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Comment by caleblloyd | Hacker News Reader

One of my co-workers has the current gen (9550) and Ubuntu 16.04 runs great on it. I think he's got an intel wifi card, I'd just check Linux compatibility with the Killer wifi card before going that route. It's easy enough to change a WiFi card out aftermarket if there is issues though, an Intel 8260 card will run you $30.

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I am also on 9550 with Ubuntu 16.04. I upgraded RAM to 32GB. I mostly do Android development (gradle and Android Studio eat a huge amount of memory). I've run into a few weird issues with different version of Linux kernel. Some kernel version caused no sound at all. This is such a common topics among Ubuntu users and there are so many solutions about that. I've tried most of them (solutions around alsamixer and pulseaudio) only using certain version of kernel works for me.

I am curious which linux kernel version people (and your co-worker) are using though.

Killer WiFi should work with the `ath10k` driver in recent kernels.

Does that include good working power management and a fully functioning touchpad? I went down the XPS13 Sputnik path and had endless disappointment with constant fixes.

I have bought an XPS13 Sputnik this spring, have put Debian Testing on it, and had no single issue related to the the machine itself.

At least, I think so...

And, well, I'm not too picky...

I think that Skylake Power Management got better in the Kernel after the original XPS13 Sputnik launch, but yes the XPS13 touchpad was a pain in the ass. The XPS15 touchpad on Linux is better than the XPS13.

My biggest complaint about the XPS15 I had a little over a year ago was the spacebar. There was a manufacturing defect in mine where the touchpad ribbon cable pressed up against the spacebar and was causing unregistered keystrokes. I read internet forums where multiple people had this issue. Maybe Dell has fixed the manufacturing issue by now, but it was bad enough that I returned the XPS15.

Is it really that easy to swap them out? Or does Dell lock-out non-whitelisted wifi in the BIOS like Lenovo does with thinkpads?

I swapped out the Dell Wireless (Broadcom) on an XPS 13 9350 for an Intel 8260 with no issues. I would assume the XPS 15 would be the same.

Swapped wifi on XPS 15 to intel one. Mine was one that came with dell original wifi, working perfectly.

There are USB WiFi dongles for 2$; I use one of those with the R8188EU chip.

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