[Discuss] Think I need a new computer

[Dan Ritter]

Kent Borg wrote: 
> My Dell XPS 13 7390 is getting old creaky, and at nearly 4-years, it isn't
> new, but how annoying, it has been a nice machine.
> 
> 
> Grrr. I don't want to spend a bunch of money on a new computer right now.
> But the battery is supposedly only 57% of what it used to be. The trackpad
> doesn't like to click in the location where I like to click and is only
> slightly more agreeable in other places.  One of USB-C jacks seems grumpy
> (not noticing things I plug in) and the others are maybe a bit odd, not
> sure.
> 
> God I wish everything weren't so damn disposable.


iFixIt will sell you a new battery for about $100. The trackpad
might be fixable by opening it up and blowing out dust. The
USB-C jack can't be fixed without replacing it, which involves
soldering, but they are notorious for being grumpy when there is
a small amount of dust inside.

> Do I want an AMD Ryzon 7040 or an Intel i5-1340P? Is one better better
> supported for Linux for these days…?

My work desktop is a Ryzen 7 7735HS (which is a laptop CPU; the thing is a
NUC-sized box) with 32GB RAM and a 1 TB NVMe disk. It runs Debian stable
very nicely, with a 4K monitor in landscape and a 1920x1200 monitor in
portrait mode.

I like the AMD chips a lot.

-dsr-