Black Friday Sales -- recommendations of new laptops for Qubes OS

General Discussion
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Last week for black friday sales, might grab a new laptop. Anyone else looking to buy?

[https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/sr/laptops/xps-laptops](https://Dell Laptops)

Leaning towards the Dell XPS 15, it’s latest 13th gen Intel, saw some posts here people have had luck running Qubes on it.

gpu: Looks like they have two gpu options, the nvidia geforce rtx 4060 vs the intel iris xe graphics. Will probably be years before drivers are available, but I imagine generic drivers should work.

wireless: The wireless adapters probably not detected in qubes 4.2-rc4, but I don’t use wireless, so that can wait.

ethernet: Hopefully the ethernet port will be detected, debian 12 bookworm now includes hardware drivers in base install, so that’s good.

? if I do a fresh qubes 4.2-rc4 install, chose debian-12-xfce only (no fedora) does that mean dom0 will use debian? I checked /etc/os-release, says Qubes OS not debian, so not sure.

Anyways, would love to hear feedback on this, and other new laptops worth considering. I’m kind of done with the really old gen 3 laptops, sure they work, but just too slow. I want something with some pep to it.

Cheers

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I’m using a NovaCustom NV41 with an i7-1260P, support is perfect so far with Qubes OS 4.2-RC4 (the laptop is Qubes OS certified).

I measured a battery life of 3h33 when using it for writing code, watching some videos, reading emails all at full brightness and network etc… and almost 6h if I just read and click here and there. The fans are also really silent, and the laptop isn’t really hot so it doesn’t burn your knees if you use it there :smiley:

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Hi @solene yeah I looked at those too, 12th gen, and coreboot, we run coreboot on our protectli routers, very cool.

Do I run the risk of trying new hardware that may or may not work? Or go with slightly older/slower that is certified. The age old delimna :slight_smile: I guess I could always return the Dell if it doesn’t work lol wouldn’t be the first time!

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There is just 12 months between Intel 12th and 13th generation, I wouldn’t use the word “old” :sweat_smile:

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No, it’s only for templates.

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thanks, dmesg says redhat for kernel, so I figured it’s a custom

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I’m still looking at laptops, basically down to these two:

Dell XPS 15 vs. NovaCustom NV41 (about the same money)

Dell is newer (maybe too new), 13th gen cpu 5.0GHz (vs 12th 4.7GHz), 41.18% faster cpu (uses more power), 2 more performance cores [8 P-cores + 8 E-cores], ddr5-4800 (vs ddr4-3200), pcie 5.0 (vs 4.0)

The Intel Arc gpu is based on the same architecture as the Intel Iris Xe, albeit more power for faster speeds, and more features.

Dell display is Full HD+ 15.6", 1920x1200, vs NV41 is Full HD 14.0” (1920×1080), so slightly larger/higher rez.

So the Dell is basically a faster version of the NV41, might use the same drivers. The Dell intel arc gpu is compatible with the xe, and the xe is supported by the NV41. The Dell uses the intel wireless card AX211, the NV41 uses the intel AX200/201, so maybe the 211 is compatible with the 201.

It’s a gamble with the drivers, I know!, but I’m very tempted to try it. There is a chance the XPS 15 will work with beta qubes 4.2-rc4, and if not, I’ll beg to add support :)~

Since the Dell cpu and gpu use more power, both battery life and heat are likely impacted. I rarely use a laptop not plugged in, so not too worried about battery life, but heat may be an issue, I’m sure their engineers thought of that.

Inching closer

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I just checked Dell’s return policy, and they don’t like it when somebody removes windows 11, so I’d have to shrink the win11 partiton and install qubes on available disk space, to test compatibility. If I can’t get it working, clean off qubes, and resize windows back to full disk. Not ideal, but workable.

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What’s the sRGB capability of the Dell? It’s important to check if it displays accurate colour, but some people don’t mind about that.

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Under the display popup, it says 100% sRGB, they seem pretty proud of their display.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-15-laptop/spd/xps-15-9530-laptop/usexchbts9530gdbp

I probably wouldn’t have noticed, I watch tv on a tv, maybe an occasional video on the laptop, mainly just work or browse or read news.

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REMINDER: 3 days until black friday!

I’ll probably buy this laptop on friday, hopefully it will have a great price, but I’m not holding my breath. With my luck, they will discount every laptop they have, except this one.

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I’m using a NovaCustom NV41 too.
it’s a good computer.
Apart from the fact that the shift key has no indicator light and that the touchpad could be tactile, I find it very good.
Lots of ports, (RJ45, usb A and C…)
I opted for a configuration where the camera and microphone module is removed.

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Thanks @Francois I’m still considering the NV41, that coreboot feature is hard to give up.

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Dell just lowered the price another hundred:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-15-laptop/spd/xps-15-9530-laptop/usexchbts9530gdbp

Base unit was $1199 yesterday, today it’s $1099. I wonder what it will be on Friday.

Thinking of upgrading ram to 32GB (+$150) and nvme SSD to 1TB (+$100).

So total is $1349 today, hoping it drops on friday.

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and also the interesting option to deactivated intel ME !

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yeah i’m back to considering the nv41 again, definitely want coreboot and disable me, don’t really need heads though, I’d probably lose the usb key with my luck

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oh well, scratch Dell off the list…

I’ve been researching the Dell XPS able to sleep/hibernate in linux. Many posts complaining it doesn’t support at all, and fixes/workarounds don’t work either. Not one post anywhere saying Dell supports s3, or one person saying they got it working.

I really want coreboot and disable me anyways, so the nv41 looks like the best option right now. I’m in the states, and they are in europe, but I hear europe has black friday too, so I’ll wait until Friday, to see if NovaCustom offers any special prices, fingers crossed!

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I just picked up a Lenovo Legion 5 Slim for Black Friday. Been trying to install but keep running into snags. Has anyone else had success with this hardware?

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Hello,

Unfortunately, we have decided not to proceed with any Black Friday promotion. Black Friday runs counter to our values of sustainability. Furthermore, it would affect our margins in such a way that it would leave us with way less money for the further development of Dasharo coreboot. We would like potential customers to choose us because of our values rather than our selling prices.

That being said, we are having more and more customers from the USA and we are therefore now offering our laptops in USD as well (USD sales are restricted to the USA). I also made some improvements today on our home page to convert British-English words to American-English, this always remains a bit of a struggle.

It’s good to know that the NV41 Series is Qubes OS certified and it’s the only laptop from our offering that is working perfectly with Qubes OS.

Now that the USA becomes a bigger market for us, we will improve our sales conditions for Americans. This will not only mean that shipping will be free of charge (for orders > 500 USD), but we will make return shipments for repairs free of charge as well.

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Hi @novacustom I’m actually glad to hear that, thank you for your post.

I’m ready to order the laptop. I’ll check your website again, and look for any USA option, otherwise will just follow the options as usual.

Thank you for being here, a part of this community :slight_smile: awesome!

Cheers

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