3 ms·

I have an XPS 13 and run Linux on it. The drivers for the touchpad were very rough with the version of Ubuntu it shipped with, but updating to a Kernel version

I have an XPS 13 and run Linux on it. The drivers for the touchpad were very rough with the version of Ubuntu it shipped with, but updating to a Kernel version > 4 fixed all my problems.

mr337 11y ago
Agreed, putting any distro on there other than what shipped def helped me. Also take out the broadcom wifi and burn it with fire! Replaced with Intel wifi card and have zero wifi issues.
893helios 11y ago
I had same issue but now that's it's smoothed out it's a nice laptop I don't thing about it it just works great.
wyldfire 11y ago
That's a good data point. I've been running 15.10 since I got it with minimal issues. This is another good resource: https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues
vkazanov 11y ago
Yeah, the worst Linux laptop I had in years: 1) the touchpad never worked; 2) the keyboard still has problems; 3) some of the more important programs look just horrible on Linux, as the resolution is just too high; 4) sometimes WiFi just does not work; ...so much for the Sputnik project.
- bdisraeli 11y ago
  Is that with the 'Infinity' screen or whatever they called it? I just got the 1080p one and don't use scaling. I had a Yoga with a hidpi screen and agree that a bunch of programs just don't work at all with scaling in Linux.
  - vkazanov 11y ago
    I should have just bought a Thinkpad :-) It's the Infinity display + preinstalled Linux that caught my attention.
- pierre_massat 11y ago
  It's sad to see you had trouble. With the latest version of it (9350), I had trouble at the beginning but upgrading the kernel to 4.4 solved all of them. Also, regarding #3, I've heard Linux Mint as great HiDPI support in their last version.
truncate 11y ago
Support was terrible last May when I bought the laptop. Now everything works except the hidpi issues. But that's not laptop problem. Overall the only problems I face is with - GTK2 apps, they look awkward. Eg. very small icons - Spotify, Steam, Skype will look very small However the biggest turnoff is that whenever I connect to external display (1080p), I have to apply a weird command with scaling and panning options. This results in blurred look, a bit lag and fan spinning hard. I wish there was some option to do selective font scaling based the screen.
hvis 11y ago
I've had similar experience with my ASUS N76V: it worked fine for a number of recent releases, but only with the upgrade to Ubuntu 15.10 did the touchpad start working decently (I couldn't turn on two-finger scroll before, because that resulted in phantom multi-finger gestures). The current situation with XPS 15 seems much worse: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2301071 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2301071 For decent experience, one should wait until April until 16.04 comes out. And some issues will probably remain for a release or two after that.

I have an XPS 13 and run Linux on it. The drivers for the touchpad were very rough with the version of Ubuntu it shipped with, but updating to a Kernel version > 4 fixed all my problems.

mr337 11y ago

Agreed, putting any distro on there other than what shipped def helped me. Also take out the broadcom wifi and burn it with fire! Replaced with Intel wifi card and have zero wifi issues.

893helios 11y ago

I had same issue but now that's it's smoothed out it's a nice laptop I don't thing about it it just works great.

wyldfire 11y ago

That's a good data point. I've been running 15.10 since I got it with minimal issues. This is another good resource: https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues

vkazanov 11y ago

Yeah, the worst Linux laptop I had in years: 1) the touchpad never worked; 2) the keyboard still has problems; 3) some of the more important programs look just horrible on Linux, as the resolution is just too high; 4) sometimes WiFi just does not work; ...so much for the Sputnik project.

bdisraeli 11y ago
Is that with the 'Infinity' screen or whatever they called it? I just got the 1080p one and don't use scaling. I had a Yoga with a hidpi screen and agree that a bunch of programs just don't work at all with scaling in Linux.
- vkazanov 11y ago
  I should have just bought a Thinkpad :-) It's the Infinity display + preinstalled Linux that caught my attention.
pierre_massat 11y ago
It's sad to see you had trouble. With the latest version of it (9350), I had trouble at the beginning but upgrading the kernel to 4.4 solved all of them. Also, regarding #3, I've heard Linux Mint as great HiDPI support in their last version.

truncate 11y ago

Support was terrible last May when I bought the laptop. Now everything works except the hidpi issues. But that's not laptop problem. Overall the only problems I face is with - GTK2 apps, they look awkward. Eg. very small icons - Spotify, Steam, Skype will look very small However the biggest turnoff is that whenever I connect to external display (1080p), I have to apply a weird command with scaling and panning options. This results in blurred look, a bit lag and fan spinning hard. I wish there was some option to do selective font scaling based the screen.

hvis 11y ago

I've had similar experience with my ASUS N76V: it worked fine for a number of recent releases, but only with the upgrade to Ubuntu 15.10 did the touchpad start working decently (I couldn't turn on two-finger scroll before, because that resulted in phantom multi-finger gestures). The current situation with XPS 15 seems much worse: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2301071 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2301071 For decent experience, one should wait until April until 16.04 comes out. And some issues will probably remain for a release or two after that.