I would first like to thank everyone for their patience and support as we worked through various bugs that crept up. This has taken longer than we would have liked but I’m happy to say that as of today, the Dell XPS 13 developer edition is now available in the United States, Canada and Europe!
A short history
As many of you may known, the developer edition began its life as Project Sputnik. Funded by an internal incubation fund set up to drive innovation within Dell, Sputnik went from open-ended exploratory project to official product within nine months.
The entire program was conducted in the open in order to identify what you — developers — demanded in an ideal Ubuntu-based laptop. It was also your interest and support that drove Sputnik from project to product.
At the beginning of the year we launched an expansion to the line, the Precision M3800 developer edition, and today we are announcing the availability of the 4th generation of the XPS 13 developer edition.
General specifications of new Dell XPS 13 developer edition (see configs below. Note we realize that some of the tech specs are incorrect, they are in the queue to be fixed. We made the decision to go ahead launch since we have had so much interest and we wanted to make it orderable as soon as possible)
- Ubuntu 14.04*
- 5th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-5200U or i7-5500U
- 13.3-inch infinity display
- 8GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
- Intel (R) HD Graphics 5500
- 1 Year ProSupport with Next Business Day Onsite Service
- 2.8 lbs
* We recommend that users use the factory shipped Ubuntu image with the XPS 13 with at least BIOS A02. We do however recognize that users will want to use other Linux distributions, Ubuntu versions or kernel versions so we’ve assembled a list to indicate problems users should expect with other distros. In general you will have the best experience on the latest in development distributions with newer kernels. For more information and instructions please see the technical notes at the end of this post.
US/Canada configurations:
i5/8GB
- 128GB, Non Touch FHD (1920×1080)
- 256GB, Touch TL QHD (2560×1440)
i7/8GB
- 256GB, Touch TL QHD+ (3200×1800)
- 512GB, Touch TL QHD+ (3200×1800)
Europe configurations/Countries
The XPS 13 developer edition is available in both the consumer and business channels in the following countries:
- Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The United Kingdom
European configurations
- i5/8GB — 256GB, Touch TL FHD (1920×1080)
- i7/8GB — 512GB, Touch TL QHD+ (3200×1800)
A big shout out
I wanted to give recognition and a big thanks to the members of our small but mighty Sputnik core team: Mario Limonciello, Jared Dominguez, Amber Huang and Amit Bhutani. These are the folks who have worked their butts off and made this a reality!
Technical Notes:
Updated April 16, 2015: new information with regards to current status quo from some people who have used Debian as well as 4.0 updates.
Updating to BIOS A02 or later
- Download the executable from support.dell.com and save it to a FAT32 formatted USB disk.
- Reboot the computer.
- At the Dell POST screen, press F12 to bring up the BIOS boot menu.
- Select the option to flash the BIOS.
- In the popup menu, select your USB disk and select the BIOS executable.
- Follow on screen directions.
Systems shipped with A01 or A00 BIOS
If you purchased the machine with Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 and it contains BIOS A00 or BIOS A01, please update the BIOS to A02 or later. If you choose to run a kernel version earlier than 3.15 you should also append the following to your kernel command line:
psmouse.resetafter=0
If you machine was shipped with A02 or later, you will not need this kernel command line change. The developer edition units will ship with A02 or later.
Ubuntu 14.04
Ubuntu 14.04 includes kernel 3.13. The touchpad will run in PS2 mode and the soundcard will run in HDA mode. Currently (4/15) out of the box the HDA microphone will not work, and you will need some packages from the factory shipped image to make it work properly. The patches needed for microphone support are available here:
and
Ubuntu 14.10
Ubuntu 14.10 includes kernel 3.16.
With BIOS A00 or BIOS A01 the touchpad will run in I2C mode and the sound will not function. Please update to at least BIOS A02 and the touchpad will run in I2C mode and the sound in HDA mode. Currently (4/15) the microphone will not work and you will these patches for microphone support: https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/tiwai/sound.git/commit/?h=for-next&id=e1e62b98ebddc3234f3259019d3236f66fc667f8
and
Ubuntu 15.04
Ubuntu 15.04 includes kernel 3.19.
With BIOS A00 or BIOS A01 the touchpad will run in I2C mode and the sound will not function. Please update to at least BIOS A02 and the touchpad will run in I2C mode and the sound in HDA mode. (4/15) All of the relevant patches have been backported and all functions will work out of the box.
Fedora 21
Fedora 21 includes kernel version 3.17. With BIOS A00 or BIOS A01 the touchpad will run in I2C mode and the sound will not function. Please update to at least BIOS A02 and the touchpad will run in I2C mode and the sound in HDA mode. Currently (4/15) the microphone will not work. You can track the backporting of the patches here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1188741
Debian 7.0
We recommend that Debian 7.0 users upgrade to a kernel 4.0 and apply those two patches. The above notations will apply to Debian 7.0 then.
Debian 8.0
Debian 8.0 will use kernel 3.16. With BIOS A00 or BIOS A01 the touchpad will operate in I2C mode and sound will not work. The system will fail to suspend and resume due to a bug in the touchpad driver. This patch: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/109571cf3ec78a39477eedd6b11927f52cbcb1e8
Will need to be backported for it to work properly.
With BIOS A02 the touchpad will operate in I2C mode and the sound in HDA mode. Currently (4/8) the microphone will not work. The patches needed for microphone support are available here:
and
We recommend for Debian 8.0 users upgrade to kernel 4.0 and apply the two extra microphone patches.
Also, there are some problems with the xserver-xorg-video-intel package today with Debian 8.0. You’ll presently (4/15) need to backport from experimental to resolve them. More details are available here: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=782690
Other Notes
- If dual booting with Windows 8.1 and kernel 4.0 or earlier you will need to cold boot twice into the OS for audio to work.
- Kernel 3.19 and 3.18.2 introduced a regression in the touchpad by this patch https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/d1c7e29e8d276c669e8790bb8be9f505ddc48888
- This regression has been resolved in this commit: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/6d00f37e49d95e640a3937a4a1ae07dbe92a10cb
- This fix has been included in Ubuntu 15.04 and Fedora 21.
- This patch will be upstream eventually and add better support for the clickpad. http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/kernel.git/commit/?h=f21&id=d75cb059558345e47a13881512a1600e3e17ba21
- It’s included in Fedora 21 and Ubuntu 15.04.
- This allows right click to work properly in I2C mode.
- In kernel 4.1, the audio will operate in is I2S mode (the same mode as Windows 8.1).
- This is due to this patch: http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-acpi/msg56805.html
- The following other patches enable I2S audio. If the above patch is backported to something earlier than 4.0 these will be needed.
- Updated Intel SST firmware files. These aren’t in all distros yet.
- This patch https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/2cc3f2347022969f00a429951ce489d35a9b4ea8
- This patch http://mailman.alsa-project.org/pipermail/alsa-devel/2015-March/088724.html
- There are some other issues with I2S audio mode that aren’t yet fixed too. Hopefully by the time 4.1 comes around they’ll be sorted out.
Extra credit reading
- Designed for developers – Dell launches two new Ubuntu-based systems — Ubuntu insights
Pau for now…
Barton's Blog 
That is exciting news – thanks so much!
I’m planning to buy the Windows version of the XPS 13 because I’d like to dual boot, and because the Windows version has more customization options than the developer edition.
Is there anything I can do to voice my support for the Sputnik program? Even though I’m not planning to buy the Developer edition, Sputnik is a huge, huge selling point for the laptop.
Again, thanks so much for making this happen.
LikeLike
Just a warning on dual booting (since we didn’t mention it above) – sound only works if you cold boot twice into the new OS when switching between OS’es. It’s a limitation of how sound has been implemented.
LikeLike
Good to know – thank you! Do you think that will be fixed in a future version of Ubuntu?
LikeLike
Maybe.
It’s possible this behavior could change in a future kernel version which would then change it in a future version of Ubuntu. See the discussion and links around the _REV in the technical details for some more background around it.
LikeLike
Is the european FHD model correct? Shouldn’t it be non touch?
i5/8GB — 256GB, Touch TL FHD (1920×1080)
Thanks for your hard work!
Even though there is no i7 FHD model it’s still the best thing on the market right now for me. Pulled the trigger two days ago.
LikeLike
I agree that listing the European FHD screen above as having Touch capabilities looks like a mistake, and doesn’t agree with what e.g. http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-13-9343-laptop/pd?oc=cnx4313&model_id=xps-13-9343-laptop says.
Also, Barton mentions a “Touch TL QHD (2560×1440)” option for the US market, which is the first time I’ve seen this screen resolution mentioned in connection with the XPS 13??
LikeLike
Same for me! Thank you so much Barton. I’m going with the CNX4305 and give 15.04 a shot as dual boot.
I guess as the Windows Key will be the on the Keyboard anyway, there will be no great difference. Allthough i really didn’t get why Europa doesn’t get an i7, 256GB Option aswell.
Anyway, big thanks to everybody involved in the Sputnik Team!!!!!
LikeLike
by the way please note, that in Germany the “XPS 13 Developer Edition” is just available via business chanel..
LikeLike
Mic,
Let me look into it, thanks for the heads up!
LikeLike
In the UK at least, http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-13-9343-laptop/pd?ref=PD_OC now lists both CNX4313 (i5) and CNX4311 (i7), but http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/laptops.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd&~ck=mn#!facets=213169~0~3086416,65235~0~399477&p=1&~srd=true&sk=linux&scat=prod only lists the BNX4311 (i7) and not the BNX4313 (i5).
Also, http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/xps-13-9343-laptop/pd?oc=bnx4311&model_id=xps-13-9343-laptop still says “With Windows 8.1 – for a smooth, versatile PC experience.”
About to hit the Buy button on the CNX4313… 🙂
(shame that the shipping date isn’t until the end of the month)
Thanks for the continued updates Barton, and thanks for the detailed distro / kernel info above.
LikeLike
The same here in Spain. You also have to wait more then 1 month if you want it equipped with us layout keyboard…
LikeLike
That’s not true. Ordered mine beginning of April via http://configure2.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=de&cs=dedhs1&l=de&kc=&oc=CNX4313 and now it’s even listed on the main xps-13 page
LikeLike
Can we in the USA get this with i7, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, and FHD (1920×1080) screen?
This configuration is listed above for Europe but not for USA.
I don’t need the super high-res or touch screen, and prefer the longer battery life of the FHD.
LikeLike
Me too!
LikeLike
I chatted with Dell today and confirmed this configuration is not available – not in Linux or Windows. The best Dell can do with the FHD screen is i5 processor and 128 GB SSD.
Too bad, it means I won’t be buying an XPS-13.
If this configuration became available I would buy it.
LikeLike
Btw. In China the configuration with i7 FHD screen 256 GB SSD is available. http://china.dell.com/cn/p/xps-13-9343-laptop/pd?oc=xps13d-9343-3708&model_id=xps-13-9343-laptop
LikeLike
How strange, and seemingly arbitrary
It’s obviously not ideal, but it looks like it shouldn’t be too hard to upgrade to a larger SSD yourself?
http://www.laptopultra.com/guide/dell-xps-9343-2015-ssd-ram-upgrade-guide/
LikeLike
Yes I can always buy the 128 GB and upgrade to 256 GB later if I need it. But that’s a hassle and waste of money when I know I need the storage. An frustrating, knowing the config I want is available, but Dell just won’t ship it to a USA address!
LikeLike
Would there ever be a Dell XPS 15 with infinity display? With or without a developer edition.
LikeLike
Please make one of these with a 15.6 inch FullHD screen (I believe anything beyond 1920×1080 on Ubuntu is still too flakey and doesn’t work correctly, and chews up too much battery).
LikeLike
Please ship XPS13 developer edition in Japan too!
LikeLike
For anyone that might be interested in purchasing the XPS 13 2015, please read this comment:
LikeLike
I’ve read mixed messages on the keyboard repeat bug. Some people are saying BIOS A01 fixes it; other people are saying it’s still not fixed under A03. Maybe both of those things are true.
What’s up?
LikeLike
It’s quite interesting that Barton and Mario are replying to every comments here but yours…
LikeLike
BIOS A01 fixed the issue w/ the EC that was causing keys to get “stuck” on Linux. I’ve not seen any key repeat issues since then.
LikeLike
I installed bios A03 and both the repeat-key and the touchpad-freeze bug (once I removed the kernel command psmouse.resetafter=0) are back.
Repeat-key never went away completely. From A01 there’s been a great improvement, with letters only repeated twice, instead of keys being stuck until a new key was pressed. But since I installed BIOS A03, the problem seems to have worsened (happens more often and occasionally with more than 2 repetitions).
LikeLike
I also don’t understand why I have to go out of my way to try to reach someone at Dell to help us. Prosupport is completely useless. Your escalation process is broken. See a few comments about it here: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19612640/20719298#20719298
LikeLike
@Andrea,
A lot of variables here that can be causing the failures.
1) psmouse.resetafter=0 is required if you are running a box that /shipped/ with a BIOS less than A02 and a kernel that is less than 3.15. The mouse runs in PS2 mode and needs that parameter in this configuration.
2) Can you confirm what kernel version you are running?
3) You don’t have acpi_osi=!Windows 2013 in your kernel command line right? If you are running a kernel later than 3.15 and don’t have that kernel command line option included your touchpad should be running in I2C mode. Before BIOS A02 was released this was a common workaround for some sound issues that should no longer be used.
4) Running in PS2 mode without that resetafter will cause PS2 bus to reset at which time the EC will freeze. If possible, I’d recommend running on 3.16+ and no acpi_osi= workarounds.
LikeLike
Hi Mario! Thanks for your reply!
My box shipped with A00.
Before installing A03 I had both resetafter=0 and acpi_osi, but I removed them once I updated the BIOS since I read somewhere the worarouds were not needed anymore for the audio (that works, except for the mic) and the freeze-touchpad issue.
I’m currently running kernel 3.13, so I guess that I either mmmmmmove [now the repeat key-issue again :-\] to running 3.16+ or I will add back the resetafter=0.
Any suggestions on how to handle the repeat-key problem?
LikeLike
@Mario
I updated to kernel 3.16 (still on Ubuntu 14.04), and now the touchpad-freeze issue is gone (and I haven’t noticed any issue with repeat-key either, but haven’t typed much…).
On the down-side: I now lost functionality of the right-click key of the touchpad that was working perfectly previously. On top of that, I can’t move the cursor when the left-button is clicked (making it hard to select text and impossible to move windows).
