Re: Ubuntu on Dell Xps 15 9550 new Infinity display (i7 6gen 16gbr UHD 4k touch

[michele20]

@satcom66, thank you so much for trying!!

I really hope Dell will create a "developer version" of the XPS so that all these troubles will end.

[bertusrex]

I've finally gotten my Logitech MX Anywhere 2 to work via Bluetooth on my XPS 15 9550 with DW1830 wifi/BT card. The mouse is pretty stable now, everything works, including back/forward navigation buttons. The mouse is detected and connected automatically at boot now. Tested with kernel 4.2 and 4.3 both on Wily (15.10).

These are the steps I took. They're a bit hacky, suggestions for improvement welcome.

1) enable bluetoothd experimental features with -E parameter. To make the -E parameter permanent across boots, I did this:

sudo nano /etc/init.d/bluetooth

and around line 39 replace

NOPLUGIN_OPTION=""

with

NOPLUGIN_OPTION="-E"

CTRL-X to save and exit
(The NOPLUGIN_OPTION is abused a bit here to exec "/usr/sbin/bluetoothd -E")

reboot, and see if you can pair now.

You may need to pair manually using bluetoothctl, put mouse in pairing mode (Logitech MX Anywhere 2: press connect button)

$ bluetoothctl
[NEW] Controller 18:4F:32:F7:F2:E8 steady-XPS-15-9550 [default]
[NEW] Device D8:C2:11:ED:57:26 MX Anywhere 2
[bluetooth]# power off
Changing power off succeeded
[CHG] Controller 18:4F:32:F7:F2:E8 Powered: no
[CHG] Controller 18:4F:32:F7:F2:E8 Discovering: no
[CHG] Controller 18:4F:32:F7:F2:E8 Class: 0x000000
[bluetooth]# power on
[CHG] Controller 18:4F:32:F7:F2:E8 Class: 0x0c010c
Changing power on succeeded
[CHG] Controller 18:4F:32:F7:F2:E8 Powered: yes
[bluetooth]# scan on
Discovery started
[CHG] Controller 18:4F:32:F7:F2:E8 Discovering: yes
[NEW] Device D8:C2:11:ED:57:28 MX Anywhere 2
[bluetooth]# trust D8:C2:11:ED:57:28
[CHG] Device D8:C2:11:ED:57:28 Trusted: yes
Changing D8:C2:11:ED:57:28 trust succeeded
[bluetooth]# pair D8:C2:11:ED:57:28
Attempting to pair with D8:C2:11:ED:57:28
[CHG] Device D8:C2:11:ED:57:28 Connected: yes
[CHG] Device D8:C2:11:ED:57:28 UUIDs: 00001800-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb
[CHG] Device D8:C2:11:ED:57:28 UUIDs: 00001801-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb
[CHG] Device D8:C2:11:ED:57:28 UUIDs: 0000180a-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb
[CHG] Device D8:C2:11:ED:57:28 UUIDs: 0000180f-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb
[CHG] Device D8:C2:11:ED:57:28 UUIDs: 00001812-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb
[CHG] Device D8:C2:11:ED:57:28 UUIDs: 00010000-0000-1000-8000-011f2000046d
[CHG] Device D8:C2:11:ED:57:28 Paired: yes
Pairing successful
[CHG] Device D8:C2:11:ED:57:28 Modalias: usb:v046DpB013d0007
[MX Anywhere 2]#

Paring/trusting only has to be done once.

2) If connecting still fails, update the DW1830 Bluetooth firmware by downloading this zip, and copying the firmware file to your Ubuntu installation (see included README).
Reboot and try again. dmesg should now contain something like

 [    2.221830] Bluetooth: hci0: BCM (001.001.005) build 0422

repeat 1) if pairing/connecting didn't work the first time.

After these steps, if mouse is not connecting try switching off and on the BT device:

$ bluetoothctl
[bluetooth]# power off
Changing power off succeeded
[bluetooth]# power on

The Logitech MX anywhere 2 mouse has support for multiple devices, and has a button on the bottom to activate one of them. I'm using this mouse in a dual boot config, and it seems the mouse thinks that the BT adapter has a different ID under Windows than under Linux (or at least some of the time). You sometimes need to re-pair because of that, but during re-pairing the mouse chooses a new BT ID itself, despite it using the same mouse profile (1, 2 or 3) as before. You then need to re-pair under the other OS again too. Long story short: you're probably best off selecting 1 mouse profile on the mouse for Ubuntu (pairing with that profile active), and a second one for Windows (pairing with the second profile). So when you switch OS, switch profile on your mouse too.


Something unrelated to Bluetooth and Logitech mouse:

I'm attempting to tune power management under 15.10, and I'm seeing strange numbers when using powertop:

When running with Intel graphics (1.2.1 drivers from 01.org) power usage is about 15-20 W when idle, with wifi and bluetooth on, brightness at 50% (FHD panel). My 56kWh battery lasts only about 3 hours that way. When using the 960M GPU (nvidia 358.16 driver), power consumption drops to 9-10W.

