Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

moismailzai · 2016-04-07 23:45:56

n/a

Last edited by moismailzai (2021-04-11 17:49:20)

OdinEidolon · 2016-04-08 07:01:58

moismailzai wrote:

Ordered my machine today and can't wait to install Arch on it -- thanks for sharing your experiences.
For those who have recently installed, are WiFi and Bluetooth working well now? If not, I'm going to order a compatible WiFi combo card so I don't have to deal with it (open to suggestions on the card).
Also, is the touchpad still finicky?

The touchpad is amazing - better than on windows for me. Unfortunately some gestures not useful due to lack of DE support.
WiFi works flawlessly, good signal most of the time. Other reports problem and disconnections, but I had none.
Bluetooth does not work at all for me, but I have not tried so hard. I guess I'll buy and install an intel 3x3 wifi card as soon as it's out.

Last edited by OdinEidolon (2016-04-08 07:02:24)

WishCow · 2016-04-11 13:25:08

Is there some kind of docking station for this laptop that you can connect a screen to? One that works with Linux too?

incer · 2016-04-12 12:14:19

There are 2 different thunderbolt docks, but they apparently don't work very well

OdinEidolon · 2016-04-14 19:20:14

Updated linux to 4.5, bbswitch, nvidia and nvidia-utils to the new versions today.

I get black spikes even with standard settings (no fbc, no psr), and Nvidia video card is always ON, cannot be turned OFF. I immediately reverted to 4.4, and now I'm a bit sad. I was hoping 4.5 would allow me to activate frame buffer compression, which greatly reduces power consumption.

WishCow · 2016-04-15 08:07:54

OdinEidolon wrote:

Updated linux to 4.5, bbswitch, nvidia and nvidia-utils to the new versions today.
I get black spikes even with standard settings (no fbc, no psr), and Nvidia video card is always ON, cannot be turned OFF. I immediately reverted to 4.4, and now I'm a bit sad. I was hoping 4.5 would allow me to activate frame buffer compression, which greatly reduces power consumption.

Yeah, can confirm the same thing. I managed to disable the nvidia card by doing rmmod nvidia_drm, rmmod nvidia_modeset, rmmod nvidia, echo OFF > /proc/acpi/bbswitch.

No idea what to do with the black flickers. How do you enable framebuffer compression?

Last edited by WishCow (2016-04-15 08:08:20)

Caspian · 2016-04-15 08:15:47

Hi everyone,

I have XPS 9550 (QHD option) for almost three months now. I have the latest BIOS (from 12 of April if I'm not mistaking).
I went through several configuration posts/instructions on the web, but I keep having same several issues constantly:

* I'm using only intel graphics card (blacklisted nouveau driver and using acpi_call to turn off nvidia card). HDMI is flaky. On every second/third boot laptop doesn't send signal through the HDMI port (GDM only shown on laptop monitor). To "fix" this I need to switch to terminal (using Ctrl+Alt+F# key combination). Sometimes switching to terminal will send the signal through HDMI and external monitor starts showing the picture, but sometimes the whole system freezes during this. I needed to turn off the option in Gnome power settings for turning off the display after certain period, because waking the screens from "sleep" results in the same issue of external monitor not being turned on and internal monitor keeps flickering and changing resolution as it's trying to send the picture to external monitor as well but can't accomplish this task. The upgrade to kernel 4.5 made thing even worst. The above mentioned issues is occurring more often and when external monitor works as expected the picture on laptop display keeps flickering while moving the mouse cursor across it (I needed to downgrade to 4.4). Tried the linux-mainline from AUR and having same issues as on 4.5.

* Bluetooth is not working as expected. I've taken the firmware from Windows, converted it and copied to Arch. After this, bluetooth started to "work" but it's not stable at all. It's very slow in finding devices around and when I manage to connect to my bluetooth speaker it keeps disconnecting, as if the range of the laptop bluetooth is too weak. The speaker is maybe three meters away from the laptop and bringing it closer doesn't help much.

I just need to mentioned that I don't have the above issues in Windows so it's not hardware issue for sure.
It's driving me nuts. I hoped that never versions of kernel would fix some things, but it's just making them worse.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions please?

