Why are you blaming Dell for a beta version of Debian not working smoothly?
Pretty much this. I was just WHY the entire time I was reading this. Install Windows 8.1 or 10 and just enjoy life.
If what I wrote came across that way I'm really sorry. My intention was to cover the state of Linux in general on the XPS 15, an "operating system" choice that Dell does not endorse.
I felt that my experience with the machine might somehow be relevant to potential buyers that want to replace their current MacBook with non Apple hardware, who also aren't willing to use Windows.
The distribution the I mentioned in the post is largely irrelevant to the premise I set out to cover, as Debian testing can basically be described as a very bleeding-edge Debian variant and everything I stated would still be relevant for Arch or any other distro. I still stand behind that original premise, but it seems that I somewhat screwed up the delivery.