Arch Linux

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

There appears to be some issues getting our beloved new laptop up and running with Arch.  Personally, it was a struggle finding all the links and resources that helped.  This thread's purpose is to share news about our laptop, issues, solutions, and patches.  Feel free to ask our growing brethren for help.

Links
Patched Linux Kernel for Dell XPS 9350 fixes
Dell XPS 13 2016 Arch Wiki

SheepOnMeth

Member

Registered: 2014-04-03

Posts: 38

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Hi,

Thanks for your work on the special kernel on your github.

Could you share your systemd-analyze? I have a really bad booting time. The EFI boot seems to be the problem.

 Startup finished in 11.497s (firmware) + 151ms (loader) + 7.775s (kernel) + 960ms (userspace) = 20.384s 

ksim

Member

Registered: 2015-11-15

Posts: 59

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

The same for me, very slow BIOS do not like to reboot.

ᐅ systemd-analyze time
Startup finished in 11.861s (firmware) + 1.490s (loader) + 7.606s (kernel) + 1.651s (userspace) = 22.609s

PS. bios version 1.0.4

Last edited by ksim (2015-11-16 20:47:27)

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Sure, let me run it right now.  BRB
Starup finish in 12.276s (firmware) + 1.288s (loader) + 731ms (kernel) + 3.418s (userspace) = 17.714s

The reason for my kernel booting faster could be because mine is stripped ~10meg kernel vs the ~80meg kernel.  Just a guess.  In other areas, you guys are faster.  The firmware is what kills us the most though.

Last edited by frank604 (2015-11-16 20:54:48)

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

I do have one last remaining issue on my laptop using alsa+pulse.  My headphones have whitenoise/static that go away if I bump up headphone mic boost in alsamixer to 22 (1 step upwards).  However, after a suspend the whitenoise returns.  I've tried passed hda-verb set_amp_gain_mute manually but that doesn't help with our model or the quirks are wrong... I'm not a sound guy so this is out of my area.  Anyone have something like this?

SheepOnMeth

Member

Registered: 2014-04-03

Posts: 38

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

I hope a new version of the BIOS will resolve the issue. If I am remember correctly my boot time in Win10 was really short, after some google it comes from the fact that Windows does some kind of hibernation instead of complete shutdown.

The 2 other problem are :
- battery time : with backlight on 10%, tlp, pstate on powersave, on wifi doing some light browsing I get 7 hours max. Less time if I am streaming videos. I use the kernel parameter of frank github's.
- dpms : screen takes more than 10 sec to light up after a key press to wake it up.

I have the some problem with the headset.

Last edited by SheepOnMeth (2015-11-16 21:11:31)

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Considering all the reviews on this battery, nobody is getting the advertised battery life even in windows.  I get around the 7-8 hour of constant usage browsing/music with a few videos.
My screen comes up almost immediately.  1 second at most. 

Great to hear it isn't just me about the audio.  For now, if I want to listen to music I have to reboot and bump my headset microphone boost which sucks.  Considering how this works on a fresh boot there has to be a way to get it working after a suspend too.  Same thing happens after hibernate in case anyone was wondering.  I used a swap file for my test as I don't have a swap partition.

edit:  I've tried patching patch_realtek.c by adding the following line:
+    SND_PCI_QUIRK(0x1028, 0x0704, "Dell", ALC292_FIXUP_DISABLE_AAMIX),
However this does not resolve the issue after booting in testing kernel and suspend/resume.  *sigh  I'm patching my test kernel to hell...  I think the snd pci quirk could be off?  Is it 0704 for everyone else?  Anyone find any alsa patches for our sound card?  Post a link and I'll test the patch.

Edit2:  warning!! do not compile 4.4-rc1 it doesn't find our nvme devices on boot

Last edited by frank604 (2015-11-17 02:14:50)

SheepOnMeth

Member

Registered: 2014-04-03

Posts: 38

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

I send a tweet to Barton George, the leader of Dell Linux's project. You can follow the exchange here ; https://twitter.com/barton808/status/666389011863240705 .

Concerning the audio, lspci gives me that output :

00:1f.3 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:9d70] (rev 21) 

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Bug report on white static sound on bugzilla.  Hope the magic makers can fix it.

@SheepOnMeth, cool.  I switched legacy off.
Startup finished in 8.215s (firmware) + 3.336s (loader) + 730ms (kernel) + 3.544s (userspace) = 15.826s

I boot into console and run a few things before firing open X.  Seems to shave a little more off firmware.

bart_vv

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2011-04-12

Posts: 51

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Also got static on headphones, noticeable, but not when playing anything, and I think I have low resistance headphones. Also, what seemed weird, I had to increase "Digital" for microphone to start working: http://imgur.com/la4EZiY

As for battery, I get 8-9.5 W power usage in powertop when idling (wifi on, brightness 20%, keyboard 50%, tlp almost-default config). It was higher on 4.2, not surprisingly.

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

I don't have a digital line. You have the 9350?

bart_vv

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2011-04-12

Posts: 51

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Yeah, of course I do, wouldn't be here otherwise, would I? There may be some differences between 9350 versions, I have the 16GB/touchscreen/i7-6500U/512GB variant.

