Dell XPS 15 (9550)

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Note
This page refers to the 9550 variant of the XPS 15. This is identical to the Dell Precision 5510 but without a NVIDIA Quadro 1000m card
Hardware
PCI/USB ID
Working?
GPU
Yes
Wireless
Yes
Bluetooth
Yes
Audio
Yes
Touchpad
Yes
Webcam
Yes
Card Reader
Yes
This page covers the current status of hardware support on Arch, pre-installation system configuration tweaks, as well as post-installation recommendations to improve the usability of the system.
The installation process for Arch on the XPS 15 9550 does not differ from any other PC. For installation help please see the
Installation guide
and
UEFI
. To set up a dual boot configuration with Windows, refer to
Dual boot with Windows
.
Installation
Prior to installation, access the system UEFI firmware by pressing
F2
during boot.
Turn off legacy ROM
System > SATA: change to AHCI
Disable
Secure Boot
Set the POST Behavior: Fastboot to Thorough
Source
Proceed to the
Installation guide
.
Graphics
The Dell XPS 15 9550 has Intel HD Graphics 530 integrated graphics, and some models have a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 dedicated card as well in a hybrid configuration.
For computers with only integrated graphics, just install the
xf86-video-intel
driver.
If your XPS has a hybrid graphics configuration (GTX960M + HD Graphics 530) and you want to maximize battery life you can just use the Intel graphics.
Intel only
If your model comes with an NVIDIA card which you do not use then you can try to disable it with an ACPI command. Depending on the model, this can have a small to profound effect on the laptop's temperature and battery life (it can more than double battery life!)
Install the Intel video driver using the
xf86-video-intel
package.
Blacklist the
nvidia
&
nouveau
modules
Kernel modules#Blacklisting
Power down the GPU
with an ACPI command
Optimus configuration (Hybrid Intel and NVIDIA)
The
Optimus
setup consists of the integrated Intel chip connected to the laptop screen and the NVIDIA card runs through this. As such, the NVIDIA chip cannot be used without the Intel chip (some other laptops have the option in BIOS to turn Intel off and use just NVIDIA, but not this laptop).
See the
Bumblebee
page set of instructions, particularly the
Bumblebee#Installation
Intel/NVIDIA section. The main thing to note is that installing both the Intel and NVIDIA packages at once tends to avoid dependency issues. The correct driver for the NVIDIA card is
nvidia-580xx-dkms
AUR
.
Touchpad
By default the touchpad does not respond to tap input or two finger scrolling. You can change the behavior by installing
Libinput
and adding
30-touchpad.conf
to
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
:
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/30-touchpad.conf
Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "MyTouchPad"
    MatchIsTouchpad "on"
    Driver "libinput"
    Option "Tapping" "on"
    Option "Natural Scrolling" "on"
EndSection
Source
Gestures
You can configure custom gestures using the
libinput-gestures
AUR
package. You can follow the instructions from the
documentation
. Below is a sample configuration file that one might use with this tool:
~/.config/libinput-gestures.conf
# Go back/forward in chrome
gesture: swipe right 3 xdotool key Alt+Left
gesture: swipe left 3 xdotool key Alt+Right

# Zoom in / Zoom out
gesture: pinch out xdotool key Ctrl+plus
gesture: pinch in xdotool key Ctrl+minus

# Switch between desktops
gesture: swipe left 4 xdotool set_desktop --relative 1
gesture: swipe right 4 xdotool set_desktop --relative -- -1
Power management
Suspend & hibernate
Suspend works without issues, however hibernation is not completely stable. Write the following to
/etc/systemd/sleep.conf
:
/etc/systemd/sleep.conf
[Sleep]
HibernateState=disk
HibernateMode=shutdown
Battery
Battery life can be improved by installing
powertop
and calibrating it. See
Powertop
for more info. To further improve the battery life, you can disable the touchscreen in the BIOS.
Fans
The fans may remain on even at low temperatures, draining the battery and producing an unpleasant noise that will only stop on reboot. This is due to the fans being controlled by the BIOS by default.
To prevent this behavior, configure i8k as described in
Fan speed control#Dell laptops
and use
dell-bios-fan-control-git
AUR
utility to disable BIOS control of fans which conflicts with i8k. You may also want to
enable/start
dell-bios-fan-control.service
to ensure BIOS control of fans is disabled at boot.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is disabled by default. If you wish to use Bluetooth you will need to install
linux-firmware
. See
Bluetooth
and
bug report
for details.
If you are experiencing low signal or disconnecting issues specifically with a2dp devices, using this alternative firmware can fix it:
broadcom-bt-firmware-git
AUR
maybe you still need to play with latency/buffer settings on
PulseAudio
or try using
PipeWire
.
Thunderbolt 3 Docks
It is possible to get video, audio, Ethernet and USB devices working by updating your BIOS to version >=1.2.19 and disabling Thunderbolt security in your bios settings. If you do not disable Thunderbolt security, then only video and power will work (at lest on the Dell TB16 dock).
On bios version 1.4.0 the USB and Ethernet peripherals will not work unless Thunderbolt security and Thunderbolt Boot support options are disabled.
Using
bolt
allows to use all features of the dock with Thunderbolt security activated.
It should also be noted that the TB16 dock will crash when hot plugged on all BIOS versions after 1.2.18 (Still the case as of version 1.4.0, but no longer as of version 1.8.1).
USB-C / Thunderbolt 3 Compatibility Chart
Device
Ports
Working?
StarTech TBT3TBTADAP Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt Adapter
Thunderbolt 2, Thunderbolt
Yes
Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter
Thunderbolt 2, Thunderbolt
No
CHOETECH USB-C to DisplayPort Cable (4K@60Hz)
DisplayPort
Yes
CableCreation USB-C to HDMI DVI DP
HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort
Yes
This chart
may also be helpful.
BIOS/firmware Updates
You can update your BIOS either
manually
, or with
fwupdmgr
(recommended). Recent BIOSes fix the screen flickering issue previously worked around with the
i915.edp_vswing=2
kernel parameter.