Dell launches two new Ubuntu-based systems

**slickymaster** · April 9th, 2015

Dell Developer Editions devices are targeted at developers and are now available in market: the Dell XPS 13 laptop and the Dell Precision M3800 mobile workstation.

Link: https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/04/...based-systems/

**grahammechanical** · April 9th, 2015

There are a couple of positive points about this:

The XPS 13 + Ubuntu is on sale in the UK, which does not always happen with these kind of products. And they are not using 1 UK pound to 1 US dollar exchange rate.

A negative point is that the UK site does not show the M3800 to be available with Ubuntu as the OS. Neither does the US site. I could not afford to buy one of these machines, but I would not trust buying a machine online thinking that it would have Ubuntu pre-installed unless it was an option in the selection process.

Regards.

**slickymaster** · April 9th, 2015

Apparently there's European online availability for the M3800. See here.

**ajgreeny** · April 9th, 2015

Also good to see that the Ubuntu version is £87 cheaper than the Windows versions (though still very expensive); it didn't used to be that way a few years ago in the UK when Dell had a few machines with Ubuntu available, but priced identically to those with Windows.

**monkeybrain20122** · April 10th, 2015

I am wondering what kind of hardware components they use. E.g Broadcom wifi? I don't feel comfortable if they need Dell's drivers to work which may pose a problem for upgrade or multibooting other distros. I remember complaints all over the internet about Dell's ubuntu netbooks a few years ago. One of the complaints was that you couldn't even install the same version of Ubuntu from the standard live iso because they basically came with Dell's modified version of Ubuntu which was not compatible with anything else.

If I have that kind of money I would rather go for system 76 .

**Welly Wu** · April 10th, 2015

I will have the money to buy a 2015 Dell Precision M3800 mobile workstation and I called Dell today and they told me that I can download and burn the standard Ubuntu 64 bit LTS GNU/Linux ISO to a USB 3.0 thumb drive and reinstall the desktop operating system without any need for Dell specific software code. They also told me that the Noble laptop lock is compatible with Kensington laptop locks.

**thewizardz** · April 13th, 2015

In the US site you can select the "Fully Customizable" Option, and then the Ubuntu option appears in the OS. The UK site also shows Ubuntu as OS option when you select the first configuration where the Windows 8 Logo is, once you click "Customize" the option is there.