What is Dell Ubuntu Upgrade Policy?

Question

Does anyone know what Dell's official policy is with regards to upgrades for Dell OEM installed Ubuntu? Do Dell have an official upgrade policy that provides some kind of official upgrade path to the next Ubuntu LTS version or am I stuck on 18.04 forever? If they do provide an upgrade path, how long is it likely to be before my machine drops off the end ? I have just bought an XPS 13 7390 with a Dell OEM Ubuntu 18.04.3 (LTS) installed. It has a dependency on Dell proprietary device drivers.  Rather alarmingly I can see Dell have disabled distro upgrades by setting /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades to Never upgrade. With Ubuntu 20.04 just around the corner, I'm starting to wonder if I've wasted my money. I bought this machine thinking it was compatible with the canonical Ubuntu release but if I try running the canonical iso from a USB stick the WiFi fails and the screen isn't FHD. This machine was a lot of money and is an awesome spec - it would be nice to know that I am going to be able to keep it up to date. What is the official Dell Policy? It would be nice to know that Dell actually care and haven't just cobbled this together to sell and forget.

Dell-SreejithR · Accepted Answer

@vlac666 ,

In response to your private message.

The Ubuntu version officially tested by Dell currently is 18.04, the same OS shipped with the notebook.

We do not have any update if the new Ubuntu version will be supported for now & there is no official confirmation if this model will have an update.

If the OS is officially tested and approved for this model, the BIOS for the same will be made available on our Support site.

speedstep · Answer

18.04.X is good for 3 more years.

https://ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle

Extended security maintenance for customers goes until 2027. No vendor that I know of has SDLC over 5 years.

System Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Bionic Beaver

April 26, 2018

April, 2023

Ubuntu 19.04

Disco Dingo

April, 2019

January, 2020

20.X is not released.

vlac666 · Answer

Hi,

Thanks - I have no issues with the Ubuntu LTS policy. It's excellent !!! It's Dell's support for it's Ubuntu customers that concerns me.

20.04 is out in about 4 months. My machine will be less than 6 months old. This is Ubuntu - I should be able to upgrade without even thinking about. Unfortunately Dell have disabled the update mechanism and I won't be able to upgrade unless Dell rebuild the custom oem or work with canonical to get the drivers in the base version.

Based on their earlier response, there is a risk I could be stuck on 18.04 until I buy a new machine. At least I'll get security patches

speedstep · Answer

Dell does not provide free support nor does canonical. If you are willing to pay for an onsite dell engineer they would provide that kind of support.

Dell supports based on life cycle of the os not on when you got the machine.

Dell only supports the version that came with the machine.

Dell does not update the OEM image.

pojargeo · Answer

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Aims To Enhance The Certified OEM Experience From Its Installer

Booting the generic Ubuntu 20.04 LTS install media on a "Certified OEM" Ubuntu device could yield a different experience compared to running Ubuntu on a system not certified by Canonical.

The Ubuntu developers are working on checking for known certified devices at GRUB boot-loader time using an SMBIOS module. By checking the device identifier strings against their known certified devices could lead to booting an OEM Certified experience. That experience could include using a newer Linux kernel compared to what is otherwise shipped by Ubuntu. For newer Ubuntu certified systems that were added post-released, this could still be checked at install-time with APT updates.

While Ubuntu 20.04 is aiming for Linux 5.4 by default, the OEM Certified experience could include booting to (and installing) a newer kernel based on either Linux 5.5 or 5.6. Additionally, this newer kernel option won't be presented to users on non-certified systems.

When running the Ubuntu installer on a detected "OEM Certified" system the plan is to also enable their respective Ubuntu OEM package archives where additional packages are sometimes offered.

More details on these Ubuntu Certified OEM plans via this mailing list post. Basically, it's bundling additional improvements to benefit users running on Ubuntu OEM Certified hardware that may resort to re-installing Ubuntu at a later date and with these changes would dramatically improve their experience while sticking to the generic install media. This will most notably benefit the likes of the Dell XPS Sputnik systems and other certified hardware.

Gilbou92 · Answer

I'm using 18.04 on my new Dell XPS 2020 and I'm very happy with it

We still have 3 years ahead of us for the 18.04 and security patches will keep coming several years after that.

I am not at all in a hurry to move to 20.04 until it has been out and used extensively for YEARS before it drops on my laptop

I use this machine to write code everyday, 8 hours per day. I want this machine stable, to work fine and almost forget the operating sytem to keep my eyes on the IDE.

I want stability before having the latest cutting-edge available version.

am70 · Answer

Just my 2 cents

I had some problems, some bugs with the version preinstalled in my XPS 13 7390

one particular problem, the kernel would hang when unplugging the external dongle, due to a bug in the thunderbolt drivers

then I installed the linux kernel 5.4.0-64-generic

since then I never had that problem

moreover it seems that all Dell specific drivers work fine with kernel 5.4.0-64-generic

this all said, I am looking forward to Dell giving us green light for upgrading to 20.04

Linux General

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