Linux on the Dell studio xps 13

i have another dell (inspiron 6400) which uses the same kernel-driver. on my nb you have to turn the volume up for the "capture" and the "Mux" channel and you have to enable capture. you could use alsamixer e.g.

(bash: -> alsamixer -> press f4 -> raise the volume, set input source (maybe you have 2 mics to choose from))

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/9012/blag.jpg

btw: using opensuse 11.1 which uses alsa-1.0.18-8.7

 

alsamixer->f4 under fedora 10 just selects "Pulseaudio" under the card&chip on fedora 10. I'm not sure if pulseaudio is of any benefit, but in any case, If I run 'alsamixer -c 0' then I get the expected "IDT 92HD73C1X5" under the chip instead.

Under capture devices, I was able to get ext-in jack to work as an external mic by enabling everything. There are 2 capture devices but neither are working with the built-in digital mic, which is more important to have working than the ext-in jack IMO.

I have even tried:

Code:

alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel model=dell-m6

Under /etc/modprobe.d/sound in order to get both analog&digital mics. Still no love.

 

Well bcc , I have have got internal mic going using alsa-driver from daily snapshot.
Could you please post your kernel version and the info from running alsa-info script.

 

Did you override your model via modprobe or are you using the default dell-m6-dmic? If the later, then I assume you only have 1 mic - the internal one, not both the internal and the aux input. Can you post your codec#0 dump, /proc/asound/card0/codec#0 ? Do you have pulseaudio installed?

I have tested with 2.6.27.19, 2.6.29-0.61.rc8, with alsa 0.18, 0.18a, 0.19, daily snapshot, and current git. Alsa info attached.

 

Here is my alsa-info.txt and codec0 dump
Also I have written "options snd-hda-intel model=dell-m6" in /etc/modprobe.conf and both my mics are working. I tested specifically using both internal and external mic in the front jack and they do work!! And yes I have pulseaudio running.

Edit: I compared our alsa-info outputs and it seems that if you load the module with dell-m6 model I think it should be ok with you too.

Also I have the tar.bz2 package of the alsa-driver snapshot I downloaded and compiled, I can attach that here if you want!

 

I had already tried all 3 different dell-m6 values to no avail (not that it should be necessary to override the alsa driver's choice in the first place) . Hmm, we have been over this already over in the OSX on xps13 thread at insanelymac.

I think it has to come down to something simple like the differences in our mixer setup. I notice ours are quite different in the alsa-info report.

With gnome, Under system->preferences->hardware->sound I have "sound caputre" set to alsa and "Default mixer tracks" set to "HDA NVidia". Under alsamixer -c 0, the capture tab shows 2 capture devices the left one which is affecting the mic-in jack and the right one which I haven't been able to get to make any difference. If I run alsamixer without -c 0 I get "pulseaudio" config info and just 1 capture device under the capture tab.

The snapshots build fine for me, so that shouldn't be necessary.

I should mention that the built-in mic works fine under windows so it's not like my mic hardware is DOA.

 

Oh yes.. the mixer!!

I told you that I used Kmix with all channels showing.

 

I just dropped back to 2.6.27 to match your setup and also I took out my probe_mask config change. Now our mixer devices look the same but still no sound from the built-in mic.
kmix is not an option for me as I don't run kde.

 

Did you finally manage to get the mic working?

 

So I finally bought my new laptop. But it wasn't the Dell, after much consideration I came to the conclusion that there were just too many risks. It appears that this latest Dell model has problems with heat dissipation, stability and of course there's that infernal hybrid gpu and its inherent instability (not only for linux but for windows as well). All of this points to poor hardware design.

In any case I decided to play it safe but at a cost (size-wise); after much investigating I am convinced that hardware manufacturers simply do not have the 13 inch and below manufacturing processes right. Ths simple fact is the larger the case, the better the room for improvement - literally. Thus I chose this:
http://www.sagernotebook.com/product_customed.php?pid=160092

Perhaps a little too powerful for my needs but I will be keeping vista (shunted to a small partition) for legacy support so the extra grunt will allow for that.

Problem solved.

EDIT: I think I'll replace the screen though - I can't stand glossy.
Also forgot to mention, Ubuntu runs like a charm on it.

