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November 10th, 2018 15:00

how to install linux on XPS 15 9570?

Hi, I should install linux in dual boot in my XPS 15 9570. What settings of the bios do I have to change over to the secure boot?

13 Posts

November 10th, 2018 19:00

As an example, in the case of Ubuntu 18.xx in a dual boot configuration, download the Ubuntu image, flash it to a thumb drive (etcher makes this easy). Restart the laptop (leaving the newly flashed bootable drive in a usb port) and hit the F2 key as soon as the Dell logo appears. In the boot menu in the BIOS set the flash drive to be the first bootable device. Restart and the Ubuntu installer should load. In the case of that Linux build it pretty much does everything for you to make the system dual boot to include creating it's own ext4 partition. After installation the system will boot to a menu that lets you select Ubuntu or Windows. 

Again this is one example of running Linux along side Windows, I have this configuration on a 9570 and it was as easy as what I just described. I didn't change any secure boot settings or UEFI settings or anything other than setting the bootable Linux installer drive to first device. That build of Linux does everything else for you. Different Linux builds have different idiosyncrasies. 

 

4 Operator

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14K Posts

November 10th, 2018 20:00

If your system came with Windows 10 installed, Secure Boot will already be enabled.  Some Linux distros now support Secure Boot, so if you'll be installing one that does, you should leave it enabled.  If not, then the only BIOS setting you have to change is Secure Boot, which has its own section in the BIOS and it's just that one option.  Just disable it.  Windows 10 will still keep running fine, although you won't have the anti-rootkit benefits of Secure Boot.

4 Operator

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14K Posts

November 10th, 2018 20:00


@AArak wrote:

As an example, in the case of Ubuntu 18.xx in a dual boot configuration, download the Ubuntu image, flash it to a thumb drive (etcher makes this easy). Restart the laptop (leaving the newly flashed bootable drive in a usb port) and hit the F2 key as soon as the Dell logo appears. In the boot menu in the BIOS set the flash drive to be the first bootable device. Restart and the Ubuntu installer should load. In the case of that Linux build it pretty much does everything for you to make the system dual boot to include creating it's own ext4 partition. After installation the system will boot to a menu that lets you select Ubuntu or Windows.

 


When using UEFI booting, you don't set USB devices at the top of the boot order because USB devices set up for UEFI booting don't even appear in that list.  The boot list on UEFI systems only shows devices that are registered in the firmware.  But even if you were using Legacy BIOS booting, moving a USB device to the top of the boot list just to install an OS once is a waste of time.  The better way is to press F12 at boot to access the one-time boot menu.  For UEFI systems, that's where you'll see the USB device listed, and again even for Legacy BIOS systems, this is much faster overall.

November 10th, 2018 22:00

thank you both for your reply. Unfortunately in my case in addition to disabling the secure boot, I have to modify other things (enable "Legacy options Roms") otherwise the boot drive is not performed. Moreover, with any proven linux distribution (Kali, pureOS, ubuntu, mx) the pcie is not recognized and therefore I can not install the operating system.

4 Operator

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14K Posts

November 11th, 2018 07:00

If you have to enable Legacy Option ROMs, then you either didn’t use a Linux distro that supports UEFI or you didn’t prep your USB flash drive properly for UEFI. For the latter, I use a tool called Rufus to prep USB flash drives since it makes it easy to specify whether you want Legacy or UEFI. You should really fix that rather than falling back to Legacy. I’m pretty sure that Ubuntu works even if you leave Secure Boot on, which again you should if you can since it does have some value.

Not being able to see the SSD is probably because the SATA Operation setting in the BIOS (which also affects NVMe SSDs, despite the name) is set to RAID and it needs to be on AHCI for Linux. Unfortunately, changing this setting will mean you’ll also need to reinstall Windows to get it set up properly for the new mode.

November 11th, 2018 10:00

exact. But if I imposed the SATA Operations in AHCI, I install linux, and then set the Sata Operation in Raid again, it works both windows and linux? or will there be problems?

