Ubuntu 14.04 on an Dell XPS 15 9530

So I had the chance to unbox and install a fresh Dell XPS-15 9530
Dell ships the XPS13's with Ubuntu, but for some crazy reason it does not do the same with the XPS15 which imvho is much more
appropriate for a developer as it actually has a usable size screen.

That means they also force you to boot into some proprietary OS the very first time before you can even try get into the boot options menu.
which is where you need to be.

The goal was to get a fresh Ubuntu on the box , nothing more.

There's a large number of tips scattered on the internet such as

- Use the USB 2 connector (that's the one furthest to the back on the right side of the device)
- Disable secure booting
- Put the box in Legacy mode
- Do not enable external repositories, and do not install updates during the installation.

The combination of all of them worked. I booted form USB and 20 minutes later stuff worked. But it really was after trying them all ..

Profit.

wireless works, touchscreen works, touchpad works, hdmi works,

Screen resolution is awesome 3000x1940

PS. For those who wonder .. I`m still on Fedora 20 :)

Comments

Karanbir Singh's picture

#1 Karanbir Singh : Secure Boot

hi,

Why disable secure boot - it should just work these days with pretty much every distro out there right ?

- KB


Kris Buytaert's picture

#2 Kris Buytaert : Many Combinations

I tried many combinations to get the thing to even start reading from USB. It could be that secure boot is not the one that gave the final trigger. But I don't have access to the device anymore to check.

So it's probably not distro related it was to get it to boot of the USB stick.