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Just recently bought a Dell XPS 7590 for everyday use. I've been meaning to give Linux an honest shot since I've worked with it before.

I installed regular Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and let the installer take care of everything. It grabbed the appropriate Nvidia drivers as well which was nice.

After the install completed and the system booted in, I immediately noticed that the desktop environment seemed to be running very slow. Just about every application felt sluggish and animations were definitely struggling. I tried all the options provided by the Nvidia settings for graphics switching and restarted each time. Nothing seemed to help.

My best guess is that the rendering performance just isn't there in Linux yet for 4K displays. I could be wrong but running the display at lower resolutions helped a lot. Only issue is the reduced visual clarity even at integer scales.

I ended up just restoring Windows considering I have work that needs to be done. Hopefully there is a solution as I'd really prefer Ubuntu as my main OS.

Just for reference, here are the general specs of the laptop:

  • Intel Core i7-9750H 6c/12t
  • 32GB DDR4 2666MHz
  • Nvidia GTX 1650 4GB GDDR5
  • 3840x2160 (4K) 60Hz IPS Display
  • Generic 1TB NVMe SSD

Everything runs fine in Windows and there doesn't seem to be any thermal issues. Im fairly certain there's nothing wrong with the device itself.

Derek de la Peza
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  • 20.04 is very new; it was released six days ago. I'd suggest any benchmarking should be done in 18.04. – K7AAY Apr 29 '20 at 21:39
  • Did you install Nvidia drivers? – Pilot6 Apr 29 '20 at 21:43
  • Very cool hardware. Mine is a lot worse, but my Ubuntu 20.04 runs really good (in a VM, since i do not like gnome). Can you post some dmesg/journalctl -xe data? What does ~/.xsessions-errors say? – kanehekili Apr 29 '20 at 21:56
  • Any update with your issues? I plan to buy the same laptop and I need to decide between 18.04 19.04 or 20.04 – heracho Jun 04 '20 at 18:59
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    @heracho, 19.04 has reached EOL. Install Ubuntu 19.10, it worked fine on my Dell XPS 7590. Ubuntu 20.04 installed fine too, but I can't provide any feedback yet, because I just installed it a few hours ago. – naXa stands with Ukraine Jun 07 '20 at 12:02
  • @naXa It would be really helpful if you can provide an update for your 20.04 installation. – heracho Jun 10 '20 at 18:23
  • @heracho just for clarity, I have exactly the same laptop specs as in the question. Gnome desktop performance is pretty good. after 20.04 installation, I noticed "extremely slow network performance" (now resolved). I have thermal issues: core temp is 75°C or more (without a cooling pad). I had the same temperatures in Ubuntu 19.04 / 19.10 and I don't know how to fix this by software. I'm using a cooling pad so the core temp is around 57°C. I can't say anything about NVidia card + Linux, I only play games under Windows. – naXa stands with Ukraine Jun 10 '20 at 20:18

3 Answers3

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Old question, but here we go anyways. I have the exact same Dell laptop and had the exact same issue you've been facing. It performed terrible. Laggy, screen tearing, and even mouse input lag for me. Tried every single "solution" out there, but nothing worked.

I ended up reinstalling Ubuntu, but this time use previous LTS (18.04.5). It works out the box. No need for additional third party drivers or anything. My guess is that there are some incompatibility issues with Nvidia and Ubuntu 20.04.

The only "issue" is that fractional scaling isn't a feature in 18.04, but I resolved that by using Gnome Tweaks -> Fonts -> Scaling Factor (mine is at 1.30). Works like a charm!

Watercolours
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Try this solution once. Worked for me, not sure about your case, but trying is always an option.

  1. Open Software and Updates from Applications.
  2. Go to the Additional Drivers option.
  3. There you will see you Nvidia graphics card and list of available drivers. By default the recommended driver will be selected. The last entry of the list is open source drivers. Select that and reboot your pc. Image for explanation
Siddhesh Bandgar
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why your computer work not as well as on windows ?

From DELL blog :

Nvidia did not support the Optimus technology on Ubuntu. While it did give Linux drivers for its discrete GPUs, it never had direct support for this particular hardware setup. Your options were usually to turn either the integrated or discrete GPU off. Use one of them for everything, or try and configure Bumblebee on your system. (This could be difficult if you did not have the use Nvidia only option in your BIOS.)

Maybe you should read the entire article. (And give a try at thoses instructions (warning, it can "break" your current linux os))

You can verify here if your DELL laptop is concerned .

Another interesting ressource: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia

Julio.G
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