LikeLike
Same problem. Just got my DE today, I’m on A03 and kernel 3.19 (Ubuntu 15.04), and the spacebar and “c” keys in particular are CONSTANTLY registering extra keypresses. I’m hoping it’s a BIOS issue because if it’s the keyboard I’m going to have to return it, I can’t develop like this (I probably corrected 20 extra spaces in this message alone!)
LikeLike
Mine shipped with A03 and had the bug. Updated to A04 yesterday and it’s been okay so far.
LikeLike
That’s great news – thanks so much!
And folks, let’s give Mario and Barton a chance to respond before we assume the worst here. They’re doing really important work for the open source community, and I think they deserve our support.
LikeLike
Mario and Barton, how do you explain this then?
There’s something really wrong with your QA/QC process. When you knowingly release (E5550, E7450 etc.) notebooks with that kind of issues and when you know how lengthy your validation process is…
LikeLike
@Robr, i’m trying to calmly discuss it with you in that forum.
LikeLike
Hi @Robr,
Im sorry you had such a poor experience with ProSupport. Id like to follow up with it internally. which country are you in?
thanks for calling this to our attention!
Barton
LikeLike
[…] Developer Edition is available immediately in North America and Europe. According to Dell’s announcement blog post, there is a wide variety of possible configurations available (visible on the XPS-13 Developer […]
LikeLike
[…] Developer Edition is available immediately in North America and Europe. According to Dell’s announcement blog post, there is a wide variety of possible configurations available (visible on the XPS-13 Developer […]
LikeLike
[…] Developer Edition is available immediately in North America and Europe. According to Dell’s announcement blog post, there is a wide variety of possible configurations available (visible on the XPS-13 Developer […]
LikeLike
[…] Developer Edition is available immediately in North America and Europe. According to Dell’s announcement blog post, there is a wide variety of possible configurations available (visible on the XPS-13 Developer […]
LikeLike
What happens if we use the default 14.04 LTS but install the hardware enablement stack (i.e. backported kernels from 14.10 or 15.04) – anything to do to make things work? In other words, I’m curious how the system knows to use PS2 with 14.04 vs booting as I2C in later kernels.
LikeLike
If you use a 14.10 or 15.04 HWE kernel it will use I2C mode. The trigger is off of acpi_osi values that the kernel claims. Technically anything that’s 3.15 or later will use I2C. 14.04 has 3.13, 14.10 has 3.16.
Once the 15.04 stack is out, using it on 14.04 should really be a pretty good experience.
LikeLike
Is hibernate fully supported in the 4th gen XPS 13 Developer Edition?
LikeLike
If i’m not mistaken, hibernate is disabled by default in Ubuntu these days.
LikeLike
Is that to say it’s not supported even if I wanted to enable it?
LikeLike
Congratulations on this release!
For some reason, the Canadian version of the site is charging upwards of $1500. There is also no 1080p non-touch matte option either.
http://www.dell.com/ca/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd
LikeLike
Thanks Frankie for flagging this. Ill send to the Canadian team.
LikeLike
The Canadian site just added the 1080 non-touch option.
Order placed. Can’t wait until it arrives!
Much thanks to you and your team for all the effort!
LikeLike
It isn’t clear (to me) from the site what wireless chipset is being used on the Ubuntu version. I thought I heard intel would be used, but http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd lists 3 different ones:
Dell Wireless 1560 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.0 [2.4&5 GHz, 2×2]
Intel® Dual Band 7265 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.0, [2.4 & 5GHz, 2×2]
Intel® Dual Band 7265 802.11agn + Bluetooth 4.0 [2.4 & 5 GHz, 2×2]
LikeLike
You are correct, Intel is the wireless chipset. We are cleaning up the above so the others are removed.
thanks
LikeLike
Oooh, does that also apply for the European DE models?
Just had my delivery confirmation email 🙂 Estimated delivery 7th May 😦 All good things come to those who wait…
LikeLike
Hi Barton
Any update on the wireless chip questions? I’m really curious whether you use the Intel 7265 in your XPS DE CNX4311 (EU) or the Dell 1560. On the Dell EU Website it’s always posted as “Dell Wireless 1560” but above you mentioned the opposite.
It’s quite important as of future Ubuntu support and WiDi support for dualboot systems.
The only XPS 13 listed with an Intel Wifi is the CNX4305. Which actually is also the only one with an I7-5600U. (Why that by the way?)
LikeLike
Hi Peter,
Here is what i heard back from the team:
DW1560 is what’s offered on all of them except the Large Enterprise version because the Large Enterprise version supports vPro, which requires an Intel wireless card.
Notice that the i7-5600U is also a vPro-supporting processor.
thanks
LikeLike
My German order shows a Dell Wireless 1560 chipset. But it should be an Intel?
Greetings
LikeLike
Just as a note for those that come across this thread:
I don’t know if this is only for certain configurations, but my xps-13 developer edition (FHD i5) did not come with an Intel wireless m.2 card. Mine came with broadcom, which I have since replaced on my own with an Intel card.
Out of the box with the ubuntu install it probably doesn’t matter, but I’m running Arch and broadcom drivers haven’t been released for anything past kernel 4.0 at the time of this posting, so I chose to switch. Just a heads up.
LikeLike
Is it the same with the Windows version, or do those have Broadcom wireless?
LikeLike
My Windows version came with a Broadcom wireless card. I swapped in an Intel 7265 card.
LikeLike
Do Broadcom wireless cards not work well on Linux? It sounds like Broadcom drivers for Linux do exist, but installing them is… complicated.
LikeLike
What about battery life on developer edition FHD version?
LikeLike
Isn’t 8 GB a little low for a machine aimed to developers?
LikeLike
This is absolutely the deal-breaker for me.
LikeLike
Same here. L(
LikeLike
+1
LikeLike
[…] Developer Edition is available immediately in North America and Europe. According to Dell’s announcement blog post, there is a wide variety of possible configurations available (visible on the XPS-13 Developer […]
LikeLike
Is there a proper place to file feature requests for BIOS updates for this machine? (I purchased a Windows version a month ago and am using Linux on it) I am desperately in need of a “Swap Fn-Control” option like Lenovo BIOSes have.
LikeLike
There is an option in the BIOS for that. It’s under the POST behavior.
LikeLike
I just updated to A03 to verify but there is no option for that. There are options related to Fn-lock, which just sets whether e.g., F1 sends F1 or Mute, but there is no option to swap Control and Fn on the keyboard.
LikeLike
I’m having a lot of trouble purchasing the developer edition. Can I buy the Windows version, wipe it, install Ubuntu, and have the same machine?
LikeLike
If you can post some details about what’s going wrong, maybe barton can help sort it out.
You can buy the Windows version, but it’s a little more expensive and doesn’t have the nice laser etched Ubuntu logo on the bottom. If you do choose to buy the Windows version, you will likely have the best result out of the box with Ubuntu 15.04 currently. This will change as more things get backported, but for now that’s the best result.
LikeLike
Well two separate issues:
1. I’m trying to use the EEP store to purchase the machine, but only the Windows version is available there.
2. I want the FHD: this isn’t available with the 256GB SSD on developer edition, but it is available with the 256GB SSD on Windows.
LikeLike
I found the same thing: with the FHD screen, you can’t get the i7 processor in any configuration. And you can get 256 GB only with Windows. The best Ubuntu config having FHD is i5 + 8 GB RAM + 128 GB SSD.
i5 + 8 GB RAM + 256 GB SSD is available for Windows but not for Linux.
If this config were available for Linux I would buy it. I can live with an i5 processor instead of i7, but I can’t live with only 128 GB storage.
Windows adds about $250 to the price for the same configuration as Linux.
It’s unfortunate that if you want the fast processor and big SSD you have to buy a QHD touch screen you don’t want or need, having shorter battery life.
LikeLike
Got my DE last week and really like it so far (installed dual boot win8.1 and ubuntu 15.04, worked alsmost flawlessly). However, I wanted to inquire about that “etched Ubuntu logo”? Wasn’t able to find it, only an ubuntu-sticker instead of the windows one 😉
LikeLike
@Philip, this time we didnt do any etching for any partners 🙂
LikeLike
This is great work. One question – Will ubuntu 14.04 “just work” on the older xps 13 and likewise, will this new xps 13 developer edition get an upgrade to the next ubuntu LTS (whatever that is)
LikeLike
I believe all of the fixes for the older XPS models should be in Ubuntu 14.04 by now. We’re pushing all of the fixes upstream for our products so you should be able to install the next LTS as well.
LikeLike
[…] Developer Edition is available immediately in North America and Europe. According to Dell’s announcement blog post, there is a wide variety of possible configurations available (visible on the XPS-13 Developer […]
LikeLike
[…] 有趣的是，戴尔还在官方博客中透露到，该公司与多个Linux发行版有过接触，并且在XPS 13上测试过了Fedora和Debian等Linux系统。 […]
LikeLike
[…] 有趣的是，戴尔还在官方博客中透露到，该公司与多个Linux发行版有过接触，并且在XPS 13上测试过了Fedora和Debian等Linux系统。 […]
LikeLike
[…] Developer Edition is available immediately in North America and Europe. According to Dell’s announcement blog post, there is a wide variety of possible configurations available (visible on the XPS-13 Developer […]
LikeLike
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/3.19.0-13.13
That one landed Ubuntu vivid-proposed few hours ago and fundamentally makes Ubuntu 15.04 work out-of-the-box!
LikeLike
[…] Vía | Ars Techica Más información | Dell […]
LikeLike
One huge question. Would that laptop support virtualization (intel vt-x instructions) ?
LikeLike
http://ark.intel.com/products/85212/Intel-Core-i5-5200U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-2_70-GHz and http://ark.intel.com/products/85214/Intel-Core-i7-5500U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_00-GHz both say yes 🙂
LikeLike
I know about CPU specs, but it seems that dell have some BIOS issues connected with that as well:
https://github.com/mpalourdio/xps13/issues/10
LikeLike
Does it support two external monitors? I know the previous XPS 13 had issues with this…
LikeLike
Olly, it won’t work with Ubuntu 14.04 factory image, but I believe you should be in pretty good shape for Display port MST to work in Ubuntu 15.04 or if you install the appropriate backport pieces:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/369946/displayport-1-2-mst-daisy-chain-dual-monitor-setup-intel-graphics/552094#552094
LikeLike
Already placed my order! Thanks for all your hard work!
Can you post instructions on how to apply the patches for the microphone?
LikeLike
Dariel Dato-on,
If you are running the factory image you won’t need to apply the patches. If running Ubuntu 15.04, I heard that the -proposed kernel just got them. By the time your machine shows up they should be in the standard -updates kernel.
If running something else, you’ll probably need to look more into how to build the kernel for your distro, generally it’s distro specific directions.
LikeLike
I’m sorry to raise this question again, but I’ve been struggling with this same question. I haven’t working microphone since I got the machine (first install of DE edition failed, I had no backup so I installed Linux Mint 17.1 from scratch).
I’ve tried to follow the instructions on “http://forthescience.org/blog/2015/03/20/installing_ubuntu_14_04_on_the_new_dell_xps_13/” (and am using Mint 17) to get the microphone working but that fix breaks the wifi and I was unable to get it working again.
Everyone’s advice is just to apply these patches, but I haven’t found a how-to on how to do that.
Apologies for what I’m sure are stupid questions.
LikeLike
[…] ha tardado más de lo esperado en lanzar estas ediciones con Ubuntu por algunos bugs, pero en un artículo publicado por uno de los responsables del proyecto se pueden encontrar sobre como actualizar la BIOS y […]
LikeLike
[…] ha tardado más de lo esperado en lanzar estas ediciones con Ubuntu por algunos bugs, pero en un artículo publicado por uno de los responsables del proyecto se pueden encontrar sobre como actualizar la BIOS y […]
LikeLike
[…] ha tardado más de lo esperado en lanzar estas ediciones con Ubuntu por algunos bugs, pero en un artículo publicado por uno de los responsables del proyecto se pueden encontrar sobre como actualizar la BIOS y […]
LikeLike
Got mine, and it’s sweeeet. It arrived faster than the original estimate, so have faith.
LikeLike
My order is in, waiting for shipping date confirmation. It’s good to be able to vote with my feet and order this – showing Dell that there is a demand.
LikeLike
[…] Barton George, Dell’s Director of Developer Programs, said in his announcement of the new Dell Linux developer XPS 13, “We do … recognize that users will want to use other Linux distributions, Ubuntu […]
LikeLike
[…] Edition’. Asimismo, quien esté interesado en este último, la información publicada en Barton’s Blog es esencial. Volveremos a hablar de este lanzamiento, […]
LikeLike
[…] configurations and a Ubuntu version of its beefier M3800 mobile workstation. The company is also providing clear instructions on how to load other Linux distributions, such as Fedora and […]
LikeLike
[…] configurations and a Ubuntu version of its beefier M3800 mobile workstation. The company is also providing clear instructions on how to load other Linux distributions, such as Fedora and […]
LikeLike
Got a XPS 13 2015 (9343-0521) with Windows 8.1 because of dualboot. Found a lot of software and so on for my device, but can’t find the A02 BIOS-Update on the Dell Support page. Also the dell Windows Update tool installs only the A01.
Can anyone post the right link for this XPS?
LikeLike
Were you able to get Ubuntu 14.04 up and running with no issues?
LikeLike
I tried only Ubuntu 15.04. It looks nice from Live USB. But I want it encrypted, so I used this tutorial: wiki.ubuntuusers.de/System_verschl%C3%BCsseln
But it boots always only in Windows after the install.
Tried also help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair, but still boots only in Windows, no Grub to select the OS.
Thats the reason for A02. Now i found the right link in Google, but still the same
LikeLike
I thought Ubuntu’s graphical installer supports encrypted stuff now.
LikeLike
Maybe A02 isn’t web posted anymore, but A03 is:
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=XY677&fileId=3444115068&osCode=WB64A&productCode=xps-13-9343-laptop&languageCode=EN&categoryId=BI
LikeLike
There is only a easy way to intall encrypted Ubuntu, if u dont want dual boot. So u have to use the full SSD for Ubuntu.
LikeLike
Congratz to the Sputnik Team and thanks to Barton (and Mario) for the continuous updates.
Does the keyboard ship with a Windows logo printed on the super key? I know, there are stickers, but a native key would have been a nice topping in terms of design.
Anyway, pulled the trigger rightaway 😉
LikeLike
[…] ha tardado más de lo esperado en lanzar estas ediciones con Ubuntu por algunos bugs, pero en un artículo publicado por uno de los responsables del proyecto se pueden encontrar sobre como actualizar la BIOS y […]
LikeLike
Really looking forward to getting that laptop! and congrats to the Sputnik Team on the success!!
