Looking for an Ultrabook for Linux and Development

stacksofplates

If you need a 13" then the Latitudes are really nice. My e7270 has 16GB, an i7, and an m.2 drive. Its a 12" so it doesn't have the infinity edge display, but the 13" looks just like an XPS.

stacksofplates

The latitude keyboards are much better than the XPS. That's the only gripe I have with mine.

travisdh1

@smitherick said in Looking for an Ultrabook for Linux and Development:

What about the latest Lenovo X1 Carbon?

Lenovo is a dirty word. Remember, you own Lenovo= You are breached.
https://mangolassi.it/topic/14538/lenovo-if-it-s-on-your-network-you-are-breached

SmithErick

@travisdh1 Oph, good read and you win.

travisdh1

@smitherick said in Looking for an Ultrabook for Linux and Development:

@travisdh1 Oph, good read and you win.

I've been bitten my them twice now, once with an X220, and once with a Motorola cell phone, so it's kinda seared into my memory.

scottalanmiller

@stacksofplates said in Looking for an Ultrabook for Linux and Development:

If you need a 13" then the Latitudes are really nice. My e7270 has 16GB, an i7, and an m.2 drive. Its a 12" so it doesn't have the infinity edge display, but the 13" looks just like an XPS.

I'll look at that.

scottalanmiller

@smitherick said in Looking for an Ultrabook for Linux and Development:

What about the latest Lenovo X1 Carbon?

Lol.

coliver

@smitherick said in Looking for an Ultrabook for Linux and Development:

What about the latest Lenovo X1 Carbon?

Stay away from the X1. I've got one for work and can't stand it. Bogs down when doing any multitasking and can basically only run a single app at a time.

scottalanmiller

@coliver said in Looking for an Ultrabook for Linux and Development:

@smitherick said in Looking for an Ultrabook for Linux and Development:

What about the latest Lenovo X1 Carbon?

Stay away from the X1. I've got one for work and can't stand it. Bogs down when doing any multitasking and can basically only run a single app at a time.

I've been burned plenty by Lenovo. Won't make that mistake again. So unstable.

jmoore

@scottalanmiller checked my companies that I like and I saw this one. It could be a possibility for you. Let us know what you decide on. MSI laptop

scottalanmiller

@jmoore said in Looking for an Ultrabook for Linux and Development:

@scottalanmiller checked my companies that I like and I saw this one. It could be a possibility for you. Let us know what you decide on. MSI laptop

Weight on that one is 3.75 lbs. The Galago Pro is the heaviest I've been looking at, at 2.87 lbs. The Asus is barely over 2 lbs. Trying to stay really light (and small) and this is going to be moving around continuously. That one looks pretty nice, though.

jmoore

@scottalanmiller Ok cool

FATeknollogee

On this blog https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2017/07/13/fedora-workstation-26-is-out/#comments

I asked: F26 on a MacBookPro: When can we expect better performance in the power management specifically “suspend when you close lid”?
I would love to switch 100% to Fedora but issues like that on the laptop prevent that.

He replied: We are looking to improve the state here and are talking to various vendors about how to improve collaboration around things like battery life.
That said for an outright linux-hostile hardware vendor like Apple it is next to impossible to get to a good state in terms of being able to promise users that hardware from that vendor is going to work well.
So yes power management needs to be improved and we are working on that, but also users need to accept that there will be linux friendly hardware vendors like Dell or System76 they need to buy from and not from a hardware vendor that has zero interest or is outright hostile to Linux working well on their system.

scottalanmiller

@fateknollogee said in Looking for an Ultrabook for Linux and Development:

On this blog https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2017/07/13/fedora-workstation-26-is-out/#comments

I asked: F26 on a MacBookPro: When can we expect better performance in the power management specifically “suspend when you close lid”?
I would love to switch 100% to Fedora but issues like that on the laptop prevent that.

He replied: We are looking to improve the state here and are talking to various vendors about how to improve collaboration around things like battery life.
That said for an outright linux-hostile hardware vendor like Apple it is next to impossible to get to a good state in terms of being able to promise users that hardware from that vendor is going to work well.
So yes power management needs to be improved and we are working on that, but also users need to accept that there will be linux friendly hardware vendors like Dell or System76 they need to buy from and not from a hardware vendor that has zero interest or is outright hostile to Linux working well on their system.

Makes sense. That's why System76 looks so interesting to me. Hardware gets great reviews and I want to support them.

If Dell was making a reasonable XPS 13, I'd seriously consider that, of course.

Obsolesce

@scottalanmiller said in Looking for an Ultrabook for Linux and Development:

I need to get a new laptop and I need something that is powerful, fast, light and tiny. I know, hard to get. It looks like both Asus and Dell used to make things like this. But it appears more and more that both have abandoned these product lines. I'm not sure how that happens, but what is out there?

I really like the looks of the Asus UX390UA, but it came out last October and appears to have already been dropped: https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ASUS-ZenBook-3-UX390UA/Features/

Dell XPS 13 seems okay, but you can't get 16GB of RAM on it. Really? And it doesn't have as fast of RAM as the Asus did a year ago. Seems like an older product.

MacBook Air is stuck on Intel Gen 5, while Asus is on 7 and Dell has at least one on 8 now. So also seems like Apple has left the product behind.

Is anyone making a good, actually purchasable, ultrabook in the 12.5 - 13.3" size category, 16GB, SSD, Kaby Lake or later proc (AMD okay) that hopefully even runs Linux? I'm not a laptop guy and am not even sure where to look. Going directly to vendors seems to net me nothing. Asus' website, for example, is completely useless.

Sounds like my free backup software question, lol.

Anyways,

Surface Laptop (i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) $1,988.99
Razer Blade Stealth (i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) $1,600? $2,000

Only realistic choices I can find for what you are looking for.