from the seventy-six-HPs-led-the-linux-parade dept.
HP Dev One is the first non-System76 computer offered with Pop!_OS:
HP released its Dev One Linux laptop today. Aimed at coders, the 14-inch clamshell comes at a lower price than previous Ubuntu-based HP clamshells.
Starting at $1,099, the Dev One begins to keep costs low by opting for an AMD, rather than Intel, CPU and skipping the discrete graphics card. HP's last Linux laptops, part of its ZBook workstation lineup, went well over $2,000 and offered up to Intel Xeon processors and Nvidia RTX GPUs.
[...] The previous workstations used Ubuntu 20.04 preloaded with software packages aimed at data scientists. However, the Dev One runs Pop!_OS, an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution from System76.
System76 also makes its own laptops, desktops, servers, and the Launch mechanical keyboard. HP's Dev One marks the first laptop to run Pop!_OS without "System76" stamped on the lid—although, you can download Pop!_OS and install it on your own system.
[...] Denver-based System76 still plans to sell its own branded systems, CEO and founder Carl Richell told TechRepublic in May while discussing System76 and HP's partnership. The exec expressed hope that the laptop would bring "opportunities to accelerate our in-house design and manufacturing work, particularly regarding the supply chain.
The exec also insisted that HP was on board with the open source aspect of Linux, with "every line of code" for the Dev One being open source. Richell also pointed to writing an open source Linux app for programming the buttons on the HP 935 Creator Mouse that's being pushed alongside the laptop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2022, @03:48AM (1 child)
Thousand bucks don't seem the same the way it used to bel
As for HP, heg. Bring me back HP of the old days. I still have HP 48 calculator.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2022, @12:32PM
Ya but is only $100 away from $999 which is less than $1000.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by coolgopher on Friday June 10 2022, @04:23AM
If you're calling it Dev One, it should obviously come with Dev-1 [dev-1.org] (aka Devuan) preinstalled!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snotnose on Friday June 10 2022, @05:11AM (2 children)
Cuz, ya know, Enquiring minds want to know.
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2022, @06:58AM
*its
*spinning
...looks like "enquire" is debatably more correct here but still feel like "inquire" is the more common usage
(Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Friday June 10 2022, @07:35AM
FTFA:
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2022, @05:42AM
Oh, grate! I always judge laptops by what is melted into the lid. And HP still basically sucks. I know, I have one that runs on an Athlon Silver, or some such. Can't do Zoom backgrounds.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2022, @05:52AM (2 children)
The same week this announcement first came out, I had earlier bought a cheap HP Ryzen 3 laptop to replace a 10+ year old netbook (both running Debian). I wanted to try updating the bios since it had two issues, one where it was handing out bogus addresses for the IOMMU, and another where the ACPI table had the address for a function in a table but there wasn't anything at that address.
Their firmware was only available for download if you lied and said you were running windows. And, then it was in the form of a windows executable. I hope they do better with these Linux pre-installed machines. More BS and effort than it should have been, and the bios was still broken after the update.
The only way to run this machine stably is figure out the addresses for the IOMMU and tell the kernel (haven't gotten around to wasting this time yet). Or, iommu=soft in the kernel cmdline to just bypass it completely-- which is what I'm currently doing. The ACPI issue is mostly cosmetic since it generates errors, on boot, but it can be ignored.
Negatives:
The above, and HP does not support adding custom charging thresholds unlike just about every other laptop currently being sold (so the HP battery will be in the landfill much earlier than the other makes that allow a lower max charge limit to be set). It also only comes with one antenna for wireless/bluetooth run up into the LCD panel, and they used adhesive to hold the panel to the frame, so not really safe to fix this.
Positives:
it is a decent machine for the money. It was $289.99, but it can be upgraded to 32G RAM (2xsodimm slots), it has a 2.5" bay AND an m.2 m slot for nvme ssd (but, only the version shipping with a 2.5" drive has the necessary mounting hardware for the 2.5". Wireless card is in a std., m.2 e slot, so easy to upgrade, but you have to put add'l antennas in the lower part of the laptop unless you are brave and want to risk destroying the LCD panel to run new antennas behind the panel.
Overall, I'm happy with the box, but I only paid $1K, it better be a great experience out of the box. And, no BS of needing windows to update firmware!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2022, @05:59AM
> Overall, I'm happy with the box, but I only paid $1K, it better be a great experience out of the box. And, no BS of needing windows to update firmware!
That should have been:
Overall, I'm happy with the box, but I only paid (less than)$300. For (greater than)$1K, it better be a great experience out of the box. And, no BS of needing windows to update firmware!
Site didn't like my less than / greater than signs, and deleted everything between them :/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @05:04AM
289.99 with so-dimm and 2.5" SATA support sounds like exactly what I need as an interim laptop capable of modern usage. Even with those bios quirks you mentioned, it would fulfill all of my current needs!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bradley13 on Friday June 10 2022, @06:38AM (2 children)
I have a relatively new zBook. It runs Ubuntu with only a couple of minor glitches that could easily be fixed by tweaking a couple of drivers. I'd much rather see HP work with their suppliers on this, instead of creating a special Linux line that runs some Linux variant that I don't want.