Last edited by Caspian (2016-04-15 08:17:19)

OdinEidolon · 2016-04-15 08:16:25

WishCow wrote:

OdinEidolon wrote:
Updated linux to 4.5, bbswitch, nvidia and nvidia-utils to the new versions today.
I get black spikes even with standard settings (no fbc, no psr), and Nvidia video card is always ON, cannot be turned OFF. I immediately reverted to 4.4, and now I'm a bit sad. I was hoping 4.5 would allow me to activate frame buffer compression, which greatly reduces power consumption.
Yeah, can confirm the same thing. I managed to disable the nvidia card by doing rmmod nvidia_drm, rmmod nvidia_modeset, rmmod nvidia, echo OFF > /proc/acpi/bbswitch.
No idea what to do with the black flickers. How do you enable framebuffer compression?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/in … ng_Options

I use PSR (panel self refresh), which improves a lot power draw, but FBC, which also helps a lot, still has spikes. Should be good in 4.6 tho, as it should be default.

I guess you have to do the unloading of nvidia on every boot, right? There was a bumblebee update today, did that fix it? If not, we have to file a bug.

OdinEidolon · 2016-04-15 08:19:50

Caspian wrote:

Hi everyone,
I have XPS 9550 (QHD option) for almost three months now. I have the latest BIOS (from 12 of April if I'm not mistaking).
I went through several configuration posts/instructions on the web, but I keep having same several issues constantly:
* I'm using only intel graphics card (blacklisted nouveau driver and using acpi_call to turn off nvidia card). HDMI is flaky. On every second/third boot laptop doesn't send signal through the HDMI port (GDM only shown on laptop monitor). To "fix" this I need to switch to terminal (using Ctrl+Alt+F# key combination). Sometimes switching to terminal will send the signal through HDMI and external monitor starts showing the picture, but sometimes the whole system freezes during this. I needed to turn off the option in Gnome power settings for turning off the display after certain period, because waking the screens from "sleep" results in the same issue of external monitor not being turned on and internal monitor keeps flickering and changing resolution as it's trying to send the picture to external monitor as well but can't accomplish this task. The upgrade to kernel 4.5 made thing even worst. The above mentioned issues is occurring more often and when external monitor works as expected the picture on laptop display keeps flickering while moving the mouse cursor across it (I needed to downgrade to 4.4). Tried the linux-mainline from AUR and having same issues as on 4.5.
* Bluetooth is not working as expected. I've taken the firmware from Windows, converted it and copied to Arch. After this, bluetooth started to "work" but it's not stable at all. It's very slow in finding devices around and when I manage to connect to my bluetooth speaker it keeps disconnecting, as if the range of the laptop bluetooth is too weak. The speaker is maybe three meters away from the laptop and bringing it closer doesn't help much.
I just need to mentioned that I don't have the above issues in Windows so it's not hardware issue for sure.
It's driving me nuts. I hoped that never versions of kernel would fix some things, but it's just making them worse.
Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions please?

1) have you tried different monitors? I find I have a hard time connecting to some, and no problem with others. I have not experimented a lot tho. But I have the FHD.
2) I have never been able to get BT to work, even following the instructions. I plan to change the crappy Dell wifi card with an Intel 3x3 as soon as they produce it (Intel 8260 2x2 is already better than the Dell/Broadcom 3x3 according to Reddit users).

Last edited by OdinEidolon (2016-04-15 08:20:10)

Caspian · 2016-04-15 08:28:43

OdinEidolon wrote:

