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by Lio 2778 days ago
I’m on an XPS 13 9370. I like the idea of a Thinkpad but I wanted a laptop that came sold with Linux hence the Dell.

So far hardware support seems pretty good. Not sure my Ubuntu 18.10 install is getting the most out of the GPU but everything works including Bluetooth audio and suspend.

The only issues I have are with the trackpad and the silly keyboard layout.

Trackpad: it’s small, a bit twitchy and not sensitive at the edges when moving inwards but is moving outwards. Driver issue I think.

Keyboard: who thought it was a good idea to split the left and right keys with PgUp and PgDown? Someone who doesn’t touch type would be my bet. The old layout was better.

I think of it as a replacement for an 11” MacBook Air as it’s about the same size but with a 13” screen and a quad-core i7.

Oh also, I got a 4K display and that was a mistake. Raw terminal text is tiny and Gnome currently doesn’t mix monitor resolutions very well. So dual screening with a 1440 monitor is not easy. Ordering again I’d get FHD instead.

1 comments

I'm running the same laptop with Manjaro and do not have any trackpad issues. So either you're right and there is some driver issue on your system or maybe it's a hardware issue.

Only problem I've encountered so far is that if I unplug my usb/hdmi/ethernet hub while it's in standby then X crashes as soon as I wake it.

Thanks, I might give Manjaro a go. This is an evaluation machine for me so switching distos is not a real pain currently.

Out of interest what trackpad driver does xinput report running for you?

Mine is a Dell07E6. I’ve wondered about switching to the older Synaptic one.

Same.

Curiously after you asked me this I also tested my trackpad a bit more and it turns out that if I go slowly from off the trackpad onto the trackpad it doesn't register the touch at all.

Not sure if that's some kind of feature intended to prevent accidental touches or a bug. Never noticed it before in my ~7 months of use.

I’m pretty sure it’s a software thing whatever it is because I don’t get the same behaviour in the BIOS pages. The trackpad is pretty choppy there for me but it is sensitive at the edges.

So there’s hope at least it can be fixed.