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I plan on getting myself a new laptop with a top-notch display. The latest Dell XPS 15 seems to have a reasonable price for what it comes with.

My only question is whether it runs with Ubuntu 14.04 just fine or if certain things fail to work.

All the reviews I found are outdated. Also, if you have another alternative for a laptop that's capable of running latest Ubuntu just fine give it a go :)

I need: - i7 latest generation - 8-16GB RAM - NO onboard GFX - High-resolution display (~Retina-like) - 3+ USB 3.0 ports - good battery life - 14"-15.6"

Thank you all in advance.

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  • I can't say for Dell XPS, but I'm running Ubuntu 14.04 on a Dell inspiron 3537 and I'm very pleased with it (i7, AMD, 8GB RAM, 1 Tera hard-drive, 1366x768 screen). Generally speaking, Dell is a company that works closely with Canonical so their laptops are usually very friendly to Ubutnu
    – yuvi
    Aug 26, 2014 at 21:28
  • One person's "works" may be another person's "doesn't work", depending on the personal needs.
    – guntbert
    Aug 27, 2014 at 9:15
  • Closing this seems heavy handed and misguided. Bugs are facts, not opinions, and some bugs are hardware specific. What parts of Ubuntu work on specific hardware is not opinion. It's a list of facts. The answer by Anro van der Weijden is an objective answer to some of what doesn't work. Up to each person to decide which bugs are important to them, but this is the opposite of a question that tends to be answered mostly with opinions.
    – Todd Chaffee
    May 13, 2015 at 5:51

2 Answers 2

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The Dell XPS 15-9530 works just fine on Ubuntu 14.04 out of the box. The multitouch screen however does NOT (as of 13.10) and if you're using a Nvidia card with optimus you'll probably want to install bumblebee but that's up to you. but if, as you say, you have no onboard GFX you'll be able to use it without any problems at all.

If you do happen to have the optimus nvidia graphical card you will NOT be able to use the HDMI out of the box and you'll need a workaround (can be found on the bumblebee website)

For more info on you machine (or other machines) check this
I can confirm the mini-display port working on my Dell xps 15 as well as the usb 3. The HDMI however does not (I've got an optimus card) without a workaround.

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  • Sorry, but I'm going to say BS so others don't buy this, even though it has been replaced by the 9550. Everything works except for suspend/hibernate, which makes this a broken laptop for me.
    – James Hirschorn
    Jan 31, 2017 at 16:28
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    Might I note that this is a 'very' old post and that Ubuntu is constantly improving. What might not have worked in the past might work nowadays. besides my current laptop's suspend/hibernate also didn't work out of the box but that can usually be fixed. The suspend/hibernate issue on the xps 15-9550 has a workaround (askubuntu.com/questions/822439/… ). Ubuntu tends to usually require a bit of work to get it working properly.
    – Akisame
    Feb 1, 2017 at 17:10
  • I'm not exactly a newbie. I've been using Linux on laptops since 2000, and I used to always use Debian which probably required more work than Ubuntu. But yeah, I'm a lot more busy than I used to be so maybe I didn't try hard enough to get it working. So are you saying suspend to RAM and hibernate are working for you on the 9530 with Ubuntu?
    – James Hirschorn
    Feb 1, 2017 at 20:05
  • I do (think I) remember that it worked after some (hours of) tweaking. I can't check because the laptop isn't in my possession anymore. I quickly checked online and is seems that it was a kernel bug that has since been fixed. Looking on online forms ubuntu 16.04 seems to work out of the box for other people (ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2317843) Have you tried downgrading the bios to 1.1.19 (probably from 1.2.10. it seems to be quite a notorious bios version). (I am assuming you are suffering from a black screen upon resuming.Upon resuming everything will work except the display)
    – Akisame
    Feb 1, 2017 at 20:35
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Ubuntu 14.04LTS will run just fine on Dell XPS 15. I am myself using it on Dell 15R laptop. There might be some minor bugs but it will be automatically removed after some updates.

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  • Do you know if the touchscreen is in fact working as well as if the nvidia that's built into it gets recognized by the system? :)
    – Philipp Meissner
    Aug 26, 2014 at 21:27
  • I don't know about the touch screen but nVidia drivers are available for ubuntu.
    – Avijit Singh
    Aug 26, 2014 at 21:31
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    The touch screen in my 15r only half functions - I ignore it most of the time anyhow.
    – Charles Green
    Aug 26, 2014 at 22:58
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    Small update: I am running Ubuntu 15.05 on my Dell XPS 15 (9530) and everything functions just fine. There is literally not a single component not working as intended. I hope this information helps someone :)
    – Philipp Meissner
    Oct 29, 2015 at 9:38

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