Is Dell pre-installed Ubuntu the same as the general release?
Is Dell pre-installed Ubuntu the same as the general release? Or does the Dell pre-installed version have special Dell drivers etc?
I bought a Dell XPS 9730 with 16.04 which I replaced with 18.04. It is working fine (except suspend-on-close doesn't really suspend but that seems to be a known problem). I am just wondering if I need to look out for a Dell-special 18.04 when Dell finally start shipping it, or do they just ship the standard version of Ubuntu? (The XPS 13 is one of Dell's "Canonical approved" machines.)
Output of fdisk -l (all the 'loop's are snap apps but each app appears twice in lsblk, but that is the subject of another Question!):
Disk /dev/loop0: 3.7 MiB, 3813376 bytes, 7448 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop1: 86.6 MiB, 90812416 bytes, 177368 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop2: 21 MiB, 22003712 bytes, 42976 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop3: 12.2 MiB, 12804096 bytes, 25008 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop4: 140 MiB, 146841600 bytes, 286800 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop5: 2.3 MiB, 2428928 bytes, 4744 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop6: 140 MiB, 146841600 bytes, 286800 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop7: 86.6 MiB, 90759168 bytes, 177264 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 953.9 GiB, 1024209543168 bytes, 2000409264 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: gpt Disk identifier: 81530E63-3D66-4216-8090-8DA401ADA1B5
Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System /dev/nvme0n1p2 1050624 2000408575 1999357952 953.4G Linux filesystem
Disk /dev/loop8: 1.6 MiB, 1691648 bytes, 3304 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop9: 13 MiB, 13594624 bytes, 26552 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop10: 86.6 MiB, 90828800 bytes, 177400 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop11: 3.3 MiB, 3411968 bytes, 6664 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop12: 139.5 MiB, 146276352 bytes, 285696 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop13: 21.6 MiB, 22609920 bytes, 44160 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Is Dell pre-installed Ubuntu the same as the general release? Or does the Dell pre-installed version have special Dell drivers etc?
Based on my experience with a Dell laptop that came with Ubuntu 16.04, the Dell version has quite some additional material, not just related to drivers:
sudo fdisk -l lists
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 1026047 1024000 500M EFI System
/dev/sda2 1026048 7317503 6291456 3G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda3 7317504 380581887 373264384 178G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda4 1937289216 1953523711 16234496 7.8G Linux swap
-
/dev/sda2is described as "Microsoft basic data" and appears to be related to restoring the original Ubuntu OS installed on the system.
/dev/sda3is the partition containing the Ubuntu 16.04 OS. I've reduced its size to accommodate other flavors of Ubuntu.Looking at
/bootshows several subfolders with Dell-related executables./usr/share/applicationslists two .desktop files: "Dell Driver Installer" and "Dell Recovery"man dell-recoverytells us that "dell-recovery is a tool for generating recovery media for Dell factory shipped systems. This media can then be used to rebuild a system with a factory image in the event of a hard drive failure."The Dell version may come with the Super key disabled by default and requires several steps, described in the link to get this basic functionality.
If you view
System Details, the image includes the Dell logo.
- The GRUB menu has two entries not, in my opinion, available in a standard release.
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/xenial-dell.listhashttp://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ xenial-dell public.http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/dists/xenial-dell/public/binary-amd64/Packageslists what will be included (depending on your system). One can download that list (as, say, "dell-packages.txt") and rungrep -E "(^Package|^Description:)" dell-packages.txtto get a summary.Currently, the corresponding bionic area is empty.
Given that Dell has recently released laptops with 16.04 pre-installed, I think it will be a while before they do anything for 18.04.
I am just wondering if I need to look out for a Dell-special 18.04 when Dell finally start shipping it ...
That'll be your call. I'm quite happy running Kubuntu 18.04 alongside the version of Ubuntu 16.04 installed by Dell, but if you have need of specific drivers, you'll need to keep a watch for their availability.
Here is the backup of all the source-list added by dell, xps13' 2018 developper edition
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 166 mai 24 07:59 bionic-dell-beaver-italia.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 138 juin 8 11:27 bionic-dell.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 154 avril 25 11:24 bionic-dell-service.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 134 mai 17 08:36 bionic-oem.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 189 oct. 9 17:17 google-chrome.list
trif@xps:/etc/apt/sources.list.d$ cat bionic-dell-beaver-italia.list
deb http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-dell-beaver-italia public
# deb-src http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-dell-beaver-italia public
trif@xps:/etc/apt/sources.list.d$ cat bionic-dell.list
deb http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-dell public
# deb-src http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-dell public
trif@xps:/etc/apt/sources.list.d$ cat bionic-dell-service.list
deb http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-dell-service public
# deb-src http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-dell-service public
trif@xps:/etc/apt/sources.list.d$ cat bionic-oem.list
deb http://oem.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-oem public
# deb-src http://oem.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-oem public
Here it is for xps13 2019 :
deb http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-dell-italia-whl public
# deb-src http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-dell-italia-whl public
deb http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-dell public
# deb-src http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-dell public
deb http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-dell-service public
# deb-src http://dell.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-dell-service public
deb http://oem.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-oem public
# deb-src http://oem.archive.canonical.com/updates/ bionic-oem public