I just have one question regarding the specs. Will we be able to get different specs for the nontouch version? For instance 256GB SSD? (The windows version offers it)
LikeLike
In the future I mean.
LikeLike
I’m one of those that couldn’t wait so I had already bought the XPS 13 when it was first release with Windows 8.1. Now I’m stuck trying to get my Fedora 21 working with sound. So far my touchpad works for the most part works well except the right click, but I can live with that for now. Audio and mic on the other hand I do need since I’m a frequent video conference user. The disclaimer is that I’m also a dual booter.
Now here’s my setup so far:
* bios A03
* dual boot Windows8.1/Fedora
* kernel 3.18.8-201.fc21.x86_64
* out of the box grub config (no tampering)
I see that your post above mentions the patches to get the mic working, but I don’t have audio working still with the current setup. Anything that I’m missing?
BTW. This is on a tangent, but kernel 3.19.3-200.fc21.x86_64 breaks my wifi. If I revert back to the working kernel above 3.18.8-201.fc21.x86_64, then wifi works again.
Thanks for all this effort you guys are putting in. I just hope that Dell as a company recognizes this important work and make it first class. I know a lot of Mac users that would jump ship in a heartbeat if they had a better alternative and I think this would be it plus the XPS 15. This is why I tend to stick with Dell, plus the beautiful infinity display that the industry had missed on all these years.
LikeLike
You need to cold boot twice between switching OS’s (both directions). It’s currently a limitation with how the hardware is configured.
LikeLike
Strangely enough I thought I’ve already tried that after reading another thread where you’ve suggested that.. But after getting your reply I checked my sound settings again and finally see speakers available for my sound output device. It’s working!
Now to work on compiling those patches for the mic and I’ve got a usable XPS 13 with Fedora that my colleagues can continue to be jealous about. =)
Thanks again!
LikeLike
[…] Edition’. Asimismo, quien esté interesado en este último, la información publicada en Barton’s Blog es esencial. Volveremos a hablar de este lanzamiento, […]
LikeLike
I’m one of those that couldn’t wait so I had already bought the XPS 13 when it was first release with Windows 8.1. Now I’m stuck trying to get my Fedora 21 working with sound. So far my touchpad works for the most part works well except the right click, but I can live with that for now. Audio and mic on the other hand I do need since I’m a frequent video conference user. The disclaimer is that I’m also a dual booter.
Now here’s my setup so far:
* bios A03
* dual boot Windows8.1/Fedora
* kernel 3.18.8-201.fc21.x86_64
* out of the box grub config (no tampering)
I see that your post above mentions the patches to get the mic working, but I don’t have audio working still with the current setup. Anything that I’m missing?
BTW. This is on a tangent, but kernel 3.19.3-200.fc21.x86_64 breaks my wifi. If I revert back to the working kernel above 3.18.8-201.fc21.x86_64, then wifi works again.
Thanks for all this effort you guys are putting in. I just hope that Dell as a company recognizes this important work and make it first class. I know a lot of Mac users that would jump ship in a heartbeat if they had a better alternative and I think this would be it plus the XPS 15. This is why I tend to stick with Dell, plus the beautiful infinity display that the industry had missed on all these years.
LikeLike
You need to cold boot twice between switching OS’s (both directions). It’s currently a limitation with how the hardware is configured.
LikeLike
It seems that “Developer Edition” is just a synonym for “Sans Windows”. There is nothing of importance to developers in comparison to the default edition. I mean, how come you label it a “developer edition” and yet I’m unable to choose my desired keyboard layout? I mean that is THE input modality for a developer and yet it sucks. Such a bummer. 😡
LikeLike
At least in Spain you can use the chat to order your custom keyboard through a sales agent, but it may doubles the delivery time…
LikeLike
I talked to a Dell employee through the support chat and he told me that it’s not an option.
LikeLike
So, if I live in Europe but not in mentioned countries, am I still able to buy XPS13DE and how?
Is there any different modifications in keyboard layouts?
cheers
LikeLike
Jimi,
What country do you live in?
thanks!
LikeLike
Hey, I live in Finland and I can’t find any information about that laptop in finnish Dell website.
thanks
LikeLike
Hi Jimi,
Let me look into this and get back to you! BTW what keyboard beyond Finnish are you able to utilize eg Swedish, English, or is it specifically a Finnish keyboard you are looking for?
thanks!
LikeLike
Hi Jimi,
I just heard back from our European team, here is what they said:
Finland is not a direct/online market.
So the way they order ANY system – is via regular sales rep offline.
And yes – it is possible. The rep needs to be instructed to change the OS into UBUNTU in our ordering system
HTH
LikeLike
[…] configurations and a Ubuntu version of its beefier M3800 mobile workstation. The company is also providing clear instructions on how to load other Linux distributions, such as Fedora and […]
LikeLike
Still not available in Australia 😦
LikeLike
Hi Martin,
I wish this werent the case, we have gotten a fair amount of interest from Australia but as I mentioned below, availability is determined by the country/region.
thanks
LikeLike
Any Idea when we can order from Australia? Can I get one posted from overseas??
LikeLike
Is there any way to buy this in Asia? I’m in South Korea. I guess I can send money to an American friend and get him to send it to me, but that’s not ideal.
LikeLike
Hi Karl,
Unfortunately the XPS 13 developer edition is not available in Asia at this time. Availability is determined by the regions themselves. Hopefully if we get enough demand they will reconsider.
thanks!
LikeLike
Hi Barton,
Thanks for taking your time providing answers here on your blog 🙂 I’m sure you have enough work already!
As for the region, I remember that Dell in China promoted Ubuntu in the past, so I thought that perhaps the developer editions would be available in China at least, but that is clearly not the case.
Meizu will launch an Ubuntu phone this year and Canonical have been pushing their brand there, too.
Regarding South Korea, however, I think Linux will take a very long time to catch on.
Anyway, thank you for letting me know. I’ll go ahead and order it in America and have it sent to me!
Regards,
Karl
LikeLike
that is very unfortunate, but I hope Dell can consider to try and sell it in Indonesia, since Indonesia have a very strong open source community, I am sure we can help to identify and solve your issues…
LikeLike
[…] Before we look at individual configurations, here’s a rundown of the general specifications: […]
LikeLike
[…] Before we look at individual configurations, here’s a rundown of the general specifications: […]
LikeLike
[…] Before we look at individual configurations, here’s a rundown of the general specifications: […]
LikeLike
Does the latest 4.0 kernel include the patches to make the mic work?
LikeLike
No, they’ll be in 4.1. Ubuntu 15.04 backported them early, Fedora can presumably do the same. I’ve shared the patches on the Fedora bug to be backported here:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1188741
Panos already built some RPM’s below that do this too.
LikeLike
I have uploaded RPMs for Fedora 21 that include the patches to make the microphone work. You can download them from:
https://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/plabrop/dell/x86_64/
I will be updating to 4.0 soon.
LikeLike
Thanks!
LikeLike
https://copr.fedoraproject.org/coprs/timhughes/kernel-xps13/ here is kernel 4.0.0 with the patches built for fedora 21 x86_64
LikeLike
https://copr.fedoraproject.org/coprs/timhughes/kernel-xps13/ I have made a build of kernel 4.0.0 for Fedora 21 x86_64 with the two patches to get the microphone working.
LikeLike
Tim,
Thanks for expanding the project 🙂
LikeLike
Tim, I am running your 4.0 Kernel, and have a working microphone (thanks), but modeset stuff seems amok. X is fine, but my TTY displays are flickering and not displaying correctly. If I revert to 3.19 Console TTY is fine again.
LikeLike
Tim, I am running your 4.0 Kernel, and have a working microphone (thanks), but modeset stuff seems amok. X is fine, but my TTY displays are flickering and not displaying correctly. If I revert to 3.19 kernel TTY is fine again.
LikeLike
Thanks!
But my XPS13 WiFi breaks with any kernel newer than 3.18.8-201.fc21.x86_64. Anyone know why that is?
LikeLike
Nevermind.
I got the broadcom wifi to work after a little digging by also install kernel-devel from https://copr.fedoraproject.org/coprs/timhughes/kernel-xps13/ and then running
akmods –force –kernel `uname -r` –akmod wl
and
modprobe wl
Now to see if this mic patch works =)
LikeLike
[…] versión de Ubuntu de su robusta estación de trabajo móvil M3800 . La compañía también está proporcionando instrucciones claras sobre cómo cargar otras distribuciones de Linux, como Fedora y […]
LikeLike
Will it be possible to get the factory ubuntu image you use for the Developer Edition? I already have the Windows edition and would like to install ubuntu on it.
LikeLike
Right now you’ll get the best results if you install Ubuntu 15.04. All of the patches for HW support are included in it.
This may change later, but it’s currently what we are recommending to people who bought the XPS before the DE was available and want a good experience.
Make sure that you follow the directions in this post to flash BIOS A03 first though.
LikeLike
True !
I have…
– wipped Win8.1
+ install 15.04 (before upgrade the BIOS originally A01)
+ install 4.0 “mainline”
+ add PPA repo from OIBAF (intel driver…)
+ upgrade BIOS via EFI (but the .EXE into the /boot and reboot…)
=…
sound, webcam work fine.
Wifi, not ! (I am using a usb3 dongle, MUCH faster!!!)
But be aware concerning HDPI… Firefox does’it with addon, google chrome doesn’t but chromium does it!
LikeLike
Hi Georges, I was waiting for this news to install Linux on my 9343 bought with Win 8.1. I have a question though : Which partitions scheme to use ? Do I have to keep the 2 restore partitions ? and the OEM one ? Please advice.
LikeLike
Hi Georges, could you possibly advice on the partition scheme to use ? My XPS came with Win 8.1 installled so I have 5 or 6 partitons. Should I keep the 2 restore partitions ? What to do with the OEM one ? Thanks for your answers.
LikeLike
I’d advice you don’t delete any of the OEM partitions if you plan to dual boot. Resize the largest partition from within Windows and then install Ubuntu 15.04 into the free space.
Keep in mind that sound will only work if you cold boot twice between OS’s.
LikeLike
Hi Mario thanks for your answer. I don’t plan to dua boot. So I wondered if I made a recovery disk from WIndows, can I at least delete the recovery ones ? I planned to keep the EFI and the OEM partitions and delete every other. Thoughts ? Do I have to cold boot twice even if I entirely delete Windows ?
LikeLike
@moulip,
If you aren’t planning to dual boot you can wipe all the partitions after you make a recovery disk.
If you entirely delete Windows once you have cold booted into Ubuntu twice in a row audio will work every other boot. It’s only when switching between Ubuntu and Windows that you will need to cold boot twice in the OS you switched to.
LikeLike
In the UK the Developer Editon was available but now (13/04):
This product is currently unavailable. Please find our recommendation for a comparable system below.
Is the only difference between the DE and Windows version the intel wifi-card. Unfortunately can’t specify an intel wifi card when ordering the Windows version.
Thanks.
LikeLike
@Kevin,
It looks like the Dev Edition is back on the UK site. Unfortunately it asks you to pick MS Office. I just sent to our European team to look into this.
thanks!
LikeLike
FYI.. the developer edition is not available on the business channel of the Belgian Dell Store.
It does show up on the home channel though.
LikeLike
Searching for ‘developer edition’ doesn’t yield any results either. It’s as if the linux version is a hidden easter egg on the Dell Store! Not an ideal way to promote your project 🙂
LikeLike
Hi Marc,
You should be available to find it by typing “developer.” Let me see if can also get it linked to “developer edition”
thanks!
LikeLike
Just to update you: Searching for “developer” on dell.ca still does not yield results that include the XPS 13 or any other laptop, for that matter. It yields other results, like software, a headset, some tape hardware, etc.
LikeLike
Hi Daniel AJ,
I spoke to the Canadian team and they are working on this as we speak 🙂
LikeLike
Hi,
tried to install ubuntu with the pre-installed windows – dualboot.
Got everytime a error while installing grub. So I tried the boot repair tool. Secure Boot is disabled.
It stops with the error “ESP-Locked”. So I’m not able to install and boot ubuntu in dualboot.
Any solution?
LikeLike
I hope that Dell decides to release the ISO. It seems very odd to sell a laptop with an open source OS on it and not make it available to people.
LikeLike
Hi, it looks like there was a regression in the 3.19.0-13 kernel, the latest version that’s supported by Ubuntu 15.04. Whereas before the in-build SD card reader was detected and could mount SD cards fine (kernel 3.16.0), the latest version does not. Unfortunately 3.16 is unusable for other reasons! Can anyone else reproduce this bug? Has it already been filed somewhere (I had a look but I couldn’t find anyone else reporting this issue).
Thanks!
LikeLike
I’m on A03. I just tried with an SDXC card and 3.19.0-13 and didn’t have troubles. It was exfat so I needed to install exfat-utils, first but that was it.
LikeLike
Ah that’s odd. My BIOS is also A03, and my SDCard is also exfat SDXC, but I installed the appropriate modules. And since it works when I boot into 3.16, I’m really scratching my head as to what’s going on! Thanks for having a look.
LikeLike
[…] Developer Edition is available immediately in North America and Europe. According to Dell’s announcement blog post, there is a wide variety of possible configurations available (visible on the XPS-13 Developer […]
LikeLike
The search on dell.ca is broken. I went to the website every day since Barton’s announcement and entered “Developer” in the search box. But the Developer Edition never shows up. Only now did I realize that the devices are actually offered, but hidden from the site’s own search. Blech.
LikeLike
Hi Daniel,
let me look into this. Thanks for the heads up!
LikeLike
Will Dell make the ISO available ?
LikeLike
Wish Dell AU would start selling this! Definitely interested
LikeLike
[…] versión de Ubuntu de su robusta estación de trabajo móvil M3800 . La compañía también está proporcionando instrucciones claras sobre cómo cargar otras distribuciones de Linux, como Fedora y […]
LikeLike
I just talked to a Dell representative in the Netherlands that told me the only available model is i7/8GB — 512GB, Touch TL QHD+ (3200×1800)
I want the mat screen, I don’t mind about the lower resolution (Glossy screen are for watching movies, not working, so tiring on the eyes).
So, the i5/8GB — 256GB, Touch TL FHD (1920×1080) is still not available, at least in the Netherlands.
LikeLike
Francois,
Let me look into this. The i5/8GB — 256GB, Touch TL FHD (1920×1080) should be avaliable in the Netherlands.
Thanks for the heads up.
LikeLike
As Paul Bivol already mentioned in an earlier comment, I thought all the FHD screens are *non* touch?
