4 ms·

I've tried, but here are the issues I've run into. I'm not a Linux hater, but these are simple things there doesn't seem to be a fix for. This is on a new Dell

I've tried, but here are the issues I've run into. I'm not a Linux hater, but these are simple things there doesn't seem to be a fix for. This is on a new Dell XPS laptop. - Headphones constantly crackle when they're plugged in. I've tried updating audio drivers, enabling/disabling various things, editing config files, etc. nothing fixes it. I've gotten used to listening to music with a crackle superimposed on top. - Screen randomly flickers - The trackpad interface is nothing short of _atrocious_. If you move around it too much it "locks up" the cursor and you can't move anymore, you have to click it several times while dragging until it starts working again. If you brush it with a single atom of your finger as you're typing, the cursor will move around wildly, often selecting most of the text you've typed and overwriting it with your next character. I've also tried updating/changing/etc libinput and it doesn't do anything. - In an attempt to fix the above issues, I tried to update to Ubuntu 18.04 (it was on the latest 16.04). `do-release-upgrade` wouldn't recognize there was a new version available (this was a few days ago). I did `do-release-upgrade -d` without realizing it was a dev version, then after a few minutes of reading I realized it was, so I cancelled it, and rebooted my computer. Now, it just boots to a cursor on a black screen and it never changes. At this point I just decided to start using my Macbook again until I get un-frustrated enough to figure out what to do with the Dell.

rangibaby 8y ago
See if it boots with a Ubuntu live USB. If it does you can install over the old version.
scardine 8y ago
My personal pet peeve is the confusing paste buffer(s). On macs it is always ⌘+C and ⌘+V. On linux it may be CTRL+INS and Shift+INS, CTRL+C and CTRL+V, mouse-select and middle-button click and so on.
- ndespres 8y ago
  Are there different paste buffers depending on how it's activated?
  - eloisant 8y ago
    Mouse-select and middle-click might be a different buffer, but other than that it's Ctrl+X/C/V. Only on terminal it's with SHIFT to avoid conflict the Ctrl+C that ends a command.
  - xenomachina 8y ago
    This is actually an X11 thing - it predates Linux. Instead of "the clipboard" X has multiple clipboard-like things. In X terminology they are called "selections". There's an arbitrary number of them, but there are only two selections that are used by most apps: the "primary" selection and the "clipboard" selection. In most apps, the primary selection is populated merely by selecting something, while the clipboard selection is populated by some sort of explicit user action, like ctrl-C or a context menu. The clipboard selection is pasted with some other explicit action. Usually it's analogous to the way you copy to it, like ctrl-V, or a context menu. The primary selection is usually "pasted" with middle mouse button. Sometimes there's also a keyboard shortcut, and if there is it's often a modified form of the clipboard-selection's paste shortcut. Most people get confused by the fact that there is more than one "clipboardy thing". They copy to one, and then paste from the other and winner why their copy didn't work. The fact that there isn't a consistent action to get to each doesn't help. It is consistent if you stick to apps from the same "family" (eg: Gnome/gtk+ or KDE), except terminals never use ctrl key shortcuts. (Because control characters already mean something in terminals.)
    - solarkraft 8y ago
      The elementary Terminal allows Ctrl+V to paste and I find it very convenient.
      - xenomachina 8y ago
        Interesting. I kind of paused when I wrote "never" because it's of course possible for a terminal to bind control-keys to arbitrary actions, but every terminal I've ever used on *nix (including Mac and Linux) just passes control-keys through by default. It's possible that some of them allow such bindings as an option, but I've never checked because I need to be able to send literal control-C and control-V to applications I run in the terminal. (Control-C is of course "break", and control-V is used in vim a lot.) This is one of the cases where I think the Mac approach happens to work out better than Linux (or Windows): by using ⌘ instead of control as the default shortcut modifier, there's no ambiguity about whether I'm talking to my terminal (copy, paste, spawn new window, etc.) or trying to send a control character. I don't know why the Linux community defacto-standardized on control keys rather than Super (or even Alt), given the high proportion of Linux users who are also terminal users.
- Uw7yTcf36gTc 8y ago
  https://github.com/diodon-dev/diodon https://github.com/diodon-dev/diodon he doesn't explain it very well, but you can see one of the options available is to keep the clipboards in sync http://i.imgur.com/7dOzNLq.png http://i.imgur.com/7dOzNLq.png
sametmax 8y ago
> In an attempt to fix the above issues, I tried to update to Ubuntu 18.04 Upgrade are offered from LTS to LTS only once the x.x.1 has been released.
takluyver 8y ago
For the record, 18.04 isn't a dev version now, but 16.04 won't offer the update until 18.04.1 is released in a couple of months. That's a chance for early bugs to be ironed out before lots of LTS users upgrade.
gargravarr 8y ago
My greatest praise for Linux is that it's nearly impossible to completely brick the install - it's almost universally possible to recover it, no matter how broken it seems. You can potentially live-boot your XPS from a USB stick, chroot into your existing install and let the upgrade run to completion (Google around for some guides). 18.04 is a very slick OS - I'm running it at work on my company Precision laptop and it's fantastic. The '-d' flag is required until the 18.04.1 release, which is when the new LTS is considered stable enough for existing LTS users to upgrade.
- sidthegeek 8y ago
  This sounds very useful! I googled but didn't find much - perhaps I did not use the right terms. Can you please post some links that point me in the right direction?
  - gargravarr 8y ago
    Here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCdRecovery#Update_Failure https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCdRecovery#Update_Fail... Rather than Ctrl+Alt+F1 (which switches to a TTY), you can open a Terminal instead and run 'sudo -i' to get a root shell. Replace 'sda1' with your root disk (you may have LVM enabled, and definitely if you have full disk encryption). If you don't have disk encryption, run 'pvscan' and see if it reports anything. To get the update to finish, you can run 'dpkg --configure --all'.
    - sidthegeek 8y ago
      @gargravarr Thanks so much!
xenomachina 8y ago
Your headphone crackle and screen flicker issues both sound like hardware problems. I've never experienced anything like that on any Linux machine I've ever used. I did have an old HP laptop (running Windows) where the screen hinge had damaged the video cable, and I'd get flicker unless it was opened just right.
timrichard 8y ago
I had a similar headphone crackle issue when setting up an XPS13 with Arch Linux. There's a good guide here : https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9350)#High_noise_floor_when_using_headphones https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9350)#High... Using alsamixer, I set 'Headphone Mic Boost Volume' to be 22. Then persisted the change with 'sudo alsactl store'. I haven't experienced the other issues with Arch, though.
deno 8y ago
> Headphones constantly crackle when they're plugged in. I've tried updating audio drivers, enabling/disabling various things, editing config files, etc. nothing fixes it. I've gotten used to listening to music with a crackle superimposed on top. I thought Dell’s XPS series was supposed to have first class support on Linux? Did you try to contact Dell? I never had problem with sound on Linux even with some very cheap hardware. Anyway, if you’re willing to do some tinkering yourself it might be as simple as adjusting some deep alsa settings. E.g. this guy makes it look easy[1] :) > I've also tried updating/changing/etc libinput and it doesn't do anything. Does it use “precision” drivers on Windows? Sometimes trackpads implement their own gesture recognition and all kinds of other weird things. Check what you get with `xinput list` and try disabling anything that is not a pointer device. > (it was on the latest 16.04) Was it a new Dell? If you have new hardware and old kernel then forgot all of the above as that is obviously not a great combination. You absolutely need the latest kernel for the latest hardware. > I did `do-release-upgrade -d` without realizing it was a dev version, then after a few minutes of reading I realized it was, so I cancelled it, and rebooted my computer. Yeah sorry, Ubuntu doesn’t offer safe upgrades. I suggest if you don’t have much Linux experience (and even if you do) OpenSuse Leap/Tumbleweed which has full snapshot & rollback support[1], and since recently fully transactional upgrades as well. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1YkPtfC4LI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1YkPtfC4LI [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJgWvTLo07k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJgWvTLo07k

