Project Sputnik deployment first impressions

I've volunteered for #ProjectSputnik, an effort to make a developer-friendly build available on a Dell laptop. The Project has done quite well from surveys and inital software forays and a product will be released later this year, we are told, on the lovely new Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook.

So given the opportunity to help out I bought one, am running their current Ubuntu Precise build on it, and so far it's pretty slick. They have made great strides on getting the drivers working and it's quite a nice piece of hardware as well.

Here are my intial notes, taken on Evernote on another box while I fussed with boot media:

Hmmm ... my USB stick was no good, had to make another one.

Installing from the Sputnik image stick seems smooth and quick.
I decided to put Ubuntu on sda3 (the large NTFS Windows was on) and leave the rest be for now, no swap.
No support for some special keys in installer (live) image but that's not a big deal.

brightness work up and down
battery button brings up power status app, rather than overlays
nothing for kb lights, video. didn't try wifi or audio during install

Reboot. login .. really fast reboot and login, nice!

audio on login and volume controls work well
wifi button works, dropped me right offline ;)
play controls don't work in VLC
let's see if I can post all this from tina...

Box design is cool!


Lid is hinged, nice presentation!

Windows sticker came off easily enough but this may have to fixed in manufacturing: