordering the machine...I want a system which works perfectly on Ubuntu without the hassle with drivers!

So, after a couple of weeks, my 2 cents:

PROS

1. CPU
2. RAM
3. SSD, super fast
4. Full HD screen
5. Keyboard, nice, very good feedback, backlight properly working
6. Weight and portability
7. Rubberish design, I've come to love it :)
8. Good speakers!
9. Acceptable battery life

MEH

1. Multi gestures, unclear what can be done

CONS

1. WiFi didn't work out of the box, Dell had to replace the Atheros card with an Intel one, then worked fine
2. Left USB port didn't properly work under Ubuntu (it did under Windows), causing issues with a wireless mouse and, for other people, unmounting of attached devices
3. Fan noise, it reached some very unbearable levels, both under Ubuntu and Windows, even when the device was not under stress
4. Random freezes under Ubuntu were very annoying, I had to force a reboot by pressing the power button (didn't get them with Windows)

Unfortunately, due to cons 2-3-4, I am going to return the laptop to Dell tomorrow; I have to say I'm pretty sad about this, I had very high expectations that were not matched by the device (or maybe by the BIOS firmware/driver on it???). I was hoping to get a laptop that "just worked" with Ubuntu, and didn't get it.

I will stay tuned for what I hope will be the next revisions of the XPS 13 and, generally speaking, the Sputnik Project. Developers like me really need powerful machines freed by the Windows bloatware and ecosystem.

@FRAPONTILLO Im very sorry for your negative experience.  With regards to #4 above, did you upgrade your kernel to the 3.5 kernel?

No, I did not update anything beyond the standard LTS release, in the hope of better performance and with fear I'd fix some things and break some more. Do you think upgrading the kernel alone would have solved it?

frapontillo: Yes, there are some stability issues with Intel graphics on newer systems if you're using an older Linux kernel. There are notable stability improvements with the 3.5 and 3.8 kernels available to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS users (and of course later releases).

Oh, I should add. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS users can get these newer kernels using the linux-generic-lts-quantal or linux-generic-lts-raring packages.