Dell Studio XPS 13

I have just bought a new Dell Studio XPS 13. I haven't been able to find any information for installing Arch Linux on this machine. It is a very nice looking laptop, and runs fast and smooth. I have had a successful install (32-bit only, 64-bit). I still have a few things to get working, like the Bluetooth, and media buttons.

System Specs:

• Processor
  • Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8600 @ 2.40GHz
• RAM Memory
  • 4 GB DDR3
• Webcam
  • 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
• Hard Disk
  • 320GB SATA 7200 rpm HDD
  • 500GB SATA 7200 rpm HDD
• Video Card
  • NVIDIA 9400M
  • NVIDIA 9500M (9400M G + 9200M GS)
• Wireless
  • Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller
  • Atheros Communications Inc. AR928X Wireless Network Adapter

The basic installation performs normally, with the core cd, also the wireless modules ( Atheros wifi card ) were well recognised and worked out of the box.

Video Card

Nvidia 9500 M (9400+9200)

It works well with this /etc/X11/xorg.conf, the really important feature is Busid "PCI:3:0:0". There are also some touchpad configuration with two-finger scrolling and tapping.

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
	Load "dbe"
	Load "extmod"
	Load "type1"
	Load "freetype"
	Load "glx"
	Load "synaptics"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "synaptics"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto-dev"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "SendCoreEvents" "true"
    Option         "VertScrollDelta"   "80"
    Option         "HorizScrollDelta"   "80"
    Option         "SHMConfig"   "on"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons"   "on"
    Option         "VertTwoFingerScroll" "true"
    Option         "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "true"
    Option         "EmulateTwoFingerMinZ" "10"
    Option         "TapButton1" "1"
    Option         "TapButton2" "2"
    Option         "TapButton3" "3"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Unknown"
    HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0
    VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    Option         "SLI" "Auto"
    Option         "NoLogo" "true"
    Option         "DPMS" "true"
    Option         "TripleBuffer" "true"
    # Reduces the interrupts
    Option         "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "True"
    #force Powermizer to a certain level at all times
    ## level 0x1 = highest
    ## level 0x2 = med
    ## level 0x3 = lowest
#    Option "RegistryDwords" "PowerMizerLevelAC=0x3"
#    Option	"RegistryDwords"	"PowerMizerLevel=0x3"
    # Auto powermizer option
#   Option         "RegistryDwords" "PerfLevelSrc=0x3333"
    Busid          "PCI:3:0:0"
    Option         "RenderAccel" "True"
    Option         "AllowGLXWithComposite" "True"
    Option         "AddARGBLXVisuals" "On"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "False"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
	Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Power Management

HDD important issue

With the Western Digital hard drive (not SSD), there is an important issue: using the APM (Advanced Power Management) there are too nomerous spin-down, that can damage the hard drive [1]. To confirm this issue you have to install smartmontools:

# pacman -S smartmontools

And you have to run multiple times this command (once in a minute for like 5 minutes):

# smartctl -a /dev/sda|grep Load_Cycle_Count

If the number under Load_Cycle_Count is increasing in a small amount of time (1 or 2 in a minute) you have this issue.

The problem is easily solvable using laptop-mode-tools. In your /etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf you have to set:

#
# Should laptop mode tools control the hard drive power management settings?
#
CONTROL_HD_POWERMGMT=1


#
# Power management for HD (hdparm -B values)
#
BATT_HD_POWERMGMT=255
LM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=255
NOLM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=255

This disable all power management systems of the hard drive cause a light heat up (maybe). The same behaviour can be obtained running this command:

# hdparm -B 255 /dev/sda

the 255 number is the power-management level, in a range of 1-255 where 1 is maximum powersaving and 255 powersaving disabled. However setting the value to 253 causes a lot of spin-down. Setting the spin-down feature (it parks the heads away from disk) however can save hdd in case of fall.

Also to help preserve the HDD life you can add 'noatime' to / and /home in your /etc/fstab to save writing access time on reads Looks like this:

[phr0zn@ragnarok ~]$ cat /etc/fstab
# 
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system>        <dir>         <type>    <options>          <dump> <pass>
none                   /dev/pts      devpts    defaults            0      0
none                   /dev/shm      tmpfs     defaults            0      0

#/dev/cdrom             /media/cd   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/dvd               /media/dvd  auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/fd0               /media/fl   auto    user,noauto             0      0

UUID=1ca6603c-889c-454c-bd31-a176892ae9c9 / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
UUID=6154c07d-ff8c-4f90-b476-d792e2c165f3 /boot ext2 defaults 0 1
UUID=fb1b6490-c07f-42d5-ad70-92c8eb13ca15 /home ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
UUID=fdac6506-5249-4f80-a880-b4aa17ad984c swap swap defaults 0 0

Hybernation - Suspend

This feature works very well, the only thing you have to set is your /boot/grub/menu.lst , if you don't set the option "resume" your computer doesn't resume after hybernation, so add resume=/your/swap/partition like in this example:

title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,4) # It depends on your device
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/your/root/device ro resume=/your/swap/partition
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

I wasn't able to get hibernate to work correctly b/c of my NVIDIA drivers. I am now running x86_64. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it. I did however get suspend to RAM to work.

