Convert XPS 13 windows edition to developer edition

I just flashed stock Ubuntu 14.04 onto my Windows XPS 13 (I got impatient waiting for the developer edition to come back online in the UK store!).  I've set it up with a Windows dual boot, and I've kept the Windows recovery partitions for now (I'm tempted to back them up and then delete them for some extra disk space).

The device mostly worked perfectly fine with a fresh install, but there were a few very minor tweaks I had to do to have everything working brilliantly:

• Blacklist the i2c_hid touchpad driver (otherwise the touch pad did not support gestures).  You can do this with: `sudo sh -c "echo 'blacklist i2c_hid' > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-i2c_hid.conf"`
• Set up the display scaling, so everything wasn't tiny.  Settings -> Screen Display -> Scaling for menus and title bar.  I set it to 1.25
• (may not be necessary) Set the system text scaling with Unity Tweak Tool.  Changing my display scaling appeared to have set my system fonts to be scaled 2x (which was HUGE).  I downloaded Unity Tweak Tool and under Appearance -> Fonts there is an option "Text scaling factor".  I set this to 1.25.
• (If you use Chrome) Increase Chrome's default zoom level.  Chrome appears to dislike high-DPI linux devices, so the entirety of Chrome was really small by default.  Unless you recompile Chrome you can't fix that, but you can change the default zoom level in Chrome's settings: Settings -> Advanced -> Web content -> Page zoom.  I set this to 125%.

With those tweaks made, I've had no problems with Ubuntu 14.04 so far - it's an absolute dream to use on the XPS 13.

I did this exact same thing with an XPS 13 9333 I picked up from a local store.

Everything was running nearly perfectly after the install...

I am having a screen issue where it will randomly start flickering and then goes black. Only way to recover is to close the lid (goto standby mode) and then reopen it. Either of you ever encounter anything like this? After searching Google, I was very disappointed to find that this is actually a common problem and I am trying to pinpoint if it is hardware or software related.

Thanks,

Greg

I am having a screen issue where it will randomly start flickering and then goes black. Only way to recover is to close the lid (goto standby mode) and then reopen it.

That sounds like it's potentially a hardware issue, in which case you might want to utilize your support contract.

One suggestion is to see if suspending and resuming without closing the lid fixes the problem. You might need to ssh in to do this. It'd help with figuring out if the hinge is part of the problem.

Yep, I tried that too. I ssh'd into my laptop and did a sudo reboot without touching anything on the laptop. When it reboots, the screen does not recover so I am fairly convinced that it is hardware. I already contacted both dell support and the store I bought it from. I planning on swapping it out for a new one today.

Thanks

Yup, sounds like hardware. :( Let us know if swapping doesn't fix the issue for you.

Sure, I'll post an update when I get a new laptop.

Swapped out the new laptop. So far.... NO ISSUES (finally)

First thing I did was check BIOS (already latest version A04). Next I wiped the SSD (even the windows recover partitions) and put on Ubuntu 14.04.01 using UEFI and Secure Boot. Everything worked right out of the box. The only minor issue was that I had a slow/spotty wireless. The fix is to disable wireless n. There are no other issues yet. If anything changes in the next few days, I'll post another update.

As long as the computer continues to operate like this, I will be extremely happy with my purchase.

Thanks