Keyboard and touch pad is not working on a Dell XPS 15z

Question

I am new linux user, I dont anything about how linux works, i am working on that, but mean while, i installed ubuntu on my Dell xps 15z, it works fine, except for the keyboard and the touch pad mouse. I searched for the solution but no success, please anyone have solution for this, I am very excited about linux, it very beautiful, very user friendly, I want to replace my windows with it.

Ps. Please be specific in your answer 'couse i dont know anything about linux, keep in my I am a very new user.

Answer 1

I have a XPS 15z too and I will tell you what I did on my xps. First, about the keyboard i don't know what happend with yours, on my notebook it works very well, i think that you will have to reinstall ubuntu to fix this. But for the touchpad has a simple solution, you will open the terminal (ctrl+alt+T), type sudo gedit /etc/rc.local and edit the file wich opened. Before the line exit 0 you will add the following lines:

sudo modprobe -r psmouse
sudo modprobe psmouse proto=imps

Save the file and reboot the computer, i believe after this the touchpad will work. Another thing is about the videocard, it not works in ubuntu, i try so many solutions but anyone works.

I hope i could help you, sorry about my "english', its not my native language.

Answer 2

I've got DELL XPS 15z too, and I just installed ubuntu 12.04.

About videocard, I install Bumblebee with this commands :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bumblebee/stable

Then, I reloaded with :

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Just to be sure the system was up to date, and I installed :

sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia

One more thing to do :

sudo usermod -a -G bumblebee $USER

Where $USER is your username. This is to allow you to choose the videocard later. Now restart your laptop, and enjoy ! To test it, that's very simple : try this to command lines :

glxspheres
optirun glxspheres

And see ! for me in the first case I have 1 to 2 fps, and in the second case I have more than 150 fps. So if you need to use the nvidia card, just add "optirun" at the beginnin of your software launcher.

Answer 3

About keyboard and touchpad, I had the same problem you have, I mean : keyboard was working on grub loading page, but not after, on the login shell, and the touchpad was not working too. It take 5 minutes to do it.

I solve the problem by adding acpi=noirq at the end of the boot line.

The way I did the modifications was this :

1/ During the first boot, I press [e] when I was on the grub loading page, then I gone to the begin of the last line and I came back by the left arrow. Then I just added there :

acpi=noirq

But take care, maybe you have qwerty keyboard instead of azerty one (like me) so press [q] instead of [a]...

Then, press [ctrl]+[x] to execute this command line.

2/ Now you should be able to log in.

3/ To keep this modification once for all, you should edit the grub command. Execute this in a terminal :

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

And modify the line :

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

It to obtain this line :

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="acpi=noirq quiet splash"

Then, save, close, and back in the terminal, execute :

sudo update-grub

Now restart your computer, and all should be great... See above my post for the videocard... Enjoy !

Answer 4

When i was using ubuntu 11.10 i did almost like this you did. Now on 12.04 i didin't do anything yet, i'm still look for something wich make my HDMI works, did your HDMI work? When i using 11.10 i found the solution on post #118 of this link http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1776254&page=12 an then i turned off my videocard, as it did not work, at least the autonomy of my battery increased double.

Thanks man

Answer 5

May this help you, open your terminal and type:

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

updating the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line to:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash i8042.reset i8042.nomux"

Don't forget to save and close, go back in the terminal run sudo update-grub

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