SheepOnMeth

Member

Registered: 2014-04-03

Posts: 38

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

I think, you are right, there is different versions between the 9350s, because I got the FHD 8GB and I don't have the digital line.

We should indicate the model type in the next posts.

jyc

Member

From: Ithaca, NY

Registered: 2013-01-07

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Hey guys!

I'm on an XPS 13 9350 with a QHD screen.

With the 4.2 kernel, i915.preliminary_hw_support=1 in the boot options, xf86-video-intel-git and MODULES="intel_agp i915" in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, everything seems to be working fine for me.

I tried installing 4.3 from [testing] because of the better Skylake support but that ended up making me just boot to a blank screen -- intel_agp i915 in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, as the wiki suggested, did not seem to help.

Just thought I'd report how this particular model is working. Does anyone else have the same model and have any tips/questions?

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

@jyc. Try removing the entries you added in modules and run mkinicpio.  Remember when you run mkinitcpio that you need to declare the kernel.  So if you run mkinitcpio -p linux, that will regen the initramfs of the stock linux kernel.  You need to add the suffix if you are using maxim's aur kernel.

@bart, ah, we could have some differences in hardware for same 9350.  gotcha.

Last edited by frank604 (2015-11-18 21:00:08)

condensator

Member

Registered: 2015-11-16

Posts: 6

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Hey guys!

I'm on an XPS 13 9350 with a QHD screen.

With the 4.2 kernel, i915.preliminary_hw_support=1 in the boot options, xf86-video-intel-git and MODULES="intel_agp i915" in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, everything seems to be working fine for me.

I tried installing 4.3 from [testing] because of the better Skylake support but that ended up making me just boot to a blank screen -- intel_agp i915 in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, as the wiki suggested, did not seem to help.

Just thought I'd report how this particular model is working. Does anyone else have the same model and have any tips/questions?

I had the same problem. I installed linux-git from AUR (4.4-rc1) and it started working with i915 in MODULES. I do not have intel_agp. Added benefit of wifi working out of the box too!

Note: I also had to add nvme in MODULES for the pcie ssd to be detected.

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Note: I also had to add nvme in MODULES for the pcie ssd to be detected.

AH! I didn't think of that.  Great scotts!

SheepOnMeth

Member

Registered: 2014-04-03

Posts: 38

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Compiling right now, thanks condensator.

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Thanks for all the collective input everyone.  Just a friendly reminder to update the wiki.  I've added in a few lines for now.

jyc

Member

From: Ithaca, NY

Registered: 2013-01-07

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

I had the same problem. I installed linux-git from AUR (4.4-rc1) and it started working with i915 in MODULES. I do not have intel_agp. Added benefit of wifi working out of the box too!

Note: I also had to add nvme in MODULES for the pcie ssd to be detected.

Wow! Thanks, I just compiled from linux-git and everything seems to work great!
I had to patch the PKGBUILD because there was a conflict between -doc and -headers due to an overeager find -- I've posted instructions on the AUR.

Will report back if I find anything.

Last edited by jyc (2015-11-19 03:35:23)

pezzonovante

Member

Registered: 2013-10-25

Posts: 40

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

So, it seems to be linux-git (4.4-rc1) is the way to go? Are there any advantages of using linux-bcm4350 over this?

frank604

Member

From: BC, Canada

Registered: 2011-04-20

Posts: 1,212

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

linux-bcm4350 is on 4.3-rc7.  4.4-rc1 does not require the patch for our wifi.  You can alternatively use modprobed-db from aur and use my pkgbuild for a kernel called linux-dell.  This way you won't pull the whole git (1gig?) from the linux-git aur package.

pezzonovante

Member

Registered: 2013-10-25

Posts: 40

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Thanks. So I guess the big download size is the issue with linux-git, for the moment. If there aren't other issues with 4.4 kernel, that's OK with me.

condensator

Member

Registered: 2015-11-16

Posts: 6

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Nice that it works!
By the way, does the touchscreen stop working after sleeping the laptop for anyone else too?

jyc

Member

From: Ithaca, NY

Registered: 2013-01-07

Posts: 8

Re: Dell XPS 13 9350 Late 2015

Nice that it works!
By the way, does the touchscreen stop working after sleeping the laptop for anyone else too?

Just tried sleeping and it seems to still work for me.
The touchscreen worked out of the box for me, unlike the touchpad, which I had to install xf86-input-synaptics to get to work. Not sure if that has an affect. I'm using TLP and blacklisted the touchscreen from USB auto-suspend.

EDIT:

One thing that does seem to happen to me though is that after I resume from suspend, my audio is very crackly... before suspending, sound is alright.

EDIT:

Really weird...

When I first boot, if I set "Headphone Mic Boost" to 22 (one up from 0), then I have no white noise and no crackling whatsoever. When I suspend and resume, however, my sound is permanently messed up until the next restart.

EDIT:

Appears to be the same bug frank604 reported in https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=108081 .

EDIT:

Apparently if I unload and reload the snd_hda_intel module the issue corrects itself.

Last edited by jyc (2015-11-20 03:31:48)