XPS 13 9350 - monitor output via USB type C under linux

And by "waiting" I did not mean that gnomes will somehow magically implement support for it. I am well aware and appreciative of the hard work that the Sputnik group, Linux kernel and X developers put into this. Just wanted to make that clear. (And also bump my question ;)

I have a 2014 XPS 13 that is working great with Ubuntu 15.10 and the Dell D3100 USB monitor dock. Please see my previous posts for details

This is kinda off-topic, but how well is the battery life on xps 13 9350 with linux? 

not good. 6h might be a realistic figure for some light workload.

I find it really good (guess it depends on perspective). For me it lasts 7 or 8 hours. My monitor is usually about at half brightness. I do mostly light work combined with a multi-core compile every hour that lasts about 10 minutes.

Note that I had to let my laptop run out of battery a few times to teach it that it can last longer. It was saying "critical" with 5 minutes. Instead of plugging in, it lasted another 20 minutes and later learned that it can do so. I dont know if this is good though, but it is a non-standard shutdown when it runs out by itself.

I just flew from east to west coast this week, reading an e-book. After about 5 hours of reading a PDF in Okular at minimum screen brightness (with wifi on accidentally) the battery monitor turned red and warned only 50 min left. Turns out there are no electric plugs on this plane, so I disabled the wifi and the remaining time shot up to over 1.5 hours remaining.  By landing time it still estimated about 1 hour of remaining battery.

So, on minimum screen brightness with a light workload, I would guess 7 hours.

Alan

Thanks Cloojure - 

I did eventually get my 9350 to play nice with the D1000 that I bought, but it required me to manually override the resolution as reported by xrandr. By default, the only high resolution reportedly supported by the D1000 and my Asus 4k monitor was 3840x2160, however I never got that to work right (it was zoomed in and confusing). When I added 2560x1440 (I can provide details if anyone is interested), I did get it to work "right". I remain annoyed with the low update rate (mouse movements are a bit choppy), as well as the occasional errors that xubuntu reports (usually when setting things up, and never seem to have too much of an effect on anything), but at least it is working. My coworker have the 9343 with the D3100 running windows, and that adapter did work properly with 3840x2160. My suspicion is that the D1000 have the same display link chip, but software limited poorly to only support 2560x1440. So, I will probably get a D3100 for my multi-line programming needs and give the D1000 to yet another coworker.

Hopefully the USB-type C thunderbolt 2 docking station Dell TB15 in 2016 will have linux support from day 1?

regards,

Staffan

I have not ran it on battery for long enough to have any idea just yet. It is a good question though. 

regards,

Staffan

Hi all, 

to add something to this thread. 

Got the XPS 13 (9350) three weeks ago, running Mint 17.3, kernel 3.19.0-32 w/o any problems (replaced the wifi-card before installing).

Monitor output via a cheap Aukey USB-C to HDMI-Adapter worked fine.

Got the WD15 Dell Dock (130W) today and struggling to get it working. Hot-Plugging the Dock causes the system to freeze, booting with the dock plugged in causes the boot to stop. 

Apparently, Staffan's hopes did not come true. Is anyone from the Dell Sputnik Team reading this thread an able to shed some light? I will see if a kernel update fixes the problem.

Best

Claus

Claus - 

Thanks for reviving it :) If I understand you correctly you have no chance to do anything as your choices are 1. No boot, 2. Freeze.

Is that correct?

Do you get any errors logged in either case? (I know it can be a little bit annoying to figure out, especially if you only have one computer)

I am tempted to get the Aukey adapter - when I tried the google adapter I got nothing worked, but it seems promising with some success after all. Right now, I am stuck with the displaylink driver in my D1000 (limiting the resolution on my 4k monitor to 2560x1440 and working a bit iffy in general), so a working USB-C adapter would be nice. Do you have an amazon link or similar for that adapter?

(I am on Xubuntu 15.10 if that is of use to anyone)

regards,

Staffan

Hi Staffan, 

here's the Link to the Adapter that I bought http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B015FP7TVW?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00 

With the Dell Dock, I played around a lot and found that it works fine for Gigabit Ethernet, Charging, USB-Storage and USB-Wireless Mouse/KB combo. Just plugging in the Monitor (HDMI and VGA) causes the freeze.

I will try to limit the resolution via xrandr. 

Best

Claus

Just adding another anecdote for anyone else finding this thread...

I've been able to get the WD15 dock working with my XPS 13 9350 but it seems a little fragile. I'm running Fedora Rawhide with kernel 4.5. My external display is connected to the dock using mini-displayport and is visible to xrandr but I have to manually add the appropriate mode. For me it's been pretty consistent that I need to have the dock connected on boot for both the display and wired network to show up.

I've had a few crashes too when plugging in and out, but haven't been able to track down the culprit yet. This is day #2 with the XPS 13 and the WD15 so still early to form any definite conclusions.

Paul

Hi Paul, 

thanks for sharing. Although I made up my mind to send it back, could you share how you manually added the right xrandr mode for the display. I might try it out after upgrading to 4.5. With 4.4 it did not show up, neither hdmi, vga nor mini-dp with an adapter to hdmi.

Cheers, C

Hi Claus.

I simply ran:

xrandr --addmode DP1-2 1920x1080.

So xrandr now reports:

DP1-2 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
   1920x1080     60.00*+  60.00*
   1024x768      60.00  
   800x600       60.32    56.25  
   848x480       60.00  
   640x480       59.94 

I should add that this morning xrandr still reported the screen as disconnected, even after a reboot. However once I turned off and on the hub it started working once again.

Paul

Ok. After making sure my xubuntu was up to date, I tried my google USB-C to DP adapter again, and nothing in xrandr. I looked up the aukey adapter on amazon, and have ordered it for use "on the road". Unfortunately, it will not be sufficient at work where I *really* want to use my 4k monitor appropriately. So, I guess I will eagerly await some funds for fun stuff to unfreeze at work (small startup, let me know if you are very rich and looking for a good investment) before getting the 130W WD15. 

I appreciate all your suggestions and comments, thanks! 

-Staffan