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I have a 2017 13" XPS running Solus Linux. I have come to abhor this machine. I can't tell you the amount of times I've had to reboot the computer due to frozen

I have a 2017 13" XPS running Solus Linux. I have come to abhor this machine. I can't tell you the amount of times I've had to reboot the computer due to frozen or halting apps. I only have 8GB of RAM so that might be it but I can't run Slack app or the Google Play app at the same time without definitely causing problems. I have a desktop with Solus and 16GB at home and never run into any issues with it. I don't recommend this laptop anymore to anyone.

rehemiau 8y ago
I am guessing here but Solus Linux isn't probably officially supported by Dell on the Developer Edition of this laptop (you have the Developer Edition, don't you?)
- wildmindwriting 8y ago
  I do have the Developer Edition. It may not be officially supported but everything works out of the box. I've got a personal IdeaPad laptop from years ago that has a worse configuration but doesn't freeze like this Dell.
  - sowbug 8y ago
    It sounds like not everything works out of the box.
zepearl 8y ago
I had a (first version?) XPS 13 running first Gentoo and then later Linux Mint and I never had problems with it. Once I even let it run for 2 months without rebooting and making it go into suspend-to-RAM from time to time and it never crashed. But then I still sold it because I could never get used to its cursor keys and absolutely hated the impossible-to-deactivate-embedded-automatic-brightness-control.
rashkov 8y ago
Do you have a swap partition? If you don't have a swap partition enabled, then your computer will freeze when your RAM fills up. I have the XPS 16" and this happens to me under Arch Linux, but thankfully not very often because I have 16GB of RAM. If you really have to break out of the freeze, then you can try switching to another terminal window (eg. ctrl-alt-F3 or some other function key), then try to kill the offending process. It might take a minute for your keyboard inputs to take effect, but it generally can be done.
- bscphil 8y ago
  Tip: I have the exact same setup, and I use earlyoom (https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom) to prevent this. Previously, I was frequently unable to break out of the freeze no matter how long I waited, forcing a hard reboot, but with earlyoom just a single memory-heavy app gets killed instead.
jeffmcjunkin 8y ago
I was recently affected by my an aftermarket NVMe SSD: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1678184 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1678184 tl;dr -- add `nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=0` to /etc/default/grub in the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT parameter, run `update-grub`, reboot. Verify with `sudo nvme get-feature -f 0x0c -H /dev/nvme0`. Totally agreed that this shouldn't happen. I hope that's your issue.
jhasse 8y ago
> I don't recommend this laptop anymore to anyone. Wouldn't this happen with any 8 GB laptop? Not sure what you blame the XPS 13 for that.
- wildmindwriting 8y ago
  No, not all. My IdeaPad works just fine with similar specs and it's older than the XPS.
rlpb 8y ago
I have a 2017 13" XPS running Ubuntu. It's a 9360 and I made sure to order one that actually shipped Ubuntu. It works perfectly and I'm very happy with it. I also have 8GB of RAM. I recommend this laptop to everyone, though of course I haven't tried the newer ones that are available today. Perhaps OS support is your problem? Did you order it with Ubuntu or with Windows?

rehemiau 8y ago

I am guessing here but Solus Linux isn't probably officially supported by Dell on the Developer Edition of this laptop (you have the Developer Edition, don't you?)

wildmindwriting 8y ago
I do have the Developer Edition. It may not be officially supported but everything works out of the box. I've got a personal IdeaPad laptop from years ago that has a worse configuration but doesn't freeze like this Dell.
- sowbug 8y ago
  It sounds like not everything works out of the box.

zepearl 8y ago

I had a (first version?) XPS 13 running first Gentoo and then later Linux Mint and I never had problems with it. Once I even let it run for 2 months without rebooting and making it go into suspend-to-RAM from time to time and it never crashed. But then I still sold it because I could never get used to its cursor keys and absolutely hated the impossible-to-deactivate-embedded-automatic-brightness-control.

rashkov 8y ago

Do you have a swap partition? If you don't have a swap partition enabled, then your computer will freeze when your RAM fills up. I have the XPS 16" and this happens to me under Arch Linux, but thankfully not very often because I have 16GB of RAM. If you really have to break out of the freeze, then you can try switching to another terminal window (eg. ctrl-alt-F3 or some other function key), then try to kill the offending process. It might take a minute for your keyboard inputs to take effect, but it generally can be done.

bscphil 8y ago
Tip: I have the exact same setup, and I use earlyoom (https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom) to prevent this. Previously, I was frequently unable to break out of the freeze no matter how long I waited, forcing a hard reboot, but with earlyoom just a single memory-heavy app gets killed instead.

jeffmcjunkin 8y ago

I was recently affected by my an aftermarket NVMe SSD: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1678184 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1678184 tl;dr -- add `nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=0` to /etc/default/grub in the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT parameter, run `update-grub`, reboot. Verify with `sudo nvme get-feature -f 0x0c -H /dev/nvme0`. Totally agreed that this shouldn't happen. I hope that's your issue.

jhasse 8y ago

> I don't recommend this laptop anymore to anyone. Wouldn't this happen with any 8 GB laptop? Not sure what you blame the XPS 13 for that.

wildmindwriting 8y ago
No, not all. My IdeaPad works just fine with similar specs and it's older than the XPS.

rlpb 8y ago

I have a 2017 13" XPS running Ubuntu. It's a 9360 and I made sure to order one that actually shipped Ubuntu. It works perfectly and I'm very happy with it. I also have 8GB of RAM. I recommend this laptop to everyone, though of course I haven't tried the newer ones that are available today. Perhaps OS support is your problem? Did you order it with Ubuntu or with Windows?