Caspian wrote:
Hi everyone,
I have XPS 9550 (QHD option) for almost three months now. I have the latest BIOS (from 12 of April if I'm not mistaking).
I went through several configuration posts/instructions on the web, but I keep having same several issues constantly:
* I'm using only intel graphics card (blacklisted nouveau driver and using acpi_call to turn off nvidia card). HDMI is flaky. On every second/third boot laptop doesn't send signal through the HDMI port (GDM only shown on laptop monitor). To "fix" this I need to switch to terminal (using Ctrl+Alt+F# key combination). Sometimes switching to terminal will send the signal through HDMI and external monitor starts showing the picture, but sometimes the whole system freezes during this. I needed to turn off the option in Gnome power settings for turning off the display after certain period, because waking the screens from "sleep" results in the same issue of external monitor not being turned on and internal monitor keeps flickering and changing resolution as it's trying to send the picture to external monitor as well but can't accomplish this task. The upgrade to kernel 4.5 made thing even worst. The above mentioned issues is occurring more often and when external monitor works as expected the picture on laptop display keeps flickering while moving the mouse cursor across it (I needed to downgrade to 4.4). Tried the linux-mainline from AUR and having same issues as on 4.5.
* Bluetooth is not working as expected. I've taken the firmware from Windows, converted it and copied to Arch. After this, bluetooth started to "work" but it's not stable at all. It's very slow in finding devices around and when I manage to connect to my bluetooth speaker it keeps disconnecting, as if the range of the laptop bluetooth is too weak. The speaker is maybe three meters away from the laptop and bringing it closer doesn't help much.
I just need to mentioned that I don't have the above issues in Windows so it's not hardware issue for sure.
It's driving me nuts. I hoped that never versions of kernel would fix some things, but it's just making them worse.
Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions please?
1) have you tried different monitors? I find I have a hard time connecting to some, and no problem with others. I have not experimented a lot tho. But I have the FHD.
2) I have never been able to get BT to work, even following the instructions. I plan to change the crappy Dell wifi card with an Intel 3x3 as soon as they produce it (Intel 8260 2x2 is already better than the Dell/Broadcom 3x3 according to Reddit users).

1) Haven't tried different monitors unfortunately. Even if it did work on another monitor, it has something to do with the laptop since this monitor works flawlessly with other laptops.
2) Yeah, I've read that people switched the Broadcom card with Intel 2x2. If I choose to make the switch I would wait for Intel 3x3 as well. Do you maybe have some inforamtion when Intel plans to make such a card?

WishCow · 2016-04-15 08:31:01

OdinEidolon wrote:

WishCow wrote:
OdinEidolon wrote:
Updated linux to 4.5, bbswitch, nvidia and nvidia-utils to the new versions today.
I get black spikes even with standard settings (no fbc, no psr), and Nvidia video card is always ON, cannot be turned OFF. I immediately reverted to 4.4, and now I'm a bit sad. I was hoping 4.5 would allow me to activate frame buffer compression, which greatly reduces power consumption.
Yeah, can confirm the same thing. I managed to disable the nvidia card by doing rmmod nvidia_drm, rmmod nvidia_modeset, rmmod nvidia, echo OFF > /proc/acpi/bbswitch.
No idea what to do with the black flickers. How do you enable framebuffer compression?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/in … ng_Options
I use PSR (panel self refresh), which improves a lot power draw, but FBC, which also helps a lot, still has spikes. Should be good in 4.6 tho, as it should be default.
I guess you have to do the unloading of nvidia on every boot, right? There was a bumblebee update today, did that fix it? If not, we have to file a bug.

The bumblebee update fixed the nvidia unloading problem for me.

I have tried the following i915 options:
options i915 enable_rc6=1 enable_fbc=1 lvds_downclock=1 semaphores=1

This results in a hard crash when starting X (have to power off with the power button). Keeping only enable_fbc=1 works, but increases the flickering to unacceptable levels.

OdinEidolon · 2016-04-15 08:34:40

Caspian wrote:

