OpenSUSE LEAP 15.4 Linux on Dell Inspiron 7506
2-in-1
Introduction
Around November of 2020, Dell replaced my Inspiron 7591. As I said on that article, I don't think it's Dell's fault, and Dell's warranty support was top notch. If anything, I'm more convinced that I will only be buying Dell products for the rest of my life.
Anyways, so this article will help you with how to install OpenSUSE LEAP 15.2 on this laptop. But the usual riot act: I am not responsible for anything that happens as a result of you following these instructions. This article is just me telling the story of what worked for me.
| HARDWARE COMPONENTS |
STATUS UNDER LINUX |
NOTES |
| Intel 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7
@ 2.80GHz |
Works |
VERY fast |
| System Memory: 16GB, 2x8GB, DDR4, 3200MHz | Works |
Upgraded w/ Kingston KCP426SS8/16 (32GB) |
|
Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics with shared graphics memory |
Works |
Too new for GParted (at the time) and HDMI
DOES NOT WORK on LEAP 15.4 |
| Seagate Technology PLC Device 5012
(Barracuda 510 SSD) (added) |
Works |
Fast as heck |
| 4-Cell Battery, 53WHr | Works |
|
| Dell back-lit keyboard |
Works |
Can change settings in BIOS; can update any
time. |
| Dell 512GB factory Solid State Drive
(removed) |
Works |
Fast as heck (upgraded with Barracuda 1TB) |
| Fingerprint Reader (built into power
button) |
Doesn't work | Works in Windows |
| 15.6-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) Truelife Touch
Narrow Border WVA Display with Active Pen support |
Partially works |
Display and touch input work but not screen
tilt/reorientation (yet). |
| Many devices labeled "Intel Corporation
Device a0e8" etc. |
Work |
This is because this hardware is very
new. When these enumerate to the PCI bus I will
provide an update. |
| Intel Audio |
Works |
Upgrading the Hard Drive at the Start
The first thing to do was, before I even
booted for the first time, remove the 512GB SSD, save an image,
then burn it to the 1TB Seagate Barracuda SSD that I upgraded it
with. When finished, Windows 10 booted without a single
problem. Note that there is only one hard drive possible:
the M.2 port. Unlike the previous Dell this replaced, I
have no Optane port (not like I give a krap about that) and no
SATA hard drive port (sad: I was going to plug in a 120GB SSD
SATA to store my music). But as usual, Dell laptop
construction is top-notch, with wire keepers and good equipment
throughout. Also, this is with the 512TGB SATA
removed. You can see it above, along with the Kingston 1TB
that replaced it.
So New
This laptop is so new that the OpenSUSE LEAP 15.2 stock kernel doesn't have the proper hardware name for these (though it sees them and works just fine):
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9a14 (rev 01)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation
Device 9a49 (rev 01)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel
Corporation Device 9a03 (rev 01)
00:07.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 9a23
(rev 01)
00:0a.0 Signal processing controller: Intel
Corporation Device 9a0d (rev 01)
00:0d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device
9a13 (rev 01)
00:0d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device
9a1b (rev 01)
00:12.0 Serial controller: Intel Corporation Device
a0fc (rev 20)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device
a0ed (rev 20)
00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Device a0ef
(rev 20)
00:14.3 Network controller: Intel Corporation Device
a0f0 (rev 20)
00:15.0 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel
Corporation Device a0e8 (rev 20)
00:15.1 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel
Corporation Device a0e9 (rev 20)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation
Device a0e0 (rev 20)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device a0b0
(rev 20)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device a082
(rev 20)
00:1f.3 Multimedia audio controller: Intel
Corporation Device a0c8 (rev 20)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Device a0a3 (rev
20)
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel
Corporation Device a0a4 (rev 20)
2b:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Seagate
Technology PLC Device 5012 (rev 01)But this, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, is why you want to get a laptop with Intel hardware for Linux, and especially the video card. Even though the kernel doesn't know what most of this hardware is, read below: nearly all of it works. Some have complained that I don't have nVidia or ATI graphics onboard. I don't play many games, but even then, productivity and Linux compatibility are, to me, the most important features.
