M3800 Ubuntu 15.04

Hi Guys,

I could really do with some help on this.

I've got the M3800 pre-installed with Ubuntu and I absolutely love it.

I just want to know what is the best way to go about upgrading the machine to 15.04?

Can I use the system tool to update to 14.10 and then 15.04?

Should I do a clean install?

Should I just stick with 14.04 for now?

Any tips gratefully received..

Personally, I would stick with 14.04.  I believe that upgrading ONLY for LTS releases is prudent (unless of course there is a kernel upgrade that you simply can't go without).

I doubly don't recommend upgrading to an Ubuntu release the same month it came out as there are usually issues that need to be worked out/packages that need to be updated which take some time.

In general, doing release upgrades is a risky thing, but the best way to do it would be to use Software Updater in my experience.  That is for general Ubuntu installations, I don't know for sure how this process will interact with the Sputnik drivers and etc...but I think it should be ok.

Thanks.

I've been using Ubuntu for ten years, I understand about the risks associated with upgrades.

What I'm really interested in is the official Dell policy towards these non LTS upgrades.

I would like to run the latest and greatest if at all possible.

Still loving my new M3800. It's like a dream come true.

I got the m3800 about two weeks ago and immediately blew everything out and installed 15.04 ubuntu gnome. It's been working well (mostly) but I have run into a few issues. I'm not sure where the problems are coming from (dell, ubuntu, gnome, kernel, ...) but:

1. I use thunderbolt for pretty much everything and it worked great out of the box, sometimes my wireless mouse will not work after a sleep or log out though (plugged into a thunderbolt docking station), no idea if its my mouse or my dock or the kernel thunderbolt support

2. I couldn't get the nvidia drivers to work with prime at all, I tried for the better part of a week to make it happen and ended up having to use bumblebee (which is probably a better solution anyway but it was very frustrating)

3. The laptop wont sleep when I close the lid, nothing I do seem to be fixing it

4. Sometimes when I open the laptop while my external display is plugged in, the internal display doesn't turn on even after unplugging the external display and/or switching it on in the system settings

I might have left of a few other minor issues I can't think of at the moment

For reference I am on kernel 3.19 and using Gnome 3.16 

Thanks for your reply.

Judging from your experience, I think I'm going to hold on to the factory installed OS for now.

I think I might just use my support contract to contact Dell and find out their perspective on the upgrade question.

Probably for the best

BTW any chance you could tell me the contents of your /etc/default/grub and/or send me the .deb files from the recovery image? Should really have made a backup before I overwrote everything

# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
#   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"

# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"
GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true

Specifically, I found the following two lines to be different from the "package maintainer's" version:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true

Hope this helps.

Edit:

Specifically, here is the alternate GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT that is installed with the package maintainer's version:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash pcie_aspm=force radeon.modeset=0 nouveau.modeset=0 video.use_native_backlight=1 pcie_aspm=force radeon.modeset=0 nouveau.modeset=0 video.use_native_backlight=1 acpi_osi=\"Windows 2013\""

GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER is removed.

@treb0r23 Thanks a lot for posting that

@DANTESREQUIEM I noticed those difference over mine as well, I don't think they are going to amount to anything that's going to help me though

I don't suppose anyone knows where to get the .debs that the dell restore image comes with?

I would call up ProSupport.  They have a Linux side of the office that should be able to help you access the drivers some how (the fix I had to apply to my 13-inch 9343 came in a .zip with 4-5 .deb's I unpacked manually with dpkg).

Ok thanks for the advice I'll try to get in touch with them

I've contacted support about this.

Will post here when I get a reply.

Just curious which docking station you are using? I tried the one recommended for the m3800 but it doesn't work with displays (it seems the underlying tech isn't supported in Linux).

Thanks,

Rob

DisplayLink (I think that's that's the name) doesn't support Linux.  So no docking station that translates USB connection to display out will work.  Other features, such as Ethernet to USB adapters and USB splitters do work, but specifically USB -> Display out (HDMI, DVI, Display Port, etc.) won't.

Unfortunately, if you want to have a docking type situation, you will have to rely on traditional display out splitting.

Edit: Just confirmed it is DisplayLink:

http://www.displaylink.com/

There have been some unsuccessful petitions by the Linux community to try and get DisplayLink to make drivers for Linux, but DisplayLink has maintained that they don't see a demand for it.