 

I wouldn't say it has any problems with heat dissipation as the internal temps are normal but rather the metallic bottom is rather warm to the touch (which may make it difficult to use directly on your lap for long periods of time). It does not become unbearable to be used on one's lap until shortly after Hybrid SLI is enabled.

Most of the issues that have plagued the laptop appears to be software related and not hardware related. I haven't had GPU stability issues on Windows 7 since I've upgraded to Dell's latest (M17x) Nvidia drivers and I don't believe I've had any on Ubuntu (though I've noticed recently that my laptop may not like waking up properly anymore for some reason). On Linux, the only immediate difference with the presence of the 9500M GE option is X will not boot after installation due to the lack of support for Hybrid SLI resulting in a manual installation via CLI or Live CD.

 

I understand where your coming from, but when the Dell 'techies' (and I use that term very loosely) themselves say they've been having problems with it (heat dissipation etc) you begin to wonder. It also explains why the hardware options page on the dell website kept changing. Even your last sentence is further proof of what i'm trying to say.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the idea of the laptop - but to me, it seems that the actual product falls short of the goal Dell was aiming for. Perhaps the next generation of XPS laptops will be a different story.

 

I wouldn't say most of the problems have been bad hardware design but rather bad quality control. Usually people who dislike the laptop know so on the first day where it crashes, is damaged, burns them, etc. Most experiences are either "hit or miss". There is no hardware design defect as there was on the last generation of XPS laptops (Thanks to Nvidia). I expected my last statement to occur even before I received my laptop and would have been surprised if it hadn't as Hybrid SLI isn't supported on Linux and both a discrete and integrated GPu is present. That is in no way the fault of Dell or the laptop itself and wouldn't happen should you not choose the 9500M GE option.

That said, what "constantly" updated hardware page are you referring to? Dell simply added more options (i.e. worse CPU/hard drive options, a TV Tuner, and different aesthetics involving colors/materials).

 

The information I gathered begs to differ, but i'm not here to convince you of one point or another. The conclusions I drew were based on my own experiences with 13 inch and under laptops (the xps included). My reason for focusing on the XPS however was the hardware options it provided (screen, ddr3 ram etc). Which leads me to your other question. The hardware option page kept changing in regards to removing the hybrid option all together, then putting it back in etc. Why you may ask? For the aforementioned stability/heat related reasons (as told by the dell representative I spoke with). Unfortunately for me I was not aware of the option changes (having looked at the XPS's problems and thus started investigating other options) until it was put back again. And for some reason, at the time I was looking athe hardware options page - there was only 1 option of gpu to choose from - the hybrid SLI. That isn't the case now (if you select the cheaper model) but it begs the question: why did those changes take affect if there was no problem with the system?

I did conclude of one way to deal with part of the heating issues in the laptop. Buy the SSD hard drive. Unfortunately I didn't have a spare $869 lying around.

In the end, I reiterate, it was statements similar to; "(though I've noticed recently that my laptop may not like waking up properly anymore for some reason)" - which have nothing to do with the hybrid SLI, which I read on various forums and reviews that led me to look for my new laptop elsewhere.

 

For the months I've watched the product I never saw the Hybrid SLI option removed ...including when it should have been (Why do they not offer some upper scale hardware with Linux pre-installed yet offer a 9500M GE which isn't supported on Linux?). I was actually initially told by the representative I spoke to that SLI isn't available on any of their laptops who eventually realized otherwise. I have also never seen Hybrid SLI ONLY offered on their base package. Sure there are often times promotions may only allow for one or the other and hence will hide selections (e.g. on my promotion I had to buy a 500GB 7200 RPM hard drive as opposed to the 320GB 7200 RPM hard drive I would have preferred if it resulted in a lower price) but the available hardware overall (when not using promotions) hasn't really changed much. The only thing unusual I've seen is Dell occasionally switches hard drive options but IMO chances are this is due to changes in their stock.

Once again, there aren't any heating issues. My laptop hasn't neared reaching threshold temperatures. Heat may be a issue for some users but it isn't a design fault of the laptop. That said, SSDs shouldn't cost you $869 .

...

