Several months ago, Dell told me about their plans for a killer Ubuntu Linux developer notebook computer, Project Sputnik. The planning is done and this top-of-the-line programmer’s laptop, the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition is ready to ship for $1,549.

What you for get for that is an Intel Ivy Bridge i7 CPU, 8GBs of Dual Channel DDR3 1333MHz SDRAM, and a 256GB Solid State Drive (SSD). For a display it uses 13.3″ HD (720p) Truelife WLED Display with 1.3MP HD Web-cam backed up by Intel HD 4000 Graphics.

Behind the hardware, is Ubuntu 12.04.1 Long Term Support (LTS) with its usual assortment of open-source programs. It also comes ready to work with two beta community projects, Profile Tool and Cloud Launcher, that make it far more than just an extremely well-equipped, Linux-powered Ultrabook.

Dell XPS 13 laptop: The Ubuntu developer edition arrives. More >