Ten years after releasing a pioneering combination of Linux preinstalled on a commercial laptop with Project Sputnik, Dell and Canonical have announced that the XPS 13 Plus is the first OEM PC certified for Ubuntu 22.04 Long Term Support (LTS). This makes this a direct path to a computer that just works without worrying about whether or not every component is ready to run Linux.
Linux Developer Edition-equipped models of the laptop were already available, with prices starting at $1,289.00, but currently ship with the older 20.04 LTS software. Long-term support releases deliver what it says on the tin, with the end of standard support for that release scheduled for 2027 and end-of-life in 2032. Certified devices are lab-tested to verify the compatibility of each component, which means your device gets specific drivers installed that will make all its features work properly.
Image: Dell
This obviously applies to machines sold as developer editions with Linux out of the box, but it also applies if you’re installing a new operating system on a machine that originally shipped with Windows 11. Marketing director Barton George was one of the people at Dell behind Project Sputnik. In an interview with Forbes in 2019, he explained that the Developer Edition branding was intentional, applied to prevent people from accidentally buying a Linux laptop to save a few bucks and get an unexpected experience. These days, Dell ships Ubuntu to many other machines—and other varieties of the XPS line, including its redesigned standard XPS 13—so it’s unlikely the certified list will stay that short forever.
The Ubuntu 22.04 LTS package was officially released on April 21 and has a long list of upgrades that you can read about here, including better power management, new touchpad gestures, and improved support for Bluetooth audio devices.
According to Dell, if you want your XPS 13 Plus and its “capacitive row with touch features” set up with a hardware-optimized version of 22.04, there are a few ways to make that happen. One is to order a new XPS 13 Plus laptop and wait for it to ship starting in August. Otherwise, if you’re in a hurry (and backup everything anyway), you can do a fresh install and you’ll be good to go. The last option is to wait until August 4th when Ubuntu 22.04.1 is released as it will go down the upgrade path for all LTS users so you can do as little work as possible.
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