Brother MFC-J491DW Printer
This section is actually rather surprising, in a good way. I got this printer after my last one broke. I decided I was going to try to use it over WiFi (my network is secured with a good password). On Windows, configuration with Brother's software was easy. I was hesitant with Linux, however, because of past experiences. But I saw Linux drivers on Brother's website, so I decided to give them a try. There was a shell script available, so I decided, "why not?" I gave it a try. The shell script surprised me: it executed well, did a good job detecting my distribution of Linux, and installing the proper RPMs.
On OpenSUSE LEAP 15.4, the shell installer script from Brother found the RPMs, installed them, and when I gave the IP address for the printer, added it automatically. And then it printed a test page without a single error message.
I strongly recommend Brother Printers for
Linux. They work properly and are easy to use with Linux!
Installation
I had to do some trickery to get Linux to
boot. First, I noticed in the BIOS that the hard drive
controller was in RAID, not AHCI. First, I needed to
switch to AHCI, but not so fast. I needed to do it
carefully or I could risk losing all my data. I found this
link points to a post on Dell's support page that links here
to instructions. Note that the following information is
what I did with my laptop. I am NOT telling you it will
work for you, and I am NOT in any way liable for anything that
happens as a result of these instructions. I am only
telling you what worked for me.
I followed the instructions, booting to safe
mode and intercepting (pressing F2 like a cocaine monkey) the
BIOS boot right after this to switch to AHCI. Windows
booted to safe mode but gave no indications it had done
anything. I then followed the instructions to tell it to
boot back into normal mode, and it worked. After this, the
drive populated in the OpenSUSE installer.
Before I did this, I told Windows to shrink
its partition to 256GB to make space for Linux, which it
did. BitLocker makes it so that you have less space than
the partition, probably due to encryption. Dell also
includes BitLocker in this update and on their Inspiron laptops,
a nice feature usually reserved for Windows 10 Pro. I
think it's worth it, but it will complicate matters. I had
already learned with Windows and the interplay with Linux and
college work to do all my work on a removable SD card and then
down-sync the changes into Linux when I back up my stuff.
So anyways, make sure your Microsoft account
works before you do anything. If you can't sign in to it,
you will get locked out.
I then booted up Linux. Because
my Inspiron laptop is so new, the new Intel iRIS graphics didn't
work with GParted Live, so I had to install OpenSUSE (MAKING
SURE I created a partition in the second
larger area of free space, i.e. the second half of the 1TB drive
because I had burned the 512GB image to the 1TB which left 512GB
of empty space). I installed OpenSUSE with gnome just to
jump on WiFI, install GParted, and then move the recovery
partitions over so that all the free space was at the end of the
drive. Then I rebooted into the OpenSUSE installer again
and deleted the original installation and reinstalled using my
typical LUKS encrypted configuration.
When I rebooted, Windows 10 did not start but
took me to the BitLocker unlock key page. I logged into
the Microsoft BitLocker recovery keys page and typed in the long
password. When I first saw this page, I went to log in
using my phone and the page disappeared: my laptop shut
down. This seems to be a time-out protection or something,
so I wouldn't let that bother you.
Now GRUB2 boots up and lets me select Windows
10 and Windows works fine. This is a lot of complex work
but it was worth it, I think.
If I had to do this over again, however, I
would recommend buying the Ubuntu LTS version of whatever Dell
machine you want, then buy a copy of Windows 10 separately and
use it in a Virtual Machine on Linux. It's getting to the
point where, I believe, Microsoft is throwing up needless hoops
for people to jump through just to get into Linux.
