Linux on the Mac — state of the union

Posted Dec 8, 2016 0:05 UTC (Thu) by Matt_G (subscriber, #112824)
In reply to: Linux on the Mac — state of the union by JdGordy
Parent article: Linux on the Mac — state of the union

I live in Australia and purchased an XPS 13 last week (Dell had a 15% off offer on their website). More specifically I have the 2016 - 9360 model. The laptop came with Windows 10 preinstalled. I installed Fedora 25 on it. I have hit a few issues so far.

The biggest issue was Fedora installer did not recognize the Laptop's built in SSD. I did some searching on the web Arch Linux wiki is very useful and was able to fix this by entering the BIOS and changing the SATA controller to AHCI mode and disabling Secure boot. After I did this Windows would no longer boot. Not an issue for me but it maybe a problem if you wish to dual boot.

I see a few error messages flash up early on in the boot ( 'Ath10k failed to load firmware') but everything seems to work once the system is booted (including stable wifi connection).

The first time I closed the lid it failed to wake from suspend and I had to power cycle it. However it has successfully woken each time I have closed the lid subsequently. I have updated all of the packages on system since then however so it may have been as issue with the initial Fedora 25 installation which has subsequently been fixed.

Trackpad is probably biggest issue it feels very poor to use and often does not register clicks.

I can't comment on battery life as I never ran Windows on it for comparison and I mostly operate it plugged in to a power outlet.

Overall I'm mostly satisfied - however given Dell's support for Linux I would have expected it to work better out of the box (especially the SATA controller) and I am disappointing with Trackpad.

Linux on the Mac — state of the union

Posted Dec 8, 2016 1:13 UTC (Thu) by ras (subscriber, #33059) [Link] (1 responses)

> Trackpad is probably biggest issue it feels very poor to use and often does not register clicks.

Make sure you are using libinput, as opposed to the Synaptics driver.

> The first time I closed the lid it failed to wake from suspend and I had to power cycle it.
> given Dell's support for Linux I would have expected it to work better out of the box (especially the SATA controller)
> The biggest issue was Fedora installer did not recognize the Laptop's built in SSD.

Intel, Intel, Intel. Intel hasn't published the specs for the "RAID" mode of their new chipsets. Their GPU drivers were abysmal, causing suspend / resume to fail (you probably could have ssh'ed in). I'm not sure "were" is the right word as they still are iffy in some corner cases - I'm hoping they will be solid in 4.9. Windows didn't have the "RAID" problem because Intel wrote a Windows driver, but if anything it has lagged behind the latest released Linux kernel when it comes to GPU support. (I have a theory the reason Apple didn't release a refresh for so long is Intel could not supply reliable GPU drivers / firemware.)

Be sure to keep your BIOS up to date - it helps with the GPU issues. Also, until this settles down ensure you poll Intel's site for GPU firmware: https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads

> I mostly operate it plugged in to a power outlet.

Then ensure you tell the BIOS to keep the battery at about 60%. This will do wonders for your battery longevity.

Linux on the Mac — state of the union

Posted Dec 8, 2016 2:29 UTC (Thu) by Matt_G (subscriber, #112824) [Link]

Thanks, I assumed something like that was the case. For hardware as new as this is it works remarkably well. Miles better then where things used to be.