Has anyone had any success installing Ubuntu 14.04, 15.10, or any variety on the new Dell Precision 5510?
I have been trying for 3 days with very little success.
Issues I'm Facing
-
The Intel 8260 wireless network card is not recognized.
- Fixed in by installing 14.04 and updating to kernel 4.2, which causes the thunderbolt 3 Ethernet dongle to not work.
-
Can't hibernate or shut down.
- Tried Many things including:
+acpi=off
. Works for shutdown, but won't hibernate.- I can't remember what else I've tried, but they were numerous.
- Tried Many things including:
-
When installing Ubuntu 15.10:
- +First: get Missing Parameter in configuration file. Keyword Path
*fixed: tab -> live. - I get a bunch of error messages about nouveau then the system hangs.
- +First: get Missing Parameter in configuration file. Keyword Path
System Information
- Precision 5510 with a core i5, and the touch screen 4k display.
Best Answer
How to Install Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on the Dell Precision 5510
[edit: Aside from the "Allow Linux to see your storage device" step, on newer install media, this guide is no longer necessary. Just install normally, everything works.]
I was able to get Ubuntu 16.04 LTS installed over the last few days. These are my notes from the installation. Multi-monitor connections via HDMI work. The thunderbolt 3 port also works for Ethernet and Display Port. Please feel feel to revise this, and read carefully, as there are almost certainly some errors. I'm not a Linux expert by any measure.
Disable nouveau in order to boot from the Linux live disk
Do this at grub before booting from Ubuntu install media to avoid crashes due misbehaving video card drivers.
Allow Linux to see your storage device
When booting, press
F2
orCTRL
+p
to access the UEFI configuration menu. Navigate to SATA Operation on the left, and set it on the right to either AHCI if you have a hard drive, or Disabled if you have only the NVMe drive. The reason that the setting SATA Operation > RAID 0 hides the NVMe drive from Linux is that it turns on a proprietary RAID + AHCI driver, stored in firmware, called Intel RST. Linux has a difficult time communicating with the Intel RST driver without a lot of tinkering.Once you've booted in, and with no external monitor connected, install normally. The following should be done only after you've rebooted into your newly installed system.
Install kernel 4.6 for Ubuntu
On newer install media this step isn't necessary. Run
uname -a
to see what kernel is running on your Ubuntu live cd. If it's version 4.6 or later, skip this step.You can find the gpg keys to verify the files haven't been tampered with here.
Enable hibernation
First test to see if hibernation works:
If you're able to resume, create a file to allow hibernation from the GUI.
Install Dell drivers from the Ubuntu Driver Support Pack
This step can be problematic, since you're installing .debs intended for an older version of Ubuntu. There is probably a better solution for this, but I haven't figured it out yet.
Starting the laptop with a monitor plugged in via HDMI caused my machine to crash until I did this. It may require some troubleshooting on your end.
ALSA defaults to sending sound to HDMI even if there's nothing plugged in. Fix it with this:
Set up Nvidia Optimus
First install bumblebee
Next, remove any exising nvidia packages and install newer ones.
Add an indicator so you can tell whether Intel or Nvidia is being used.
Increase the text size on TTY consoles (for 4k screens)
On the 4k screen variety of this laptop, the font size is nearly unreadable when switching to a TTY ( for example, when pressing CTRL+ALT+F1 from Unity ). You can change it like so:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup
Hope it helps!