OdinEidolon wrote:
Caspian wrote:
Hi everyone,
I have XPS 9550 (QHD option) for almost three months now. I have the latest BIOS (from 12 of April if I'm not mistaking).
I went through several configuration posts/instructions on the web, but I keep having same several issues constantly:
* I'm using only intel graphics card (blacklisted nouveau driver and using acpi_call to turn off nvidia card). HDMI is flaky. On every second/third boot laptop doesn't send signal through the HDMI port (GDM only shown on laptop monitor). To "fix" this I need to switch to terminal (using Ctrl+Alt+F# key combination). Sometimes switching to terminal will send the signal through HDMI and external monitor starts showing the picture, but sometimes the whole system freezes during this. I needed to turn off the option in Gnome power settings for turning off the display after certain period, because waking the screens from "sleep" results in the same issue of external monitor not being turned on and internal monitor keeps flickering and changing resolution as it's trying to send the picture to external monitor as well but can't accomplish this task. The upgrade to kernel 4.5 made thing even worst. The above mentioned issues is occurring more often and when external monitor works as expected the picture on laptop display keeps flickering while moving the mouse cursor across it (I needed to downgrade to 4.4). Tried the linux-mainline from AUR and having same issues as on 4.5.
* Bluetooth is not working as expected. I've taken the firmware from Windows, converted it and copied to Arch. After this, bluetooth started to "work" but it's not stable at all. It's very slow in finding devices around and when I manage to connect to my bluetooth speaker it keeps disconnecting, as if the range of the laptop bluetooth is too weak. The speaker is maybe three meters away from the laptop and bringing it closer doesn't help much.
I just need to mentioned that I don't have the above issues in Windows so it's not hardware issue for sure.
It's driving me nuts. I hoped that never versions of kernel would fix some things, but it's just making them worse.
Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions please?
1) have you tried different monitors? I find I have a hard time connecting to some, and no problem with others. I have not experimented a lot tho. But I have the FHD.
2) I have never been able to get BT to work, even following the instructions. I plan to change the crappy Dell wifi card with an Intel 3x3 as soon as they produce it (Intel 8260 2x2 is already better than the Dell/Broadcom 3x3 according to Reddit users).

1) Haven't tried different monitors unfortunately. Even if it did work on another monitor, it has something to do with the laptop since this monitor works flawlessly with other laptops.
2) Yeah, I've read that people switched the Broadcom card with Intel 2x2. If I choose to make the switch I would wait for Intel 3x3 as well. Do you maybe have some inforamtion when Intel plans to make such a card?

1) Yes, there is indeeed a problem with the laptop. I'll experiment further.
2) Unfortunately not. It should be the intel 9xxx AFAIK. But now there is also this: Wireless-AC 18260, whose product page seems to go under a different name (?): http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ … 17265.html

OdinEidolon · 2016-04-15 08:35:33

WishCow wrote:

OdinEidolon wrote:
WishCow wrote:
Yeah, can confirm the same thing. I managed to disable the nvidia card by doing rmmod nvidia_drm, rmmod nvidia_modeset, rmmod nvidia, echo OFF > /proc/acpi/bbswitch.
No idea what to do with the black flickers. How do you enable framebuffer compression?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/in … ng_Options
I use PSR (panel self refresh), which improves a lot power draw, but FBC, which also helps a lot, still has spikes. Should be good in 4.6 tho, as it should be default.
I guess you have to do the unloading of nvidia on every boot, right? There was a bumblebee update today, did that fix it? If not, we have to file a bug.
The bumblebee update fixed the nvidia unloading problem for me.
I have tried the following i915 options:
options i915 enable_rc6=1 enable_fbc=1 lvds_downclock=1 semaphores=1
This results in a hard crash when starting X (have to power off with the power button). Keeping only enable_fbc=1 works, but increases the flickering to unacceptable levels.

Semaphores is what causes the X hang. try enable_psr=1, it results in better power consumption but no unstability, at least on my system.

pompei2 · 2016-04-15 08:56:25

Also experiencing the black screen flickering on the FHD model.
Do you guys know if an issue has been filed or, if not, where we should file one?

WishCow · 2016-04-15 09:00:45

I seem to experience some micro lockups? Like everything freezes for a few seconds while I'm typing, no response at all, and after a few seconds all the characters I typed show up.

Caspian · 2016-04-15 09:02:24

OdinEidolon wrote:

1) Yes, there is indeeed a problem with the laptop. I'll experiment further.
2) Unfortunately not. It should be the intel 9xxx AFAIK. But now there is also this: Wireless-AC 18260, whose product page seems to go under a different name (?): http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ … 17265.html

1) What's your experience with the 4.5 kernel? It's completely unusable for me with connected external monitor. On boot it only displays image on HDMI connected monitor while the internal monitor stays black. If I try to switch to terminal it freezes the system. I didn't add any intel module options.

