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February 11th, 2020 21:00

Help refreshing the Ubuntu on a Canadian XPS 13 7390?

Tl;dr: is there any way to do a fresh install on it so that everything (particularly the WiFi!) works right out of the box? My machine originally shipped with Windows and now has a hacked-together Ubuntu 18.04 running on it but I want to try a reinstall.

Full story: Hey guys, I'm just getting into Linux after waiting for it to mature so I can use it without too much of a learning curve. I bought the 7390 but, because I needed the 2TB and I'm in Canada, I could only get the Windows version. I did and I'm glad because it forced me to dive right into troubleshooting: installing Ubuntu 18.04 killed the WiFi. Which was especially tricky because the machine has no ethernet ports. I fixed that with a USB-C-ethernet adapter (turns out that not all work with Linux, that was a surprise; Best Buy didn't have any but both the ones I got from the Microsoft and Apple stores did the trick, fyi), but in doing so I had to hop back and forth between Ask Ubuntu and the Killer WiFi module page, and this process resulted in my having to disable Secure Boot and a few other things.

This because the Dell rep who sold me the device assured me I'd be able to just install Ubuntu on this machine and then just run as fast as I could. Yet now I'm stuck with a device that boots in insecure mode, whose GRUB refuses to disappear no matter how much I tweak the timeout settings, and who just doesn't respond well to any UI tweaks I try and add to it ( snappy corners don't work, and playing with another setting overlaid a second menu bar over my dash-to-panel settings so now my desktop is starting to look like the beginnings of a spreadsheet). So... lots of stuff. But I'm enjoying the ride so far, and learning so much. It's actually much better than I expected and overall I love the feel of Ubuntu over Windows.

My question: is there any way I can get access to the same Ubuntu version Dell ships with its American XPSes to put that over whatever I have on mine so I can do a few fresh starts as I continue feeling around this device? Please forgive the ignorance, I just don't understand what else could possibly explain the issues I've been having. At this point I really just want it to work straight out of the gate from here on in.

February 13th, 2020 00:00

Good news, I figured out how to fix my double menu bar! What it was, was just a dock on the left and an Activities bar up top, which is I believe the normal setting actually, just I'd forgotten about it after having installed Dash to Panel. This is kind of how it looked (taken from here

I fixed this by uninstalling and then reinstalling Dash to Panel, and restarting my computer a few times in between. I was also sure to download its settings (via last tab in its settings) so I could reupload them. This is what they were:

 

 

[/]
show-apps-icon-file=''
group-apps=true
show-running-apps=true
show-tooltip=false
show-window-previews=true
trans-use-custom-opacity=false
dot-position='BOTTOM'
panel-position='TOP'
intellihide=false
panel-size=25
multi-monitors=true
dot-style-focused='METRO'
location-clock='STATUSRIGHT'
show-showdesktop-button=true
hotkeys-overlay-combo='TEMPORARILY'
show-activities-button=false
dot-style-unfocused='SQUARES'
show-show-apps-button=false
show-favorites=false
taskbar-position='CENTEREDMONITOR'
trans-use-custom-bg=false
window-preview-title-font-color='#dddddd'
appicon-margin=4
tray-size=0
show-appmenu=false
appicon-padding=4
isolate-workspaces=false

 

 

This is how my desktop looks now, with great joy borrowing Bing's wallpapers unofficially via National Geographic Wallpaper app:

You can see the problems I'm having with the system manager, Conky Manager, rendering stats all tiny on the right. This is one other thing I'm actively working on fixing. On top of this, we have:

  • setting up snappy corners so I can have a quadrant of windows open at once
  • hiding the annoying GRUB menu on boot
  • re-enabling secure mode (and full disk encryption? I think that's gone too). I feel these are two vestiges of having installed the WiFi driver on my own
  • figuring out (and resolving) what's causing the super annoying "System Problem Detected" message box that always appears a few minutes after boot:

I will detail my exploits here as they happen. In listening to Linux4Everyone I've realized that this XPS experience is going to be one big hackathon for me; that it's probably just the first in a long line of Linux experiences I'll be having over the years, and not to worry about perfection but rather just dive right into it and keep hacking at things until they work (eg: not seeking that fresh "American" install I mentioned before, if it even exists).

Bonus: I discovered how to about:config my way out of the annoying Firefox address bar spam ("Search With "; "Visit Website" options). And I discovered why the heck this is suddenly a 7000 series XPS when it's following the predecessors in the 9000 line: simple rebranding.

8 Wizard

 • 

47K Posts

February 13th, 2020 08:00

Dell only allows access to an image if you purchased FROM DELL with Linux.

https://linux.dell.com/

Support is available but it is not free.

Dell does not support buying windows and installing OEM Ubuntu afterwards.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystems

This is why if you buy a dell with windows you should do linux ALONGSIDE windows.

 

The 7390 does work with 18.04

Standard images of Ubuntu may not work at all on the system or may not work for all hardware.

This system was tested with 18.04 LTS, running the 4.15.0-1042-oem kernel.

https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201906-27119

 

This system was tested with these key components:

Processor

Intel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10510U CPU @ 1.80GHz

Video

Intel UHD Graphics (8086:9b41)

Wireless

Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (8086:2723)

Hardware details

Audio

Intel 8086:02c8 (8086:02c8)

Intel Unknown

Bluetooth

Intel 8087:0029 (8087:0029)

Capture

CN09357GLOG0092CA2RBA01 Integrated_Webcam_HD: Integrate

Cardreader

Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS525A PCI Express Card Reader (10ec:525a)

Disk

Toshiba America Info Systems nvme0n1

Keyboard

Union Memory (Shenzhen) AT Translated Set 2 keyboard

Processor

Intel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10510U CPU @ 1.80GHz

Touchpad

Union Memory (Shenzhen) CUST0001:00 06CB:76AF Touchpad

Union Memory (Shenzhen) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad

Touchscreen

Union Memory (Shenzhen) ELAN2930:00 04F3:2930

USB

Intel 8086:02ed (8086:02ed)

Intel JHL6540 Thunderbolt 3 USB Controller (C step) [Alpine Ridge 4C 2016] (8086:15d4)

Video

Intel UHD Graphics (8086:9b41)

Wireless

Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (8086:2723)

Other

Union Memory (Shenzhen) Dell WMI hotkeys

Union Memory (Shenzhen) HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=10

Union Memory (Shenzhen) HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=3

Union Memory (Shenzhen) HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=7

Union Memory (Shenzhen) HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=8

Union Memory (Shenzhen) HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=9

Union Memory (Shenzhen) HDA Intel PCH Headphone Mic

Union Memory (Shenzhen) Intel HID events

Union Memory (Shenzhen) Lid Switch

Union Memory (Shenzhen) Power Button

Union Memory (Shenzhen) Sleep Button

Union Memory (Shenzhen) Video Bus

Intel nvme0

Intel JHL6540 Thunderbolt 3 NHI (C step) [Alpine Ridge 4C 2016] (8086:15d2)

Intel JHL6540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge (C step) [Alpine Ridge 4C 2016] (8086:15d3)

Intel Skylake Processor Thermal Subsystem (8086:1903)

Intel Sky Lake Gaussian Mixture Model (8086:1911)

Intel Unknown

Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub (1d6b:0002)

Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub (1d6b:0003)

Shenzhen Goodix Technology Co.,Ltd. Fingerprint Reader (27c6:5385)

 

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