Make sure acpid is installed and running. You can add it to the DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf.

Then edit these files...

/etc/acpi/actions/lm_lid.sh:

sh ~/bin/suspend

(Taken from http://www.linux.com/news/hardware/laptops/8253-how-to-suspend-and-hibernate-a-laptop-under-linux [+] with a little modification)

~/bin/suspend:

#!/bin/sh

# discover video card's ID
ME=`whoami`
if [ "$ME" != "root" ]; then
    echo "You must be root!"
    exit 1
fi

ID=`lspci | grep VGA | awk '{ print $1 }' | sed -e 's@0000:@@' -e 's@:@/@'`

# securely create a temporary file

TMP_FILE=`mktemp /var/tmp/video_state.XXXXXX`trap 'rm -f $TMP_FILE' 0 1 15

# switch to virtual terminal 1 to avoid graphics
# corruption in X

chvt 1

# write all unwritten data (just in case)

sync

# dump current data from the video card to the
# temporary filecat 

/proc/bus/pci/$ID > $TMP_FILE

# suspend

echo -n mem > /sys/power/state

# restore video card data from the temporary file
# on resume

cat $TMP_FILE > /proc/bus/pci/$ID

# switch back to virtual terminal 7 (running X)
chvt 7

# remove temporary file
rm -f $TMP_FILE

This should suspend your laptop to RAM when the lid is closed.

CPU Frequency Scaling

This has helped me greatly reduce the heat of my studio XPS (unless running anything flash of course). This works really well for me, and has been for some time. To install necessary packages issue this command:

pacman -S cpufrequtils pm-utils laptop-mode-tools

Then to activate kernel modules issue this set of commands:

modprobe acpi_cpufreq
modprobe cpufreq_powersave
modprobe cpufreq_ondemand

Also make sure you add those modules to the MODULES array in your /etc/rc.conf

Now we need to see what the processor can do. Most likely yours will be the same as mine, but check just to be sure, we don't want you burning out your processor.

Issue this command to check out the specs:

cpufreq-info

Then you should make your /etc/conf.d/cpufreq file look like this:

[phr0zn@ragnarok ~]$ cat /etc/conf.d/cpufreq
#configuration for cpufreq control

# valid governors:
#  ondemand, performance, powersave,
#  conservative, userspace
governor="ondemand"

# valid suffixes: Hz, kHz (default), MHz, GHz, THz
min_freq="1.6GHz"
max_freq="2.4GHz"

Now you can start cpu frequency scaling by issuing this command:

/etc/rc.d/cpufreq start

You also want to add 'cpufreq' to your DAEMONS array in the /etc/rc.conf

CD/DVD ROM Spindown

cp /etc/rc.local /etc/rc.local.backup
echo "/usr/bin/hal-disable-polling --device /dev/scd0" >> /etc/rc.local
cp /etc/modprobe.conf /etc/modprobe.conf.backup
cp /etc/sysctl.conf /etc/sysctl.conf.backup
echo "options usbcore autosuspend=1" >> /etc/modprobe.conf
echo "vm.dirty_writeback_centisecs=1500" >> /etc/sysctl.conf
echo "vm.laptop_mode=5" >> /etc/sysctl.conf

Media Buttons

I am using xbindkeys

~/.xbindkeys:

"xbindkeys_show" 
  control+shift + q

## Print Screen
"~/bin/xscreenshot 0 0 1366 800"
    c:107

## Power Button
#""
#    c:124

## Previous
"mpc prev"
        c:173

## Stop
"mpc stop"
        c:174

## Play/Pause
"mpc toggle"
        c:172

## Next
"mpc next"
        c:171

## Mute
"amixer sset Master toggle -q"
        c:121

## Volume Down
"amixer sset Master 7%- -q"
        c:122

## Volume Up
"amixer sset Master 7%+ -q"
        c:123

## Fn+Moon
"gnome-screensaver-command -l"
        c:213

You can change out the xscreenshot line for any one of the methods:

Taking a Screenshot