rangibaby 8y ago

See if it boots with a Ubuntu live USB. If it does you can install over the old version.

scardine 8y ago

My personal pet peeve is the confusing paste buffer(s). On macs it is always ⌘+C and ⌘+V. On linux it may be CTRL+INS and Shift+INS, CTRL+C and CTRL+V, mouse-select and middle-button click and so on.

ndespres 8y ago
Are there different paste buffers depending on how it's activated?
- eloisant 8y ago
  Mouse-select and middle-click might be a different buffer, but other than that it's Ctrl+X/C/V. Only on terminal it's with SHIFT to avoid conflict the Ctrl+C that ends a command.
- xenomachina 8y ago
  This is actually an X11 thing - it predates Linux. Instead of "the clipboard" X has multiple clipboard-like things. In X terminology they are called "selections". There's an arbitrary number of them, but there are only two selections that are used by most apps: the "primary" selection and the "clipboard" selection. In most apps, the primary selection is populated merely by selecting something, while the clipboard selection is populated by some sort of explicit user action, like ctrl-C or a context menu. The clipboard selection is pasted with some other explicit action. Usually it's analogous to the way you copy to it, like ctrl-V, or a context menu. The primary selection is usually "pasted" with middle mouse button. Sometimes there's also a keyboard shortcut, and if there is it's often a modified form of the clipboard-selection's paste shortcut. Most people get confused by the fact that there is more than one "clipboardy thing". They copy to one, and then paste from the other and winner why their copy didn't work. The fact that there isn't a consistent action to get to each doesn't help. It is consistent if you stick to apps from the same "family" (eg: Gnome/gtk+ or KDE), except terminals never use ctrl key shortcuts. (Because control characters already mean something in terminals.)
  - solarkraft 8y ago
    The elementary Terminal allows Ctrl+V to paste and I find it very convenient.
    - xenomachina 8y ago
      Interesting. I kind of paused when I wrote "never" because it's of course possible for a terminal to bind control-keys to arbitrary actions, but every terminal I've ever used on *nix (including Mac and Linux) just passes control-keys through by default. It's possible that some of them allow such bindings as an option, but I've never checked because I need to be able to send literal control-C and control-V to applications I run in the terminal. (Control-C is of course "break", and control-V is used in vim a lot.) This is one of the cases where I think the Mac approach happens to work out better than Linux (or Windows): by using ⌘ instead of control as the default shortcut modifier, there's no ambiguity about whether I'm talking to my terminal (copy, paste, spawn new window, etc.) or trying to send a control character. I don't know why the Linux community defacto-standardized on control keys rather than Super (or even Alt), given the high proportion of Linux users who are also terminal users.
Uw7yTcf36gTc 8y ago
https://github.com/diodon-dev/diodon https://github.com/diodon-dev/diodon he doesn't explain it very well, but you can see one of the options available is to keep the clipboards in sync http://i.imgur.com/7dOzNLq.png http://i.imgur.com/7dOzNLq.png