In the end, I reiterate, it was statements similar to; "(though I've noticed recently that my laptop may not like waking up properly anymore for some reason)" - which have nothing to do with the hybrid SLI, which I read on various forums and reviews that led me to look for my new laptop elsewhere.[/QUOTE]

And that is a software fault, not a hardware fault. If my computer wakes up fine from Vista and 7 yet not Ubuntu, chances are something is simply configured wrong Linux-side (as it didn't have this problem before). If you don't wish to choose the laptop then so be it. There are plenty of other great laptops out there as well. My point was merely don't blame Dell for things that aren't there fault.

 

I think there may be some confusion here, in all of this i'm referring to the Australian dell website. Also, whilst your information and experiences may be different to mine, indeed I wouldn't expect anything else, they in no way make them the final word on the matter. The fact that your Dell representative said one thing and mine said another only proves one thing: That they themselves were told different things.

Irregardless, a prospective customer can only make a decision based on the information he/she gathers. And if one set of data points to hardware and software design issues (and yes, heat dissipation (not perceived user comfort) is one of them) with the product to one customer and another points to a product with great specifications that fits the another customers needs well, then the rest is obvious.

So once again, i'm not trying to convince you not to buy the XPS, merely stating my decision making process. And why would I bother you might ask? Quite simple really, I felt it my responsibility as the thread starter in the first place.

You were right about one thing however, the cost of the SSD hard drive I was looking at (256mb) wasn't $869. It's $1118 >.<

 

Yeah, I am referring to the Dell's U.S. website so there may be variations there.

In my experiences it isn't uncommon for Dell's sales representatives to be misinformed about products. E.g. when I first ordered my SXPS I requested an LED monitor. After confirming the order, my e-mail confirmation stated I had a CCFL monitor. After talking to the Dell representative later he had told me ALL XPS laptops come with LED monitors and not to worry (apparently he thought LED = LCD or something).

Remember, no laptop is perfect. Everything has its faults. I am not saying there isn't a degree of truth to some of the things you said but I do believe they sounded somewhat exaggerated relative to other laptops. That said, what heat dissipation issues are present? I haven't heard any complaints of such....

"You were right about one thing however, the cost of the SSD hard drive I was looking at (256mb) wasn't $869. It's $1118 >.<"

I didn't realize you were Australian. We are using different currencies and geographically distant. I was surprised why you wanted to buy an $850+ SSD (well over the most expensive 256GB SSD I could find on Newegg).

 

Yes. With fedora, 'alsamixer -c 0' lets you control the individual nodes for the IDT audio. With fedora 11, it'll misidentify the codec as "Chip: Nvidia MCP7A HDMI", but nevertheless it'll control the IDT codec.
Select the playback tab (not the capture tab, go figure), scroll right to the first "Digital" volume bar (that does not appear until you start scrolling). When you select it, the details indicate "Digital Input Source", yet it is configured as analog. Change it from analog to digital and now the built-in mic will work. You may also need to adjust the gains under the capture tab if those are not set sensibly.

The "quirks" in the alsa source code for this chipset are still a bit screwy, I think you still need to manually override the defaults with /etc/modprobe.d/sound.conf as in prior posts if you want the external mic to work as well. The freebsd driver is superior in this area as it is able to identify the node connections from the hardware without quirks.

 

can someone post his /etc/X11/xorg.conf please? (9400 video)

 

Has anyone tried the SXPS13 with the new Ubuntu Alpha 9.10?

I cannot get it to boot into a GUI no matter what I do...

 

Yep. Karmic Koala's Alpha 4 is running on my machine (after going through quite a few annoyances).

1. Do not bother with trying Ubuntu Studio's Karmic Koala if you already have Jaunty Jackelope installed. The latest rt kernel is currently incompatible with the latest nv/nvidia driver (I'd assume this will be fixed by the time betas make their appearance).

2. Do not bother with the Ubuntu (and I'd assume Kubuntu/Xubuntu) graphical LiveCDs. As probably expected, the nv driver fails due to the Hybrid SLI setup but for whatever reason, the VESA driver (which nv falls back on) also fails currently. Supposedly this is a regression to the same bug in the Jaunty alpha (which I never used).

How I got it working:
1. Download the Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 4 alternate CD and proceed through a normal install. It may not be a bad idea to verify data on your CD prior to the install (which led to two of my failed installs ).

