Ubuntu 13.04 touchscreen and touchpad support on Dell XPS 12

Solution 1:

I had the same issue on my brand-new XPS12. It might be the newer model that prevents installation from 12.x or 13.04. I had success with 13.10 beta 1, though. Pretty much everything works out of the box, except multi-touch. No idea where to look as sputnik is already supposed to be integrated...

Solution 2:

Best help I can offer is to refer you to http://blog.jay.sh/ Seems like touchpad and touchscreen generally work, though multitouch only after bugfix #1103594. Currently Ubuntu 12.10 works better on XPS12, though screen auto-rotate still does not. To remedy that you can try doing an update from Project Sputnik repository, which provides some improvements. Then again Sputnik focuses on 12.10, so I don't know exactly how much help it will be for 13.04. My XPS12 will arrive next week, and I will be able to help more after I get to play with Ubuntu on it myself.

Solution 3:

I got my XPS12 yesterday. Immediately removed the hdd and replaced it with new one, so I can tinker with linux without risking windows installation.

First of all, all versions of ubuntu I tried fail to boot if secure boot is on. It always throws blue box with message that ubuntu was stopped because of current security. Disabling secure boot in bios fixes it.

I tried couple versions of Ubuntu x64. Installs just fine, but afterwards I keep getting black screen even with "nomodeset". Same problem on 13.04, 12.10 and 12.04. Seems like all x64 have some problem there. I don't know what's worng, because it's just black screen. No error messages or anything. It plays the sound when legin screen shows up, so it's working underneath.

13.04 x32 works, but for some reason VERY slowly. I think it's problem with the Intel graphics driver. I tried to reconfigure xorg, but that didn't help at all or dropped me to terminal only. Not sure what's the reason for the regression.

12.10 x32 works very nicely pretty much out of the box, and that's the once I'm running right now. All function buttons work. I added Project Sputnik ppa and upgraded the kernel. This enabled multi-touch on both screen and trackpad. 2 finger scrolling didn't work at first, but as it turns out it's a setting in Ubuntu's "mouse and touchpad". This can enable it on trackpad. On screen still doesn't work. Screen accelerometer for orientation also doesn't work. The video made me think it does, but on their page they say it's still in development.

Right now I'm running with secure boot off and legacy boot rather than uefi. With those settings Ubuntu boots even without "nomodeset". Tomorrow I'll try to see if I can get 12.04 x32 running with both or either of those on.

I still have a goal to have 13.04 (preferably x64) working, but with current problems I'm a bit out of my depth. I'll have to study up and then try again. ...that or wait and hope 13.10 will somehow fix all that for me. :)

EDIT:
On 12.10 running "glxinfo | grep OpenGL | head -n3" returns renderer as "Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile x86/MMX/SSE2" version "3.0 Mesa 9.0" Same on 13.04 returns renderer as Gallium 0.4.

Gallium is supposed to be improved i915 driver, but in my case at least, is horrible.

I run "/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p". On 12.10 all results are yes, and unity is supported. On 13.04 with that Gallium nonsense, unity support is no, and "not software rendered no".

EDIT 04/08/2013: Ok, I got my boot and graphics fixed. Wow it was trivial issue. Slow graphics was a problem because Mesa 2.1 to work correctly required KMS. I was booting with "i915.modeset=0" or "nomodeset", which messed with KMS. When booting normally the driver should work perfectly fine. Now we're left with black screen problem. Actually as it turns out this can be taken care of by hitting Fn+F5 (aka brightness up button). :) Now 13.04 works just fine and 3D acceleration is running. Same on x32 and x64 versions. Touchscreen work well out of the box on all versions.

Both 13.04 don't get Project Sputnik upgrade, so no multi-touch neither screen nor touchpad (I'll see if I can somehow force the upgrade) You get only default ubuntu touch-click and 2 finger scroll. All function buttons work. No accelerometer screen reorientation (on any version).