OdinEidolon · 2016-04-15 09:20:38

Caspian wrote:

OdinEidolon wrote:
1) Yes, there is indeeed a problem with the laptop. I'll experiment further.
2) Unfortunately not. It should be the intel 9xxx AFAIK. But now there is also this: Wireless-AC 18260, whose product page seems to go under a different name (?): http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ … 17265.html
1) What's your experience with the 4.5 kernel? It's completely unusable for me with connected external monitor. On boot it only displays image on HDMI connected monitor while the internal monitor stays black. If I try to switch to terminal it freezes the system. I didn't add any intel module options.

Not tried external monitors with 4.5 yet. However, it seems SDDM login screen from suspend is completely broken with kernel 4.5, however I don't wee why that should be. Password box is not focused, I can write and after some minutes dot appear and eventually I'll login after several minutes. Via TTY everything works fin.
Pretty disappointed with 4.5 so far.

Caspian · 2016-04-15 09:22:58

OdinEidolon wrote:

Not tried external monitors with 4.5 yet. However, it seems SDDM login screen from suspend is completely broken with kernel 4.5, however I don't wee why that should be. Password box is not focused, I can write and after some minutes dot appear and eventually I'll login after several minutes. Via TTY everything works fin.
Pretty disappointed with 4.5 so far.

Yeah, 4.5 is totally disappointing. Even worst is the fact that I'm having same issues on 4.6rc3 as on 4.5. Hopefully they'll be fixed before the release.

OdinEidolon · 2016-04-15 10:07:28

I rebooted some times with 4.5, and sometimes it hags after login. Sometimes in SDDM I cannot even enter the PWD. I have no idea what could cause these problems, but it is completely unusable in this state for me. Reverted (again) to 4.4. If anyone can tell me which logs I could look at to diagnose the problem, I could try to do that.

Caspian · 2016-04-15 10:15:00

The interesting fact about bluetooth I forkog to write in my first post is that bluetooth worked flawlessly for me for a week maybe. Could connect to my bluetooth speaker and use it without any issues. Then it suddenly started acting up. Unfortunately I didn't wrtie down the kernel or bluez (I doubt that bluez is to blame here) versions I was using at that time.
This is why I'm hoping that we could have a fully functioning Broadcom bluetooth.

WishCow · 2016-04-15 11:09:34

Ended up downgrading too.

OdinEidolon · 2016-04-15 11:46:27

WishCow wrote:

I seem to experience some micro lockups? Like everything freezes for a few seconds while I'm typing, no response at all, and after a few seconds all the characters I typed show up.

Yes, I get this in 4.5, but takes LONG to unfreeze, even minutes. This happens on SDDM login screen.

OdinEidolon · 2016-04-19 13:14:00

Has anyone tried to put down a bug report for this issue? Does this happen only on the XPS?

Caspian · 2016-04-19 13:56:56

I saw a few other posts which complain about issues with 4.5 kernel. Has anyone tried the 4.5.1?

moismailzai · 2016-04-20 05:50:29

n/a

Last edited by moismailzai (2021-04-11 17:49:33)

Arch Linux

#101 2016-04-07 23:45:56

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#102 2016-04-08 07:01:58

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#103 2016-04-11 13:25:08

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#104 2016-04-12 12:14:19

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#105 2016-04-14 19:20:14

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#106 2016-04-15 08:07:54

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#107 2016-04-15 08:15:47

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#108 2016-04-15 08:16:25

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#109 2016-04-15 08:19:50

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#110 2016-04-15 08:28:43

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#111 2016-04-15 08:31:01

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#112 2016-04-15 08:34:40

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#113 2016-04-15 08:35:33

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#114 2016-04-15 08:56:25

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#115 2016-04-15 09:00:45

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#116 2016-04-15 09:02:24

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#117 2016-04-15 09:20:38

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#118 2016-04-15 09:22:58

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#119 2016-04-15 10:07:28

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#120 2016-04-15 10:15:00

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#121 2016-04-15 11:09:34

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#122 2016-04-15 11:46:27

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#123 2016-04-19 13:14:00

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#124 2016-04-19 13:56:56

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

#125 2016-04-20 05:50:29

Re: Arch on New XPS 15(Late 2015)

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