Linux Support For The Broadwell Dell XPS 13 Isn't Yet In Shape

[guido12]

Dell actually plans to release a "Developer Edition" of the XPS 13 with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (with some Dell software adjustments) in the coming months, so I guess issues will get sorted.

Does anyone know what those software tweaks are? I've been looking at the XPS 13 Developer Edition ever since it originally came out. However, installing a fresh copy of Ubuntu from a default ISO is not well documented. I've been reading Dell's Sputnik forum and there doesn't seem to be any accurate answers including those from Dell employees. Things that often have issues after a fresh install were touchscreen, trackpad, sleep and WiFi issues. All the usual issues for any other notebook. I had hoped to save some troubleshooting time if I went the XPS but it doesn't seem any different.

There was a PPA set up for the first XPS 13 but it hasn't been updated for the newer notebooks and Ubuntu versions.

[oyvind]

internal dell feedback:

=====================================
This has come up through some other support channels as well. The ADC BIOS team is aware of this problem with keys getting stuck and has a fix in process. There will be an updated BIOS coming out in March that should resolve the problem.
=====================================

Dell released BIOS updates for this recently, actually. I upgraded my E7440 to A14 today, and the keyboard issue is gone ! So there is hope, although it took Dell too long to fix it.

Dell Latitude E7440 System BIOS
Fixes:
-Fixed Typing on internal Keyboard abnormally with Linux OS.
-Fixed Slice battery charging information showing incorrectly in Dell Power Management Application.

Enhancements:
-Enahnced Singed Binary Authentication.

Apparently they fixed people that type abnormally and use Linux OS. Not to mention the singed binary authentication [sic] enhancement.

[darkbasic]

I guess the touchpad issue will be fixed soon: Major is an experienced user and there are some smart people in the Fedora bug tracker.
Hopefully the sound issue will get bisected before week's end too.

[pali]

I guess the touchpad issue will be fixed soon:

Do you have any internal dell feedback about this problem?

Major is an experienced user and there are some smart people in the Fedora bug tracker.
Hopefully the sound issue will get bisected before week's end too.

This is not reason to do something... You can blame on any forum, bugzilla, discussion group (even on dell.com), etc... From what I heard, Dell (and other manufactors too!) does not care about any those problem. You need either do some internal communication or external via HW on-site tech support and escalation that replacing HW did not fixed your (SW) problem.

I already asked and there is no way for ordinary dell customers to open ticket for bugs in BIOS/Firmware. And I bet same situation is with other laptop manufactors...

[pali]

New dell bioses for M6800 M4800 E7440 E7420:

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=W37GF&fileId=3430208752&osCode=W764&productCode=precision-m6800-workstation&languageCode=EN&categoryId=BI

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=H5VJD&fileId=3430208712&osCode=W764&productCode=precision-m4800-workstation&languageCode=EN&categoryId=BI

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=0P7G1&fileId=3430208686&osCode=W764&productCode=latitude-e7440-ultrabook&languageCode=EN&categoryId=BI

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=CX3G1&fileId=3430208640&osCode=W764&productCode=latitude-e7240-ultrabook&languageCode=EN&categoryId=BI

all have in changelog specified:

-Fixed Typing on internal Keyboard abnormally with Linux OS.

[darkbasic]

Do you have any internal dell feedback about this problem?
This is not reason to do something... You can blame on any forum, bugzilla, discussion group (even on dell.com), etc... From what I heard, Dell (and other manufactors too!) does not care about any those problem. You need either do some internal communication or external via HW on-site tech support and escalation that replacing HW did not fixed your (SW) problem.
I already asked and there is no way for ordinary dell customers to open ticket for bugs in BIOS/Firmware. And I bet same situation is with other laptop manufactors...

This is OPEN SOURCE software, it means you can fix it by yourself. Touchpad works with 3.16, so it's an userspace bug triggered by some event sequence that changed in the kernel. Major is already bisecting it right now and Red Hat developer Peter Hutterer is willing to help to debug it with libinput after bisecting.
Regarding the audio issue 3.13 already works, it means we can bisect it once again. Anyway lots of work is already happening upstream for this driver.

[pali]

@darkbasic: oh, there are existing touchpad problems in Latitude Exx40 series... and those are (probably) HW related...

[darkbasic]

XPS is not hardware, it works flawlessly with kernel 3.17

[skongshoj]

Bisection is unlikely to help solving the sound issue, because it isn't a regression per se.

Newer kernels use the _OSI string "Windows 2013", which - among other things - makes the XPS-13 9343 use its sound card with the I2S bus - it's a dual-mode sound card, which supports both I2S and HDA. Older kernels don't set this string, and so the XPS-13 will use the HDA bus with them. The current Realtek driver doesn't support that particular card on I2S, but does support it on HDA.

Unfortunately, not setting that string borks the trackpad, because the machine then uses a different mode for that.

So, without that _OSI, sound works but the trackpad doesn't. With it, the trackpad works but sound doesn't. You can force old-kernel behaviour easily in a new kernel using a boot-time parameter, and then... sound works but the trackpad doesn't.

In other words, at this particular moment, we effectively either have working sound and borken trackpad, or working trackpad and no sound.

[curaga]

That _OSI mess sounds like something you could fix yourself, by decompiling the ACPI iasl, editing it, and recompiling with the Intel ACPI compiler. But my info is from the BIOS era, I'm not sure if that applies to UEFI machines.