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I recently bought a Dell G15 5521 laptop. This has an Intel i7-12700H CPU, NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 6GB video card, 32GB RAM. I want to use this as a home machine and for software development.

It comes with Windows 11 Home pre-installed. I have installed XUbuntu 22.04 as a dual-boot. The basic XUbuntu desktop (Xfce) is now working.

According to these two links, I think that Ubuntu should be working (certified) on this spec:

However, I do note that these say: Pre-installed in some regions with a custom Ubuntu image that takes advantage of the system’s hardware features and may include additional software. Standard images of Ubuntu may not work well, or at all.

Initially, I had problems with random temporary freezes, but after some googling, I seem to have fixed this by adding this to the kernel command line in the Grub config: ibt=off acpi=off

However, I'm still having some significant issues.

HDMI port

Using the HDMI port. Nothing seems to recognise the HDMI port for an external monitor. This is a blocker for my intended usage.

I did some googling around this, found various suggestions about installing different NVidia drivers, but none are clear on details. I tried using Software Updater => Settings => Additional Drivers. This was originally set to use X.Org X.server -- Nouveau .... I changed this to use "NVIDIA driver (open kernel) metapackage from nvidia-driver-525-open (proprietary, tested)" This doesn't seem to have helped to recognise the HDMI port, so I have currently reverted this back to Nouveau.

System freezing on shutdown.

The system freezes on shutdown; it never completes, and I have to hold down the power key to complete the shutdown.

I am an experienced Linux user, though not experienced in diagnosing desktop issues such as these. I have been running XUbuntu on my previous laptop for many years. It generally "just works", and I have not had to dig in to diagnose display issues like these. I have also used Linux for professional software development.

My questions:

  • I'm currently on XUbuntu 22.04. Am I likely to have better luck if I upgrade to 22.10?

  • How to diagnose the HDMI behaviour? Again, which logs to look at. Various suggestions tell me to try a plethora of different NVidia drivers. Which ones are relevant, where should I get them from, if not just from the standard XUbuntu sources?

  • In the Ubuntu Software & Updates settings GUI, under Additional Drivers, it lists 8 different NVidia drivers, each with different numbers associated with them. Are these version numbers (bigger is better), or are they intended to match the hardware? If the latter, which should I choose on my system (NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 6GB video card).

  • If I really need to use the exact kernel which was used in the certification steps (5.14.0-1011-oem kernel), where do I get that from and how should I install it? uname -a currently shows: Linux DellG15 5.15.0-56-generic #62-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 22 19:54:14 UTC 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

  • Any suggestions on how to diagnose the shutdown issues? Which log files should I be looking at? Which settings may be relevant?

  • What else should I be investigating?

Many thanks for any assistance.

Conor O'Neill
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  • FYI, another user seems to be having similar issues with NVidia drivers, and has suggested a detailed set of steps to work through, see this thread: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1413738/installed-ubuntu-22-04-and-i-experience-frequent-freezes-and-crashes-when-using – Conor O'Neill Dec 22 '22 at 20:10
  • Another hopefully useful article here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1347461/black-screen-after-installing-nvidia-driver-ubuntu-20-04-02-lts-rtx-30-series-o?rq=1 – Conor O'Neill Dec 22 '22 at 20:34
  • And perhaps this one too: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1404626/can-t-run-drivers-for-rtx-3060-laptop-ubuntu-20-04?rq=1 – Conor O'Neill Dec 22 '22 at 20:35
  • Make sure you have all the latest firmware installed, it is easiest to do so via Windows, use the Dell tools to get the latest drivers and firmware, you may need to do this several times. I've had way too many issues using the Nouveau driver to attempt to use it. I am using 525.60.11 driver (nvidia-driver-525-open - distro non-free recommended). The following https://www.linuxcapable.com/install-nvidia-drivers-on-ubuntu-linux/ covers the different install methods and checking. – Damian Dixon Dec 23 '22 at 10:29
  • HDMI is working for me directly and via a TB3'ish dock. I did initially have a few issues with HDMI via a USB dock but I switched to a more expensive one. Try sudo lshw -C display and xrandr to see if the hardware is recognised both in the laptop and that the monitor is found. – Damian Dixon Dec 23 '22 at 10:36
  • grub: I'm not using ibt=off acpi=off. My GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULTis empty. Shutdown: switch to a console and take a look at dmesg and systemd journal journalctl. – Damian Dixon Dec 23 '22 at 10:39

1 Answers1

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Solved. After much frustration and very much trying multiple options, I have finally got my system working, using an external HDMI monitor, and not freezing on shutdown. I suspect that if I'd made the appropriate changes in the correct order, I might have got this working very quickly, but I have no idea exactly what ordering is required.

Hardware: Dell G15 5521 Special Edition laptop; purchased Dec 2022. Intel "12th generation" i7-12700H 24MB cache, 14 cores. NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 6GB video card.

A summary of my current relevant software settings is:

Thank you muchly to the very detailed answer which Gabriel Staples provided in this answer: Installed Ubuntu 22.04 and I experience frequent freezes and crashes (when using NVIDIA graphics card) and to Damian Dixon who pointed me to this: https://www.linuxcapable.com/install-nvidia-drivers-on-ubuntu-linux/

Notes.

The NVidia documentation says that you need to have Hybrid Graphics turned off (in your BIOS). When I tried to turn Hybrid graphics off, my system never managed to get into the graphics screens after boot. I had to leave this turned on while I tried various other permutations. I eventually removed 'acpi=off' from the grub command line, and now the various combination of settings is working with Hybrid graphics turned off.

Note that I had also succeeded with "NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-470.161.03", downloaded from NVidia website and installed manually from recovery mode. This is what gave me the confidence boost that I finally had something working, and then further adjustments can be made from the UI rather than having to drop into recovery mode from the boot menu each time.

Gabriel Staples
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Conor O'Neill
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  • Conor, I'm glad you got it figured out and my answer helped. It's not clear to me from your answer though, which was your final solution? Did you end up with NVIDIA driver (open kernel) metapackage from nvidia-driver-525-open (proprietary, tested) installed via the Software & Updates GUI, or NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-470.161.03 installed manually per my instructions? Also, did you try the 500-series manual drivers before going to the 400-series 470.161.03 driver? – Gabriel Staples Dec 23 '22 at 18:18
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    My final solution was to use the 525 driver, installed via the gui. But to get to there, i had to go through lots of other stages. I tried 4 different drivers in decreasing version numbers via recovery shell, only 470 worked. Then I managed to turn off hybrid graphics. Then I tried 525 again from the GUI, which then worked. There were other intermediate steps which I've also forgotten. – Conor O'Neill Dec 24 '22 at 19:06