Re: a question regarding which laptop for around $1000 that I might install Ubuntu on?

Quoting Robert Freiberger ([email protected]):

> I've been looking for a cheap laptop to use Linux full time and ended up
> buying a Dell Inspiron gaming laptop IIRC 7000 series with an i5 7th gen.
> It was on sale and swapped out the HDD for an SSD m2 nvme. But the overall
> performance felt slow on Windows for something that is marketed for gaming
> and driver issues kept me from going with a Linux install instead opting
> for a vm instance.

I take it as given that this was a _new_ unit, and almost certainly one
that had not been on the market for at least a year (my rule of thumb).  
That in combination with the category of 'marketed for gaming' made it
pretty much inevitable that you would have problems with open source
drivers, since open source coders by definition aren't willing to sign
NDAs to get chipset specs and sample code, hence developing good open
source drivers takes time, often involving some amount of reverse
engineering.

But look on the bright side:  In about a year, you can try with that
unit again.

> If I was going to do it over and had a $1,000 budget, I would have gotten
> this. The base model is under the budget, you might find some coupons on
> Slickdeals as well.
> 
> https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/cty/pdp/spd/xps-13-9370-laptop/cax13w10p2c601ubuntus

That page actually reminds me of some of the things I've never liked
about Dell.  ;->  (There are also things I very much do like about
them.)

At a quick glance, I see amost no chipset information.  They tell you
the graphics is Intel UHD Graphics 620, but not what the motherboard
main chipset is where the SATA and USB among other things live (whatever
that's called now that the concepts of north bridge and south bridge are
obsolete), ethernet, bluetooth, wireless, and sound.  'Course, if you
boot one of them off a live distro, you can collect that information
from standard tools.

The standard Dell answer would be 'Don't worry about that.  We're giving
you a preload.'  That's another one of the things I've never liked about
Dell.  First, if you use their preload, you don't know if they've needed
to do funny stuff e.g. weird proprietary drivers, so you have no idea
whether you could easily install the distro yourself from standard
media.  Also, you don't get a chance to do it your way.

'Course, I'm well aware that gobs of people adore OEM preloads, and
differences of view are what make horse races.