LikeLike
Hi Barton,
Any news if and when the i5/8GB — 256GB, Touch TL FHD (1920×1080) will be available in the Netherlands? I need a netbook asap and I’d be ready to order this model.
(Btw, 16GB would be an even better option).
Thanks for looking into this.
LikeLike
François: try searching the Dell website for CNX4313 or BNX4313
Seems that searching for specific E-value codes can sometimes get you a link to a product that you can’t otherwise find using the regular website.
LikeLike
Andrew,
yes, I found them. Thanks!
I looked at the differences between the CNX4313 and BNX4313 and it’s the keyboard layout. CNX4313 has US layout, perfect.
Any chance a 16GB version will be released soon by any chance?
LikeLike
Hi Francois,
At this time we dont have plans with this current version to add a 16GB version but who knows what the future holds 🙂
I have noted your preferred config and have added it to the list.
thanks for the feedback!
LikeLike
I agree and made this request on the XPS-13 forum. Barton forwarded it to the Dell team. I’ll be watching for these configurations to be released…
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/p/19628214/20753217#20753217
LikeLike
Uh oh. I made my developer edition order as soon as Dell’s website posted and, as reported by previous replies, the xps showed up earlier than originally estimated. Great news! What a way to start the weekend! I pulled it out yesterday, set up my user account, and the unit crashed on first install! After a reboot my user account appeared to be active and I could log in but the xps showed some tricky behavior. Black screen persisted after closing/opening the lid and it wouldn’t wake up from sleep mode. All in all not a very confidence-inspiring experience.
So I figured I’d reset. I restored to Dell factory settings successfully. Now on boot the initial Ubuntu…. screen appears briefly before the screen goes black. Ubuntu background music comes on, indicating the laptop is running along, but the screen is dead. Where do I go from here!?
I was really excited for this computer, love the idea of Project Sputnik, and felt strongly about ‘voting with my wallet’ for linux. But I’d have to say my initial experience has been really disappointing. I’d really appreciate some guidance on moving forward.
Thanks
LikeLike
Toby,
thanks for your support and Im really sorry for your experience.
Your best bet is to call Pro Support. If you run into any hassles please ping back.
thanks!
LikeLike
Question: is the Dell Adapter USB – HDMI/VGA (DA100) compatible with Linux?
I noticed that I was not given the choice to order this item, only the Sleeve was available together with the BT mouse & speaker and USB CD-drive.
(Belgian Store)
LikeLike
Nope.
http://bartongeorge.net/2015/02/23/update-2-dell-xps-13-laptop-developer-edition-sputnik-gen-4/#comment-91355
http://bartongeorge.net/2015/02/23/update-2-dell-xps-13-laptop-developer-edition-sputnik-gen-4/#comment-92284
LikeLike
Works under Debian testing. I have used the USB and ethernet ports quite a bit, with no issues at all. I have not tried HDMI or VGA
LikeLike
[…] http://bartongeorge.net/2015/04/09/4th-gen-dell-xps-13-developer-edition-available […]
LikeLike
First thanks to all the team for this. I am considering to buy the i5 QHD 256gb windows version (CNX4306) from danish dell and then reduce the partition to make room for linux mint. I was wondering if i could have some problem, wifi support in linux maybe?
LikeLike
@Andrea, Easy to reduce partition size in Windows. I personally then used a live Debian Jessie install, which worked fine. I use Linux more than Windows, but need both. There was fiddling to get the size of screen elements to suit me. I am amazed at what small sizes fonts can be and yet be very readable. This QHD screen produces incredibly readable text at font sizes that would be ridiculous on screens with less dots per inch, think of high quality printed text.
There are some issues with use of the touchpad, which sound like they will be fixed soon, but i’m a happy mouse user, so don’t care much. Very happy with my purchase.
if it was stolen tomorrow, I would simply buy another.
LikeLike
Oh, wifi works perfectly for me.
LikeLike
Hi Arthur, thanks for the reply. I eventually ended up going for the FHD i5 with ubuntu because of battery life, and because of my wallet too :).
I am so looking forward to receive it
Cheers
LikeLike
I am from Germany, but use the US-keyboard layout. I think Dell offered the US layout for the last version of the XPS13, so how about this one? Not being able to get the keyboard layout I use is a dealbreaker for me.
LikeLike
Barton, you suggested above that someone call pro support after experiencing some problems with the install; is that the only support available to us? (The regular chat asks for a service tag or an express service code).
I also had problems immediately upon install and would love the ability to restart from scratch if I had succeeded in creating live media during the install process…
LikeLike
Second the motion of midor regarding the US keyboard layout for German customers!
LikeLike
That one easy. Buy stickers for a buck or two on eBay and put them on the German keyboard. Everything else is software. German keyboards in North America would be more important because German keyboards have at least one extra key, which is crucial (or any other keyboard with more keys – I don’t care about what is printed on them. that can be fixed with cheap stickers. It could even be a cool version with blank keys.)
LikeLike
I wish it was that easy. The keys are still different, e.g. the left shift, backslash and enter keys. Just to be clear, this is the layout I am talking about (the United States layout): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_American_keyboards
vs the German one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_keyboard_layout
If it was just the printed characters, I wouldn’t care at all. You can send me a blank model too as long as it has the us-layout 😀
FYI, I have seriously considered buying a keyboard from China via ebay, but after reading the XPS’s ifixit teardown it seems like the worst possible component to replace and will probably void guarantee, because you basically have to take the entire thing apart.
LikeLike
I don’t understand. It is all done in software. As long as you have a sufficient number of keys, you can put any layout on it you want. Even Dvorak. 🙂 The problem is that US has less than German (or even the old UK English keyboard).
LikeLike
I just wondered what would take longer: to just buy another laptop with US keyboard layout and manually install Linux, or putting a whole set of key stickers on the XPS 13 with German layout :-).
LikeLike
Most keys are the same anyway. No need for stickers there. 🙂
I would offer to buy one in Canada and exchange the devices with you – but there are two issues: Shipping costs and warranty.
LikeLike
Question: does the XPS-13 developer edition run better with Ubuntu 15.04 than with the 14.04 it ships with?
LikeLike
You will have better touchpad support in the 15.04 version as it runs in a more advanced mode than is included in 14.04. Also more HiDPI support is in 15.04 than in the preloaded 14.04.
LikeLike
Is everything (wifi, sound, webcam, touchpad, suspend…) working perfectly with the shipped 14.04.1 out of the box?
LikeLike
Everything should be working in the factory shipped image. If you have any troubles, please contact prosupport.
LikeLike
I’ve just got one of these – really nice hardware! I’m in the UK.
Alas, the (Broadcom) wifi isn’t working out the box. I’ve no idea how to fix it. It lists access points, but when I connect to one it thinks it has connected but hasn’t actually. Can’t even ping the router.
I also occasionally get this error in a dialog:
“(1) Creating object for path ‘/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/1’ failed in libnm-glib.”
I’m really annoyed to be honest – this should just work out the box 😦
How can I fix it, or should I send it back and just get a Mac?
LikeLike
Obviously this shouldn’t be happening. Can you contact ProSupport and have them try to debug with you what’s going on?
LikeLike
Thanks! I didn’t have time to look at this more for two weeks, and now everything works fine. It might be because I made it update, and there’s a more recent version of the driver?
LikeLike
I have been trying to buy one of these in Austria since it was announced. But it seems to be impossible to get one with an English keyboard (what’s the point of a developer laptop without an English keyboard?). The best offer I got from a Dell rep was to buy the german version and then buy an English keyboard and swap it out myself, but was then told that replacement keyboards are not yet available. And of course this would be at my own risk.
I also spoke to a rep in Ireland who said they they couldn’t post an English XPS 13 to an address outside the UK. No sensible reason was given, just can’t be done.
I have been buying laptops from Apple in Europe for many years and never had a problem selecting an English keyboard at checkout. Even the X1 Carbon has this option (though no official Linux version).
I’m hoping that Dell fixes this soon, since at the moment the only option for a Unix based development laptop in Europe is Apple.
LikeLike
Is anybody else having trouble tracking the shipment?
I get an error: “The Order Number entered did not match the Customer Number”. It’ been like this for a couple of days.
LikeLike
Yup, I get exactly the same…
LikeLike
I got a new link from customer support:
http://wwxcom08.syncreon.com/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=utrack2_liv_brk/dell5.w?Cust_No=02xxxxxxx&Order_No=2xxxxxxx
The old one used to have the order number beginning with 02 as well but this one doesn’t.. It seems to work with both.
I hope this helps.
LikeLike
Hi there,
I have successfully installed Debian Jessie in dual boot on my XPS 13 which came with Win 8.1.
I have a remaining issue which is very annoying. When I switch from Windows to Debian, I have bluetooth working but no sound.
So I follow Barton’s advice to cold boot the laptop to get the sound card working. That does the trick perfectly, but when the sound is finallly back, I have no bluetooth anymore. I mean the bluetooth service is up but it can’t detect anything and my mouse is unable to connecte anymore.
It seems that it does not work under WIndows too until I cold boot to get the sound.
Do you have any thoughts on this ?
LikeLike
There is a piece of bluetooth firmware that you might be missing. Take a look here: http://tech.sybreon.com/2015/03/15/xps13-9343-ubuntu-linux/
He’s got some pretty good directions how to load it.
LikeLike
The instructions on that blog worked for me on Ubuntu 15.04 with BIOS A03. Bluetooth was not detecting anything but after installing the missing firmware, things are now working smoothly.
LikeLike
Has anyone tried and had success installing Mint 17 (which IS pretty much Ubuntu 14.04 with the desktop replaced) on this new XPS 13? I just convinced my company to buy this for me and while I CAN use Ubuntu, I far prefer Mint 17 with Cinnamon.
Thanks in advance!
LikeLike
I prefer Mint too. Just got by XPS 13 and was not brave enough to try to install Mint 17 as there are several things to do to get it working since it is based on a year old Ubuntu, and I figured the Sputnik team had done a better job than I would getting it working with Ubuntu 14.04. So I installed Cinnamon 2.4 (can google sites saying how to get latest Cinnamon for 14.04) and it worked great. Cinnamon automatically scaled up the font (I have qhd+ display) like was done in Unity. This seems to be a decent compromise.
My plan is to wait until Cinnamon 2.6 is out and someone ports to Ubuntu 15.04, then install both of those, since 15.04 is supposed to work out of the box on the XPS 13.
Just my two cents worth.
LikeLike
I am typing this from Linux Mint 17.1 (Rebecca) on my computer right now. An update on how it went for me:
(1) The wifi did not work at all upon install. If you have a usb wifi dongle then it would take just a few minutes to fix it, following the advice at this link http://forthescience.org/blog/2015/03/20/installing_ubuntu_14_04_on_the_new_dell_xps_13/
It’s actually a giant pain to do it without access to wifi.
(2) Adjusting the screen brightness using the function keys did not work at first. I fixed it using this advice http://askubuntu.com/questions/476664/cannot-change-backlight-brightness-ubuntu-14-04
It works beautifully now!
LikeLike
Hi Barton,
I decided to purchase a windows version of the xps13 because it had the hardware configuration that I preferred. I successfully installed Ubuntu with linux 3.16.0-36 and have it booting properly (uefi). I also got wifi working and most things seem ok. I have bios A03. However, I have run into 2 pretty serious issues:
1. Cannot adjust screen brightness. Keyboard keys are unresponsive.
2. When I close the lid, it does not wake up upon reopening. Requires a hard shutdown/restart.
Obviously both of these things could really affect battery performance.
My question… I still have time to return this to get the developer edition. Is that necessary? These quirks are pretty rough so I’m looking for advice.
Thanks,
Joe
LikeLike
It sounds like you are running 14.10. You should try out the 3.19 kernel from 15.04, or switch to 15.04. Both of these problems I’ve not seen in 15.04.
LikeLike
Just now seeing your reply Mario. Thanks for getting back to me. I ended up using fedora but you are right, I was running 14.10. Prob woulda solved my issues!
LikeLike
Just wanted to post a follow-up In case it might help out anyone else. I got fed up with Ubuntu so decided to give Fedora 21 a try. It is so much better. The install partitioning gets the boot disk right automatically, no issues with suspend/hibernation, brightness keys work, everything is great. Also, I’m personally a big fan of gnome. Since Wi-Fi won’t work at first, I recommend buying this:
Then add the rpmfusion non-free repo, and ‘yum install broadcom-wl’. From there your Wi-Fi will work and you won’t need the adapter. You can then run yum update, get your system up to date, and Viola. Super easy.
There are still some quirks with the touchpad but will hopefully get worked out with future updates. That’s my only complaint, but it is still usable.
LikeLike
Barton, you hard work (here and more so elsewhere) is working well for Dell. 🙂 I’ve ordered my device today, plus some accessories – even though you can’t deliver a French Canadian keyboard in Canada, which is sad. I’ll try to make it work. But first I have to wait for more than three weeks. The New XPS 13 seem to be in great demand!
LikeLike
Just received mine today and almost all works fine. One issue I have is with the touchpad. Occasionally it freezes and a couple of seconds later it’s fine. dmesg shows this every time I see the glitch:
[ 1451.101592] psmouse serio1: TouchPad at isa0060/serio1/input0 lost sync at byte 4
[ 1451.102691] psmouse serio1: TouchPad at isa0060/serio1/input0 lost sync at byte 1
[ 1451.113598] psmouse serio1: TouchPad at isa0060/serio1/input0 – driver resynced.
Is this a known issue?
I have A03 bios version with the factory Ubuntu (kernel 3.13.0-37-generic)
LikeLike
I had the same thing when I got mine today. I just installed Ubuntu 15.04 instead, and everything works. I did have to manually fix the EFI boot though, it only seems to recognize the fallback bootloader.
Solution: https://wiki.debian.org/GrubEFIReinstall#Problem1:_Weak_EFI_implementation_only_recognizes_the_fallback_bootloader
LikeLike
it seems to be fully functional with 15.04. No issues. Thanks
LikeLike
There’s an issue with some DE units. We have a fix in development right now that will be added to APT as soon as it’s confirmed. For a workaround:
Add to your kernel command line psmouse.resetafter=0.
If you call up prosupport they’ll share an early version of the in development fix too.
LikeLike
I see, thanks for answering.
I’m quite happy with 15.04 at the moment. The only thing that’s not working is pairing a bluetooth smart mouse. But that’s not so bad.
LikeLike
Ubuntu does not have bluetooth smart support. Bluez 5(linux BT stack) or above does but ubuntu did not update that package. Tested with debian 8 and fedora 22 and works fine.
I couldn’t find instructions on how to install bluez 5 on ubuntu. Apparently it’s not backwards compatible and some packages still depend on the old version.