2. Download the latest driver script from Nvidia's website and proceed through installation via CLI (Chances are X will not load due). You may potentially be able just to install nvidia-glx-185 from the Ubuntu repositories (which would probably be easier).

3. Edit your xorg.conf and place the following in your "Device" section:

Code:

BusID "PCI:03:00:0"

The BusID can be confirmed with the following command:

Code:

lspci |grep VGA

4. Reboot.

 

Your awesome, thank you very much. I might have to give this a try when I get home.

How do you like the new version, should I go through the trouble of updating from the previous version?

 

I actually haven't gotten the chance to test it out much yet (I just upgraded 2 days ago and have been busy since). So far much of the things seem the same with the largest additions being the Ubuntu One service, GRUB 2 by default, and ext4 by default (which will yield a decent performance upgrade if you are using ext3 currently). The only annoyance for me so far is Login Window customization options seem to have been removed due to redevelopment of GDM. An annoyance that may occur for other users is the automatic requesting of drive mounting at startup but I sort of prefer that as I usually end up mounting the drives anyway (I use other partitions for storage often).

The things I still look forward to in this release are the redone artwork (which are supposed to shift away from brown) and the finale of the "One Hundred Paper Cuts" project.

The primary reason I bothered upgrading was because I had messed up my old Nvidia drivers due to a botched install and was having a hard time getting X to start (Nvidia's script failed and reverting to drivers from the repositories wasn't working) and as a result was going to do a reformat anyways. On the upside my new installation's updated drivers are working quite well.

However, as hypocritical as I may always be, I suggest not using an alpha/beta as your primary OS XD.

 

I very much agree with you on the not using is as your primary OS. I hosed my install that was in VM doing a partial upgrade.. so as I am right now I do not see myself installing it until probably a later beta. I was contemplating installing it on my wifes SXPS16 since I had to reinstall Vista today, but Vista and all the updates, and Dell software (didnt come with any cd's) has taken me literally all day to do. Right now I am downloading SP2.

 

Oh, right one more thing to note in case you do install it. Following the installation of alpha 4 you will be prompted to perform a partial upgrade which I would assume to work fine so long as an nvidia-glx or nv driver is enabled from the repositories. Because there is a kernel update, I suggest not switching until Nvidia's proprietary drivers until after it is complete (otherwise you may have to re-install them a second time onto the updated kernel).

 

has anyone tried to connect the laptop to a projector to make a presentation? did it work? are there any settings required? I have the nvidia 9400m graphics card.

 

Yah, it works fine. I use the Nvidia control panel that comes with the restricted drivers for Ubuntu.

 

I tried this but it still does not work. (debian testing, kernel 2.30, alsa 1.20). Every time I open the gnome volume control the recording options (mic mixer, caputre, capture 1, digital) are mute. I change the settings but when I start the gnome volume control they are mute again.

note that the sound recording gnome application works fine when I select "capture" for the "record from input" option but I can't get skype to work

 

Well my instructions were to use alsamixer not gnome-volume-control. My instructions work for me with 2.6.30 & alsa 1.20 under fedora.

 

yes, I used alsamixer to adjust the settings according to your instructions. Then I opened gnome volume control and I came across this problem.

 

Alright, figured I would bump this thread.

I am running Ubuntu 9.10 x64 and am having wireless drop outs with my Dell 1515 card. These are not seen in either Vista or Win 7.

Anyone experience these or know how to fix them?

BTW this is what is constantly happening in the syslog

Code:

Mar 10 12:23:06 SXPS13 kernel: [14718.263944] ath9k: DMA failed to stop in 10 ms AR_CR=0x00000024 AR_DIAG_SW=0x40000020
Mar 10 12:23:11 SXPS13 wpa_supplicant[1220]: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
Mar 10 12:25:11 SXPS13 wpa_supplicant[1220]: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
Mar 10 12:27:06 SXPS13 kernel: [14958.263900] ath9k: DMA failed to stop in 10 ms AR_CR=0x00000024 AR_DIAG_SW=0x40000020
Mar 10 12:27:11 SXPS13 wpa_supplicant[1220]: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS

Code:

06:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)

 

I fixed my Atheros AR928X flaky wireless in Karmic by the simple expedient of installing the two packages:

linux-backports-modules-karmic-generic.
linux-backports-modules-wireless-karmic-generic.