Xubuntu 17.10 on a Dell XPS 15 (9560)
This is how I installed Xubuntu 17.10 on my Dell XPS 15 (9560) in late 2017.
I bought the laptop October 2017 as a standard model from Dell with Windows 10, only. It has a matte 15.6'’ full HD display (1920 x 1080), 500 GB of SSD, 16 GB of RAM and an i7–7700HQ Quad Core Processor (6M cache, up to 3.8 GHz). The graphics are a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 with 4GB GDDR5, plus some Intel graphics card for power saving; the WiFi is a Killer 1535 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth. There are no further frills (no touch screen, no finger print reader, no automatic silicon programmer brain etc).
My rationale for buying this laptop was the matte display, and the fact that Dell ships such machines with Ubuntu installed. I was surprised by the tweaking needed for it to install and run. However, I simply might have missed the “fix all package” from Dell. Hints are welcome.
I decided to delete Windows 10 altogether and use the whole disk for Xubuntu. I intended to have a bunch of partitions for Linux installs, some Swap, and leave the rest to ZFS storage. While I cannot get redundancy with only one disk, I can still benefit from the other nice features of ZFS. Also, I want to know if ZFS is stable enough on Linux for everyday use.
First, I made an install USB disk. This is a nice tutorial: https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/tutorial-create-a-usb-stick-on-ubuntu#0
Then, I started the computer, pushed F12 a few times to get into the BIOS settings. I checked the settings from this help page, but all was good already. http://www.dell.com/support/article/ch/de/chdhs1/sln297060/xps-13-9343--how-to-install-ubuntu-developer-edition-1404-on-a-dell-pc-configured-for-the-unified-extensible-firmware-interface--uefi--bios?lang=en
After that I plugged in the device, F12 again until I could choose the boot medium, and gave the standard “Try Xubuntu” a go. I thought to be done in a few minutes. Surprise. It would not bring me to the GUI, it would not recognize the internal disk, and it would freeze all the time after the install. Here is how I was able to get around the issues.
Internal disk: Boot into the BIOS, “System Configuration” -> “SATA Operation”, select “AHCI”. Be aware that after this change, Windows 10 will not boot any longer. I did not care since I deleted it anyway. If you want it back, here is how (not tried): https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/22631-enable-ahci-windows-8-windows-10-after-installation.html
Get graphical desktop to try Xubuntu and use the graphical installer: In the grub menu, push “e” to edit the kernel line, delete “quiet splash” to see the messages on the screen during boot, and add “nomodeset”. Then boot. The graphical desktop showed and I was able to run the graphical installer. I have not tried the CLI installer, but that might be a nice option, too. In the graphical install, don’t forget to partition your disk.
Freezes: After reboot and log in, the computer would freeze all the time. I had “soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 22 s”(?). I don’t recall the error exactly, but something along that. The good thing was that I brushed up myself with the “Linux Magic Keys (tm)” to forcefully reboot the machine. The sad part was that my laptop was entirely unusable. To work around this, do NOT log into the the graphical desktop, instead, as soon as the graphical login prompt shows, Ctrl-Alt-F1 to a text terminal, log in. Install the proprietary drivers.
sudo ubuntu-drivers list sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstallreboot
While playing around with the “Nvidia X Server Settings”, I completely locked my computer down, again. I chose the “Intel (Power save)” mode. That was a bad idea. I used the magic keys to reboot, Ctrl-Alt-F1 into the text terminal, `apt-get purge nvidia*`, reboot, text terminal, again, reinstalled the additional drivers, see above. As a consequence, I have been constantly running on the Nvidia GPU, which certainly is waste of resources for a few terminals and browser windows. But it has been stable for quite some time now.
The spec of the machine is more than generous for my purposes (Some terminals for everyday developer / sysadmin work, plus some browser windows, mainly), and I am now really happy with it. Suspend works (wake up, too), WiFi works (I have Bluetooth disabled in the BIOS), the RAM is more than plenty, and the strong CPU is nice to have. With the SSD, everything from and to the disk is super-smooth. The touchpad works surprisingly well, the keyboard fits my fingers really well, and I have the freedom to customize almost every aspect of the user interface.
Every story should have a happy ending.
Leftovers: reduce fan noise, various UI tweaks, get a bitmap / pixel font for the terminals, get http://www.byobu.co/ to work nicely for my needs, have the monitor brightness controls more fine grained, install Windows 10 in a KVM with sound and microphone for Business Skype (Lync) meetings, get around a strange touchpad / synclient issue, and tackle the eternal “inadvertent palm left click issue”. I might probably never get to the end of the list.