LikeLike
What exactly is Pro Support? Couln’t you share this fix just in public?
LikeLike
Is there going to be a fix for the brightness? I guess it’s CABC, but at full brightness on the FHD screen I can barely see dark scenes in a room with windows open. God knows how I’d see anything outside.
LikeLike
Really appreciate all the work that you’ve put into this. The key debounce issue is hitting me hard though – the spacebar and “c” keys are constantly registering double presses, I spend more time backspacing than typing. Any idea on a BIOS update for this?
Here’s a report with a bunch of people afffected: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19626873
I’m on BIOS A03, kernel 3.19, Ubuntu 15.04.
LikeLike
I did just find a workaround. In Ubuntu under Settings -> Universal Access, turn on the “Bounce Keys” filter, and play around with the delay until you stop getting duplicate keypresses. Works like a charm now.
LikeLike
One more field report from my initial setup experience: during first boot, I checked the “Create restore media” option and connected a USB drive. At the point in the installer where it tried to create the restore image, the entire installer crashed and the machine rebooted. The system that came up was half-broken. I mostly fixed it with apt-get install -f, but it was still somewhat quirky and I ended up doing a clean install of 15.04 instead.
LikeLike
I came across exactly the same issue during install:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1450490
OTOH, I’ve not noticed any repeated-keys problems yet… (although with only having received it yesterday, I haven’t done much typing with it yet!).
Had a couple of times where the laptop locked up after closing and opening the lid, so I had to long-press on the power button to force-power-off the laptop. There’s been other times where lid open-and-close has worked fine though. Found that if you look at the right-hand USB port, you can see the light from the power-button LED, which is a good way to tell whether it has properly suspended or not.
I occasionally get the temporary-touchpad-freeze problem too, but it ‘comes alive’ again shortly afterwards.
Still running the supplied 14.04 with all software updates applied (so kernel 3.13.0-51-generic). I’ve checked that BIOS A03 is installed, but haven’t modified any BIOS settings. As mentioned elsewhere, I went for the i5 FHD model (purchased in UK).
Anyone got any ideas why apt-get tells me there’s a whole bunch of mingw packages that can be auto-removed? Is it advisable to do so?
Made me chuckle that the “quick start guide” leaflet provided with the laptop has a section about getting to know Windows.
But on the whole I’m very impressed with the whole thing – congratulations to Barton and the Sputnik team 😀
LikeLike
There’s a mistake in the factory causing the recovery crash. It’s been fixed in the APT updates. Hold off to make your recovery media until you do the updates.
As for the mouse, it seems that some developer systems have a problem with the touchpad still in PS2 mode. For now you can apply psmouse.resetafter=0 to your kernel command line and it will be fixed. We have a better fix in development, but it hasn’t yet gone out.
You can remove the extra mingw packages, they’re not needed after install is done.
LikeLike
Thanks Mario.
After adding that extra cmdline option I’ve not noticed the touchpad ‘freezing’ any more, but it does still sometimes jump to a random corner of the screen unexpectedly. All part of the same problem?
And I’m still getting occasional crashes on suspend, i.e. I close the lid, wait a while, and the power light stays on. I re-open the lid and the screen stays off, the keyboard lights up when I touch it, but nothing else happens. I have to long-press on the power button to force a hard-power-off, and then boot it up again from cold. Sometimes suspend does work, other times it doesn’t, and I’ve not spotted any pattern yet. When suspend does work, the power light (as seen through the right-hand USB port) goes off within a couple of seconds.
Is a fix for this (for 14.04 – I’d prefer to stick with the LTS release) being worked on? Is there a bug report I can track progress / provide feedback on?
My current kernel version (from apt-get upgrade) is 3.13.0-52-generic
LikeLike
I received my XPS13 DE today and got the same issue with the touchpad. The psmouse.reset workaround is ok, but disables palm detection as well. So I am looking forward for another method.
LikeLike
I don’t think there is a public bug that it’s being tracked, but a knowledge base article will be published with the updated fix (and also distributed via APT). We’re in the process of Q/A on it right now.
LikeLike
Great, thanks a lot for all of the effort. We really have to call you Super Mario 😉
It would be great if you could link the kb article as soon as it’s available.
LikeLike
Since I bought this XPS, I’ve encountered some problems (crash during setup, dist upgrade fails to install ubuntu 14.10 kernel during dist upgrade, dell USB to HDMI adapter does not work, windows that does not keep the size after a mouse resize) or questions (touchpad multi-gestures works only with 2 fingers, that’s right?).
It should be great if there was a official wiki and a FAQ, because for now information is spread in this blog, the dell OS forum and askubuntu and it’s hard to get a status on what is really working and what is still in progress.
By the way, I’m happy with this machine. Thanks to the team to bring us a desktop with linux pre-installed.
LikeLike
Hi,
today i got my Dell XPS 13 w/ i5/8/256.
I read the updated blog:
“Ubuntu 15.04
Ubuntu 15.04 includes kernel 3.19.
With BIOS A00 or BIOS A01 the touchpad will run in I2C mode and the sound will not function. Please update to at least BIOS A02 and the touchpad will run in I2C mode and the sound in HDA mode. (4/15) All of the relevant patches have been backported and all functions will work out of the box.”
Happily installed Ubuntu Mate 15.04. And found out, that most things are working out of the box, but WIFI doesn’t!
It sees only two SSID in the area (one of them being my Mobile Hotspot)
All other SSIDs are not available on the XPS13 and i can’t figure out why.
Bluetooth is available, allthough i couldn’t pair any device i tried.
Also one minor flaw.. i configured to enter the password at login. So after 10 Minutes the Screen Saver should be activated. But it looks like the screen will never blank and always shows the actual content.
When i move the mouse (after 10 mins of inactivity) the “enter password dialogue” appears..
A little bit disappointed that _not_ everything will work out of the box..
Now starting the hunt for the fix!
Cheers,
CereS
LikeLike
replying myself 🙂
wasn’t able to fix the broadcom problem..
But found a workaround:
My Router was configured to use G&N Networks w/ 2.4GHz Band.
After chaning it to A&N w/ 5 GHz Band, the driver is capable of seeing it again and it works for now.
Sadly my wireless printer needs to use A now, but thats a small price to pay..
Best,
CereS
LikeLike
Hey, is there a way to get the function-keys also after standby to work in Ubuntu 15.04? All the Fn+Fx key not working after standby. So I have always to reboot.
LikeLike
Same problem after stand-by here.
LikeLike
What the hell is wrong with Dells pricing policy. The prices increased 2 times in the last few weeks and now the Ubuntu version is only 22 euro cheaper than the Windows one. Thats just wrong!
LikeLike
Jusic,
I apologize for this, my guess is this would be glitch rather an intentional move but I will need to investigate. What country are you seeing this in?
thanks for letting us know.
LikeLike
Hi Barton,
How can we ask questions or fill bug tickets? There a lot of unanswered question on dell community forum and as I already said, it’s hard to follow advancement.
LikeLike
Hi Barton, thanks for looking into this. In germany the BNX4313 is listed for 1.177 Euro and the CNX4309 for 1.199 Euro.
LikeLike
Hi Domak,
We are putting together a knowledge base to catch and track all issues. It will be on TechCenter http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613 but I can post here as well.
thanks
LikeLike
Wow! XPS13 in Spain just got more expensive, a price increase 90€ since last month… What just happened?!
LikeLike
One thing I have noticed concerning the Backup Media Creator. I have updated it to the latest version and never launched it before. I have then selected to create the ISO only, but it fails without an error message (at least in the UI). There is a file in my Downloads folder which is 0Byte now. Running the USB mode works fine, though.
LikeLike
Just run a regular Ubuntu update and there will be a newer version of this application included. I had the same issue and the update resolved it.
LikeLike
I had many of the same problems mentioned above, crash on install, useless trackpad. Following the suggestions above I was eventually able to get to 15.04 and everything is working for me now.
I am not experiencing any issues.
Trackpad works fine.
Function keys after standby works fine.
Standby after idle works fine.
Wireless networking works fine, though I don’t have a G/N to test with.
I wish the road had been a little smoother, but in the end I’m very happy with my new laptop. Thanks Barton, Mario and rest of the Sputnik team.
LikeLike
Did you dist-upgrade or reinstall from scratch? I’ve tryied to upgrade and the upgrade process was not able to install the kernel from 14.10 (intermediary step before upgrading to 15.04). I’m not alone in this case: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/p/19629675/20757806
LikeLike
I answered in that thread, coping the answer.
Hey, I also ran into issues when doing the upgrade to 15.04 (via 14.10).
What I figured out is this:
dkms doesn’t allow for the new kernel to be installed correctly.
After rebooting several times, you get a grub menu. Chose the 3.13 kernel and boot with that.
Remove the broken kernels:
dpkg -l | grep linux-image
shows you which kernels you have.
Remove all but the 3.13 with:
sudo apt-get remove linux-image-3.19.0-16-generic linux-image-extra-3.16.0-37-generic
update grub:
sudo update-grub
Now you will boot fine again.
However, you are still on the old kernel and everytime you run upgrade, it will break again:
sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Calculating upgrade… The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
linux-headers-generic thermald
Use ‘apt-get autoremove’ to remove them.
Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
linux-image-extra-3.16.0-37-generic linux-image-extra-3.19.0-16-generic
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
3 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 318 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database … 239140 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing linux-image-extra-3.16.0-37-generic (3.16.0-37.51) …
depmod: FATAL: could not load /boot/System.map-3.16.0-37-generic: No such file or directory
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/apt-auto-removal 3.16.0-37-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-37-generic
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/dkms 3.16.0-37-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-37-generic
Error! Your kernel headers for kernel 3.16.0-37-generic cannot be found.
Please install the linux-headers-3.16.0-37-generic package,
or use the –kernelsourcedir option to tell DKMS where it’s located
Error! The dkms.conf for this module includes a BUILD_EXCLUSIVE directive which
does not match this kernel/arch. This indicates that it should not be built.
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools 3.16.0-37-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-37-generic
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-37-generic
grep: /boot/config-3.16.0-37-generic: No such file or directory
WARNING: missing /lib/modules/3.16.0-37-generic
Device driver support needs thus be built-in linux image!
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/3.16.0-37-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
E: /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/casper-memdisk failed with return 1.
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-37-generic with 1.
run-parts: /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools exited with return code 1
dpkg: error processing package linux-image-extra-3.16.0-37-generic (–remove):
subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1
Removing linux-image-extra-3.19.0-16-generic (3.19.0-16.16) …
depmod: FATAL: could not load /boot/System.map-3.19.0-16-generic: No such file or directory
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/apt-auto-removal 3.19.0-16-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.19.0-16-generic
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/dkms 3.19.0-16-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.19.0-16-generic
Error! The dkms.conf for this module includes a BUILD_EXCLUSIVE directive which
does not match this kernel/arch. This indicates that it should not be built.
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools 3.19.0-16-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.19.0-16-generic
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.19.0-16-generic
grep: /boot/config-3.19.0-16-generic: No such file or directory
E: /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/casper-memdisk failed with return 1.
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-3.19.0-16-generic with 1.
run-parts: /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools exited with return code 1
dpkg: error processing package linux-image-extra-3.19.0-16-generic (–remove):
subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
linux-image-extra-3.16.0-37-generic
linux-image-extra-3.19.0-16-generic
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
As far as i understand, there are dkms modules that don’t work with the newer kernels.
Any ideas on how to fix that?
LikeLike
Hey, I also ran into issues when doing the upgrade to 15.04 (via 14.10).
What I figured out is this:
dkms doesn’t allow for the new kernel to be installed correctly.
After rebooting several times, you get a grub menu. Chose the 3.13 kernel and boot with that.
Remove the broken kernels:
dpkg -l | grep linux-image
shows you which kernels you have.
Remove all but the 3.13 with:
sudo apt-get remove linux-image-3.19.0-16-generic linux-image-extra-3.16.0-37-generic
update grub:
sudo update-grub
Now you will boot fine again.
However, you are still on the old kernel and everytime you run upgrade, it will break again:
sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Calculating upgrade… The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
linux-headers-generic thermald
Use ‘apt-get autoremove’ to remove them.
Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
linux-image-extra-3.16.0-37-generic linux-image-extra-3.19.0-16-generic
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
3 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 318 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database … 239140 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing linux-image-extra-3.16.0-37-generic (3.16.0-37.51) …
depmod: FATAL: could not load /boot/System.map-3.16.0-37-generic: No such file or directory
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/apt-auto-removal 3.16.0-37-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-37-generic
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/dkms 3.16.0-37-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-37-generic
Error! Your kernel headers for kernel 3.16.0-37-generic cannot be found.
Please install the linux-headers-3.16.0-37-generic package,
or use the –kernelsourcedir option to tell DKMS where it’s located
Error! The dkms.conf for this module includes a BUILD_EXCLUSIVE directive which
does not match this kernel/arch. This indicates that it should not be built.
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools 3.16.0-37-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-37-generic
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-37-generic
grep: /boot/config-3.16.0-37-generic: No such file or directory
WARNING: missing /lib/modules/3.16.0-37-generic
Device driver support needs thus be built-in linux image!
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/3.16.0-37-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
E: /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/casper-memdisk failed with return 1.
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-37-generic with 1.
run-parts: /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools exited with return code 1
dpkg: error processing package linux-image-extra-3.16.0-37-generic (–remove):
subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1
Removing linux-image-extra-3.19.0-16-generic (3.19.0-16.16) …
depmod: FATAL: could not load /boot/System.map-3.19.0-16-generic: No such file or directory
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/apt-auto-removal 3.19.0-16-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.19.0-16-generic
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/dkms 3.19.0-16-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.19.0-16-generic
Error! The dkms.conf for this module includes a BUILD_EXCLUSIVE directive which
does not match this kernel/arch. This indicates that it should not be built.
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools 3.19.0-16-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.19.0-16-generic
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.19.0-16-generic
grep: /boot/config-3.19.0-16-generic: No such file or directory
E: /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/casper-memdisk failed with return 1.
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-3.19.0-16-generic with 1.
run-parts: /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools exited with return code 1
dpkg: error processing package linux-image-extra-3.19.0-16-generic (–remove):
subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
linux-image-extra-3.16.0-37-generic
linux-image-extra-3.19.0-16-generic
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
As far as i understand, there are dkms modules that don’t work with the newer kernels.
Any ideas on how to fix that?
LikeLike
Sorry for the delayed response, haven’t been following this closely.
In the end I installed 15.04 from scratch. However, I had many missteps and frustrations along the way. I wish I had documented all the steps, but after a few hours I ended up in flailing mode and stopped keeping track. I do remember one step that seemed like it might have been a eureka moment.
