New XPS 13 Statistics

I know you targeted this towards the Sputnik team, but I thought some of my experiences would help you make a decision and the Sputnik team seems to be very busy at the moment.

At this point I have had 2 XPS 9343's (2015 version) both had the same trackpad/keyboard issues.  On the second one (the one I am currently using), I called ProSupport and they gave me a link to a .zip archive with 3-5 .debs in it that resolved the issue (mostly)...the link says it was published on the 12th.

It seems like you have spent some time reading the forums so you probably know that despite resolving most of the issues, there still seems to be a keyboard issue revolving around repeated key strokes.

On the balance I think the Dell Sputnik team is dedicated to sorting out the issues with the platform and providing fixes and long term support, but there are some growing pains with this new release.  If you need a computer tomorrow, this might not be the one to get.  If you can wait 3 weeks to a month or two, then I think this machine will blow the Macbook Air out of the water.

On battery life, with some modest settings tweaks (screen brightness, keyboard back light on medium instead of high) I have gotten a solid 6 - 6.5 hours of moderate use out of the 4K screen version.  Your battery life should be better on the 1080 version so I would be comfortable suggesting you could get a solid 7/7+.

Given some of the troubles with upgrading to 15.04 I encountered, I also think ProSupport is recommended.  Making sure all the hardware works just right will be tricky.

Something else to consider, if size and battery life aren't the end-all-be-all things for you, the Precision M3800 seems to be a lot more stable at the moment than the 2015 XPS13 DE.

I am in the same boat as you.  I wanted to ditch Windows so I got a System76 Galago UlraPro.  It's a decent machine, but it suffers with battery life and build quality.  The XPS 13 is a much better build, form factor, and sips on battery.

Thanks for the quick reply and your input.

The trackpad issue is one of the biggest issues I was concerned about. I can deal with the key repeat issue, as I have to put up with that already, though it is very rare. I pretty much only see it in the virtual machine I run.

That was the biggest difference I've been reading from the Windows XPS groups. The 1080 screen gets much better battery life than the 4K touchscreen. I personally don't see the purpose of having that high of a resolution on a 13" screen. 1080 has been sharp on every screen I've seen up to 50", and 1080 on screens around 10-11" starts to have scaling problems. I could only imagine 4K. 1080 on the M4800 is beautiful, so 1080 is all I need.

I was able to get 6 hours on the M4800, but that was with locking the processor to the lowest frequency, minimum brightness, no keyboard backlight, and very light office work. But then again, that was under Win7 Pro.

It seems to me that the issues with the XPS 13 DE are software/driver related. If that is true and it is not the hardware (which I doubt would be fixed during the production run of the current model. Manufacturers usually save that for generation changes), then I wouldn't mind working through the bugs. They can be fixed over the air.

I've looked at the M3800, but I'd like something a little smaller than what I have now. Plus, I want good battery life like I get on a tablet. Since I've had much better luck with Ubuntu than Windows lately, that pretty much targets the XPS 13 DE. I like the size of my Samsung Ativ 500T, but it is very difficult if not impossible to load Linux on it. After measuring it, the 500T with the keyboard dock and XPS 13 are the same size.

My understanding is that the smoothest best experience with the 2015 XPS-13 is with Ubuntu 15.04. I already ordered XPS-13 and when it arrives, the first thing I'm going to do is wipe it and clean install 15.04.

Why? For the XPS-13 Dell selected the latest hardware for the best performance, power savings and battery life. It's a fantastic laptop. But the Linux kernel 3.13 that is part of Ubuntu 14.04 simply doesn't support this hardware, it was never designed to, so Dell had to tweak Ubuntu. To Dell's credit, they got it to work and submitted the tweaks back to the community. But they are just tweaks - they make it usable but they can't fix the root cause of the problem, which is the 3.13 kernel simply doesn't support this hardware running in the native modes in which it runs best.

Meanwhile, the Linux kernel 3.19 that is part of Ubuntu 15.04 supports this latest hardware right out of the box, seamlessly and smoother, no tweaks needed.

I like your enthusiasm, positive attitude, and Linux spirit.  I feel conflicted writing this response because I feel like it cuts against my massive support for Dell and appreciation for the entire Sputnik team as well as Dell as a corporation for giving Linux a chance on their best hardware.

