Dual Boot on Dell Inspiron 7559 laptop

I have a new Dell Inspiron 7559 laptop running Windows 10 which requires an external DVD drive. I have tried to install Ubuntu versions 12.02, 14.04, and 15.10 with no luck. When I try to boot from the disk image in UEFI mode the process comes to a halt midway through. If I try to boot using the legacy mode, then the installer does not find the Windows OS. Since I want a dual boot system, I exit from the process here. Also, the installer does not find the Wi-Fi link. Does anyone know the source of this problem? I theorize that It could be that Ubuntu is not Windows 10 savvy, or that the installer cannot use the internal hardware as this is a very new design. Comments?


I am having the same issue with the exact same model. Dell Inspirion 15 7559 with 6th gen intel i7, nvidia geforce gtx 960m.

Will post if successful...

(Be sure to read everything below this line.)

EDIT: Got it working So the problem is with the new processor architecture not being fully supported by this version. (6th gen Intel requores Linux 4.3 .) Here is anew article explaining why and how to fix it in a less concise way: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=intel-skl-prelim-support

Here's what you do:

  1. when grub shows up, press "e". There should be a line starting with linux, add the word nomodeset to the end of this line. This is a kernel parameter, google it if you want to learn more.

  2. You will have to repeat step 1. when the installation completes and the system reboots.

  3. Choose option 1 or option 2.

    OPTION 1:

    • Do the system updates and activate drivers for the NVIDIA 960.

    OPTION 2.... Make it permanant, use default drivers:

    • modify /etc/defaults/grub so that GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT includes nomodeset:

    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"

    • run $ sudo update-grub in the command prompt

EDIT: fix update-grub command

EDIT: Addendum: After installing updates and activating the 3rd party drivers for nvidia, I was able to remove nomodeset from the boot parameters, so making nomodeset permanent is probably unwanted ^_^.

Final Edit: I now have the installation working perfectly. In addition to the steps I listed above, you also need to disable secure boot in the BIOS. If you do not disable secure boot, Windows will override the bootloader and prevent ubuntu from installing.

I ran into an issue where I had installed Ubuntu, could see the partition, but it wouldn't boot after I had started Windows 10 once. After turning off secure boot, I ran boot-repair from a usb running ubuntu, which fixed the boot loader and WIndows hasn't overriden it again. I can also use linux without having it plugged in, which was an issue in the past installation, probably related to secure boot. (NOTE: There is an option at the top level of the UEFI menu to turn secure boot off and revert to legacy bios, do not choose this option. There is another menu where you can configure these independently of each other.)


If this is the laptop you are talking about, I have the same one. You have to be sure to turn off secure boot. Also, you can install a second hard drive or SSD and simply hit F12 to select which drive to boot from!

Good luck :)