First, about the difference between the two offerings: The XPS 13 DE (Sputnik) is priced $50 less than the equivalent Windows configuration. However, the XPS 13 DE is only available in one hardware configuration. At least on the US site, I verified that this is still the case. The Developer Edition comes with ProSupport for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, whereas if you bought the Windows 8 version, your support contract would not cover Ubuntu. (ProSupport is our enterprise support offering, which is different from our consumer support offering.)
As far as drivers go, Dell works hard to work with hardware component vendors to ensure that drivers are open sourced and included in the upstream Linux kernel whenever possible. The touchpad driver for the XPS 13, which Cypress--the hardware component maker--generously wrote specifically for Sputnik, is in-tree as of the Linux 3.9 kernel. Canonical has backported the driver for Ubuntu. For Ubuntu 13.04, which uses Linux 3.8, the driver is included in the distribution release. (Ubuntu 13.04's kernel is also available in the linux-image-generic-lts-raring package for Ubuntu 12.04 users.) For the 3.2 and 3.5 kernels used by Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10, a patched kernel that includes the touchpad driver is available from the Sputnik PPA. There are also some changes being made and tracked specifically in Ubuntu to deal with a backlight quirk seen on certain systems (not just Dell) in support of Sputnik, and this is the only case of changes that aren't submitted upstream because there is a history of the backlight changes conflicting with backlight functionality on some other, older systems.
So, as I understand, newer Ubuntu versions will have more of the Sputnik project drivers integrated to them? Or could one use the Sputnik PPA in newer versions of Ubuntu?
Correct. As Ubuntu releases come out that use kernel versions containing these in-tree drivers, there is no need for "special sauce" to support this kind of hardware. In the case of Ubuntu 13.04's kernel, Canonical deemed the Cypress touchpad driver stable enough to include as an Ubuntu-specific add-on to the kernel. Other distributions may or may not choose to do the same. We still recommend that you stick to the Ubuntu LTS release (12.04 currently) that Dell supports, especially if you are running a Dell system preloaded with Ubuntu because that's what our support team will be providing support for and what Canonical and Dell most test. However, we try when times allows to provide best effort help with fixing legitimate, usability-affecting bugs reported by those not purchasing Ubuntu-preloaded systems or running non-LTS Ubuntu releases if the bugs are reported in this forum or in the dell-sputnik Launchpad project.
I searched around earlier today and found a Sputnik iso image available - would that do a proper installation of the developer edition kind of Ubuntu if I threw out W8?
DELL-Jared D
2 Intern
•
350 Posts
0
July 10th, 2013 08:00
Hi Viktor,
First, about the difference between the two offerings: The XPS 13 DE (Sputnik) is priced $50 less than the equivalent Windows configuration. However, the XPS 13 DE is only available in one hardware configuration. At least on the US site, I verified that this is still the case. The Developer Edition comes with ProSupport for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, whereas if you bought the Windows 8 version, your support contract would not cover Ubuntu. (ProSupport is our enterprise support offering, which is different from our consumer support offering.)
As far as drivers go, Dell works hard to work with hardware component vendors to ensure that drivers are open sourced and included in the upstream Linux kernel whenever possible. The touchpad driver for the XPS 13, which Cypress--the hardware component maker--generously wrote specifically for Sputnik, is in-tree as of the Linux 3.9 kernel. Canonical has backported the driver for Ubuntu. For Ubuntu 13.04, which uses Linux 3.8, the driver is included in the distribution release. (Ubuntu 13.04's kernel is also available in the linux-image-generic-lts-raring package for Ubuntu 12.04 users.) For the 3.2 and 3.5 kernels used by Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10, a patched kernel that includes the touchpad driver is available from the Sputnik PPA. There are also some changes being made and tracked specifically in Ubuntu to deal with a backlight quirk seen on certain systems (not just Dell) in support of Sputnik, and this is the only case of changes that aren't submitted upstream because there is a history of the backlight changes conflicting with backlight functionality on some other, older systems.
viktorlanner
5 Posts
0
July 10th, 2013 15:00
Thanks for the great answer, Jared.
So, as I understand, newer Ubuntu versions will have more of the Sputnik project drivers integrated to them? Or could one use the Sputnik PPA in newer versions of Ubuntu?
DELL-Jared D
2 Intern
•
350 Posts
0
July 10th, 2013 18:00
Correct. As Ubuntu releases come out that use kernel versions containing these in-tree drivers, there is no need for "special sauce" to support this kind of hardware. In the case of Ubuntu 13.04's kernel, Canonical deemed the Cypress touchpad driver stable enough to include as an Ubuntu-specific add-on to the kernel. Other distributions may or may not choose to do the same. We still recommend that you stick to the Ubuntu LTS release (12.04 currently) that Dell supports, especially if you are running a Dell system preloaded with Ubuntu because that's what our support team will be providing support for and what Canonical and Dell most test. However, we try when times allows to provide best effort help with fixing legitimate, usability-affecting bugs reported by those not purchasing Ubuntu-preloaded systems or running non-LTS Ubuntu releases if the bugs are reported in this forum or in the dell-sputnik Launchpad project.
viktorlanner
5 Posts
0
July 11th, 2013 04:00
Ok, that's nice to hear.
I searched around earlier today and found a Sputnik iso image available - would that do a proper installation of the developer edition kind of Ubuntu if I threw out W8?