setting-up-laptop-with-ubuntu.html

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                        Setting up new Dell Laptop with Ubuntu 14.04
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        <i class="fa fa-calendar"></i><time datetime="2014-04-06T00:00:00"> Sun 06 April 2014</time>
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                <p>So I got a good price on a Dell Inspiron with a Haswell i7, 8Gb of RAM, and a 1600x900 display (which is better than most of the laptops in the $500 - $800 range).  I didn't feel that I needed a touchscreen, preferring to keep my hands on the keyboard as much as possible.</p>

<p>The Dell Inspiron 17r (5737) came with Windows 8, but since I'm using this as my "dev/ops" machine, I'm going to start from scratch with Ubuntu.  Ubuntu 14.04 is due out in a few weeks, so I decided to load the Beta 2 build.</p>

<p>I actually spent a few weeks messing around with 13.10, SmartBoot, UEFI, Legacy Boot, Dual booting with Windows 8.1, etc.  I wasn't happy with any of the outcomes, so I finally decided to wipe the drive and start over.</p>

<p>The biggest problem with Ubuntu and the Intel Haswell integrated graphics is the Kernel Mode Setting (KMS).  The KMS does not set the display properly, so you end up with a screen that shows red as green, green as magenta, and blue as a tan.  Working through this problem using 13.10 and even 14.04, I found that using "nomodeset" or "i915.modeset=0" as a grub boot option would give me a properly-colored desktop, but I lost features of KMS that were important to me, like automatic detecting of HDMI displays.</p>

<p>So here's what I did to get the correct display going on Ubuntu 14.04B2:</p>

<p>Since the KMS wasn't working properly, I loaded a newer kernel that what was installed (3.13.0.22-generic) by Beta 2.  I just picked the nightly build to see if the latest worked.  I downloaded the .deb files for the headers and kernel from <a href="http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/drm-intel-nightly/2014-04-05-trusty">http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/drm-intel-nightly/2014-04-05-trusty</a>.  Then:</p>
<pre>
dpkg -i linux*.deb
</pre>

<p>The kernel loaded with correct KMS configuration (no strange coloring) and nothing extra in the grub options.  So I started testing other features.  I checked the function keys and found that the brightness setting wasn't changing.  I also tested the SD card slot, and other ports.  The HDMI port was working as well.  So it looks like KMS is finally working like it should.</p>

<p>I then found that the laptop wouldn't recover from suspend.  I would get a black screen.  So I spent some more time digging and decided I needed to try newer graphics drivers.  I found this <a href="http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&amp;px=MTY1NTU">post</a> and decided to give the oibaf PPA a try.</p>

<p>All it required to get the latest xorg and mesa drivers was:</p>
<pre>
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
</pre>

<p>The newest drivers have actually fixed the suspend problem.  So at this time, the only thing I haven't fixed is the brightness control functions from the keyboard.  Since I can just </p>
<pre>
sudo echo 720 &gt; /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness
</pre>

<p>I'm not too concerned about it.  Now I can go about setting up the laptop's dev environment for Python and PHP (primarily).</p>
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