Clevo P751DM2-G and Linux compatibility report and discussion

Hello there,

Has anyone here installed Linux on the aforementioned notebook?

It's the base model for a few notebooks in production, namely the Eurocom Sky X4E2 and the Schenker XMG U507.

Here are my current observations so far, with an Ubuntu 16.04LTS installation:

1. The fingerprint reader does not work, at all. Even the latest version of fprintd and libfprint do not recognize it. The device here seems to be made by Synaptics, identifiable as the WBDI Platform.

2. Fan control and keyboard backlight seems to be inheritable from Windows. Whatever you set on Windows via the Clevo Control center and its' utilities seem to be carried over transparently to Linux, and it persists across reboots. This would imply that the EC on this machine preserves the fan control and keyboard backlight settings on reboots.

3. Audio: The inbuilt speakers work, and so does the HDMI port wired to the GTX 1070. However, only line out works for audio output to anything requiring a 3.5mm output jack such as headphones. I can get SPDIF to work by loading its' profile via pulseaudio's pavucontrol front-end. Line-In/Mic seems to work OK, so far. A patch may be needed to enable the ESS Sabre Audio Jack on Linux. My attempts at getting this to work by inferring System76's work with their device driver has not borne much fruit on this front, save for fixing screen brightness control.

4. Power management: Userland utilities such as powertop work, and can enable extra PM suspend settings.

5. Thunderbolt 3: This SKU has dual Thunderbolt 3 ports, and they work well on Linux provided that the security mode in the BIOS has been set to Legacy. For display support, you must toggle the DP mode to DP to TBT under Advanced Chipset Control > DDI setup option in the BIOS. Also recommended: Leave the boot mode to pure UEFI, but disable Secure Boot or else the proprietary Nvidia drivers will fail to load. From Linux 4.15 onward, there will be an option to toggle Thunderbolt 3 security mode via the user space, and even a udev rule to override such settings, as shown here.

6. Storage: Like most Clevo-based notebooks that contain multiple storage bays, this laptop has dual M.2 slots (NVMe compatible) and dual SATA III connectors that can take 2.5" SATA III SSDs/HDDs (maximum height 9.5mm) with no restrictions on bootable devices. However, if you intend to run Linux, the RAID mode is not compatible with Linux, and devices behind the RAID controller will not be visible. This may be fixed in a future Linux update, but for now, this is the case.

 

Hi

I can't link to the website as it's a partner company of ours, and bear in mind that I am in no way a Linux specialist or even user, but RAID does run on both the 2.5" drives and the M.2 drives - so there is a solution somewhere out there!

I'll send you a pm with a link to their forum, you may find some FAQ answers there.

 

Thanks!

 

Setting up the RAID isn't a problem.

It's using it within Linux. The controller bits exposed by the RAID mode (Intel's RST Premium) cannot expose any drives behind the controller, and as such, remain unusable and unmanageable on Linux through tools such as mdadm.

 

I am using Manjaro linux with my p750dm2, mostly went with this because of nvidia drivers. Enjoying it mostly so far

 

Hello there,

That's awesome to hear! If you have some time on your hands, let us exchange notes, particularly on the audio setup. You can PM me at any time.

 

Yo, I have 2015 P751DM with Nvidia 970M graphics chip. Currently I have 2 HDD and 1 SSD drives.

I got one 15GB partition on 300GB HDD for Linux Manjaro KDE.

One 15 GB partition on 1TB HDD for Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon.

And on 250GB SSD, I got 50GB for Starcraft Remastered and Starcraft 2. Then there is separate partition for each Linux: Manjaro KDE, Manjaro Xfce, Mint 18.2 Cinnamon, Void Xfce Glibc, Devuan Jessie, Void musl command line, PCLinuxOS KDE, KaOS, Linux Mint Debian Edition 2.

Got this computer half year ago with Windows, first added one 300GB HDD and installed one Linux there, then installed one on 1TB HDD. Now they are backup, if I f**k up SSD. Then I made format C: so to speak for Windows SSD and started collecting Linux Op Syses there. Just to test out which one works, which dont. Op sys, that did not boot after install, I deleted, or live image did not start from usb.

Best so far is Manjaro KDE for hardware compatibility, everything works out of box for me. Manjaro Xfce, Mint, PCLinuxOS, KaOS needs to install xbacklight to adjust screen backlight, I am using it with command line. Mint needs to install Nvidia drivers allso, Manjaro Xfce allso, If I remember correctly. KDE desktop on Manjaro, PCLinuxOS, KaOS allready have Nvidia installed.

In Void, Devuan, Mint Debian I have not yet got backlight working. So I got 100% screen brightness on them, not able to use them long time. Main thing is Nvidia drivers.

On Devuan and Mint Debian LAN is not working, wifi is good.

What else, on most Linux Op Syses have made brightness shortcuts on desktop. xbacklight to adjust screen brightness 0-100% and xrandr to go below 0 with gamma adjusting.

Everyday Op Sys for me is Linux Mint with Cinnamon, Mate and Xfce desktop in last 10 years. Right now KDE is nice desktop, but I after some time I still go back to Cinnamon.

I have not tested Ubuntu family, Fedora, Debian, Suse, etc...

 

This is a really nice breakdown on what to expect, thanks.

I should try out Devuan one of these days.

 

Here's to hoping its' not too late to ask this, but do you still have the machine? Also, are you able to get the headphone jack to work on the Linux distro you're on? Thanks.