We wanted to end 2018 on a high note. As of Friday, the developer editions of the Precision 5530 and 3530 mobile workstations are now available with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
The Precision 7530 and 7730 mobile workstations, built for even more compute-intensive workloads, will be offered with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS soon.
How did we get here: A quick look back
It all started back on November 15, 2013 when the Precision M3800 mobile workstation unofficially joined Project Sputnik. This came about thanks to the efforts of Dell Linux architect Jared Dominguez. Ever since Sputnik launched there was a group of customers who were asking for a beefier system beyond the original XPS 13 developer edition. With this in mind, Jared got his hands on an M3800 and put together a rough set of instructions explaining how to get Ubuntu up and running on the system. Rather than satiating folks however, Jared’s instructions only made the customers’ hungrier for an officially available, workstation-class system. On January 27, 2015 that request was answered and the Precision M3800 joined the XPS 13 as a part of the Project Sputnik portfolio.
From there, the rest is history
- March 3, 2016 — mobile Precision, developer edition xx10 line announced (5510, 3510, 7510, 7710)
- January 9, 2017 — xx20 line announced
- March 24, 2018 — xx30 line announced
A double click on the specs
As a refresher, here are the specs of the newly upgraded systems:
Dell Precision 5530 mobile workstation developer edition
Dell’s thinnest, lightest and smallest 15″ mobile workstation with enhanced graphics, and a stunning design and display
- Available in Platinum Silver or Brushed Onyx, with a 15.6-inch display fit into a 14-inch chassis.
- Next-gen graphics up to NVIDIA® Quadro P2000.
- 8th Gen Intel® Core™ and next-generation Xeon® processors, including i9 processors
- Enhanced 2666MHz memory speeds up to 32GB
- Up to 4TB of storage
- Thunderbolt 3.0 with x4 PCIe, USB 3.1 and HDMI 2.0 ports
- Available worldwide
Dell Precision 3530 mobile workstation, developer edition
15-inch fully customizable and high-performance mobile workstation at an entry-level price point
- 8th Gen Intel® Core™ and next-generation Xeon® processors
- Memory speeds up to 2666MHz up to 32GB
- PCIe storage capacity up to 2TB
- NVIDIA Quadro® P600 professional graphics cards with 4GB of memory
- Support for 4K video to an external monitor at 60fps via HDMI 2.0
- Ports include HDMI 2.0, Thunderbolt and VGA
- Available worldwide
Closing out 2018
2018 has been a particularly busy one for Project Sputnik. The year had barely begun when the 7th generation XPS 13 developer edition debuted. In Spring the 16.04-based Precision xx30 mobile line began rolling out and in mid-summer the XPS 13 was upgraded from 16.04 to 18.04. With today’s news we’re closing out the year with an upgrade of the Precision mobile line.
Looking forward, as of 2019, Dell has been shipping Linux preloaded on client systems for 20 years. We’ll be making some noise around that and we have a bunch of other things up our sleeves as well.
Happy Holidays and stay tuned for 2019!
Extra-credit reading
Precision xx30 developer edition line, News and Reviews
- Dell Precision 5530 with Ubuntu Review – Linux Unplugged (review starts at ~36min and goes to ~52min)
- Dell Precision 5530, Ubuntu Pre-Installed – This Week in Linux (13:44)
- Dell Unveils New Ubuntu Laptops — OMG!UBUNTU!
- Dell Precision ‘Developer Edition’ mobile workstations run Ubuntu Linux and are RHEL certified – betanews
- Dell refreshes Precision laptops with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed – ZDnet
- Dell stuffs Intel Coffee Lake CPUs and Ubuntu into latest Precision workstations – The Inquirer
- Dell launches new Precision mobile workstation line-up powered by Ubuntu – Softpedia
- Dell Precision 5530 sale a la venta con Ubuntu y certificado para RHEL » MuyLinux
- Welcome the new Dell Precision developer editions – Barton’s blog
- Developer Editions of Precision Workstations Now Available — Direct2DellEMC
- Introducing the Dell Precision 7530 and 7730 with Ubuntu — Ubuntu blog
- Precision Developer Editions 7530/7730 now online — Welcome the power pair – Barton’s blog
Pau for now…
Barton's Blog 
Any advice on how to make Dell fix BIOS issues that makes hardware barely usable with Linux?
https://www.dell.com/community/Latitude/Dell-Latitude-7285-keyboard-issue/td-p/6125388
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Any new about ubuntu 18.04 on DELL precision 7530 ?
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It was updated recently and 18.04 is now available on the 7530. To see it ,the config you want click on “see more options” in the Operating Systems section and voila! https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/workstations-isv-certified-dell/precision-7530/spd/precision-15-7530-laptop/xctop7530hwus Thanks for asking ill tweet it out so others know
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I have a Dell 7530 and I installed 18.04 manually. How can I add the Dell stuff to get better HW support? Is it possible to just add a PPA or do I need to get the recovery image?
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A XPS 15 Developer Edition would be greatly appreciated, and I made this clear to Dell support when purchasing an XPS 15 (Windows) with the intention of wiping and replacing with Linux.
I know that the Precision range partially overlaps with the XPS 15, but not entirely. There’s a cohort of potential Dell customers who don’t need Quadro GPU and Xeon CPU price points, yet would like to purchase a 15″ from Dell with Linux preloaded.
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[…] built for even more compute-intensive workloads, will be offered with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS soon,” says Barton George, […]
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[…] más datos, el blog de Barton George, donde además repasa brevemente el camino recorrido desde que Dell extendió su oferta de equipos […]
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[…] más datos, el blog de Barton George, donde además repasa brevemente el camino recorrido desde que Dell extendió su oferta […]
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[…] a lot more compute-intense workloads, will be provided with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS before long,” states Barton George, […]
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[…] más datos, el blog de Barton George, donde además repasa brevemente el camino recorrido desde que Dell extendió su oferta de equipos […]
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[…] a beefier system beyond the original XPS 13 developer edition,” writes Barton George in his latest Project Sputnik blog. “With this in mind, Jared got his hands on an M3800 and put together a rough set of […]
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[…] Em seu blog, George Barton, da Dell, escreveu o seguinte: […]
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Good news! What if I acquired a Ubuntu 16.04 powered Precision 5530 two months ago? Are you planning to share the customized Ubuntu 18.04 iso somewhere?
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Great information. Thanks a lot for sharing
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Great new article on FORBES @ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/01/14/exclusive-dell-opens-up-about-its-linux-efforts-and-project-sputnik/#6229fd485264
I’m s-t-i-l-l waiting for the option to spec an Inspiron 14 or 15 with Ubuntu on the DELL store !!
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Thanks Chris! Ive passed along your request re an Inspiron 14 or 15 with Ubuntu to the team 🙂
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Any news for the people who bought the precision 5530 with ubuntu 16.04? Is the Ubuntu 18.04 iso available?
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Jens, can you just upgrade it yourself? The ISO is available on the Ubuntu website – just download it on your existing system, and copy it to a USB stick using a USB boot program.
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Hi Barton
I’ve been running an XPS 13 (9333) for some years, and it has been a great machine. 8G RAM has been good, but I’d like to bump this up.
My normal upgrade path would be the XPS 13 9380, with 16G of RAM and Ubuntu 18.*, but the Dell Precision 5530 is very tempting – 32G would be excellent. I would be buying in the UK. However, the configurator between the US and the UK is very different – UK customers are fixed on 16G, and fixed on one processor type.
US configurator: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/workstations-isv-certified-dell/new-precision-5530/spd/precision-15-5530-laptop/xctop5530hwus
UK configurator: https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/cty/pdp/spd/precision-15-5530-laptop/n004p5530emea
Is the selection of US variants not available to UK customers, or is it coming? I’d like to take advantage of the discounts being offered now, but not at the cost of buying the wrong thing. Thanks!
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