Ditching Windows: 2 Weeks with Ubuntu Linux on the Dell XPS
I know I&#x27;m preaching to the choir here at HN, but I feel like there is a very important point that the author has skipped over:<p>Part of why the install process and general use experience went so well is all the time and effort Dell put into explicitly developing Linux support for this exact model. They likely made hardware choices (e.g. Intel wifi chipset instead of Qualcomm&#x2F;Atheros) based on existing Linux driver availability. And in cases where a driver wasn&#x27;t available, or didn&#x27;t work perfectly off the shelf, Dell probably put coders to work customizing that driver to suit the configuration of the XPS.<p>In a way, this is a bit like buying a Microsoft Surface and then being thrilled at how Windows installs and runs on it. For the sake of people who read this article and try installing Ubuntu 18.04 on an arbitrary laptop, I think the author should mention that there was already a ton of bigco effort to make this configuration of HW&#x2F;SW work smoothly.<p>In my experience, Ubuntu gets more polished and newbie-friendly with every release, but I do think some readers might try to follow in the author&#x27;s footsteps with their own miscellaneous laptop, get discouraged, and then be soured on Linux again for a while. I don&#x27;t want that to happen. I want to see Linux gobble up more of Windows 10&#x27;s market share. If that means the population needs to homogenize a bit on the hardware front, so be it.