Oh, and note that EVERY SINGLE TIME you update or install ANY kernel, Windows WILL ask for your BitLocker unlock key AGAIN. My advice is bookmark the website to get the unlock key for BitLocker on your phone: you're going to need it. This behavior is tempting me to get rid of BitLocker and go back to not saving any important files or any passwords on Windows.
And note that you CANNOT disable Secure Boot if you have BitLocker enabled. Windows will refuse to boot and will complain.
Note that if you disable BitLocker, you lose it for good. By default it is set to encrypt files only (not free space; i.e. not the entire partition). I didn't realize I would lose it, and so I disabled BitLocker (and it decrypted the hard drive) thinking I can re-enable it with better options, i.e. full partition encryption. Instead, I discovered that I could not re-enable it. So if you want BitLocker, keep it: because if you have Windows 10 Home, if you disable it, you can't get it back.
I don't think BitLocker is worth the $100
upgrade to Windows 10 Pro (i.e. after accidentally disabling
it), so I'll go back to not using Windows for anything sensitive
like tax returns.
TMPFS /tmp
If you're using an SSD, you'll want to make the /tmp directory a tmpfs partition. Add this line to /etc/fstab and enjoy.tmpfs /tmp tmpfs rw,nodev,nosuid,size=1g 0 0
Keyboard
Gone is the day of non-number-pad keyboards on laptops. I'm actually sad that this went away. To get a keyboard without a number pad, you essentially have to get a laptop too small to have the number pad, or get lucky. I'll be honest: I don't need a number pad. If I did, I'd get one for USB. But I digress.
The keys on this keyboard are between light and medium, but feel very firm and resolute. I had no problems mapping the calculator shortcut key. The back-lighting key works exactly as it should (switching from off/low/high brightness), though you cannot change settings in Linux. You can change them in the BIOS. I set mine for the shortest duration because I want to save power. In average living room lighting, the back-light on the keys only makes it harder to read the keys, and when the keyboard is new to you, you need to see the keys.
The function key locking feature works in Linux as well. I tend to keep it in the shortcut key (not function key) mode. This can be slightly annoying when you want to, say, rename a file and you're used to the F2 shortcut: now you need to learn Fn+F2. But this enables the home/end keys rather than F11/F12 keys, so it's useful when typing papers.
The back-lighting can be annoying at certain viewing angles (like when hunting for keys because the keys on this keyboard are positioned slightly differently than other laptops, which is common between laptops). But you can press the back-light button on the keyboard until it shuts off. Also, Gnome can control the back-light.
Touch Input and Screen
The screen looks absolutely flawless in Linux, just like in Windows. And touch input works in Linux as well, which is a very good thing.
Webcam
The webcam works in Linux with Cheese.
And I am very pleased with the Dell privacy feature that is
included. It doesn't turn off webcam video, but it covers
the camera. In Linux you can swatch the dark black shutter
move if you move it slowly.
Battery
In Linux, it gets a claimed 6 hours.
In Windows it claimed 3.5 hours, but that's while I was using FL
Studio pretty heavily.
Tablet / Tent Mode
In Windows, this mode works flawlessly. I'm new to 2-in-1 laptops (and this was a gift from Dell, i.e. I didn't originally order a 2-in-1). But it works very, very well in Windows. It didn't come with a stylus pen for the touch screen, however.
However, unfortunately, in OpenSUSE LEAP 15.2, moving the laptop into tent or tablet doesn't do anything. This is probably not OpenSUSE's fault because this is a very new laptop. So the Linux kernel in OpenSUSE LEAP 15.2 (5.3.18) doesn't recognize the hardware yet (see above lspci output). I would say wait because soon, I'm sure, OpenSUSE will come out with a new release that probably handles the tablet mode. Gnome is already poised in OpenSUSE to work with a tablet, it's just that the kernel in this release doesn't (yet) recognize tablet/laptop mode switching.
