[CentOS] Centos on Dell XPS15

Mon Sep 24 01:20:35 UTC 2018
H <agents at meddatainc.com>

On 09/21/2018 03:59 PM, H wrote:
> On 09/18/2018 08:58 PM, H wrote:
>> On 09/07/2018 04:01 AM, H wrote:
>>> On September 4, 2018 10:51:09 AM GMT+02:00, Patrick Laimbock <patrick at laimbock.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>     -----Original message-----
>>>
>>>         From:H <agents at meddatainc.com> Sent: Monday 3rd September 2018 14:52 To: Centos Mailing List <centos at centos.org> Subject: [CentOS] Centos on Dell XPS15 Is anyone successfully running Centos 7 on a Dell XPS15? If so, which model? If not, what was the problem? Thank you! 
>>>
>>>
>>>     I only ran Fedora 28 Workstation Live from USB stick on the latest XPS15 (9570) and did not try CentOS 7. Fedora 28 ran great and the 4K screen is beautiful but the laptop had some issues so I sent it back. Issues:
>>>
>>>     - the CPU throttles when putting it under load. The "fix"was to undervolt the CPU, turn off Turbo speed in the BIOS and turn off HT in the BIOS. This issue seems similar to the thermal problem the latest MacBook Pro had. IIRC Apple fixed it in a BIOS update. I don't know if/when Dell will fix it (or if they even can fix it).
>>>     - fingerprint reader does not work. With the latest XPS13 (9370) Developer Edition, Dell "fixed" it by removing the fingerprint reader.
>>>     - no separate PageUp and PageDown keys. The latest XPS13 does have them but on the XPS15 there were 2 gaps in the keyboard where those keys should be but aren't.
>>>     - it's not possible to open the screen 180 degrees
>>>     - the webcam at the bottom of the screen (aka NoseCam) is really annoying
>>>
>>>     As an alternative to the XPS15 there's the new Inspiron 15 7000 series and the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Extreme (though I have no idea if either of them runs CentOS 7).
>>>
>>>     HTH,
>>>     Patrick
>>>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>     CentOS mailing list
>>>     CentOS at centos.org
>>>     https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>>>
>>>
>>> Very interesting, thank you!
>>>
>>> Is anyone running Centos on the Inspiron 15 7000 mentioned? 
>> I just looked at a Dell Inspiron 15 7570 that is refurbished and available at $850. Anyone running Centos 7 on this machine?
>>
> I bought this machine and am now installing Centos 7 on it. It has a 4K screen and the text on the installation screens is miniscule. Has anyone else seen this and can it be changed when installing from DVD?
>
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After installing Centos 7 on this machine - and the MATE desktop - I have the following issues:

- When the machine boots and asks for the password to decrypt the password, the text is minuscule, really minuscule... Can this be changed somewhere?

- When it continues booting, the Centos boot animation is displayed in roughly the top-left 1/8 of the screen. Can this be changed somewhere so it uses the entire screen as is customary?

- I see no option to hibernate the machine, only to suspend. Did I have to do anything special to make hibernation possible when installing Centos 7? The machine has 16 Gb of memory and the swap space was automatically set to 8 Gb.

- The 4K desktop is unusable because the font, icons etc. are too small. Since I have not yet figured out how to increase font size etc. when in 4K mode, I changed display resolution to 1600 x 1200. This is only a stop-gap measure though and I hope there is a better solution.

- The trackpad is obnoxious to use and it is very hard to use it to maneuver around the screen. Should I disable it and simply rely on the mouse?

- I do like the fact that the touchscreen can actually be used to select windows in Centos, move them around etc.

- When I have the Dell extension dock connected at startup, the OS crashes and gives me a stack dump. Disconnecting it and rebooting solves the problem but it really should not be like this...

- Connecting the Dell extension dock after booting the computer results in some kind of crash every so often but the OS stays up.

- Even with the dock not connected I have found the OS suddenly crashes and two seconds later you are back at a desktop with absolutely no running apps no matter what you had running. I also get crash messages from xorg.

Clearly the current release of Centos 7 is not ready for prime-time on this laptop but I have yet to try a later kernel, 4.x, to see if that makes any difference.

Anyone else have had similar experiences?