4 ms·

I wonder at what point they got rid of the Intel RAID/RST controller that'll never be supported in upstream Linux - it's in the non-"developer" 9350.

hvis 6y ago
You turn it off in the BIOS before installing your system, and that's it.
- voltagex_ 6y ago
  Which is what I've done when installing Linux. Am I losing performance? Power efficiency? Features? It also makes dual booting trickier if you don't plan it beforehand. It frustrates me that there's not that many reviews that cover this kind of stuff, so it's hard to avoid silliness like this when making a substantial purchase like a laptop.
  - heelix 6y ago
    It is simple enough to set up windows to use the normal boot rather than the RAID one. I've got my XPS set up with one drive in Linux, one in Windows - and boot into the drive I want to be in.
  - hvis 6y ago
    > Which is what I've done when installing Linux. Am I losing performance? Power efficiency? Features? From what I read a year ago before doing this, you don't lose much, and software-based RAID (if you go for that sort of thing) in GNU/Linux is just as efficient/reliable, and maybe more so. And anyway, if you only have one HDD/SSD, there is no point in RAID. > It also makes dual booting trickier if you don't plan it beforehand. I don't think so: installing Windows will work just the same with Intel's RAID turned off.
    - qwerty456127 6y ago
      > And anyway, if you only have one HDD/SSD, there is no point in RAID. Obviously. But why did they care to equip this laptop with the RAID by default?
      - hvis 6y ago
        Apparently, Intel's RST is not just RAID, but it's also supposed to help when a laptop is equipped with two storage devices, one small and fast (SSD) and another big but slower (HDD): https://superuser.com/a/1578326 https://superuser.com/a/1578326 IIRC there were Dell XPS models like that in the lower price segment. Never tried one personally.
The_Colonel 6y ago
Coincidentally I have this exact model (9350 non-developer) and it runs (Ubuntu) Linux great. Laptop is completely silent, all the hardware runs flawlessly, battery life is after 5 years still pretty good, just overall great experience. I honestly don't remember if I had to at some point disable something in BIOS ...
- voltagex_ 6y ago
  I have it too. The battery is shot after 4 years (?) but lasts quite a bit longer in Ubuntu. It's had coil whine as long as I had it, the supplied Toshiba NVMe drive died and I've also replaced the Wi-fi card with a mostly sane Intel 9560. If you're using a SATA drive with the default UEFI settings, Linux will see the drive. If you use a PCIe drive, it won't until you set it to AHCI mode. Edit: oh and Windows frequently wouldn't recognise the USB-C port unless you had something plugged into it during boot.

hvis 6y ago

You turn it off in the BIOS before installing your system, and that's it.

voltagex_ 6y ago
Which is what I've done when installing Linux. Am I losing performance? Power efficiency? Features? It also makes dual booting trickier if you don't plan it beforehand. It frustrates me that there's not that many reviews that cover this kind of stuff, so it's hard to avoid silliness like this when making a substantial purchase like a laptop.
- heelix 6y ago
  It is simple enough to set up windows to use the normal boot rather than the RAID one. I've got my XPS set up with one drive in Linux, one in Windows - and boot into the drive I want to be in.
- hvis 6y ago
  > Which is what I've done when installing Linux. Am I losing performance? Power efficiency? Features? From what I read a year ago before doing this, you don't lose much, and software-based RAID (if you go for that sort of thing) in GNU/Linux is just as efficient/reliable, and maybe more so. And anyway, if you only have one HDD/SSD, there is no point in RAID. > It also makes dual booting trickier if you don't plan it beforehand. I don't think so: installing Windows will work just the same with Intel's RAID turned off.
  - qwerty456127 6y ago
    > And anyway, if you only have one HDD/SSD, there is no point in RAID. Obviously. But why did they care to equip this laptop with the RAID by default?
    - hvis 6y ago
      Apparently, Intel's RST is not just RAID, but it's also supposed to help when a laptop is equipped with two storage devices, one small and fast (SSD) and another big but slower (HDD): https://superuser.com/a/1578326 https://superuser.com/a/1578326 IIRC there were Dell XPS models like that in the lower price segment. Never tried one personally.

The_Colonel 6y ago

Coincidentally I have this exact model (9350 non-developer) and it runs (Ubuntu) Linux great. Laptop is completely silent, all the hardware runs flawlessly, battery life is after 5 years still pretty good, just overall great experience. I honestly don't remember if I had to at some point disable something in BIOS ...

voltagex_ 6y ago
I have it too. The battery is shot after 4 years (?) but lasts quite a bit longer in Ubuntu. It's had coil whine as long as I had it, the supplied Toshiba NVMe drive died and I've also replaced the Wi-fi card with a mostly sane Intel 9560. If you're using a SATA drive with the default UEFI settings, Linux will see the drive. If you use a PCIe drive, it won't until you set it to AHCI mode. Edit: oh and Windows frequently wouldn't recognise the USB-C port unless you had something plugged into it during boot.