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Typing this from Fedora 31 running on a dual-boot, 4-month old XPS 15 (LCD screen, not 4K OLED). The only configuration change that has to be made on a new XPS

Typing this from Fedora 31 running on a dual-boot, 4-month old XPS 15 (LCD screen, not 4K OLED). The only configuration change that has to be made on a new XPS is switching the SATA mode to AHCI. Fedora signs the kernel correctly--you don't even have to disable secure boot. Signing 3rd party kernel modules under secure boot isn't difficult, but documentation on it is sparse. So I've kept my notes for next time: https://lawler.io/scrivings/linux-cookbooks/ https://lawler.io/scrivings/linux-cookbooks/ The Arch guys have a great compendium on the XPS and Linux: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_15_7590 https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_15_7590

marcus_holmes 7y ago
I don't know if that changed recently. I gave up on it a year ago. I went through all this (though with Ubuntu not Fedora), switched modes, disabled secure boot, read every web page I could find. Nothing worked. I'm kinda tempted to see if I can get it working now, but honestly, also kinda traumatised by the whole experience and never want to touch it again.
- Eiriksmal 7y ago
  I'm not familiar enough with Ubuntu's installer capabilities, but Fedora's has made huge advances in the past 5 years. I went in to the setup fearing the worst (that is, the struggle that was doing a secure boot, UEFI Windows 8 + Fedora 20 setup in 2014), but was shocked at how good Fedora 31's install routine was. I shrank the 1TB SSD partition in Windows, disabled the proprietary fake-RAID, then booted Fedora's XFCE spin from a USB key. The installer handled everything else--no having to manually tinker with the UEFI partition. Post-install, the XPS's UEFI correctly booted to GRUB, which had successfully detected the Windows bootloader (again, no tinkering like with FC20) and can boot either OS. Disabling hibernate in Windows and figuring out how to mount the encrypted Windows partition in Fedora was all that remained. The Linux Kernel 5.5 has a bunch of improvements for the i7-9750H (and other Coffee Lake processors), which is another reason to consider giving Fedora 31 a spin. :) I had this pleasant experience the same time I was trying to figure out how to dual-boot FC31 on a touch bar MacBook Pro. The short answer is: 80% of the MBP's hardware doesn't work in Linux. Broadcom won't release drivers that are compatible with Linux and blame FCC rules for their reason. Insane. https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux
  - marcus_holmes 7y ago
    dammit, now I'm tempted to try again. Thanks, I think ;)

marcus_holmes 7y ago

I don't know if that changed recently. I gave up on it a year ago. I went through all this (though with Ubuntu not Fedora), switched modes, disabled secure boot, read every web page I could find. Nothing worked. I'm kinda tempted to see if I can get it working now, but honestly, also kinda traumatised by the whole experience and never want to touch it again.

Eiriksmal 7y ago
I'm not familiar enough with Ubuntu's installer capabilities, but Fedora's has made huge advances in the past 5 years. I went in to the setup fearing the worst (that is, the struggle that was doing a secure boot, UEFI Windows 8 + Fedora 20 setup in 2014), but was shocked at how good Fedora 31's install routine was. I shrank the 1TB SSD partition in Windows, disabled the proprietary fake-RAID, then booted Fedora's XFCE spin from a USB key. The installer handled everything else--no having to manually tinker with the UEFI partition. Post-install, the XPS's UEFI correctly booted to GRUB, which had successfully detected the Windows bootloader (again, no tinkering like with FC20) and can boot either OS. Disabling hibernate in Windows and figuring out how to mount the encrypted Windows partition in Fedora was all that remained. The Linux Kernel 5.5 has a bunch of improvements for the i7-9750H (and other Coffee Lake processors), which is another reason to consider giving Fedora 31 a spin. :) I had this pleasant experience the same time I was trying to figure out how to dual-boot FC31 on a touch bar MacBook Pro. The short answer is: 80% of the MBP's hardware doesn't work in Linux. Broadcom won't release drivers that are compatible with Linux and blame FCC rules for their reason. Insane. https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux
- marcus_holmes 7y ago
  dammit, now I'm tempted to try again. Thanks, I think ;)