Inspiron G5 15-5587, Resources for Linux users

Question

So i had to do a lot of digging and reading to set up appropriate system configurations on the G5 and wanted to create a linux resource for those who might follow and want similar results.   As for my distro of choice I happen to use Arch which isnt for everyone.A lot of info I post will be relevent to Arch but will try to leave information regarding other distros and where to find things.   For starters it is rather easier to install bios updates before wiping windows.  I personally, and maybe others might immeadiately do so or purchase without an OS installed.  Some I suppose will have the laptop shipped with ubuntu.   If you run into trouble flashing bios from 1.6 to 1.8 please look into : https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fwupd#Setup_for_UEFI_BIOS_upgrade it will carry you over the hump but be sure to setup properly which may involved installing shim or disabling secureboot to make sure that the loader works correctly.   after you have updated bios it will suit you to look at the following reference.  It was written for KDE Plasma, however relevent info and lib-smbios as well as pstate-frequency are simple applications to make use of the power manager controls that windows users are given access too ... also it may be best suited to adjust cpu frequency profiles in:  /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/cpufreq/energy_performance_preference where X is the cpu number ( you will have to adjust the profile for each one. ) I personally choose 'performance'   The KDE users will have a simple plasma widget to make all these adjustments however if you are using a more lightweight or tiling wm like myself you may know how to make these relevent changes on your own using the widget code as reference.  https://github.com/jsalatas/plasma-pstate  Once that is accomplished I would suggest setting up nvidia prime.  some distros you will have to make the neccessary adjustments while distros such as ubuntu and opensuse have prime and prime select in their package managers.  Here is the Arch page for doing so. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PRIME Following up on that and after your Xorg is set you are ready to play games etc and do all you wish.  one last suggestion is since there are issues with overheating on these laptops https://github.com/Sepero/temp-throttle is a nice suggestion to keep your cpu under a certain temp and avoid a few messy issues and prolong the life of your device.   please give me feedback on this and let me know what may be unclear or any ideas on how to document this setup for people better.  <3   --edited for grammar and easier reading--

lunacorn · Answer

some further work and investigation and I would like to add that intel-undervolt package is a life saver for my gaming performance and temperatures

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