At the risk of jinxing myself I just wanted to share how happy I am with my latest installation.

For over a year my Dell XPS has run Ubuntu. It’s been, by far, the worst experience I’ve ever had with any computer and my very first computer had only 256 MB of RAM! Among the long list of issues I’ve had we’re freezing, unresponsive keyboard and touchpad, glitchy video, multicolor flashing screens, piss poor battery life, piss poor Wi-Fi stability, failure to properly suspend or hibernate, and battery levels suddenly going from 40% to 5%. I figured either Dell put some kind of poison pill into there laptop so you’d spring for one of their Linux preinstalled laptops or I just got a lemon (I did have to get the mobo replaced within a month of buying it).

I’ve been in the process of getting all of my personal files off of it and getting ready to reinstall Windows and sell it, but I figured it was worth one last shot with a new installation. My desktop has been running Bazzite and I’ve been really happy with it so I thought I’d try another spin-off (Bluefin, because my laptop isn’t well suited for gaming). Installation took a few tries but it’s been about 72 hours and I haven’t noticed any major issues! Battery life and Wi-Fi still seem a bit sad but I suppose that’s the hardware.

So anyway, I just wanted to say that one Linux OS can be wildly different from another in user experience. If you have the patience, go ahead and try out something new if you’re just not feeling the OS that you’re on. It could make a world of difference!

  • Hadek@lemmings.world
    12·
    2 days ago

    On my xps 13 9370 I run endeavourOS without a hitch.

    I don’t wanna be an ubuntu hater, but apart from lubuntu for quick recoveries. I never had good luck making hardware work right with ubuntu.

    Debian, arch and fedora always worked way better out of the box on bare metal.

    • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
      7·
      2 days ago

      I never had good luck making hardware work right with ubuntu Debian, […] always worked way better out of the box on bare metal

      Oh the irony!

      I’ve been running Mint on my Dell XPS 9370 (methinks) for years and it’s always worked just fine. Only the fingerprint scanner just won’t work, not even with fprintd; it can set up a finger but never to use that same finger afterwards.

      • Hadek@lemmings.world
        6·
        2 days ago

        Haha, Indeed.

        I do realize I only used debian for server type stuff where I didnt need a GUI so the stakes where a lot lower than for the others.

        • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
          2·
          2 days ago

          Ah I guess that makes more sense!

          Now if it was Debian with the Gnome DE vs Ubuntu, that would’ve been ironic!