Well after spending all afternoon with this new Dell XPS 13 9315 I absolutely love it. The fit and finish feels exactly like a Macbook Air.
I have Linux installed (Pop_OS) and the only two issues I had were getting the webcam running and the fingerprint reader. I managed getting both of them up and now the hardware is 100% operable! I am so happy I kept giving Linux a go and found a great laptop with few compatibility issues.
Thanks to all of you who recommended Dell laptops. There were a couple minor problems, but both were solvable with a bit of ddg searching.
EDIT: I've decided to return this Dell XPS 13 based on some of your replies about the 12th gen intel being out of date for the price and build quality issues with Dell in general. I went with a Lemur Pro i7 Raptor Lake, 40gb ram, 1tb storage System76 build for only $200 more. Only downside is I have to wait a bit for them to confirm my order, assemble, and ship. It'll be nice to have a machine built exclusively for Linux!
My god an actual trackball user!
Sorry I just hardly ever see any these days.
I have also found PopOS! to be a fantastic distro. Easy to setup, user friendly, has tons of software that works with it , great UI, and I have not had a main OS patch/update break anything since I think 3 years ago now.
And it also does not punish you too hard if you tinker under the hood a bit!
Only real room for improvement is the PopShop, but thats relatively easy to fix, so I do think it makes more sense for them to focus harder on general stability, compatibility, and the new Rust based DE.
You can always install synaptic or the debian software manager for deb based stuff, and a flatpak store if you get tired of the PopShop and want to stick with PopOS's deb/flatpak paradigm.
I love my trackballs. I'll never move on, dammit! (⌐■_■)
I miss the old days when someone was being annoying and you could take the rubber ball out of your mouse and bounce it off their head haha!
I have such mixed feelings about my Ergo, I really want to like it but I feel clumsy on it and it seems like the extra strain on my thumb will take a toll long term with that repetitive stress.
I only use track balls that are bigger and use 4 fingers that way I get way more control, less movement of my joints/wrist, and far more comfortable. Never figured out how to use a thumb one.
I kinda thought that was the way to go as well, but I need to find one that supports my giant troll hands. The ones I’ve tried in the past were too short I think so my hand ended up just on my desk at a weird angle.
try attaching a wrist support? the Kensington expert comes with one I think, I like the slim blade but may be too low profile for you
Definitely doesn't feel that way for me. Might have to do with hand shape/size/thumb length/etc...
I got my trackball due to wrist strain last year and have really only felt my thumb start to strain once or twice. I am definitely less precise but that's still worth the reduced strain. Also makes me try to keep my hands on my keyboard for longer!
adding to the trackball love and specifically this thumbball type. I do hate that I can't get a wired. Turned my wife on to them. Great for anyone who is clutter inclined and does not want a device moving around.
Check out ploopy trackballs. They have a wired thumb track ball.
https://ploopy.co/thumb-trackball/
oh man. I hate these are not optical but so much more sustainable.
They do use an optical sensor... PMW 3360.
adding to the trackball love and specifically this thumbball type. I do hate that I can't get a wired. Turned my wife on to them. Great for anyone who is clutter inclined and does not want a device moving around.
Trackball gang here. Reporting for duty.
I honestly thought the days of trackball were at an end. I haven't seen one in ages. I can't stand them personally but I'm glad they live on nonetheless! It's good to have choices.
Theres many people that go for ergo mice these days as well as ergo mech keyboard enthusiasts that sometimes put trackballs on their builds.
I use one too.
It's a lot more convenient as a lazy slob in bed or on the arm of the couch.
I bring mine to work everyday. My manager has one, and oddly enough the manager at my old job did too lmao.
kde runs terribly on popos tho, so its definitely not the best choice if you need that
Sorry to double post, but ... kind of a huge part of what PopOS! /is/ is making their own DE in Rust.
They originally started prototyping their idea of a DE by modifying GNOME, but ... thats a bit of a story.
They still contribute to GNOME, patching compatibility issues, but they eventually realized that for their window manager and other ideas, they would not be able to convince the largely Ubuntu centric GNOME maintainers to make some critical changes and add needed support that they would need.
So they started two of their own repos to more or less install on top of mainline GNOME and patch in what they needed.
The end result is DE that I find more useful than GNOME in many ways, and PopOS! has since been seemingly largely satisfied with how this has turned out and is now just massively working on developing what will likely be the first ever DE written entirely in Rust.
Yep, thats true.
One word: aptitude. Learn no mark your packages as dependency installed (capital M) and do it every update. The only downside is that it doesn't sync that info with synaptic. But if you use it exclusively for package management you'll end up with little to no stay packages after dist-upgrade.
The interface is very similar to and predates synaptic, but it's a terminal tool in ncurses. So even if you lose access to the GUI you still have something friendly to try and recover.
I used them as well, and I know of at least 3 more coworkers who use them as well.
I got started when I got one for free with a used computer I bought. I've since then switch full time to using an MX Ergo (like OP) on my desktop, and a cheaper M575 I keep in my laptop bag.
I even game with them, and haven't touched a computer mouse in probably 2 years.
The MX Ergo is far superior to any other I've used, highly recommended.