Update on XPS 13/15 2016 Developer Edition availability

I sent an email asking about UK availability.

Guys, I'm a bit confused. Is the precision 5510 with Ubuntu 14.04 I see on the US Dell.com site the official sputnik developer edition you've been working on? Or is it just a precision with Ubuntu thrown on for the interim?

When I buy I want to make sure to buy the developer edition to show my support. Thanks for all your work Barton and Jared!

To piggyback on what MIKE702 and aalotia stated above, I'm curious about whether the precision 5510 with Ubuntu will come with patches to support the new hardware in this machine.

As aalotia stated:

"I'm keen to know if power saving, suspend, keyboard backlight etc. work under Linux. Also does the USB-C Gigabit Ethernet adapter offered as an accessory when configuring work with Linux?"

I have heard that the current kernel wouldn't support all of the new hardware yet (skylake, usb-c, etc.), and there are often issues with suspend, backlighting, networking and battery life, on PC's when you first install linux, so I want to make sure I know what I am getting into when I purchase this machine.

Thanks so much by the way, I have been wanting an updated (functional) linux laptop for more than a year now!

To piggyback on what MIKE702 and aalotia stated above, I'm curious about whether the precision 5510 with Ubuntu will come with patches to support the new hardware in this machine.

Yes, that is the intention.

"I'm keen to know if power saving, suspend, keyboard backlight etc. work under Linux. Also does the USB-C Gigabit Ethernet adapter offered as an accessory when configuring work with Linux?"

All of our systems that we enable Ubuntu on are tested for Energy Star compliance, and we work with component vendors to ensure driver support. Ubuntu certification includes things like support for S3, functioning multimedia keys, hybrid graphics support, and so on. I don't recall if the USB-C Ethernet adapter was tested, but we did request driver support for Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C from Intel*, which was part of the extensive testing done on these systems. USB-C testing also included fixing many external video related bugs. The amount of work to ensure we had driver support for the hardware on the Precision 5510 and XPS 13 (9350) was quite significant.

*To the best of my knowledge, we were the first and only ones requesting Thunderbolt 3 Linux support from Intel.

Guys, I'm a bit confused. Is the precision 5510 with Ubuntu 14.04 I see on the US Dell.com site the official sputnik developer edition you've been working on? Or is it just a precision with Ubuntu thrown on for the interim?

In short, it's the real deal, and you'll be showing your support.

We're no longer calling any of the Precision systems "developer editions" to emphasize that Precision is designed for engineers and other professionals in the first place, and the version of Ubuntu sold on them is neither "thrown on for the interim" nor otherwise an afterthought. The Precision 5510 and its Precision mobile siblings, the 3510, 7510 and 7710, for all intents and purposes are Project Sputnik systems even if the naming is different. We'll strive to give them all the same level of attention when it comes to Linux support. Because XPS is targeted towards a mix of consumer and business users ("prosumer"), the "Developer Edition" moniker is still used there to emphasize our commitment to developers (and enthusiasts!) and so that it is not confused with the Windows version.

Jared,

In examining the order pages for the 5510 and 7710, I find I'm able to configure a 5510 with the UHD screen, but when UHD is selected (with any graphics chipset) for the 7710, I receive an error message "The LCD you've selected is incompatible with the UBUNTU Operating System."  Would you happen to know if that is an actual limitation of the OS/hardware combination, or is this simply a bug in the order system?  (These screens do have slightly different descriptions and of course are different sizes - and therefore different hardware - so I won't be shocked if there is a genuine problem.)

Also, can you confirm if hibernation is known to work on the 5510?  The Ubuntu certification for its predecessor, the M3800, stated that hibernation was not working, though it provided no details as to the problem and a query I made here long ago turned up no new information.  (www.ubuntu.com/.../201409-15517)  Suspend is wonderful, but I find hibernation very useful too and am reluctant to try to work on a portable machine without it.

Finally, regardless of the answers to the above questions, let me extend my thanks to you, Barton, and team for all of the great work in getting these machines to market with Linux installed.  As a desktop Linux user off-and-on since the late '90s and constantly since 2007, I deeply appreciate any and all efforts in Linux-supported hardware.

