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Dell releases powerful, well-supported Linux Ultrabook

(arstechnica.com)
520 points iProject | 5 comments | 29 Nov 12 14:09 UTC | HN request time: 1.154s | source
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dkhenry ◴[29 Nov 12 14:53 UTC] No.4847958[source]▶
Every time I read this I have to think to my self how silly it is to lead an article with Some things (particularly components like trackpads and Wi-Fi chips) take some fiddling to get working

Thats total balony, trackpads and WiFi have been well supported in Linux for almost a decade. It is _rare_ to find a labtop that when you install la fresh modern distro on it , things don't work. Yes every now and then you get a vendor who insist on doing something different, but most of the time its a synaptic track pad ( well supported ) and a Broadcom or Intel WiFi card ( well supported ). I can remember back in 2004 taking my Government Issued Dell laptop and installing Fedora on it and everything working out of the box.

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kijin ◴[29 Nov 12 15:21 UTC] No.4848124[source]▶
Tell that to the HP Mini 210 that I bought in April 2011.

Synaptic "clickpad" trackpad that claims to support multitouch: Sorry, only with their Windows driver. Not only I don't get multitouch in Ubuntu, but I can't even click or drag/drop anything. Ubuntu 12.04 claimed to fix the issue with clickpads, but it didn't work out of the box, and even after extensive tweaking, some features were still very buggy. In the end, I switched to a laptop that has a traditional trackpad without the multitouch bullshit.

Broadcom wifi card: Works fine once you install the additional driver. But there's a catch: last time I checked, the driver didn't come with the install CD. So I have to download it in order for wifi to work ... but I need wifi in order to download it. Ended up digging out an old ethernet cable from a dusty closet and crawling under another closet to connect it to the modem. Not pleasant!

Of course, most of the problem lies with hardware vendors who don't release fully functional open-source Linux drivers for their gadgets. But since when does the average user care whose fault it is that their trackpad doesn't work? The great thing about this Dell release is that all their drivers are fully functional and freely available as a PPA. Because without those drivers, few of today's latest PC laptops work with Linux out of the box.

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dkhenry ◴[29 Nov 12 15:37 UTC] No.4848228[source]▶
Your doing it wrong [1] A Single data point does not a result make. Others have had no problems with that exact laptop. For a counter point I could never get the CD-ROM hotplug working on my old dell laptop in windows. Clearly windows doesn't support CD-ROMS.

1. http://www.linlap.com/hp_mini_210

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1. imgabe ◴[29 Nov 12 15:47 UTC] No.4848301[source]▶
> A Single data point does not a result make.

Just like how installing Fedora on a laptop 8 years ago and having everything work doesn't mean that there aren't some things that are perpetually broken on Linux distros.

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2. drivebyacct2 ◴[29 Nov 12 19:32 UTC] No.4849775[source]▶
Are you using "perpetually" ironically in that sentence or is the logical absurdity of what you said evading you?

(look up "perpetually").

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3. imgabe ◴[29 Nov 12 21:02 UTC] No.4850260[source]▶
It is quite clear what perpetually means in that sentence. Are you really trying to start an argument about semantics with a stranger on the Internet? Do you consider this the best use of your one finite lifetime?
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4. drivebyacct2 ◴[29 Nov 12 21:05 UTC] No.4850269{3}[source]▶
I just don't understand what you're trying to save. It can't be or have a "perpetually unfixed problem" if it "everything work[ed]" at one point in time.

Besides, it's not like there was anything substantial there besides more hand waving old inaccurate stereotypes about linux.

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5. imgabe ◴[29 Nov 12 21:11 UTC] No.4850298{4}[source]▶
See the second definition:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perpetual

occurring continually : indefinitely long-continued

As in, every time I install Linux on a new laptop, as I have several times over the past 5 years or so, problems with WiFi continue to reoccur, and require some level of googling around to resolve. Yet, years later, with an updated distribution on a new computer, they occur again, perpetually.

The problem can remain perpetually unfixed at the distribution level if everyone who installs it is willing to spend time tinkering around to get things to work right.