Dell XPS 13 Kabylake Makes For A Great Linux Laptop

[Zan Lynx]

Michael

I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 5570 with the i7 8550U CPU. I was affected by the following problem, which from what I have read is a problem in general of the intel CPUs past Skylake.

https://forums.fedoraforum.org/showt...lems-Fedora-27

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...x/+bug/1521173

Keep an eye on the kernel log.

Correctable AER is not a problem. It's just reporting it, but it was corrected and life goes on. My Dell laptop also reports these but only one every other hour or so, usually from the NVMe drive.

It's like ECC RAM. Having it shows you the corrected errors. Not having ECC you get the errors anyway, but no log messages. So I guess you're just happier in ignorance?

Ah, sorry, so the bug is not occasional correctable AER errors but spam of many per second? That does sound like a problem.

[torsionbar28]

Does the laptop itself have some "flex" when holding it from one side? I've found the Dell laptops seem "flimsy" that way. The hardware itself is good, but if I grab one side and move it around, I like the laptop to feel very solid. Something that most ultrabooks don't do. The old thinkpads, they might have been bulky, but they felt solid, and feel is important when you're moving a laptop around, as in a meeting, etc.

Has nothing to do with one vendor vs another. It's about the internal chassis/frame that the laptop is built on. Those that are built on a metal frame feel solid like a brick. Those that are built on a plastic flame bend and flex and feel flimsy. I know the Dell Mobile Workstation models are built on a metal frame. Not sure about the XPS line. You can bet that most lower priced consumer models will be plastic frame.

[numacross]

Has nothing to do with one vendor vs another. It's about the internal chassis/frame that the laptop is built on. Those that are built on a metal frame feel solid like a brick. Those that are built on a plastic flame bend and flex and feel flimsy. I know the Dell Mobile Workstation models are built on a metal frame. Not sure about the XPS line. You can bet that most lower priced consumer models will be plastic frame.

It's metal top, middle and bottom. I have a Skylake 13 and I've played with the newer models - they look the same on the outside sans the camera placement.

[Hi-Angel]

If anyone from Dell read this, plz help: https://www.dell.com/community/Latit...ue/m-p/6125388

Did you try contacting Dell support? I mean, through "contact us" or whatever rather than posting to forum?

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Did you try contacting Dell support? I mean, through "contact us" or whatever rather than posting to forum?

Nope, because it's very difficult to push firmware issues (if it's firmware issue) via Dell Russia Support even if whole stack is supported, let alone this case of running Linux on Win-only tablet. So I trying other routes.

[Dea1993]

If anyone from Dell read this, plz help: https://www.dell.com/community/Latit...ue/m-p/6125388

try updating BIOS or use this param "i8042.dumbkbd" to kernel (inside "/etc/default/grub")
i had a similar issue with my HP, i had temporarily solved with this param, and after some months, HP has updated the BIOS and problem was solved.
now i don't know if your problem is the same of mine, but try it.
hope it helps

[Hi-Angel]

Nope, because it's very difficult to push firmware issues (if it's firmware issue) via Dell Russia Support even if whole stack is supported, let alone this case of running Linux on Win-only tablet. So I trying other routes.

Try contacting non-russian one. If there's redirection on site, I guess, you might need to set locale to us_en, or something similar. E.g. for me the site is all in english — probably because I have "LANG=en_US.UTF-8".

[Venemo]

XPS 13 9370 here, with i7-8550U, 16GB RAM, and the 1080p screen. Like Michael, I too use Fedora 28 on it.

While it is indeed a great Linux laptop, it is not without flaws. This page summarizes the current state of Linux on this machine pretty well: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9370) - it's 99% applicable to all distros, not just Arch. There is still room for improvement.

[RussianNeuroMancer]

try updating BIOS or use this param "i8042.dumbkbd" to kernel (inside "/etc/default/grub")

Latest BIOS is already flashed, I will try "i8042.dumbkbd" boot option, thanks for that tip!

Try contacting non-russian one.

Yesterday I send PM to three Dell forum moderators. DELL-Justin C doesn't answer, DELL-Jesse L answer that he forwarded issue to developers, and Dell-Alan D answer "As this issue is only present when using Linux, that would suggest the issue is related to Linux itself. With regards to OS support, we can only provide support on operating systems that were shipped, or made available for sale, with the system. The Latitude 7285 system only supports Windows 10. " I asked him why Jesse L forwarded issue and his answer was "He may well have forwarded it on, but I can't see the issue being investigated as Linux isn't supported on the system."

Well, I not sure of non-russia support will make any difference. Do you think it's worth it? I will be happy if Dell 7285 someday will get something like this, but I just don't sure where I should push Dell to get this.

[alex79]

Clearly Thinkpad is best overall when it comes to power consumption.