I bought the Dell Precision 5520 after reading your glowing article on it. Ubuntu 16.04 on this laptop was awful. The font rendering ripped your eyes out, while the display was hazy and the icons pixilated. System error pop ups were constant. The track pad dragged so slow it was a work out to use. Not something you want to deal with when deliberately ordering a pre-installed Linux laptop - especially as a Linux novice. I do not know what all the 'extra work' Dell has done with Ubuntu 16.04 but I had to get rid of it. I installed Kubuntu bionic Beaver but have trouble with glitches. Opening it after sleep, I get red + green fuzzed over icons and sometimes a fractured desktop. Then there is the hardware. It has an "infinity display" but I would rather a slightly larger top bezel in order to fit the camera there. The camera is in a larger bottom bezel and is next to unusable. The bottom larger bezel also looks strange. You have 3 thin bezels and a large one below, which looks weird. They should have split the difference above/below.
You are right about camera. I complain about camera and hinges. As far as Ubuntu is concerned, I have had an OK experience. But as I mentioned I installed Zorin OS and it works *great*. I will do a follow-up video just to show how well Zorin works on this system. I have always owned a Dell and the reason has been support for Linux and no dirty boot locking. Talking about extra work, did that machine come with Ubuntu pre-installed?
Yes, I specifically ordered an Ubuntu pre-installed machine, firstly, because I read many stories of laptops that are not compatible and the horrors in trying to install drivers and secondly because inexperience -this is my first adventure into Linux after only ever having bought Apple computers.
Hi @barkingbandicoot, I apologize for your experience. Let me pass this along to the team. Did you reach out Delll support? - Barton, Project Sputnik lead (thanks Swap for letting me know about this post)
"As we have not tested this version, I am not able to get the details on how you can fix this. Have you tried posting the issue on the Ubuntu forum?" no.
Thanks for the review. I almost had same thoughts on all aspects as you on this Laptop. For me the only biggest let down was the position of the Webcam. Otherwise I am perfectly happy with it. I have got Manjaro Gnome distro on it. Thanks
I just ordered one, is there any antivirus i should get? I was a mac user and wanted a change. With my macs i never needed antivirus so i dont know what i should use for a Linux PC.
@@NebRadojkovic thanks. I got the laptop and at the order screen there werent even options for malware lol. Im happy with the linux world so far. Its been tough without so many GUIs, but ill get there.
I bought the Dell Precision 5520 after reading your glowing article on it.
Ubuntu 16.04 on this laptop was awful. The font rendering ripped your eyes out, while the display was hazy and the icons pixilated. System error pop ups were constant. The track pad dragged so slow it was a work out to use. Not something you want to deal with when deliberately ordering a pre-installed Linux laptop - especially as a Linux novice.
I do not know what all the 'extra work' Dell has done with Ubuntu 16.04 but I had to get rid of it. I installed Kubuntu bionic Beaver but have trouble with glitches. Opening it after sleep, I get red + green fuzzed over icons and sometimes a fractured desktop.
Then there is the hardware. It has an "infinity display" but I would rather a slightly larger top bezel in order to fit the camera there. The camera is in a larger bottom bezel and is next to unusable. The bottom larger bezel also looks strange. You have 3 thin bezels and a large one below, which looks weird. They should have split the difference above/below.
You are right about camera. I complain about camera and hinges. As far as Ubuntu is concerned, I have had an OK experience. But as I mentioned I installed Zorin OS and it works *great*. I will do a follow-up video just to show how well Zorin works on this system. I have always owned a Dell and the reason has been support for Linux and no dirty boot locking.
Talking about extra work, did that machine come with Ubuntu pre-installed?
Yes, I specifically ordered an Ubuntu pre-installed machine, firstly, because I read many stories of laptops that are not compatible and the horrors in trying to install drivers and secondly because inexperience -this is my first adventure into Linux after only ever having bought Apple computers.
Hi @barkingbandicoot, I apologize for your experience. Let me pass this along to the team. Did you reach out Delll support? - Barton, Project Sputnik lead (thanks Swap for letting me know about this post)
Did you get your answer?
"As we have not tested this version, I am not able to get the details on how you can fix this. Have you tried posting the issue on the Ubuntu forum?"
no.
Thanks for the review. I almost had same thoughts on all aspects as you on this Laptop. For me the only biggest let down was the position of the Webcam. Otherwise I am perfectly happy with it. I have got Manjaro Gnome distro on it.
Thanks
I may consider a laptop like this
Awesome review. It was very helpful. Thank you!
It's a fingerprint magnet also.
Steam just won't scale normally :)
Try some special skins for HiDPI monitors
I just ordered one, is there any antivirus i should get? I was a mac user and wanted a change. With my macs i never needed antivirus so i dont know what i should use for a Linux PC.
There is no need for an antivirus on Linux. I use Linux exclusively since 2006 and have never had any virus problem at all.
@@NebRadojkovic thanks. I got the laptop and at the order screen there werent even options for malware lol. Im happy with the linux world so far. Its been tough without so many GUIs, but ill get there.
please show more of laptop features / issues instead of yourself