Mostly successful install onto Dell XPS 13 (2015) - model 9343

gmtch · 2015-04-05 12:52:08

This is a report on successfully installing Arch Linux on a Dell XPS 13 (2015) - model 9343. The installation was done over the last three days and is not yet final but I do have a working system. There are still outstanding issues.

My laptop is the version with the 3200x1800 QHD screen, an Intel 7265 wireless controller, a Core i7-5600U with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.

Note that whilst I have installed and run Arch Linux previously it isn't where my primary experience lies. I have been running Debian Unstable on my PCs for many years. I went with Arch Linux because most people on the web who report success installing Linux on these laptops do so with the version 4 of the kernel - I thought Arch would have that sooner than Debian. I also wanted Plasma 5 which isn't yet in Sid. And finally I have been wanting a Arch Linux system for a while.

My intent is to dual boot Windows and Arch Linux with Arch being the primary OS. Windows just being there for those rare moments when a Windows system is required.

Friday

Preparing the laptop

The laptop had the A00 firmware which is known to cause problems with audio and the touchpad. Dell release the A03 firmware last week and I installed that using the Dell installation software from within Windows.

I then basically followed the Beginner's guide and the LVM on Luks page to install.

For the disk using gdisk I deleted 230GB /dev/sda5 in which was Windows was installed and replaced it with a 80GB /dev/sda5 for Windows and a 150GB /dev/sda6 for Linux. I made no other changes to the disk. I did it this way because Windows wouldn't allow me to shrink C: to less than 150GB.

This is my first UEFI system so I spent a lot of time reading the UEFI Arch wiki page, this page (https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/2 … work-then/) and this one (http://www.rodsbooks.com/linux-uefi/). I currently am using gummiboot with the /dev/sda1 EFI system partition mounted as /boot. This works but I am unclear how this would work with multiple instances of Linux installed.

With kernel 3.19.2-1 the system would hang on boot. I then installed linux-lts (3.14.37-1) - this would boot but required nomodeset on the kernel command line. But with nomodeset X couldn't see any screens. A web search found that the Intel graphics require modesetting.

Given the success reported by users of kernel 4.0 I installed linux-git from AUR and built 4.0rc6.r130.g8f778bb-1. My apologies for the vagueness of this but this kernel oops'ed on boot on Friday evening. I didn't record the detail.

It being late I contented myself with using the Dell Recovery USB stick I had created before deleting Windows to do a Factory Restore. I was nervous here as I was worried that this might recreate the original 230GB partition for Windows. The Dell software doesn't give you any control to prevent this but it didn't. The Dell software very nicely installed Windows into the 80GB partition. Nor did it interfere with the gummiboot installation on the ESP partition. Thanks Dell.

Saturday

When I booted into Arch Linux both the 3.19.2-1 kernel and the 4.0rc6.r130.g8f778bb-1 came up. Both successfully started X. Nothing had changed overnight so I don't know what made them boot okay.

Saturday was spent getting the desktop environment working. I have Plasma 5 and Cinnamon installed and both are working fine. I have been a KDE user since version 1 so will probably stay with Plasma. I followed the instructions on the HiDPI page to get Plasma 5 looking good. I have SDDM as the display manager and that unfortunately has small fonts but is usable.

I have not played with many applications yet. Firefox and Thunderbird look good after being configured for HiDPI. Chromium doesn't look good - very small fonts. KeepassX mostly looks good except for the lower left hand panel which displays the detail has a very small font. I haven't investigated this yet. LibreOffice Writer is fine.

Wifi is working but as I have been writing this I have realised it is connecting at slow speed to both my router on 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. That needs investigation. No Bluetooth can be seen.

Both audio and touchpad are working. I have not had the repeated keystrokes issue reported by others. The touchpad doesn't freeze when two fingers are detected.

As tests I have just rebooted the system - first into the 3.19.2-1 kernel which came up okay. I then booted the 4.0rc6.r130.g8f778bb-1 kernel which oops'ed. I immediately rebooted and this second time it came up okay. I am only seeing these issues on boot - the box hasn't crashed once fully loaded. Another issue to investigate once I finish this post.

To sum up there are still issues to be worked on but otherwise this is mostly a working system.

tl;dr version

Arch Linux install onto Dell XPS 13 (2015) - model 9343 mostly successful
Kernels intermittently oops on boot
Wifi on Intel 7265 working but slow
No problems with audio or touchpad
Bluetooth device not visible
Dell Factory reinstall of Windows played nice and didn't overwrite Linux

Alad · 2015-04-05 13:47:02

Thanks, but (laptop model-specific) parts belongs on the archwiki article and discussion page:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ta … _13_(2015)
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(2015)

Last edited by Alad (2015-04-05 13:48:32)

jasonwryan · 2015-04-05 18:48:28

Alad wrote:

Thanks, but (laptop model-specific) parts belongs on the archwiki article and discussion page

Correct. I'll move this to the Laptop section until you copy it across.

Arch Linux

#1 2015-04-05 12:52:08

Mostly successful install onto Dell XPS 13 (2015) - model 9343

#2 2015-04-05 13:47:02

Re: Mostly successful install onto Dell XPS 13 (2015) - model 9343

#3 2015-04-05 18:48:28

Re: Mostly successful install onto Dell XPS 13 (2015) - model 9343

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