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I was running kubuntu 17.04 until yesterday with no issues, today I've upgraded to 17.10 and now once logged in, the systems freezes after few seconds. I did a clean install from a bootable usb pen drive but now I'm not even able to try to reinstall it since even in the installer it get stuck. I' ve disabled the secure boot and I'm using legacy boot mode since uefi gave me problems in the past, but even with uefi I'm unable to proceed. The only thing that comes to my mind is that the 17.10 is using a linux kernel which is somehow incompatible with my machine, because in the past I had to rollback to the previous kernel version because of issues. I'm really frustrated and I don't know what to do other than trying to burn another pen drive with a different linux distro... But I would like to understand and fix the problem... Any idea?

daveoncode
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  • You may try to connect to this laptop via SSH and monitor its logs with command like tail -f /var/log/syslog or journalctl -f. – N0rbert Mar 03 '18 at 19:26
  • Dell needs UEFI update and NVMe drive firmware update. also needs change to AHCI from RAID. Dell XPS 13 9560 install without issues https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2357321 & https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_15_9560 & similar: http://askubuntu.com/questions/867488/dell-xps-13-9360-dualboot-windows-10-and-ubuntu-16-04?noredirect=1#comment1344306_867488 – oldfred Mar 03 '18 at 20:59

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I solved!

After hours of googling I realized that, more or less as I was guessing there is a weird incompatibility with recent linux kernels (above 4.10.0-21) and the Dell XPS, but fortunately the problem is not actually in the kernel but in the nouveau driver when a recent linux kernel is used.

I've updated and changed several things on my machine, including a BIOS update (I had 1.2 and now 1.7) by following this post (even if in my case I used the explicit bios upgrade option since by following the author steps I got errors): https://www.calazan.com/ubuntu-users-how-to-upgrade-the-bios-of-your-dell-xps-13-ultrabook/ ...but in the end the real fix has been just to set a parameter in the grub boot settings:

noveau.modeset=0

In order to do that i pressed left shift key during the boot, then pressed "e" and added the setting... later on, in order to make the change permanent:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

and defined:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="nouveau.modeset=0"

then:

sudo update-grub

Before disabling the noveau I was experiencing an ACPI failure and the first "fix" I found by googling was to disable acpi (apci=off in boot options)... but this is a bad move, since by disabling the apci (which I discovered is the "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface") you won't be able to leverage the power of the xps, since Hyperthreading (which is an Intel technology for which for each single physical core a virtual one is created) will be disabled (so you'll get 4 usable cores instead of 8!) and moreover you won't be able to properly shutdown the system via software (you need to press the power button "to confirm").

The post that has helped me a lot has been this one: https://rileymacdonald.ca/2017/06/26/ubuntu-broken-boot-on-dell-xps-15-after-kernel-update-upgrade/

daveoncode
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  • You should only need the nomodeset boot parameter while booting before you install the correct nVidia driver from Ubuntu repository or by adding ppa to get newer drivers. Do not install directly from nVidia. https://askubuntu.com/questions/813676/installing-ubuntu-mate-with-dual-boot-option-on-windows-10-usb-booting-not-hap/814413#814413 & https://askubuntu.com/questions/61396/how-do-i-install-the-nvidia-drivers – oldfred Mar 04 '18 at 15:39