It's supposed to be the other way around, Intel should be the power saving option of the two. Anyone else notice this?

[kjano]

I'm attempting to tune power management under 15.10, and I'm seeing strange numbers when using powertop:

When running with Intel graphics (1.2.1 drivers from 01.org) power usage is about 15-20 W when idle, with wifi and bluetooth on, brightness at 50% (FHD panel). My 56kWh battery lasts only about 3 hours that way. When using the 960M GPU (nvidia 358.16 driver), power consumption drops to 9-10W.

It's supposed to be the other way around, Intel should be the power saving option of the two. Anyone else notice this?

While the numbers certainly look strange, 3 hours is exactly the value reported by a recent review of the FHD/56 version for Windows. Other reviews (for windows) report 6+ hours for the 4K/84 version and I am getting a similar runtime on my machine. I have not tried to run down the battery to zero often enough to really report meaningful numbers here but I can get 6 hours of careful use. I also got the external battery pack from Dell which should add some more hours. I have a (power) rate of 14.8 right now with the 4K screen and the 960M turned on while watching a youtube video (and typing this posting) and the screen set to about 40%. This would give me a bit more than 5 1/2 hours on the nvidia. If I reduce the screen to about 30% brightness (which is still absolutely fine indoors), I get a rate of 13.2. Setting the screen to 100% brings me to 18.1. I hope this helps.

[michele20]

Question: when you do not force the use of a specific GPU, does the system switch it automatically and gracefully? (e.g., intel to nvidia when opening a full hd youtube video)

Do you usually force one of them during your daily usage?

[kjano]

hmm, my headphone sound just stopped working. Does it still work for you guys?

[rvanderwerf]

hmm, my headphone sound just stopped working. Does it still work for you guys?

it does that to me a lot, if I unplug it, sounds works through speakers, and I re-plug in headphones and it starts working again.

Question: when you do not force the use of a specific GPU, does the system switch it automatically and gracefully? (e.g., intel to nvidia when opening a full hd youtube video)

Do you usually force one of them during your daily usage?

I force it to nvidia while plugged, intel when not. I'm not getting 15w during idle, best I have gotten is with screen super dim on intel around 19w

I need to try the 358 driver, it sounds like magic. I don't see this on the 352 driver.

[bertusrex]

While the numbers certainly look strange, 3 hours is exactly the value reported by a recent review of the FHD/56 version for Windows. Other reviews (for windows) report 6+ hours for the 4K/84 version and I am getting a similar runtime on my machine. I have not tried to run down the battery to zero often enough to really report meaningful numbers here but I can get 6 hours of careful use. I also got the external battery pack from Dell which should add some more hours. I have a (power) rate of 14.8 right now with the 4K screen and the 960M turned on while watching a youtube video (and typing this posting) and the screen set to about 40%. This would give me a bit more than 5 1/2 hours on the nvidia. If I reduce the screen to about 30% brightness (which is still absolutely fine indoors), I get a rate of 13.2. Setting the screen to 100% brings me to 18.1. I hope this helps.

Thanks for the numbers, always good to compare and to hear some real life experience. I must say I'm usually working plugged in, and with heavier software (e.g. compilers, VM's and IDE's) the battery doesn't last long at all.

As a small (and mostly meaningless) test I left my XPS 15/FHD/56Wh idling in Ubuntu 15.10 with 960M active, screen always on at 50%, it ran for 6:30 hours before shutting down. Not too bad IMO with this battery, although not representative of normal use.

[astroman3001gt]

First of all, Thanks to everybody that is sharing information on this laptop. I have finally decided to move on and order this laptop. I hope I don't regret it. My last laptop choices were not very good when it concerns linux but I am really hopping that this laptop will be 100% compatible for the next LTS ubuntu in April.

Anyway, I will not stick with Windows until April. So I will try to follow some of your suggestions to make the most out of the laptop
as possible with linux. Btw, since there is much spread info in this thread, does any one of you have a good updated summary of the steps to do in?

[kjano]

Battery runtime, CPU update: Here is some interesting info from noteboockcheck.com. It looks like there is a bug in the Dell firmware when you unplug and run on battery, the firmware tries to put your CPU in a 1.6 Ghz power saving mode but it does not reliably wake up from that mode when you plug in again. I observed another effect about the power usage, if you run into a high power rate and your battery discharges quickly and the fan stays on, just plug in and unplug again (or the reverse) and in many cases the fan will stop and the battery power rate will fall again to about 13-20W. Anyway, if you get a rate of more than 20W over longer periods, follow the power management link I posted a few postings above. I have the 4K display with the 84WHr battery and 5+ hours of productive working a not a problem (including software development, latex, email, surfing, music). I typically run the display on 30-40% which is still a lot. Six hours are doable, 7 are not. I also have the external DELL battery which is pretty small and should give me some more hours/

[bertusrex]

Btw, since there is much spread info in this thread, does any one of you have a good updated summary of the steps to do in?

I see a noble task in your future...