During the fresh 15.04 install, when it asks about updates and needs to have a network connection the wifi wasn’t working, resulting in a failed install. On the final/successful attempt I walked away from the install at that point and when I got back to it it had got the wifi working. So I would recommend giving it some time at that point in the install and make sure you have a network connection to get updates during the install.
Hope that helps, sorry for being a poor documenter.
LikeLike
How dark is the screen of the matte 1920×1080 XPS 13 developer edition supposed to be? I set the screen brightness in Ubuntu to max and the screen is quite a bit darker than my matte Samsung Series 9 screen from 2012, just barely okay in a bright office.
Is this an issue with the German version of the XPS 13 (there are reports it has a darker panel) or is this an Ubuntu issue?
LikeLike
After some more testing it seems that the screen automatically dims when showing dark areas on screen and brightens when bright content is shown.
This is ridiculous. I need to write code and my IDE has a dark background, so the screen gets even darker when I open it. I don’t need my screen to be second-guessing me as to how bright I want it, and I’m certainly not watching a movie!
This should really be addressed in the next firmware update as there is no way to control it in software.
LikeLike
I read somewhere you can turn this off in BIOS?
LikeLike
Any solution for not working FN keys after a standby at Ubuntu 15.04?
LikeLike
Received my XPS13 today and really cant wrap my head around why there is a crappy Broadcom 4352 wlan chip inside instead of the Intel 7265. The latter one sells on Amazon for less than 30€, so the price difference should be minimal. Instead the Broadcom requires the proprietary wl driver which is rather crappy and at the moment seems to require patching to work with 4.0. So I would be _really_ curious who made the decision to ship Linux devices with this hardware config?
LikeLike
I swapped mine with an Intel 7265. It does seem to be slower though… The speed drops suddenly quite often. I’m not sure if it’s the card or some other issue. It might have nothing to do with the card. I’ll keep it for a while to test it out.
LikeLike
I would recommend installing 15.04 from scratch – everything worked fine out of the box – no wifi issues, no function key / standby problems. The one caveat is in my previous comment, where I had to reboot into the install CD after install and fix up the EFI boot partition. It’s an easy fix though, hopefully a future BIOS update works a bit better with non-fallback bootloaders.
(I am still experiencing the keyboard debouncing issue, but that also seems to be a BIOS issue and not kernel-specific.)
LikeLike
I replaced my 256GB SSD with a 512GB, and then installed Ubuntu 15.04. I now don’t have a working wifi. It definitely was working in the pre-installed 14.04 installation. I haven’t traced the problem yet.
Unfortunately, Dell technical support was unaware that the SSD was a M.2, and twice shipped me a 2.5 inch SSD, even after I told Dell that I needed M.2. Local stores were more helpful.
LikeLike
This should help: http://askubuntu.com/questions/608173/wifi-broadcom-bcm4352-not-recognized-after-fresh-install/608188#608188
I experienced the same – the Broadcom wifi driver (therefore WLAN worked OOTB) worked well under the Ubuntu Gnome 15.04 LiveDVD, but after installation I wasn’t able to active the driver in the settings.
LikeLike
Thanks, sojusnik. I was able to enable Broadcom, and then wifi came back on.
LikeLike
Hey folks, I’ve created a public project on Github to collect all issues with running Linux on the XPS 13. Please post your issues there.
https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux
LikeLike
Hey folks, I’ve created a public project on Github to collect all issues with running Linux on the XPS 13. Please post your issues there.
github.com slash advancingu slash XPS13Linux
LikeLike
FYI, here’s a custom Arch kernel I’m using for the XPS 13 with the sound/mic and various other patches:
https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/linux-xps13-alt/
LikeLike
Here’s my current custom Arch kernel for the XPS 13 2015. This includes the mic/sound patches as well as a couple sata link power patches from MJG and a PSR patch.
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/linux-xps13-alt/
LikeLike
Canadian site has no price, can’t buy…
http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xps-13-linux
LikeLike
Thanks for the heads up! let me send this to the Canadian team.
LikeLike
Try this for Canada:
http://www.dell.com/ca/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd
LikeLike
Hi Nooey,
Just heard back from the Canadian team. The correct link is http://www.dell.com/ca/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd
That being said, can you tell us where the link was originally found sound so we can correct on our end.
LikeLike
Hi Barton,
The Canadian website says the product is currently unavailable. Do you know if we can expect it to be for sale soon or is the series discontinued already?
LikeLike
Hi Sebastian,
The series is definitely not discontinued, it is however on temporary pause to fix a few things: http://bartongeorge.net/2015/07/20/xps-13-developer-edition-on-pause/ We are working to get the system back on line asap.
thanks!
LikeLike
Has anyone tried running the OEM Ubuntu 14.04, with a 3.19 kernel?
If the 3.19 kernel is what we need to run the touchpad in i2c mode and for smooth keyboard response, this would seem to do the job without a complete reinstall of Ubuntu 15.04.
LikeLike
I am running Ubuntu 14.04 with kernel 3.19 on my desktop, works fine. So I know it can be done … question is whether this is a good way to run the XPS-13.
If so, one can run the XPS-13 as-is delivered by Dell, without wiping or re-installing, just switch to kernel 3.19 to get the touchpad in i2c mode for improved touchpad, keyboard & sound.
LikeLike
Any comment on this adaptive contrast thing?
http://tylerwatt12.com/dc/
In my opinion it makes it very hard to read text on dark backgrounds, which is usually a pretty popular case for terminal use and code writing.
LikeLike
Hi Barton and all his readers,
I purchased the XPS 13 in April 2015 with the Dell Ubuntu 14.05 on it from the factory. It came with the A02 bios by default and I’m experiencing two problems:
1) The computer freezes completely every day or so. A reset is the only option.
2) Although the sound works, it sounds distorted (like a burnt/overdriven speaker) when a sound plays. If I listen to music, only the first seconds are distorted.
As an important note, I’m running vmware player for my windows APPS (ms office). The computer crashes even when vmware is off and the sound sounds as terrible under windows.
Does anybody else have the same issues?
Any ideas would be welcome?
Martin
LikeLike
The Dell technician came by the other day. They replaced the motherboard and my problems are gone now…
LikeLike
Hi,
I have the high-resolution touch-screen version and I must say that I find text to be generally hard to read on the screen. At least on white background. It feels “foggy” and almost out of focus. Anyone else feels this way?
A bit sad when I paid nearly $2000 for it..
I also own the 3rd generation XPS 13 developer edition, and I find it much easier to read on.
I am affected by the adaptive contrast thing ( http://tylerwatt12.com/dc/ ), so perhaps it is related? Hopefully it is something that can be fixed in a bios update.
LikeLike
Due to too much hassle for getting the correct keyboard, I had to buy the normal XPS where I will then install Ubuntu. That’s of course skewing the statistics about how many developer versions are sold. Is there a way to correct the stats with a +1?
LikeLike
Dell still refuse to sell these in EU with English keyboards (outside UK), does anyone know any UK resellers who will ship within the EU? I tried a few UK resellers, but no luck so far.
LikeLike
If you find one, give me heads up, will you? Thanks!
I’m still wondering if there will be an option offered by Dell to choose the keyboard in the near future, though.
LikeLike
B52 and Garth,
As i mentioned in another reply: Although online no configs changes can be made, an English keyboard should be possible to order offline (via chat or on the phone).
Let me know if this doesnt work.
thanks!
LikeLike
Hi Barton,
I got this response via twitter this morning: “unfortunately there is no sales phone and sales chat available in Austria”.
Though I spoke to a Dell rep in Ireland a couple of weeks back, who said it’s not possible.
I’m still investigating reseller options, but almost all don’t sell the Ubuntu version.
Garth.
LikeLike
Latest feedback from dell:
LikeLike
Hi Garth,
I was just IM’ing with Florian who you’ve been in contact with. We are trying to make this happen, fingers crossed 🙂
Thanks for your patience
LikeLike
Hi Barton,
Thanks for you help, I really appreciate it. Hoping it works out.
Garth.
LikeLike
My pleasure Garth.
Iv just been on a thread and the whole European team is scheming to make this happen! (fingers crossed)
LikeLike
Any news on this front?
LikeLike
Nothing yet, still waiting.
LikeLike
Dell’s Austrian website just added a US keyboard option, which is unfortunately incompatible with the the palm reset (should be UK/Ireland ISO keyboard), so the configuration tool breaks and you can’t place the order.
Doesn’t seem like anyone at Dell tested the setup.
On the positive side an Austrian/German reseller (http://www.acp.at) has just sent me an offer for an XPS13 with a UK layout and it’s a few euros cheaper than buying direct from Dell, so almost there.
LikeLike
Still no option on the German Dell Shop to choose a keyboard layout.
@Garth: Thanks for the heads up. Mind telling me how I could reach out to acp.at and get the same offer?
LikeLike
@b52, I just send the contact details to your email.
Garth.
LikeLike
Finally arrived… 2.5 months after first attempt to order. Hardware support is obviously still in early stages, but hopefully will improve over time.
LikeLike
Finally, the Dell shop provides means to choose the desired keyboard layout. However, once I select “USA/International” the shop tells me “The selection – MUI Etikett für Handauflage is incompatible with Tastatur” whatever that means. Any ideas why it’s not possible to choose the layout?
LikeLike
b52, you should be able to get a US keyboard by contacting sales vs via the web. Have you tried this route yet?
thanks!
LikeLike
[…] It seams the microphone doesn’t work out of the box on the XPS 13 “Developer Edition”. Worse, you’ll actually need to re-compile your kernel to make it work… at least the patches are easy to find thanks to Dell’s “Project Sputnik” leader Barton George: […]
LikeLike
I have noticed that the recovery image does not contain the broadcom-wl driver.
LikeLike
Dear Barton,
what about Dell’s “DA100” 4-in-1 adapter (Ethernet, VGA, HDMI, USB)? Any experience on whether it works flawlessly on the new XPS13 using Ubuntu?
Thanks a lot,
Jan
LikeLike
It has been previously posted that the chipset is not compatible with Linux
LikeLike
The DA100 worked for me out of the box, no drivers needed. Ethernet and USB, that is. I am unable to test the graphics ports because all my monitors are DVI or DP.
LikeLike
Thanks for the reminder, salenwangben! However, the functions Ethernet and USB seem to work (e.g., according to Daniel AJ’s post below), that is, it is obviously not 100% incompatible with Linux.
@Barton
Is there any chance that the partial incompatiblity of the DA100 und Linux (regarding the display stuff) can and will be mitigated one or the other day? Or is this neither a driver nor firmware issue and cannot be fixed on a software level?
If not fixable, are there other adapters I could use to link my XPS 13 via Displayport to, for example, VGA or HDMI? Any you know of?
Thanks a lot Barton! The effort of you and your team is much appreciated!
Regards,
Jan
LikeLike
I recently bought one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/BlueRigger-Premium-DisplayPort-Female-Adaptor/dp/B005QRA5IY
Works totally fine out of the box (plug&play) to connect my XPS13DE to my HDMI monitor.
LikeLike
@Barton: I notice a strange electric noise when the FHD model is fully charged, connected to AC and the keyboard backlight is turned on. It originates from the top left edge of the bottom part. It is not present when the Dell logo shows on boot but right afterwards and then all the time. Goes away when you turn off keyboard backlight or disconnect the wall charger. Is this a hardware or a BIOS bug?
LikeLike
Why does Dell sell 512GB SSDs for Windows, but not for Ubuntu? When I tried to buy a 512 GB SSD, Dell shipped me a 2.5 ” form factor. Then, to correct the problem, they sent me another 2.5 ” form factor, which also didn’t work, even though Dell tech support agreed that M.2 is required.
Unfortunately, Dell tech support is lacking in technical knowledge. I’m hoping that Dell will add the M.2 info on the XPS 13 spec sheet, so that the spec sheet has specifications.
LikeLike
So I just received my XPS13 DE on Saturday and color me unimpressed and frustrated. I have the character sticking issue, the jumpy trackpad that pauses frequently, no palm detection, etc. It’s basically unusable and it took all of my restraint just to not throw it across the room. It’s a complete, 100% turn-around from my experience with the 2013 XPS DE.
Dell support was absolutely no help. Once they figured out this was factory-installed linux, I was told I would have to speak to an escalation team, who would call me back on Wednesday. Right- 72+ hours later.
BIOS is A03 from the factory- problems were persistent regardless of the settings I changed. I wiped the machine after making a restore disk, but the restore disk didn’t work and I had to install the bog-standard 15.04 Ubuntu release. This release solves the trackpad issues and keyboard sticking issues, but palm rejection still doesn’t work. It also seems the factory image has some nice high-DPI settings enabled (beyond the display scaling option), but since I cannot locate a factory image (which isn’t available on Dell’s support site), I can’t find out what those settings are.
I’m about to return the machine. Someone please convince me not to.
LikeLike
I followed the hints here and am so far quite happy: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(2015)
LikeLike
Thanks for the link to the arch wiki. I have always found that helpful. However, I still would like to get a hold of the factory ubuntu image for this machine, as it has a few tweaks that aren’t set in the standard image available from Canonical.
LikeLike
Sorry to hear about the bad experience here. Barton should be able to escalate about the support issue. They’ll be the ones that can get you a factory ISO.
The 14.04 touchpad issue is still plaguing some units. A fix is available here: http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/SLN297219/en
Barton will be circulating that more widely in the future.
LikeLike
Is the factory ISO available for download somewhere?
LikeLike
Mario- thanks for the link to the trackpad fix. My distro of choice is Mint, which keeps to Ubuntu’s LTS releases, so it’s a bit behind on kernel fixes. This touchpad fix should allow me to use that distro.
On another note, it appears that even the highest-spec DEs are still shipping with the Dell/Broadcom wireless card. My machine is the i7/512GB spec and still came with this card. I’ve ordered the Intel M.2 card, which should be delivered today, as I could not connect to the 5ghz network in my house (which I’ve experienced with Broadcrap wireless in the past).
Thanks again for your help.
LikeLike
For my part, installing this patch has worsen things: jumpiness is more present and I lost the right click. See http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/f/3525/t/19631683
LikeLike
My experience:
When I received my 9343 (A.03), I instantly repartitioned the disc, activated BIOS, and installed Ubuntu MATE 15.04. Ethernet (through the DA100 4-in-1-dongle) helped a lot, as all updates and drivers were downloaded automatically. It was a breeze!
I did not need any drivers to use Ethernet and USB of the DA100. I am unable to test the graphics part, for I don’t have any HDMI monitors.