Stephen

In short, it's the real deal, and you'll be showing your support.

Excellent, thank you!

We're no longer calling any of the Precision systems "developer editions" to emphasize that Precision is designed for engineers and other professionals in the first place, and the version of Ubuntu sold on them is neither "thrown on for the interim" nor otherwise an afterthought. The Precision 5510 and its Precision mobile siblings, the 3510, 7510 and 7710, for all intents and purposes are Project Sputnik systems even if the naming is different.

I understand, but a bit sad to see the Sputnik name hidden behind bland corporate naming. I for one love the name and project you guys have done supporting linux.

Anyways, sorry to go off topic, but what if there was a Project Sputnik sticker we could put on the laptop that looked sort of like an old sputnik space patch? Would that not be cool?

With the next LTS due in April (16.04) will the Precision mobile workstations be upgradeable to it when it is released or will there be a lag?

Thanks

+1 for the sticker!

that would indeed be a very nice community project, maybe someone is connected to printing industry and is able to have a relatively small batch of high quality sputnik stickers in the size of the dell-logo produced at a reasonable pricepoint =)

anyway, i'm happy to hear about the efforts being put into linux-driver-support and wonder if the patches are flowing upstream so debian itself and other distros might benefit from the extended support and allow users to use a wider range of linux-distros on their dell sputniks.

All of our systems that we enable Ubuntu on are tested for Energy Star compliance, and we work with component vendors to ensure driver support. Ubuntu certification includes things like support for S3, functioning multimedia keys, hybrid graphics support, and so on. I don't recall if the USB-C Ethernet adapter was tested, but we did request driver support for Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C from Intel*, which was part of the extensive testing done on these systems. USB-C testing also included fixing many external video related bugs. The amount of work to ensure we had driver support for the hardware on the Precision 5510 and XPS 13 (9350) was quite significant. *To the best of my knowledge, we were the first and only ones requesting Thunderbolt 3 Linux support from Intel.

All of our systems that we enable Ubuntu on are tested for Energy Star compliance, and we work with component vendors to ensure driver support. Ubuntu certification includes things like support for S3, functioning multimedia keys, hybrid graphics support, and so on. I don't recall if the USB-C Ethernet adapter was tested, but we did request driver support for Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C from Intel*, which was part of the extensive testing done on these systems. USB-C testing also included fixing many external video related bugs. The amount of work to ensure we had driver support for the hardware on the Precision 5510 and XPS 13 (9350) was quite significant. *To the best of my knowledge, we were the first and only ones requesting Thunderbolt 3 Linux support from Intel.

Does hybrid graphic support imply that other thunderbolt3 docks with external gpu like the razer core are also going to work with the xps13 DE even though it has no dedicated gpu itself?

Any information on the timeline for thunderbolt dock support? Will it be available from launch or later?

Hi Jared,

Are there any updates about the online availability?

Hi @Jsiebens,  

we are working on it as we speak!

thanks for the support. :)

Barton 

Dear Barton,

I have been looking forward to purchasing a Precision 5510 DE in Switzerland for a while now. I am happy to hear that the DE (or Linux Edition) is coming out soon, even if with little fanfare perhaps. Indeed I don't see anything online yet.

Additionally, I am quite a bit worried about the pricing: I looked at the windows version shortly after it came out. In December, it was retailing in Switzerland at around 1600 CHF in the basic configuration (due to a promotion with stated end-date November 2016). I did not buy then because I wanted to wait for the DE. Now somehow the price jumped up to an incredible 2700 CHF for the basic configuration, while just across the border in Italy it comes at around 1550 EUR. Same price in France. (1 chf = 1 usd = 0.9 eur)

I understand that you guys have probably little control over the price, but I find it hard to believe that such a disparity over the price can be intentional, especially given that the launch price in Switzerland was just as low as everywhere else. Moreover, as a business customer I cannot really tell my company to go shopping across the border. If you could point out this discrepancy with whoever is in charge of sales it may be very helpful for the purpose of getting the right price tag on the linux version across different markets.