Dell recently announced the new XPS 13 developer edition powered by Ubuntu Linux and Intel’s 10th generation Comet Lake CPUs. The new device will soon be available in the US, Canada, and European markets. It is good news for both developers and Linux enthusiast who wants Linux laptop with preloaded Ubuntu operating systems. Let us see new Linux XPS 13 developer edition specs and other information.
New Linux XPS 13 developer powered by Ubuntu Linux
Project Sputnik was a pilot project that developed laptop specifically for Linux users and developer community. It is now in the ninth generation of the XPS 13 developer edition. The new 7390 laptops will co-exist alongside the current 9380 system. Let us see what’s new in this edition:
These systems represent the 9th generation of the XPS 13 developer edition and will come with the Killer™ AX1650 (2×2) built on Intel WiFi 6 Chipset. The new 7390 systems will co-exist alongside the current 9380 XPS 13 developer edition.
XPS 13 developer edition 7390 laptop specs
- CPU option 1: 10th Generation Intel Core i5-10210U processor (4 cores)
- CPU option 2: 10th Generation Intel Core i7-10710U processor (6 cores)
- OS: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS preloaded
- WIFI: Killer AX1650 (2×2) built on Intel WiFi 6 Chipset + Bluetooth 5.0
- Screen: InfinityEdge display with top camera placement with FHD and UHD resolution support
- RAM/Memory: Up to 16GB of LPDDR3 memory at 2133MHz
- Ports: 2x Thunderbolt 3 [DisplayPort / power delivery (4 lanes of PCI Express Gen 3)]
- See other details here
These Ubuntu Linux based developers and Engineering systems targeted at users who want Linux preloaded such as:
- Software developers
- Linux users
- Sysadmin and other IT workers
Of course, one can remove Ubuntu and reload favorite Linux distros such as Fedora, Arch Linux and more.
BIOS update via Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS)
Ubuntu 18.04 natively will notify you for XPS 13 BIOS updates. The system will regularly check for BIOS updates automatically. When an update is available, a popup will be displayed to flash the update via fwupd service. So you don’t need Windows 10 at all for this laptop.
Price
The price for new Linux XPS 13 developer edition 7390 is $1,849.99 and one can order it here online.
Conclusion
I think it is a perfect system for sysadmin, DevOps and IT work. You can run Docker natively and build apps using Linux. However, Dell should offer 32GB ram option for hex-core CPU. What do you think? Would you purchase it?