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Comment by pkilgore | Hacker News Reader

Does any Dell employee lurking have info about why I should consider waiting for the developers edition rather than just load up my favorite distro on the consumer hardware?

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The reason to get the Developer Edition is to endorse OEM Linux support

Further to that Dell will also have configured it with Linux compatible hardware with solid driver support.

For example, the WiFi and Bluetooth support in dev edition XPS13 is solid.

You’re also paying for OEM firmware updates. I've had several over the life of my XPS13 even though it’s no longer the current model.

The linux laptop only ships with hardware that works with linux. In the past that meant no fingerprint reader. Similarly, the wifi cards could be different b/w windows and linux models. They seem to have added some support for fingerprint readers in linux in this generation. Also, you should wait for the icelake version (i.e., this version). Due to Intel's excellent naming convention, it may not be immediately obvious which laptop is which generation.

The developer edition ships with Linux (Ubuntu) instead of Windows.

This is why the parent comment asks for a reason to wait for the dev version, rather than simply install their own distro.

If one does not want to install a distro, then this might be a reason to wait for pre-installed Ubuntu. But the parent is happy to install their own distro, and so is asking for an additional reason, relevant to them, to wait for the dev version.

Isn't that one cheaper? I could've sworn it was when I got mine.

From what I can tell it is generally more expensive because the only place you can get it is from dell directly so you pay more than on other retailers which do not sell the developer edition.

However, on dell's website it is cheaper than the "normal" edition.

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