The keyboard automatically shuts off when
one goes to tablet or tent mode, so apparently that function is
based in hardware. However, apparently the sensor that
tells the OS what position the laptop is in (for screen
rotation) is not yet recognized or acted upon in XFCE or Gnome.
Fingerprint Reader
This computer has a fingerprint
reader. It works in Windows. However, last time I
tried to enable it (previous laptop 2 months ago) Windows 10
made me input a PIN in order to input a fingerprint, which is
(in my opinion) absolute garbage. PINs are less secure
than passwords and fingerprints. Anyways....
I followed procedures to add the fingerprint
reader to OpenSUSE LEAP 15.2 but the hardware itself isn't
registering. So for now, unfortunately, I cannot use my
fingerprint for logging into OpenSUSE LEAP 15.2. The
fingerprint reader does not show up under the PCI bus. As
well, running i2cdetect -l doesn't list any i2c
buses. It is also not listed as a USB device like it is
with other Dell laptops.
Swappiness Issues During Heavy Disk I/O
I am copying this from the other Dell laptop installation page.
I am still testing this part.
One of the recent problems with the Linux kernel has been that it will grab all available RAM to help with Disk I/O operations even when it should not care. This results in the operating system digging into swap. There are a couple of things you can do to minimize it:
First, you can set swappiness to 1, using
the command
sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=1.
Second, you can increase the "pressure" on
the OS to free up Disk I/O memory using the command
sudo sysctl vm.vfs_cache_pressure=200.
Finally, some people who are long-time Linux
users have recommended that I simply not have a swap partition
at all. This is totally possible. However, for
future testing purposes (below), I have it enabled.
I filed a
bug about the behavior of the stock LEAP 15.2
kernel. For some, this swappiness issue is resolved by
upgrading to the latest
stable Linux kernel available through OpenSUSE. HOWEVER,
I tried this on my new laptop (even though it worked on my last
one) and it broke my installation of OpenSUSE for video (hello,
VGA mode), and this is (again) probably due to the newness of
the hardware on this specific Inspiron 7506. My advice is
keep the stock kernel and only install the latest stable Linux
kernel AT YOUR OWN RISK. My advice
is simply be content with OpenSUSE LEAP 15.2 and wait until a
new version comes out. I am not usually one to engage in
"distro hopping" to find the one Linux distribution in which
"everything works." And especially not with an SSD: even
though the half-life of most solid state storage these days will
out-live you, it's best not to tempt fate and continue to "flip
the bits" until you find a Linux distribution that best fits
your brand new laptop. My past experience with this with
other laptops is that hardware support is mainly the Linux
kernel, and nearly all Linux distributions, at the time of the
release of a brand new laptop, are going to be around the same
numerical kernel version, so it's pointless to "distro hop."
But even for a new laptop with new hardware
on a not-so-new Linux kernel, this system is still incredibly
fast. So for now, I'm tolerating it.
The OpenSUSE team is still working on this
(as you can see in the bug link above). One of the
interesting things is that running with
cgroup_disable=memory in the boot parameters, with certain
kernels it goes away. Again, read the above bug.
There should be a kernel patch coming out soon remedy this
problem. Or you can use any of the kernels mentioned in
the bug. Just be sure (in my opinion) to keep the 15.2
stock kernel (whatever update version it is) installed in case
you need it. And beware installing kernels with BitLocker.
Sensors
I added the XFCE sensors plugin and enabled
all the options (sensors) inside of it to see how many sensors
the computer manifests over SMBus/I2C/serial. There are 11
sensors, unlike my last laptop. (Although maybe the last
laptop had 22 because 11 were duplicated between I2C and
ACPI.)
Contingency: What To Do When Microsoft Locks You Out Of Linux
So you ran a Dell OS Recovery update and then Linux didn't boot? Let me relate my experience with this.
