Arch Linux

pyarch

Member

Registered: 2011-09-30

Posts: 169

Archlinux on the new Dell XPS 13

Hi
I am planning on buying the new dell xps 13 and wondering if Arch Linux will work properly on it ?
Also wondering if the Yoga Pro 2 is a better option/well supported ?

Thanks

Last edited by pyarch (2015-01-11 12:16:02)

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Archlinux on the new Dell XPS 13

There's a wiki article on it https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13

bulletmark

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2013-10-22

Posts: 658

Re: Archlinux on the new Dell XPS 13

I am also really keen to find out about how well Arch will run on this laptop. That wiki is for the previous model from late 2013. The one we are referring here is Jan 2015 model.

I wonder if the QHD+ (3200x1800) with touch screen option is worthwhile using Arch?

Dell are planning to sell a Ubuntu version of this model, so that gives me hope. See http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter … 1#20717431.

Last edited by bulletmark (2015-01-18 23:55:10)

soleblaze

Member

Registered: 2009-01-14

Posts: 12

Re: Archlinux on the new Dell XPS 13

I just received one of these yesterday. So far I'm still tweaking things, but it seems to be working fine. Only real hicup at the moment is the fact it came with a BCM4352 wifi card. I had to use a usb Ethernet adapter to do the initial install.   The laptop is a 1080p model. I'll probably add an entry to the wiki once I'm done testing and configuring everything.

bulletmark

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2013-10-22

Posts: 658

Re: Archlinux on the new Dell XPS 13

I just received one of these yesterday. So far I'm still tweaking things, but it seems to be working fine.

Thanks for letting us know here. Many on the Ubuntu thread report that audio does not work. Is it working for you on Arch? Is the wifi working at top speed and reliable? Do trackpad multitouch/gestures work? And does the "disable trackpad while typing" option work?

Sorry for all the questions but I am about to pull the trigger on this laptop if it works ok with Arch.

soleblaze

Member

Registered: 2009-01-14

Posts: 12

Re: Archlinux on the new Dell XPS 13

I just received one of these yesterday. So far I'm still tweaking things, but it seems to be working fine.

Thanks for letting us know here. Many on the Ubuntu thread report that audio does not work. Is it working for you on Arch? Is the wifi working at top speed and reliable? Do trackpad multitouch/gestures work? And does the "disable trackpad while typing" option work?

Sorry for all the questions but I am about to pull the trigger on this laptop if it works ok with Arch.

Which ubuntu thread are you talking about?  So far I've just found a gist talking about it. 

The audio isn't working from me and from the gist it looks like it can be enabled, but then it causes issues with the touchpad and display.  I'm guessing a kernel patch will be required.  syndaemon doesn't seem to work for the trackpad and since the Z axis is not reported by synaptics, PalmDetect doesn't do anything.  I'm currently using this 50-synaptics.conf to enable clickpad mode and disable tap to click.  one/two/three finger clicks work fine as does two finger scrolling.  Beyond that, I haven't checked for gestures.  For the wifi, I haven't had any issues with speed or connectivity.  I enabled power saving on the wifi card as well and it hasn't caused any connection issues.  I'm guessing that the developer edition will come with patches to make all this work.

One other oddity is with the screen brightness.  It likes to auto dim/brighten depending on the whiteness of the screen.  I use a darkish terminal, so when I have that full screen the screen dims a bit.  When I switch back to a browser window it starts to brighten back up.  It sounds like this might be some kind of dell powersave feature and other laptops allow it to be disabled in the BIOS settings.  However, there's no setting available to me.

Last edited by soleblaze (2015-01-23 03:11:56)

bulletmark

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2013-10-22

Posts: 658

Re: Archlinux on the new Dell XPS 13

Which ubuntu thread are you talking about?

The Dell site thread I linked above which is about the developer version of this laptop for which Canonical are sponsoring Dell to port Ubuntu.

It seems this laptop is not supported well enough by Arch/Linux for me to buy yet.

Coming from a MBA I can't imagine not have proper multi-touch gesture control of the desktop.

soleblaze

Member

Registered: 2009-01-14

Posts: 12

Re: Archlinux on the new Dell XPS 13

Which ubuntu thread are you talking about?

The Dell site thread I linked above which is about the developer version of this laptop for which Canonical are sponsoring Dell to port Ubuntu.

It seems this laptop is not supported well enough by Arch/Linux for me to buy yet.

Coming from a MBA I can't imagine not have proper multi-touch gesture control of the desktop.

What kind of multitouch features are you looking for?

bulletmark

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2013-10-22

Posts: 658

Re: Archlinux on the new Dell XPS 13

What kind of multitouch features are you looking for?

Similar touchpad gestures that I have had on my Macbook Air since 2011, i.e. 2 finger and 3 finger horizontal and vertical scroll, 2, 3, 4 finger pinch, etc. Once you've had these to switch workspaces/apps, go in and out of overview, go back and forward, etc then you can't live without them. I'm hoping I could at least use Touchegg on Arch if the hardware supports multitiouch. GNOME 3.14 has them natively now for touchscreens (see https://help.gnome.org/misc/release-not … es.html.en) and gets them also for touchpads in 3.16 which is just over a month away.

Last edited by bulletmark (2015-01-23 22:59:35)

soleblaze

Member

Registered: 2009-01-14

Posts: 12

Re: Archlinux on the new Dell XPS 13

Looks like there's some complaints about the touchpad lacking a lot of the multitouch features in windows.  Looks like two finger swipe left/right only works in IE and most of the other multitouch features, such as pinching, are missing.  It sounds like the trackpad might also have a FW bug that's interacting with the current i2c-hid driver, causing touches to be missed and the cursor to bounce around.  They released a patch that makes it a little better, but it still jumps around a lot for me. I made a PKGBUILD that reverts that change, but haven't submitted it to the AUR yet.  Sound still doesn't work properly. I'm not sure what's going on in that front, but there's a bug open for it on Ubuntu.

bulletmark

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2013-10-22

Posts: 658

Re: Archlinux on the new Dell XPS 13

Soleblaze, can I ask where are you at with this ultrabook and Arch? Is everything working ok?

aurelieng

Member

Registered: 2010-02-02

Posts: 104

Re: Archlinux on the new Dell XPS 13

I noticed today on HN that the developer edition is available, and comes with Ubuntu 14.04. Maybe the Dell tweaks can be used to make it work with Arch

w201

Member

Registered: 2012-10-04

Posts: 289

Re: Archlinux on the new Dell XPS 13

I own a fairly new Dell XPS 15 and everything runs as it should. The only exception is the trackpad/synaptics, which I had to fiddle with quite a bit to get it functioning properly. Not a huge fan of trackpads and linux, I don't know if it's just me or synaptics but I can never get them to function perfectly the way I want. The trackpad on my Dell XPS, although fairly new (2013), doesn't work nearly as well as the trackpad on my old Compaq presario (2011). Multitouch gestures work on both however.

Last edited by w201 (2015-04-07 14:48:28)