rhayman writes: > In Feb of 2017 I bought a Dell XPS-15, 32G RAM, 4KUHD 15", 1TB PCIe SSD > The first thing I did after booting Windows 10 and running full > diagnostics was replace the PCIe SSD with a Samsung 960Pro 1TB and the > Killer AC 1535 BT/WiFi card with an Intel card (can't remember the > model) for better throughput and better driver support at that time. > Having replaced the PCIe SSD allowed me to re-install the Win10 SSD for > low level firmware updates from Dell that wouldn't be coming from any > Linux repo. That's good to know, but I'm wondering why you didn't do a dual boot. It seems that would have allowed you to get those updates more than once. In the past, I've replaced Windows on a laptop with Linux. That's been great until I want to sell the laptop. Then I take a hit -- so with this one I'm planning to dual boot it. > I've been running Ubuntu 16.04 on it ever since - even the > TB16 docking station works with Ubuntu. I hear that Ubuntu 18.04 > doesn't run well on this laptop, yet. > If this small laptop is too large (14.1x9.3x0.6), Dell does sell the > XPS-13 (many similar specs to the XPS-15), and they used to sell a > developers edition preinstalled with (can't remember the distro) Linux. > When I did my research, I spent quite a bit of time creating a > spreadsheet to compare the following:currently owned 2008 Apple MBPro - > reference #1currently owned 2007 Lenovo T61p - reference #2currently > owned 2010 Lenovo W500 - reference #32015 Apple MBPro MJLU2xx/A > (11,4)2016 Apple MBProDell XPS-15 9560 max buildDell XPS-15 9560 min > build, aftermarket upgradeHP Spectre x360 max buildHP Spectre x360 min > build, aftermarket upgradeAsus Zenbook UX510VWLenovo Yoga 910Lenovo X1 > Carbon 4th GenLenovo T5604 different builds from min to max of the > Lenovo P50 > I settled on the Dell XPS-15 9560 max build for $2500 because it had > verified Linux installs and what it took to get Linux working on it > (very little), it had 1-SD, 1-HDMI 1.4, 2-USB3, and 1-TB3 port and with > the 97Whr battery, I get 6-8 hours of battery life. The two monitors I > use with this laptop are a 32" 4KUHD and a 40" 4KUHD, depending on > where I plug into which docking station. > I've been very happy with this laptop, the Samsung 960 Pro is 400-1100 > MB/s faster reads and writes over the OEM PCIe SSD, so this machine > boots to a usable logged in system in ~20 seconds, maybe less. > Hope that helps, Oh, and the keyboard on the Dell XPS-15 9560 has the > keys you listed > > Yeah, I've looked at scores of them and tend to forget what it was about them that I didn't like. I'm interested in two Dell laptops at the moment. The keyboards aren't great in my opinion, but I think I could live with them. I don't like the weight/size of the 15" plus laptops, but there aren't many 14" laptops with keyboards I like anymore. I was reading an article about maintaining laptops that said to open them up once a year and clean them with compressed air or cotton swabs. Does anyone do that? The cheaper of the two I'm looking at is more than I've spent on any computer and the other one is a lot more. I'm not sure if I should try to do more with less and buy the cheaper one. Or work up my courage to buy the more expensive one. Brian Ebenezer Enterprises - In G-d we trust. https://github.com/Ebenezer-group/onwards -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20190217/e06fa69d/attachment.html>