That said, I am sorry, but there is no excuse for shipping broken hardware to paying customers.

This sounds blunt.  Well, quite frankly, it is, but it is the long, short, left and right of the issue.  If what you say is true -- and being an avid Linux user/fan, I am inclined to agree -- then Dell should have shipped the XPS 13 9343 with 15.04 pre-installed, with a 15.04 recovery partition, and 15.04 recovery and driver tools.

I would not have minded buying a laptop with a non-LTS release of Ubuntu if it meant getting the latest hardware in a working state.

Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely thrilled with Dell, Sputnik, and especially their ProSupport staff.  In fact, I have an appointment on Monday with a Linux ProSupport member during which I will discuss upgrading my Dell ProSupport term to the lifetime of the unit.  There is a lot of love to be had and much appreciation due to the team for all of their driver and kernel work/support.

But I paid for a laptop with OEM support and they shipped me a laptop that, out of the box, doesn't work.

At this point, I am also not convinced that there is a clear upgrade path to 15.04.  I had to RMA my first machine because I first tried to upgrade 14.04 to 15.04 through the standard Ubuntu tools but had initramfs problems versioning the kernel between 14.10 and 15.04.  This may not be a Dell problem, but it does concern me for the future.  Specifically, upgrading to 16.04 as I like to upgrade to LTS releases to keep my personal machine in line with my servers.

Setting this concern to the side for a moment, I tried to install 15.04 from a bootable USB and encountered all sorts of issues.  It even, for the first time in my short life, put my machine in a completely un-bootable state (bricked).  I could not boot from Live CDs, usb drives, or even recover through the recovery partition.  This is why I ultimately RMA'd the first machine.  I am not a hardware guru, nor a Linux guru (cough cough I am buying a Laptop from Dell hoping it makes Linux easier to manage), but I have never, until now, completely bricked hardware.  This includes a Razer Blade Pro I installed Ubuntu on for a couple of years (I mention the Razer because it had all sorts of hardware issues that I was ultimately able to sort out on my own).

Having gotten that out of the way, I am still a huge Dell fan and will hopefully be able to get ProSupport help in properly (safely) upgrading my system from 14.04 to 15.04 on Monday.  If everything works and it is smooth, then I will keep the system and upgrade my ProSupport to a lifetime term.  If it doesn't, I will probably be forced to return the unit and wait for the driver issues to be resolved/for Dell to ship the laptop with a newer kernel/newer Ubuntu version.

Again, I am still very happy with Dell on the whole, but this was definitely a faux pas (imo).

Thanks for the quick reply and your input. The trackpad issue is one of the biggest issues I was concerned about. I can deal with the key repeat issue, as I have to put up with that already, though it is very rare. I pretty much only see it in the virtual machine I run. That was the biggest difference I've been reading from the Windows XPS groups. The 1080 screen gets much better battery life than the 4K touchscreen. I personally don't see the purpose of having that high of a resolution on a 13" screen. 1080 has been sharp on every screen I've seen up to 50", and 1080 on screens around 10-11" starts to have scaling problems. I could only imagine 4K. 1080 on the M4800 is beautiful, so 1080 is all I need. I was able to get 6 hours on the M4800, but that was with locking the processor to the lowest frequency, minimum brightness, no keyboard backlight, and very light office work. But then again, that was under Win7 Pro. It seems to me that the issues with the XPS 13 DE are software/driver related. If that is true and it is not the hardware (which I doubt would be fixed during the production run of the current model. Manufacturers usually save that for generation changes), then I wouldn't mind working through the bugs. They can be fixed over the air. I've looked at the M3800, but I'd like something a little smaller than what I have now. Plus, I want good battery life like I get on a tablet. Since I've had much better luck with Ubuntu than Windows lately, that pretty much targets the XPS 13 DE. I like the size of my Samsung Ativ 500T, but it is very difficult if not impossible to load Linux on it. After measuring it, the 500T with the keyboard dock and XPS 13 are the same size.

Then I definitely think this is the machine for you.  If the keyboard issues won't bother you then it is a wonderful machine.  Also, as has kicked around in this thread, there is hope that 15.04 and its newer kernel will resolve all observed issues.

