Kernel panics on every shutdown

I still don't understand why people blow away their factory install just to switch to Kubuntu since it's much easier to just run "apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" (see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FromUbuntuToKubuntu

Well, first, I didn't know that this is possible. Second, I originally wanted wanted to install Linux Mint KDE but Kubuntu made fewer problems. And shouldn't I be able to expect everything to work properly when reinstalling the same Ubuntu the machine ships with (Kubuntu, as you rightly mentioned, not being different from Ubuntu + KDE desktop, we're talking about 14.04 of course)?

Anyway, it seems like the problem was, in fact, the Broadcom module: I didn't get any kernel panics when having my USB ethernet adapter plugged in, which prevented WiFi logins in the first place. But a friend upgraded to Kernel 4.0.9 and installed the bcmwl package as found on packages.ubuntu.com/wily/amd64/bcmwl-kernel-source/download. It is some patched version for Ubuntu 15.10 as I understood it.

Still, wanted to say that the developers made a great job with the laptop, apart from the broadcom issue, which is notorious on Linux, and occasional key repeats everything worked out of the box, which is a small miracle for Linux on such a high end machine. :-) If I had known about the broadcom thing, I would have tried to order an Intel Chip machine, I've read that XPS13 can also be bought with the Intel WiFi chip, which should probably be default for Ubuntu installs.

I had tremendous problems with the kernel panic issue on suspend/shutdown.  I'm running 15.04 Kubuntu, and blacklisted mei and mei_me as well.  I am on the A04 BIOS (which helped with the keyboard repeat issue).

I finally resolved it last weekend by ripping out the Broadcom wifi chip and installing an Intel 7265 chip ($28, Amazon).  After that, I have not seen a single kernel panic and the machine has been running beautifully, and wifi is faster as a bonus.  Cracking the case open was a bit of a project, but I'm really happy I did it, given the results.

It's a shame that Dell can't/won't ship the Linux laptops ship with Intel chips that 'just work'.

Flubuntu: My apologies, I just noticed that my response somehow got cut off after the link, and I noticed that my response probably came off as very brusque.

I meant to also say that Ubuntu 14.04 LTS came out a year before the 2015 XPS 13 DE, and as such, it doesn't really support this system very well out of the box. The hardware enablement (HWE) work we have Canonical do (with our help) involves accounting for these deficiencies with key updates to packages to achieve support parity for these LTS releases. These are 99% of what differentiate our factory image from a stock, with the other 1% being changes incorporated in stock Ubuntu that we turn on so that we can load our factory HWE changes. The factory images also include special Dell PPA's hosted by Canonical to keep our HWE packages up-to-date until the time when they can be incorporated into stock Ubuntu. Updates for HWE in non-LTS releases follows a different model.

We are also definitely aware of the issues our Linux customers have had with the Broadcom wireless card. We are working with Canonical and Broadcom to fix outstanding issues. The null pointer issue fix is already included in the upcoming Ubuntu 15.10 and will slowly make its way to Ubuntu 15.04 and 14.04.

We've been aware of the preference for Intel wireless cards in our Developer Editions systems, but at the time the 2015 XPS 13 was going to launch, we couldn't get the approval for using a different wireless card than the Windows version. We believe when the next generation launches, we may have the visibility and user base to make this happen, though. I'm hoping we're able to deliver on this, but no promises yet!

Thanks Jared for such a great explanation! My own opinion is that I don't mind waiting for fixes as long as work is being done and the process is transparent, and you have just helped a lot as far as that. By explaining the problems you've faced, it helps us understand why things are the way they are.

Thanks. :)

Thanks also from my side for the explanation. So I understand that this means that the PPAs hosted by Dell are not included in the images that are found online - wouldn't it be easy to fix whatever problems come up there by adding those PPAs manually afterwards? How can I do that?