sametmax 8y ago

> In an attempt to fix the above issues, I tried to update to Ubuntu 18.04 Upgrade are offered from LTS to LTS only once the x.x.1 has been released.

takluyver 8y ago

For the record, 18.04 isn't a dev version now, but 16.04 won't offer the update until 18.04.1 is released in a couple of months. That's a chance for early bugs to be ironed out before lots of LTS users upgrade.

gargravarr 8y ago

My greatest praise for Linux is that it's nearly impossible to completely brick the install - it's almost universally possible to recover it, no matter how broken it seems. You can potentially live-boot your XPS from a USB stick, chroot into your existing install and let the upgrade run to completion (Google around for some guides). 18.04 is a very slick OS - I'm running it at work on my company Precision laptop and it's fantastic. The '-d' flag is required until the 18.04.1 release, which is when the new LTS is considered stable enough for existing LTS users to upgrade.

sidthegeek 8y ago
This sounds very useful! I googled but didn't find much - perhaps I did not use the right terms. Can you please post some links that point me in the right direction?
- gargravarr 8y ago
  Here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCdRecovery#Update_Failure https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCdRecovery#Update_Fail... Rather than Ctrl+Alt+F1 (which switches to a TTY), you can open a Terminal instead and run 'sudo -i' to get a root shell. Replace 'sda1' with your root disk (you may have LVM enabled, and definitely if you have full disk encryption). If you don't have disk encryption, run 'pvscan' and see if it reports anything. To get the update to finish, you can run 'dpkg --configure --all'.
  - sidthegeek 8y ago
    @gargravarr Thanks so much!

xenomachina 8y ago

Your headphone crackle and screen flicker issues both sound like hardware problems. I've never experienced anything like that on any Linux machine I've ever used. I did have an old HP laptop (running Windows) where the screen hinge had damaged the video cable, and I'd get flicker unless it was opened just right.

timrichard 8y ago

I had a similar headphone crackle issue when setting up an XPS13 with Arch Linux. There's a good guide here : https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9350)#High_noise_floor_when_using_headphones https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9350)#High... Using alsamixer, I set 'Headphone Mic Boost Volume' to be 22. Then persisted the change with 'sudo alsactl store'. I haven't experienced the other issues with Arch, though.

deno 8y ago

> Headphones constantly crackle when they're plugged in. I've tried updating audio drivers, enabling/disabling various things, editing config files, etc. nothing fixes it. I've gotten used to listening to music with a crackle superimposed on top. I thought Dell’s XPS series was supposed to have first class support on Linux? Did you try to contact Dell? I never had problem with sound on Linux even with some very cheap hardware. Anyway, if you’re willing to do some tinkering yourself it might be as simple as adjusting some deep alsa settings. E.g. this guy makes it look easy[1] :) > I've also tried updating/changing/etc libinput and it doesn't do anything. Does it use “precision” drivers on Windows? Sometimes trackpads implement their own gesture recognition and all kinds of other weird things. Check what you get with `xinput list` and try disabling anything that is not a pointer device. > (it was on the latest 16.04) Was it a new Dell? If you have new hardware and old kernel then forgot all of the above as that is obviously not a great combination. You absolutely need the latest kernel for the latest hardware. > I did `do-release-upgrade -d` without realizing it was a dev version, then after a few minutes of reading I realized it was, so I cancelled it, and rebooted my computer. Yeah sorry, Ubuntu doesn’t offer safe upgrades. I suggest if you don’t have much Linux experience (and even if you do) OpenSuse Leap/Tumbleweed which has full snapshot & rollback support[1], and since recently fully transactional upgrades as well. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1YkPtfC4LI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1YkPtfC4LI [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJgWvTLo07k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJgWvTLo07k