As someone who spends hours a day on my computer, I don't want to cheap out. $1k for a laptop is peanuts, on a professional level. I would far rather spend more (or have my company spend more) on a device that is going to be used hours every day. Give me a discrete graphics card, please - basically everyone doing home office is going to be using or doing video work.
On Ars (where TFA is), the top comments seem to be lamenting the fact that a Linux laptop won't run Office natively. FWIW, I have to use Office for work, because the admin in my organization just _loves_ overly complicated Excel-sheets. With Office365 (or whatever they're calling it now), you can just open those stupid Excel-sheets online. For everything else, LibreOffice is just fine...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday June 10 2022, @07:39AM
FTFA:
Not sure how different it is from straight Ubuntu.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2022, @08:15PM
if they make it work properly withj PopOS, it should be more compat with all distros. ars is full of retards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2022, @07:25AM (1 child)
One of the main guys behind system 76 codes Redox OS in his spare time.
Redox OS lappy please, Jeremy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2022, @08:18PM
They should have started with firewalls, then servers, then desktops. Not goddamn desktops first/only.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2022, @11:29AM
Gave up on HP after the second mother board failed.
They are not on the approved vendor list.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10 2022, @12:56PM
Smart move to ditch them.
Now if we can only get the rest of the Sheeple to wake up.
I never bought another HP product after the printer bullshit.
https://www.classlawgroup.com/hp-ink-cartridge-lawsuit/ [classlawgroup.com]
or the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewlett-Packard_spying_scandal [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krokodilerian on Friday June 10 2022, @04:18PM (2 children)
Seriously, is it too much to ask for a decent keyboard and touchpad? I've tried these, and they suck horribly, and are pretty much unusable without an external keyboard and mouse (in which case you also need an external display, etc).
I'm typing this on an old t60 keyboard, and it's still better than most of the crap I've seen on any laptop in the last 5 years.
So please, can we have something useful which can be used to work in tight spaces without wanting to kill yourself?
And, finally, power button next to backspace. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE.
(Score: 1) by rpnx on Friday June 10 2022, @09:37PM
Surprisingly, the keyboard was fine on this one, unlike most of the other Dell keyboards I've used. The trackpad is meh at best, but not horrible. The screen on the other hand, is total garbage. I am returning but if you plug into an external monitor most of the time it could be ... usable?
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Saturday June 11 2022, @10:49AM
Hear hear!
How can they claim it is a laptop for Developers, if they give you that horrible chiclet type keyboard with virtually no travel, guaranteed to eventually cause RSI in anyone who uses it for more than social media and occasional typing.
My work did the same thing, gave me a T490 thinkpad, absolutely awful keyboard. Only usable when you plug it into the dock and use a proper external keyboard and mouse, at which point you might as well get a proper display as well, defeating the point of being a laptop.
So fine, we can say it is more a "luggable" than a proper laptop, but then why make it so thin that it is unable to cool itself properly even when on the desk? All that power, and you can't even use it fully.
My "go to" development laptop is a Thinkpad X201 [thinkwiki.org], a keyboard that is comfortable for extended fast typing/coding (and has the "Thinklight", which I use often), just small enough to be easily carried around, solidly built (has survived countless knocks and drops and spilled liquids), and a good 6 hours of battery life at full screen brightness.
Only problems are that the specs are getting a bit old now (dual core, 8GB ram on mine with SATA SSD), meaning I do mostly coding on it, and the "heavy lifting" (compilation/test/debug) is done on remote machines, and parts are getting scarce.
Seriously, HP/Dell or Lenovo, take the X201 case, and put some new HW in it, a better screen, and sell it as is. I would buy one in a heartbeat. I don't need a razor thin laptop, or for it to look fashionable, and with the thickness of the case you can actually put proper cooling so I can use the full power of the CPU when I need it. That would be a "Developer laptop" in my mind.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by rpnx on Friday June 10 2022, @09:32PM (2 children)
I bought this. Opened it. Then I saw the screen. That goddamn screen.
It has specs that look too good for the price. The answer is that they cheaped out on the screen, like a lot. Banding, LCD haze, and ridiculous saturation. This looks about as bright or slightly brighter than my macbook air which is around 365 nits, despite this laptop claiming 1000 nits of brightness on the specs. The viewing angles are really bad. At a slight tilt away from my face the screen is noticeably darker than an air screen. Plus the colors look way too saturated, like they killed color accuracy completely to make it look brighter. I despite screen manufacturers that change the saturation to make the screen "pop" more when really all they are doing is selling a poorly calibrated screen that isn't color-accurate. The fact I can see lines when it should be a solid color... this screen reminds me of 2000s LCDs. No, just noo.
Also the Dell software preloaded on this laptop gives you two options: "Decline and shut down" or "Agree". No option to uninstall Dell crapware and just use Linux. This is not in the spirit of the Linux ethos. If I'm going to reinstall the OS I might as well start with a Windows laptop that is much better hardware wise. Goodbye craptop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2022, @03:31AM (1 child)
You say "Dell." Do you mean "HP" or are you talking about the linux laptops Dell sells?
(Score: 1) by rpnx on Saturday June 11 2022, @10:30PM
HP software, not Dell software. My mistake. I'm used to Dell being the ones who make Linux laptops.