Regarding 4K, you are right that it does get small.  I, personally, can scale it pretty low (almost to flat ratios) which allows me to fit more lines in my Emacs and Shell buffers...which I find amazing.  It makes me significantly more productive when on the road and not having the benefit of larger/multiple monitors.  But it's definitely not for everyone, and of course the battery trade off makes it less appealing (even for me).  To compensate, I got a Dell external battery which stores ~50% of a full charge for the machine.

<< Dell should have shipped the XPS 13 9343 with 15.04 pre-installed, with a 15.04 recovery partition, and 15.04 recovery and driver tools. >>

Agree. As the big volume of FUD on this and other forums attests, this would have saved a world of headaches and hassles for Dell and their customers.

What FUD? I only see customer trying to solve issues on their laptop...

15.04 pre-installed would not be a problem if we can easily upgrade from 14.04.

Unfortunately, when I tried to upgrade to 14.04 from within Ubuntu I ran into initramfs problems during the jump from 14.10 to 15.04.

I also ran into boot problems when I tried to get around it by installing my own copy of 15.04 from a live USB/bootable USB (I tried both) but couldn't boot into Ubuntu after install apparently finished.  Eventually boot failed entirely (couldn't even raise a boot menu) so I gave up and RMA'd the machine.

I have a call with Linux ProSupport on Monday morning and I will disucss the proper way to upgrade to 15.04 in order to get the newer version of the kernel that apparently has device drivers for this hardware in it.

That's odd that you're running into problems doing a version upgrade.

With everything that started happening with work and some of the work being done on the XPS, I think I'll wait a bit to see if Dell releases it with 15.04.

On a side note, has anybody used a Latitude E5550? Except for the number pad and trackpad, the keyboard looks identical to the XPS 13. We use E5550's at work and the keyboard is wonderful to type on.

> That's odd that you're running into problems doing a version upgrade.

Yeap. I'm running ubuntu since 05.04 and it is the first time that I have to reinstall ubuntu after an upgrade. I'm not alone, I didn't read any post on successfull upgrade.
And installing a fresh 15.04 seems not be straightforwad due to broadcom drivers.

I'm balancing between getting problems in installing 15.04 and staying with wonky 14.04 (since I've installed patch from http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/f/3525/t/19631683 I've lose the right click and jumpiness is worst)

I am running the 3.19 kernel on Ubuntu 14.04 on my desktop. Works fine, though I haven't yet tried it on the XPS-13, since I haven't yet received mine.

I'm surprised nobody's tried this yet on the XPS-13. It is easier than wiping the disk and reinstalling from scratch. Perhaps Dell could advise us - if you're going to run kernel 3.19 on Ubuntu 14.04, should you (must you?) uninstall Dell's 14.04 patches?

If a newer kernel is a solution of the issues, I keep bringing up the new feature of LTS releases - updating the kernel using the LTS enablement stack:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack#Kernel.2BAC8-Support.Ubuntu_Kernel_Support

It would seem the 3.19 kernel should be available as Early Preview for 14.04 (before the update to 14.04.3).

Is this thing so new no one is using this approach, or is it so broken that, again, no one is using it?

This is interesting actually, I have never had to use the enablement stack so I don't usually explicitly run the upgrade.  That said, I am currently giving it a shot.  At the moment I am running the upgrade from 3.13 to 3.16 with the Utopic enablement:

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends linux-generic-lts-utopic xserver-xorg-lts-utopic libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-utopic libegl1-mesa-drivers-lts-utopic

I will keep this thread updated as I progress.  Just curious, but how did you get to 3.19 kernel? Utopic will bring me to 3.16, but it doesn't appear as if the Vivid versions of the Utopic packages are available yet.

I am doing this right now after my upgrade to 3.16.  For reference to others, here is my current status:

gshulegaard@ronin:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:    Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS
Release:    14.04
Codename:    trusty
gshulegaard@ronin:~$ uname -a
Linux ronin 3.16.0-37-generic #51~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed May 6 15:23:14 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
gshulegaard@ronin:~$

@MRC01:
How do you proceed? Do you use https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/MainlineBuilds with http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/?