Episode: 3943
Title: HPR3943: Why my Dell does it better on Linux.
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3943/hpr3943.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 17:43:16

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,943 for Wednesday the 13th of September 2023.
Today's show is entitled Why My Dell Does It Better On Linux?
It is hosted by Nightwise and is about 12 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, Nightwise talks about how he uses his Dell XPS-15 with Linux.
Hey there Hacker Public Radio, this is Nightwise from the Nightwise.com podcast and I wanted
to send in a quick show about my experiences on running Ubuntu on my Dell XPS-50.
I've been a Linux user since about 2000 and have often on always had at least some form
of Linux in my life.
I'm a cross-platform geek which means that I jump around from Windows to Mac, to Linux
on a daily basis and I love to have multiple operating systems at my fingertips just to geek
out and get some variety.
Basically however, I've had a little bit of a rough time getting my hands into the Linux
desktop because quite frankly, I was too busy to tinker.
I needed machines that would work for me, that would really get things done and I didn't
have a lot of time to poke around.
So I ended up spending most of my time on my Windows machine and on my Mac.
I run my own business, I work as a freelance consultant.
So that means that sometimes I need to use production machines, sometimes I need to use
the client's machine.
So I didn't really have time to get around and play with Linux and I say play because
it has been that at least from the desktop side of things for the last years.
Working around with the operating system, installing it, getting it done, but not really
using it in anger.
As an experiment during Corona, during the COVID era, I, because was working from home
predominantly and the client at that time allowed it, worked from a Linux workstation full
time.
So I was using Linux for a living and in my cross-platform journeys from operating system
to operating system, I managed to get everything done on any machine that I would open up.
Now, of course you say, that's not really hard to do, you basically just need the cloud
and that's about it.
And if you would say that, you're right, it didn't always used to be like that.
That's the 20 years of podcasting, but it pretty much comes down to the fact that if you
can install your favorite browser and you run your favorite web apps, you can almost
do anything that you want to do.
So why did I pick up the Dell XPS 15 and started to play with Linux?
Well, that is an interesting story because it is not really for the reason that you want
to think about it, but you might think about it.
I'm working for a large IT company as a consultant for a couple of days, and they gave me one
of their workstations that is completely managed.
It's, I think, some kind of HP laptop, I don't know what it is.
It is made from aluminum, it is razor sharp, it is a two in one, which is absolutely useless
when it comes out to Windows 11, and it has a terrible, terrible screen.
It's one of these hard plastic screens, you know, for use as a touch screen, and it is
very small and it is very reflective.
That would not be a problem since I'm mostly when I'm working for home, I'm working indoors,
I hook it up to my dock and I work from there.
But being, it being summer, I also got a little frustrated that I couldn't really work from
outside.
I couldn't do anything outside, I had to sit indoors all day because I couldn't sit on
my porch work from that laptop because I couldn't see squats.
I had thought because they mostly work from a cloud environment to use my own machine,
my Windows machine, or my Mac to use it as my bring your own device.
But because of this company's quite aggressive policy when it comes to mobile device management,
when I tried it out with my iPad, I noticed that the iPad almost got onboarded into their
MDM.
And now dear friends, I love my clients but I don't love them enough to give them governance
over the machines that I use for my own company and personally.
So when I thought about giving it a try to do a little bring your own device for this
customer and using my Mac or my Linux machine to connect to their environment, I thought
like maybe not, maybe not these.
Maybe I can use something that they have a harder time onboarding and that gives them
only a browser to play with.
And that of course would be Linux.
So I installed Ubuntu and I think it's 22.04 or even later up.
I can't remember it's the latest long-term support distro that's on there.
And I installed that on my Dell XPS.
Now I have to admit something.
Windows on the Dell XPS 15 that I own is not the operating system that gives me the
best experience.
And that's something I didn't expect because I've been owning laptops for the longest
time and I've been playing around with Linux for the longest time.
And over the last couple of years ago I got myself a Dell XPS 13, I really liked it.
And I thought I was going to bite the bullet, I was going to run Linux on this thing.
So I ordered it OEM with Linux on it.
Along the hold it was not the best experience.
The Bluetooth Flash Wi-Fi card just wasn't supported under Linux.
So I could have Wi-Fi but I couldn't get any Bluetooth device to connect.
I ended up opening up my Dell laptop which was OEM shipped with Ubuntu, swapping out
the Bluetooth Flash Wi-Fi card and putting in another one from another brand in order
for it to work.
So I was a little bit disappointed at that.
So when I got my hands on this second-hand Dell XPS 15, I thought like, well, let's
not do the Linux thing, just give it plain Windows.
So I gave it Windows 11 with all drivers and all the updates and everything that Dell
tells you to install.
So I thought this is an OEM install of a Dell machine like it's supposed to be, only
to end up with a hovercraft.
Under Windows, the Dell XPS 15 that I own makes an enormous amount of fan noise for absolutely
no reason.
What if the machine is idling, the fan is active now.
I've been owning fan list machines for a couple of years now, I've got a MacBook Pro M1
and a Surface Pro X which all have passive cooling.
And that to me was, wow, what is this, this thing makes noise, why machine do you make
noise because it's not doing anything.
So I tinkered around with it and I faffed around with it and I found like, no, it's not
really getting any better, it's just the way it is.
So I decided to give Linux a go.
So I installed the latest version of Ubuntu.
I installed a proprietary drivers because there's an Nvidia card on there that I want to
use.
I don't see why I want to use the discrete graphics of that stupid Intel that makes
my display look all, I don't know, cheap.
So if there's a great Nvidia graphics card in there, why not use it?
So I decided to go that way.
And I ended up with a machine that was surprisingly fast that had a very good graphics display because
of the Nvidia graphics card driving the visuals.
And that was hard to manage by some kind of Windows Intune MDM environment.
So I gave it a try yesterday.
I took Chromium, a browser that I don't use for any of my other projects because for
my private stuff I use Firefox and for everything that's to do with my company, I do use Edge
and decided to install everything on there.
Hooked up with the clients' cloud environment and well, their little Intune MDM didn't really
get its claws into my machine, now did it.
And ended up spending the entire afternoon working outside using the beautiful matte display
that I have on the Dell XPS15, the Nvidia graphics card that gives a great video resolution
and Linux as my operating system to basically do what I needed to do.
So in the end results, I am very happy with my little setup and if ever you need to work
for another client that wants to do some remote management on your machines and you don't
really trust it, this might also be something that you can do.
And on the other hand, it really gives a feather in the cap of what Linux is all about.
You don't want to have your machine managed and doing things in the background.
You want your freedom.
And here for the first time in a real situation, I can vouch for Linux as being the operating
system that does protect my freedoms and my privacy and that kind of guards my own personal
digital environment without being prone to whatever runs in the back.
A sandbox, maybe a firewall between corporate and what I am doing, I don't know, or maybe
just a plain good OS to run on that Dell XPS15.
Runs better, battery life is super, graphics card is well supported, although with proprietary
drivers, display is fantastic.
I love the Dell's 15-inch matte display.
I hate glossy displays with a passion and it gives me the privacy that I need to separate
whatever I do for one customer with the things that I do for the other customer.
Another yay for Linux.
If you also have an open source or just plain geeky story to tell, record a show, send
it to HPR, be part of the community, and inspire everybody else.
Until next time, this was Nightwise from LinNightwise.com podcast, see ya guys.
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