There is one major issue: When I close the lid the system sometimes doesn’t suspend. It stays active, the machine gets hot, and the battery is drained within a few hours. As there is no fan, I am unable to determine if the system is suspended or not. And when I open the lid, the system immediately wakes up. Is there a way to not have it wake up on lid-opening?
Yes, I also have issues with the palm detection of the touchpad. I generally don’t like touchpads, they are very unergonomic. I prefer a mouse. So I run “xinput list” and look for the ID-number of an “unknown” device whose descriptor starts with “DLL”. Then I do “xinput disable #”, where # is the relevant ID-Number. Problem solved, but this has to be done after each boot. The ID-number is not static. Intuitively, one would deactivate the PS/2 synaptic device, but that doesn’t do the trick.
Jumping keys I more or less solved through the accessibility tools.
A few times I had display issues with the F12-terminal, or with a browser window. Reboots have solved that. I will try replacing Intel’s SNA with UXA.
LikeLike
Try blacklisting the mei and mei_me modules – they could be responsible for the suspend failures. Please report back if this works for you: https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues/13
LikeLike
I will try that. However, as it doesn’t happen all the time, may experience may be inconclusive. 🙂
LikeLike
I will try that. However, as it doesn’t happen all the time, may experience may be inconclusive. 🙂
LikeLike
Today my Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition with German Keyboard Layout (i5 Core, FHD, Bios A03) arrived as an upgrade for my Latitude e6230.
First I’ve checked the mechanical build. It seems to be okay except touch pad and the mini cover on the back side with the “xps” logo on it look a bit unstraight/asymmetric, both move on finger pressure. Keyboard feels very fine compared to my latitude e6230 except I was missing the pgup/pgdn keys.
Alas, after going through the Ubuntu setup procedure the disappointment started:
Touchpad is freezing constantly, like every 10 seconds or so, right-click does not work.
Within the first minutes of typing I’ve experienced the repeating key issue on at least 10 different keys (Enter, Space, c, e, x, …) right away. My latitude has similar issues but it occurs rarely and is far less annoying. To the extent it is happening on the XPS it is simply unbearable.
I then decided to try Linux Mint, but first wanted to create a rescue image. I launched the Dell Utility and … it crashed. I was not able to create any rescue image at all.
Is this a sick joke? I mean, Dell, come on! I ordered a machine for >1000Eur and this is what I get as something called “certified for ubuntu” with the system it is supposed to ship with?
I’ve seen cheaper windows laptops performing better under stock linuxes.
I would love this piece of hw and I am certain the touch pad and other minor issues are solvable, but the key repeating issue is a show stopper since I have little hope that it will be solved from that I’ve read so far.
Please, can other people who have bought the German XPS Developer Edition tell about their experiences?
LikeLike
…just to add it also suffers the adaptive contrast issue
LikeLike
It’s a feature and not an issue. Hopefully it can be turned off in a future BIOS update.
Regarding the recovery image, yeah it’s a bit embarrassing for Dell but the program runs fine when not run from the first lauch dialog.
Keypad works fine here for me and arch has no problem here. also see here for a few fixes to the problems: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_%282015%29
LikeLike
can this help?
http://xps13-9333.appspot.com/#light_sensor
LikeLike
As its a display feature without an ambient light Sensor i dont think it will
LikeLike
On Dell’s forums we’ve come up with something that seems to work: install Linux kernel 3.19. This can be done with a few simple commands, leaves the rest of the system intact.
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/t/19632562
This version of the kernel supports the touchpad, keyboard and sound without any patches required. It’s the default kernel you’ll get if you install Ubuntu 15.04. But you can use this version of the kernel with Ubuntu 14.04 too.
It’s easy to try, and if it doesn’t work it’s easy to revert to kernel 3.13 that comes with Ubuntu 14.04.
LikeLike
Thanks a lot for your hints, salenwangben & mike,
the upgrade to 3.19 gives me a working touch pad (very important) although I will try to reconfigure scrolling. Can someone confirm that it is possible to configure the right click (tap works)?
The reason I was sort of panicking was, that when I test-booted Ubuntu MATE 15.4 with kernel 3.19 it behaved completely buggy, so maybe it doesn’t use the exact same kernel than official Ubuntu 15.4?
BTW, is it possible to download the Dell utilities somewhere and install them on a stock linux?
thanks again and continuing testing 😉
LikeLike
Page Keys are working now. BT reports a kernel panic in dmesg
LikeLike
When you say “completely buggy”, are you referring to display issues in Ubuntu MATE 15.04? In my experience, there is help: Replace sna with uxa.
In /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d create a file “20-intel.conf” and put this in:
Section “Device”
Identifier “Intel Graphics”
Driver “Intel”
Option “AccelMethod” “uxa”
EndSection
Save, reboot, and kindly let us know if it helped. 🙂
LikeLike
PS: It probably also helps to be online when you install Ubuntu MATE 15.04, so that the latest updates are used automatically. Ethernet-Anschluss ist Gold wert, in dem Falle. 🙂
LikeLike
@DanielAJ
thanks for responding — no, I have no issues with gfx or display except that the adaptive brightness changes are not really satisfying if working in vim or dark consoles. I understand though that the feature itself might be useful for someone who wants to squeeze more battery life.
Actually I was referring to the touch pad.
The most annoying thing is the repeating keys and this is less frequent but it occurred three times by just writing this comment!
I have a question about the 30 day return option: is it okay to wipe the Dell Ubuntu installation entirely in favor to lets say linux mint and return it anyways?
What about the partitioning? Ive noticed there are some FAT partitions, what are they good for? Can they be removed?
LikeLike
@langeley
My XPS13 (also i5 Core, FHD, Bios A03) arrived this morning. I only had the time to do some preliminary software updates before going to work but I will do an in-depth testing during the weekend (also with a special focus on wifi (5Ghz) bandwith because I own a 1900AC Router for some time now and I need decent bandwith over wifi (no ethernet adapter)).
Will post here in the next couple of days …
Cheers
Jan
LikeLike
I received my German version of XPS13 DE, FHD, BIOS A03 yesterday and there are several issues:
– the XPS doesn’t have a stable stand on a flat surface because the bottom aluminium case is slightly distorted, i.e., when I slightly tip on the bottom left wrist rest, the XPS moves down for about 1mm. I think this is a rare production problem which might only affect me but it is definitly super annoying when writing because the XPS is constantly teetering. I double checked with a water-level, just to make sure that my table is actually a plane surface, and, indeed, it is.
– In the first 24 hours the touchpad made a slight clicking noise even when only barely touched on the upper half of the pad. That is, it definitly made the impression that something is loose. However, as of today I cannot reproduce this observation anymore which might be due to all parts now being in the correct position after some hours of usage.
– The touchpad left and right clicking produces a relatively loud noise. I think this is also rather annoying if one is “forced” to use the touchpad (i.e., no space for external mouse) for a couple of hours.
– touchpad: cursor freezing randomly under 14.04 as observed by many other customers as well as jumping to distant parts of the screen
– touchpad: couldn’t confirm the “repeated key strokes” bug
– WIFI: my ASUS RT68ACU (1900AC) router is only some meters away from my XPS and I only achieve 3MB/sec when downloading a large file from my NAS (located in the same Gigabit LAN). My 2007 Macbook (with 802.11N wifi chipset) already yields 30MB/sec. The XPS13 has a 802.11ac chipset (!!) and should be significantly faster than my old crappy macbook. I couldn’t test the wifi performance under 15.04 because of installation problems. See next item:
– I wanted to upgrade from 14.04 to 15.04 via 14.10 and during dist-upgrade I got a message that the system couldn’t install the newer Kernel version and a little bit later in the process I received the message that my system now might be in a corrupted state and that a rollback of dist-upgrade is now conducted. After that I rebooted only to get a blinking capslock key and a dark screen. After some reboots the Grub menu was shown and I could select (under ‘Advanced options for Ubuntu’) the hitherto 3.13.0.53 Kernel which initially came with 14.04. With this selection I was at least able to boot into Ubuntu 14.04 again. My original plan was to freshly install 15.04 via a USB pendrive (15.04 64bit ISO downloaded and installed on pendrive via startup disk creator) but shortly after booting from this pendrive I received and “Installation failed” window with the message: “The installation encountered an unrecoverable error. A desktop session will now be run so that you may investigate the problem.”. However, the desktop session never showed up but instead I received a blank screen.
So how do I install 15.04? I’m not getting it at all. Installed Ubuntu any many machines in recent time and I never encountered these problems. I am so disillusioned right now …
LikeLike
Hi Jan,
I am still running with the stock ubuntu but Ive upgraded to kernel 3.19. This fixed a lot of problems but not the repeating keys.
Did you disable UEFI in the BIOS? This causes troubles all the time on newer laptops.
I also downgraded my Bios to version A02 and still testing if this solves the repeating key problem.
Do I get it right that you did not experience a single incident of repeating keys while typing and you have the A03 bios?
all the best…
LikeLike
I obviously have *no* idea what the cause of the problem is, but on _my_ i5 FHD XPS13 DE, I’ve not seen the repeating-key problem even once.
The crash-on-suspend bug mentioned earlier has caused me to upgrade to kernel 3.19 (which seems to be working okay so far), but neither kernel (I’ve stuck to Ubuntu 14.04 so far) has given me the repeating-keys problem. I wonder if it might be a hardware issue? :-S
LikeLike
The repeating key issue solved by is a simple software setting in the Accessibility Tools. Activate the keyboard control there and move the slider all the way to the left. When you notice that certain intended double letters are only registered as one, move the slider very slightly to the right. That part is trial and error as it depends on your typing speed. For me, it was about 4 clicks to the right.
LikeLike
Going to try that… I’d however appreciate a more generic solution since I do not intend to stick to Ubuntu/Unity and would rather use mate. Can I dump/adjust these settings using command line tools or settings in /dev/something ?
LikeLike
Update: I cant consider this a solution, because it prevents me from typing normal words which contain double letters.
Besides it does not even prevent the repeating keys – interestingly it now happens mainly and the end of words (the last key I pressed gets repeated indefinitely)
LikeLike
Got My XPS 13 DE yesterday. I had been keeping up to date on some of the issues so I did not create recovery media on install. I also go this (http://www.amazon.com/Unibody-Aluminum-Gigabit-Ethernet-RTL8153/dp/B00PC07T02/ref=pd_sim_147_2/189-4837658-4505726?ie=UTF8&refRID=1N0SYBA3XE1FVYG8G9NC) and plugged it in before first boot. It really helped in that it found the wired network right away and got all it’s updates. I also had a USB mouse handy and had to use it to save my sanity until I put 15.04 on it (see below). I leave the USB hub in the office with a USB keyboard and mouse connected in addition to the network, so plug it in and I’m just about set up for the office (just also need to plug in the mini display port).
Anyway, as hinted above I had a severe case of the trackpad freezing/jumping issue and the updates didn’t help at all. Once I created the recovery media (and it took a while to find out how by the way – finally searched for Dell in the Unity search thing) I took the plunge and installed Ubuntu 15.04. I much prefer Mint but needed to see if the kernel update would fix things. It did. I still get repeating keys sometimes but it seems to only occur when my palms touch the trackpad while typing. Usually the last letter will repeat like crazy.
So while my first impression was not good, I’m growing to like it. Definitely high quality hardware and a really nice small laptop. I’m now running it with a 2560×1600 30″ display by using a mini display port to regular display port cable and that works nicely, in addition to the network, keyboard, and mouse.
Overall though, I think the Sputnik guys may have been pressured to release this a bit too soon, and it would have been a way nicer experience by starting with Ubuntu 15.04. I’m sure I’ll end up loving this little fella though.
LikeLike
Hi Paul, thanks for sharing your experiences. I have to say that after a couple of updates and installing the 3.19 kernel my original Ubuntu 14.04 installation seems to perform reasonably well. Touchpad issues are gone, I just realized it is configured to work differently than what I was used to (scrolling, clicking, etc) but I am confident that it is just a matter of configuration.
However, the key repeating continues, mostly last letters and it seems all keys are affected. I didnt pay attention whether it might be like in your case that I touched accidentally the touchpad. I will try to disable the touchpad and check whether this will stop the key repetitions.
LikeLike
Update: I disabled the touch pad and used a USB mouse. It does NOT stop the repeating keys. It often happens when working in a terminal or in a text editor on pressing return and produces a never-ending sequence of empty lines. Only way to stop it is to disable repeating keys entirely which is annoying for backspace delete space etc.
LikeLike
I found a way to test each key. Unfortunately it seems in my case all keys are affected. It happens when I type quickly and press lightly. Note that probably many keys do not expose a key_release event but it is not noticeable since a key_press event is following rapidly and the repetition is just triggered by a typing break.
Here I test the space key. I am quickly able to force the behavior after around ten trials:
stefan@stefan-XPS-13-9343:~$ sudo showkey
kb mode was ?UNKNOWN?
[ if you are trying this under X, it might not work
since the X server is also reading /dev/console ]
press any key (program terminates 10s after last keypress)…
keycode 57 release
keycode 57 press
keycode 57 release
keycode 57 press
keycode 57 release
keycode 57 press
keycode 57 release
keycode 57 press
keycode 57 release
keycode 57 press
[…sequence of spaces…] keycode 57 release
keycode 29 press
LikeLike
I need to chime in here, because so far I’m super-disappointed with my new XPS 13 DE 9343 (A03). I bought this laptop expressly because I thought that when it is shipped with Linux, it surely works under Linux. Thought wrong! The preinstalled (!) Ubuntu suffers from severe issues with the touchpad. I also get the keypress repeat problem. Oh, and yes, I also get the Dell Recovery crash. There might be more issues, I didn’t even test beyond because: seriously! This software is preinstalled, it is supposed to just work!
Then, because I generally prefer Debian, I tried to install Debian 8. First issue: The BIOS does not recognize the EFI bootloader installed by grub. Apparently, it only looks for boot/bootx64.efi, but not for debian/grubx64.efi. This problem persists even if I point the BIOS explicitly to the right file. The only solution was to move/rename the file using a rescue disc.
But the main problem is that it is apparently completely impossible to get the WiFi working under Debian. *Why the hell* does Dell sell a laptop for Linux, and then puts in hardware that has *known compatibility issues*, and even in exchange for earlier hardware that does not have these issues?! Anyway, installing broadcom-sta-dkms creates wlan0, but in scanning (wicd) no access points show up. Manual configuration via /etc/network/interfaces doesn’t work either. I tried installing the custom Ubuntu package bcmwl-kernel-source-…, but it doesn’t work because of missing dependencies. Force-installing it doesn’t help either. And then I downloaded the original kernel module source from Broadcom – and it doesn’t compile! Not because of some missing dependencies, but because apparently some APIs have changed, and they didn’t care to fix that.