What I found is that the BIOS was set back to using the onboard hard drive in RAID, not AHCI. This seems weird, and stupid to be honest, because you can't RAID with only one drive (at least not in hardware). Microsoft claims these features are to keep customers secure from boot sector viruses. Anyone who understands computer virus history knows this is mostly a lie because the virus and anti-virus game is a cat-and-mouse game: when one adapts, the other adapts. To fix this, you need to switch the hard
drive setting in the BIOS back to AHCI, but NOT SO
FAST. You need to do it carefully or you
risk losing all your data. So here's what you need to do:
this
link points to a post on Dell's support page that links here
to instructions. Note that the following information is
what I did with my laptop. I am NOT telling you it will
work for you, and I am NOT in any way liable for anything that
happens as a result of these instructions. I am only
telling you what worked for me. ALWAYS BACK UP
YOUR DATA BEFORE YOU MAKE CHANGES IN YOUR CONFIGURATION!
I followed the instructions, booting to safe mode and intercepting (pressing F2 like a cocaine monkey) the BIOS boot right after this to switch to AHCI. Windows booted to safe mode but gave no indications it had done anything. I then followed the instructions to tell it to boot back into normal mode, and it worked.
After this, the drive populated in Linux. Before I did this, I told Windows to shrink its partition to 256GB to make space for Linux, which it did. Note that BitLocker makes it so that you have less space than the partition, probably due to encryption. Dell also includes BitLocker in this update and on their Inspiron laptops, a nice feature usually reserved for Windows 10 Pro. I think it's worth it, but it will complicate matters. I had already learned with Windows and the interplay with Linux and college work to do all my work on a removable SD card and then down-sync the changes into Linux when I back up my stuff.
So anyways, make sure your Microsoft account works BEFORE you do anything.
I then booted up Linux. Because my Inspiron laptop is so new, the new Intel iRIS graphics didn't work with GParted Live, so I had to install OpenSUSE (MAKING SURE I created a partition in the second larger area of free space, i.e. the second half of the 1TB drive because I had burned the 512GB image to the 1TB which left 512GB of empty space). I installed OpenSUSE with gnome just to jump on WiFI, install GParted, and then move the recovery partitions over so that all the free space was at the end of the drive. Then I rebooted into the OpenSUSE installer again and deleted the original installation and reinstalled using my typical LUKS encrypted configuration.
When I rebooted, Windows 10 did not start but took me to the BitLocker unlock key page. I logged into the Microsoft BitLocker recovery keys page and typed in the long password. When I first saw this page, I went to log in using my phone and the page disappeared: my laptop shut down. This seems to be a time-out protection or something, so I wouldn't let that bother you.
Now GRUB2 boots up and lets me select Windows 10 and Windows works fine. This is a lot of complex work but it was worth it, I think.
Do not save your unlock key anywhere except in another encrypted container (and not in the one BitLocker is using). Or better yet: don't save it at all. Log in every time or disable BitLocker.
Keep in mind EVERY TIME you upgrade or install a Linux kernel, you're going to trigger the BitLocker unlock page. It shouldn't cause your BIOS to go back to RAID mode for the onboard SSD, but a Dell OS Recovery update might do that. Some people might want to disable Dell's auto-update and/or Windows auto-update to prevent the OS Recovery from being updated before they've had a chance to back up all their files. I would recommend daily incremental backups of your data.
I've noticed that some Dell updates like
BIOS updates, however, even though they request that BitLocker
be temporarily suspended, don't seem to cause me to get locked
out of Linux, thankfully....
Moving On
OpenSUSE LEAP 15.4 worked well for a brand
new laptop for a while. But around April of 2021, a kernel
upgrade that didn't boot prompted me to start considering other
distributions. I'm writing this to send a message to
OpenSUSE developers, not to discourage anyone from using
OpenSUSE. OpenSUSE is a good distribution, usually.
But part of this decision also came about because OpenSUSE LEAP
15.4 decided to use an older, non-long-term version of the Linux
kernel. Many in the community had voiced their concern
about this being a bad idea.
I settled upon Mageia 8.