November 11th, 2018 14:00

okay thanks. But is not recommended to leave Legacy options Rom? 

November 11th, 2018 14:00

I managed to make windows 10 work by leaving the AHCI option without formatting. Now everything works, both windows and linux. I followed this guide https://medium.com/@peterpang_84917/personal-experience-of-installing-ubuntu-18-04-lts-on-xps-15-9570-3e53b6cfeefe .

thank you all.

4 Operator

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14K Posts

November 11th, 2018 14:00

You'd have to switch that setting every single time you wanted to boot one OS or the other, which I think would become inconvenient very quickly, so if you want to dual boot I would simply bite the bullet, change to AHCI, reinstall Windows from scratch, and then install Linux.  I recommend reinstalling Windows first because Linux provides options to simplify dual boot setups if it detects an existing Windows installation, but Windows doesn't try to help set up dual boot if it already sees a Linux installation.

4 Operator

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14K Posts

November 11th, 2018 14:00


@Toto-xps15 wrote:

I managed to make windows 10 work by leaving the AHCI option without formatting. Now everything works, both windows and linux. I followed this guide https://medium.com/@peterpang_84917/personal-experience-of-installing-ubuntu-18-04-lts-on-xps-15-9570-3e53b6cfeefe .

thank you all.


Nice.  I had heard that there was a way to do things in Safe Mode to make that work, but I never looked at the details in order to confirm.  In any case, I hope you managed to install Linux in UEFI mode.  If so, you should be able to disable Legacy Option ROMs again and possibly even enable Secure Boot again, depending on the version of Linux you installed.  If disabling Legacy Option ROMs breaks your Linux environment, then I would really recommend reinstalling Linux properly in UEFI mode so that you don't have to keep Legacy Option ROMs enabled.

4 Operator

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14K Posts

November 11th, 2018 18:00


@Toto-xps15 wrote:

okay thanks. But is not recommended to leave Legacy options Rom? 


If you don't need to use OSes that boot in Legacy mode, there's no reason to keep it enabled.  Having that enabled prevents you from enabling Secure Boot, and it can also just create confusion if you ever use bootable USB flash drives that support both Legacy and UEFI booting, because in that situation you'll be able to choose to boot them in either mode, and that can create problems for how the OS is installed.  For example, if you accidentally boot a Windows installer in Legacy mode, then it will actually install Windows onto your hard drive in a way that's set up for Legacy booting rather than UEFI booting, which is not what you would want.  UEFI is better when your OS and system support it.  If you keep Legacy Option ROMs disabled, it won't be possible to accidentally boot install media in Legacy mode like that.  But if you have already installed your Linux system in Legacy mode, then disabling Legacy Option ROMs at this point might prevent Linux from booting, in which case you would need to perform a clean Linux install after making that change -- which again might involve creating USB media that can boot in UEFI mode.  On the other hand, it's possible that the Linux installer doesn't work the same way as the Windows installer.  Since you already had a Windows installation in UEFI mode on your system, that means your internal hard drive would be set up to use the GPT partition layout rather than the older MBR layout that's used for Legacy systems.  In that case, the Linux installer might have performed a UEFI installation even though you booted the installer in Legacy mode.  I'm just not sure since I haven't experimented with Linux much.  But the bottom line is that the ideal setup for you is Legacy Option ROMs disabled, both Windows and Linux set up in UEFI mode, and even better having Secure Boot enabled if you're using a Linux distro that supports it.

1 Message

January 31st, 2019 11:00

I've tried post from here that suggests nomodeset as boot parameter (Ubuntu 18.04.1 and 18.10) on Dell with BIOS 1.6 - but kernel crashing during installation (both when Linux was started from USB and when Ubuntu installer was started immediately) prevented me from installation after few mins. I guess that HW/BIOS are too new for Linux. My Dell XPS 9570 runs i5 (with 1T HDD) and I've upgraded RAM to 16G / M.2 to 0.5T Samsung SSD. Win10 are running without problems. And yes for AHCI and UEFI and no for Secure Boot ;).
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