Ok, I’ll now try to get back to “stock” Ubuntu and hope I can make it work. If not, this thing goes straight back. What the hell?!
LikeLike
The USB stick with the recovery image is not recognized as bootable…
LikeLike
Hi, i got the same issues with wlan not seeing any accesspoints/SSIDs at all not even from the neighours’ nets (several posts above). in my case i got it solved by switching my wlan accesspoint to 5GHz frequency band.
Strange and uncommented solution..
Now it works like a charm and i suppose because i am the only one using 5GHz in the neighbourhood i have no drops since than at all.
Maybe that helps?
CereS.
LikeLike
I received the spanish version last week, Core i7 version with QHD+ and BIOS A03. First impression was not very good, because Ubuntu pre-installed was very buggy, touchpad freezed every moment and I wasn’t able to connect my wifi. Then I noticed that channels 12 and 13 were unusable for the XPS, so I had to change the channel to another. Moreover, the key repeating issue was very very annoying.
As I read here, I tried to upgrade to kernel 3.19 from official repositories. When reboot, nothing worked, wifi, wired network with USB dongle, improvements to the hi res display, etc. So, I made the recovery image (if the system is updated, works fine) to change to another system.
As I don’t like non LTS versions, I did not have in mind to install Ubuntu 15.04. So I tried to install Debian Jessie, as I had planned before purchasing the laptop.
With Debian, almost everything worked out of the box, except Wifi (nedeed package broadcom-sta-dkms) and micro (needed patching the kernel). No issues with sound, bluetooth, suspend and display. Debian Jessie, by default, does not recognize the touchpad as multitouch, I think because is recognized as a touchpad and not as a clickpad, so it’s needed to set the synclient ClickPad=1 option as well.
The key repeating issue continues and I have no idea if is due to the BIOS or to the kernel used (3.16). I’m waiting for the kernel 4.0 in Backports repository, which I think will improve further the system.
LikeLike
@A. Donda & @Tony: I strongly feel with you as I had a similar experience. As far as the key repeating is concerned, I had to create a FreeDOS bootable usb and downgrade to A02 BIOS.
After that I installed Linux Mint 17.1 and upgraded to kernel 3.19
So far I am still testing, and my impression is that the key repeating was substituted by double letters which however is far less annoying. Touch pad, sound, mic and wifi just work, battery life is much better than with kernel 3.13.
What worries me is that a newer recommended (!) Bios update causes something that severe – it really makes me distrust in installing any bios upgrades at all. Especially since I want to disable the adaptive brightness of the display panel and that option might be included in an upcoming bios version.
I will continue testing still being undecided whether or not to return this laptop.
LikeLike
Bios A04 is out!!! It seems with keyboard improvements, let’s try!
LikeLike
Well, I’ve just installed the new BIOS version (A04), and finally it seems to have resolved the repeating key issue, something that makes the laptop completely unusable, indeed.
To do the update, I’ve copied the file downloaded (9343_BIOS_Rev_A04.exe) into the OS partition (somewhere the BIOS can read, also it’s possible with a USB Stick), and I’ve restarted the system booting into the BIOS utility by pressing F12 during the Dell Logo screen, and selecting the BIOS Flash Update option. Then simply I’ve followed the instrucctions.
Step by step, this laptop is turning into something usable. Absolutely recommended for everyone to upgrade to the new BIOS version.
LikeLike
Before I do this, has anyone else had similar success with this BIOS update? I’m a bit loath to change things since I’ve managed to get a more-or-less useable laptop after the Ubuntu 15.04 update without more reports of ease/success. I’d hate to screw up what I have now.
thanks!
LikeLike
I just upgraded to A04. I’m running Arch. No problems at all.
LikeLike
I’ve also install A04 running Fedora 22 without any issues so far.
LikeLike
Thanks everyone. I’ll give it a go when I get some time.
cheers
LikeLike
In case anyone else is following and had concerns, I too had no trouble flashing the BIOS following Tony’s instructions above. Can’t say if it helped yet since my repeating key problem wasn’t overly bad, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
LikeLike
So where do you download this BIOS update?
LikeLike
See here: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=133FN
LikeLike
Found it:
http://www.dell.com/support/home/ca/en/cabsdt1/product-support/product/xps-13-9343-laptop/drivers?rvps=y
LikeLike
It is quite funny to observe how each BIOS fix apparently just creates a new bug.
I upgraded to Bios A04 and it took me less than 30 seconds to realize that the “keyboard improvement” actually replaces the old faulty behaviour by another one: instead to repeated keys (Bios A03) or double letters (Bios A02) I now get intermittent letters i.e. for instance instead of one space I get one space, then a subsequently pressed key and directly following a “ghost” space insertion – I did not try for long but I would be surprised if not all keys were affected in the same way.
LikeLike
Same here. BIOS A04 does not solve the keyboard problem. It still intermittently throws out spurious characters. There’s a discussion about this in Dell’s Sputnik forums.
LikeLike
Well, I received my xps 13 yesterday, and this laptop gave me plenty of headaches. It’s truly a “developer edition” as I don’t see any normal user being able to make it work. Not being a linux expert myself, I wouldn’t have been able to make it work without the replies in this blog.
Factory image: – Crash upon installation when you select to make a recovery USB stick. Of course, it doesn’t tell you it’s trying to do that when it crash, you have to guess.
– trackpad freeze/unresponsive/jump around as soon as you start the installation. And it continues after. If this was Windows, I’d have returned the laptop right there thinking it was a hardware issue. Come one, shipping a laptop with such a huge bug is inconceivable.
– first apt-get update/upgrade leaves the system totally unstable. Everything crashes and when you try to send a report, it tells you the problem is in a 3rd party package and to remove them, uh??? Reading the reply here, I saw I had to do a apt-get update -f install to fix that. trackpad issue still goes on though.
– I see a post saying kernel 3.19 fixes most problems(then why isn’t the version shipped in the factory image…) Installing it is mostly straightforward, minus the part where you lose wifi and must find a way to reconnect o the internet to do an apt-get update/upgrade to fix it. The trackapd still doesn’t detect palms correctly though, making it a real pain still to type.
All in all, it took me 6 hours(!!) , and access to another computer to browse the web, to have a mostly working laptop.(still something crashing when I boot, no idea what, the message is as generic as you can get) And that’s using the factory image shipping with the hardware!!!!!
Big fail. This wasn’t ready to ship at all.
LikeLike
I thought I’d post some happy news to encourage everyone to stick with the buying experience. I received my XPS 13 about two weeks ago. It came with Ubuntu 14.04, BIOS A03, and the 3.13 kernel.
I had the same problems as most people: touchpad freezing constantly, repeating key issue and not being able to get out of suspend mode.
I upgraded the kernel to the 3.19 version and everything works well now. I get the repeating key issue a bit still, but less than once per day. Thanks for your efforts everybody!
LikeLike
I got the same results. I must however say I can’t use my bluetooth audio from my stereo anymore. Did anyone experience the same problem?
LikeLike
Just giving my two cents of my experience with the developer edition. Got the unit two days ago and directly out of the box I was very disappointed to see the trackpad issue along with repeated key strokes and the recovery creation program being broken. It was practically unusable in its current state. Anyways, after installing kernel to version 3.19 the system worked much better and I was able to actually use it without crying the whole time. Like previous users have said, the palm detection is still a problem along with multi finger support not working for me at the moment, but I can live with these issues for the moment and also the occasional repeated keystroke. All in all I spent and good chunk of time trying to get it working, but so far it’s pretty stable with the shipped version of Ubuntu and the updated kernel.
LikeLike
Why is the price constantly rising? I got mine for 1029€ in Germany including shipping (FHD, i5, 8gb, ubuntu). Now the cheapest developer edition clocks in at 1630€ +shipping? It is btw. the most expensive Variant available. Was thinking of getting a second unit.
LikeLike
Could someone from the great Sputnik team comment, if the following newly added configuration (CNX4320 – with i5-5300U and an Intel Wireless card) will also be available in the near future as a Developer Edition (with Ubuntu installed) in Austria?
This would certainly make sense, since a lot of customers are complaining about the Linux compatibility with the Broadwell WiFi shipped in the current Ubuntu versions of the XPS 13.
CNX4320 – http://www.dell.com/at/p/xps-13-9343-laptop/pd?oc=cnx4320&model_id=xps-13-9343-laptop
BTW: The Ubuntu XPS 13 config with i5-5200U, Broadwell Wifi, FHD and 256 SSD was recently relabeled from CNX4213 to CNX4323. For what reason? Are there any differences in the hardware?
CNX4323 – http://www.dell.com/at/p/xps-13-9343-laptop/pd?oc=cnx4323&model_id=xps-13-9343-laptop
Many thanks!
LikeLike
Are there any plans to release a top configuration of XPS 13 without touch screen (at least in Spain)?
I’m asking for the (in order of preference):
1) Ubuntu – i7/8GB — 512GB, Non-Touch TL FHD (1920×1080)
2) Windows i7/8GB — 512GB, Non-Touch TL FHD (1920×1080)
3) Windows i7/8GB — 256GB, Non-Touch TL FHD (1920×1080)
The first and second options are not a setup available in Spain. The third one exists, but is the worse option…
I’d prefer to avoid paying a windows license. Is there any possibility to see any of the two first options available?
LikeLike
Hi,
I just received my XPS 13 Developer Edition. The first time I turned it on, and after choosing the WiFi, time and language settings, Ubuntu said that the “Installer crashed” and it rebooted itself. Now I can login and use it, but I don’t know whether I missed something with for not completing the installation.
How could I recover the factory settings and initialize Ubuntu again without loosing the drivers preinstalled by Dell?
Thanks a lot!
LikeLike
I had the same thing – and you can read here how I managed to get around the problem, and perform a “proper” clean install of the factory image:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1450490
And (after the ‘clean restore’) I also followed the suggestion one of the other comments here made to upgrade to kernel 3.19 which makes the suspend and resume much more reliable.
LikeLike
[…] anunció anoche la disponibilidad de la versión “Developer Edition” del XPS 13, un ultraportátil fantástico […]
LikeLike
Is the newest factory shipped Ubuntu image available for download ? Many Thanks.
LikeLike
I’m on my second XPS. Everything works reasonably well now, other than the system hard crashes on suspend when on battery. This is an ACPI hardware fault which I guess was fixed on later units.
I’ve had serious keyboard issues all along but it’s now stable and I’ve turned gnome key debounce off. I believe the keyboard key debounce tolerance is very poor but resolves over months (six) of usage.
This is my first and last Dell purchase. Overall this system is (still) not ready for mainstream release. I commend Barton and his team for the studious damage limitation exercise but they are fighting a loosing battle with a product that must have had zero QA time.
LikeLike
I created a video demonstrating the double key issue on my xps 13 with Bios A04: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0XWCunplAg
LikeLike
[…] Itselleni 14.04.2 LTS toimi kyllä hyvin mutta mikrofoni lakkasi oletuksena toimimasta. Dellin blogauksen perusteella tämä toimisi 15.04:n ajurituella suoraan taas. Puhtaalta pöydältä tuskin kannattaa […]
LikeLike
I’m typing this on my new 9343 developer edition which arrived today. Dell’s support site says it only supports Windows operating systems on this model.
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/xps-13-l321x/drivers
LikeLike
[…] employer Angaza Design (we’re hiring!) recently bought me a new 4th gen Dell XPS13 developer edition. Naturally, I opted for the version with Ubuntu 14.04 preloaded and what Dell calls a “QHD+ […]
LikeLike
Does the Developer Edition come with Webcam, Speakers and Mic?
LikeLike
I have Debian 8 on the xps 13 and still can’t get the microphone to work. I am not a teccie and getting everything thing else to work has been a steep learning curve! But I can’t get the patch to run: I’ve updated BIOS and kernel (to 4.0) and have tried running it from (new) linux-headers folder but it says ‘cant’ find file to patch’. Please help. I really need my mic working.
(Should there be a realtek file already in the pci/hda folder? I don’t know how to read patches. the only files I have in there are Kconfig and Makefile)
I also sometimes get a freeze with mouse / touchpad and have to tap / move it twice before it gets going. this is sporadic but still a pain. Any help appreciated
LikeLike
Bios A05 is out, with keyboard improvements and support for Windows 10.
LikeLike
[…] about “containers,” I will be looking into that as well. (I will also continue to drive Project Sputnik, the XPS 13 and M3800 developer […]
LikeLike
Why this xps 13 is still suspended at jan 2016 in Spain???
LikeLike
I apologize for the delay. There is a new version coming soon. Stay tuned!
LikeLike
[…] http://bartongeorge.net/2015/04/09/4th-gen-dell-xps-13-developer-edition-available/ […]
LikeLike
[…] Via Ars Techica, Dell […]
LikeLike
[…] http://bartongeorge.net/2016/03/10/xps-13-developer-edition-launches-in-us-ubuntu-based-workstations… […]
LikeLike
I’m having some sound issues with the 9343 dual booting Win 10 and Ubuntu 16.04. I read about the cold booting twice but that’s not helping. Here is what is happening. At first in windows I had the red X through the sound and there were no devices, I install the realtek driver. Once I reboot the sound is working and the realtek device is listed in my sound devices but the default device is set to the Intel sound device, not the realtek sound device. If I set the realtek device as the default, everything works for the time being. If I shutdown and boot into ubuntu and then back into windows the realtek device is still selected as the default when it first boots then switches to the intel one as the default by itself (I watched it, the realtek was default then it switched to the intel one in front of my eyes). If I shutdown windows, then restart into windows again(no matter how many times) the realtek device is gone completely from the list of devices and only the intel one is listed and is selected again as the default. I have to boot back into ubuntu, then back into windows for the realtek device to show up again and then reset it as the default.
LikeLike
[…] was rough—rough enough that I went back to Ubuntu. You can see some helpful bios update advice on Barton George’s site. Suffice to say that you can get other distros working, but you may lose some of the “just […]
LikeLike
[…] was rough—rough enough that I went back to Ubuntu. You can see some helpful bios update advice on Barton George’s site. Suffice to say that you can get other distros working, but you may lose some of the “just […]
LikeLike
[…] was rough—rough enough that I went back to Ubuntu. You can see some helpful bios update advice on Barton George’s site. Suffice to say that you can get other distros working, but you may lose some of the “just […]
LikeLike
[…] see some helpful bios update advice on Barton George’s site. Suffice to say that you can get […]
LikeLike