Dell XPS 13 9360 + Ubuntu 16.04: fixing papercuts

xps13_9360_ubuntu16.04.md

Upfront

• Do not enable encrypted home directory, as you will be in a world of hurt. It's also going away...
  • https://twitter.com/chizangiam/status/951295352551829504
• First time you run sudo apt-get update you will experience a SEGV from "appstreamcli".
  • https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/appstream/+bug/1579712
  • You can ignore this and run sudo apt-get dist-upgrade seemingly without further issues (as of 2017-01-12)
• After successfully picking up all updates since the factory image, I recommend opting into the rolling HWE stack:
  • https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack
  • sudo apt-get install --install-recommends linux-generic-hwe-16.04 xserver-xorg-hwe-16.04
• A tool called fwupd can peg your CPU at 100%, likely due to some combination of GNOME / Ubuntu software apps.
  • https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/appstream-glib/+bug/1707110
  • sudo killall fwupd
  • sudo apt-get purge gnome-software && sudo apt-get autoremove

Differences from vanilla Ubuntu 16.04

• Super key (windows key) no longer opens dash. Not sure why Dell changed this but it's super annoying.

  • Fix: https://askubuntu.com/a/889665

• Enabling workspaces is easy, but the default keys for switching are mapped incorrectly.

  • Fix: https://askubuntu.com/a/974872

• Other tweaks - check out the Arch Linux wiki.

  • https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9360)

External Monitor + HiDPI

Here's a little script I drop into ~/bin to make scaling on an external monitor a bit nicer.

#!/bin/sh

# https://superuser.com/questions/485120/
# https://askubuntu.com/questions/393400/
xrandr --output DP1 --scale 2x2 --auto --pos 0x0
xrandr --output eDP1 --scale 1x1 --auto --pos 960x2880

Hooking this up to udev is an exercise left for the reader.

Personal customizations

• Swap caps lock and control: best way is still to install gnome-tweak.

  • Fix: https://askubuntu.com/a/33792/1372

• Emojis!

  • Download the "Noto Color Emoji" from https://www.google.com/get/noto/ and copy them to /usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto
  • Remove the default Symbola font: sudo rm -rf /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ancient-scripts
  • Install the emojione-picker, using "Method 1": https://github.com/gentakojima/emojione-picker-ubuntu
  • 🎉

• redshift-gtk is similar to f.lux on MacOS, highly recommended, but "Autostart" is buggy, so I recommend starting it manually after logging in to the desktop

• Station is a productivity app, allowing you to combine mail, chat, etc. all into a single place.

  • https://getstation.com/

vim

• default vim-gtk3 (v7) is broken, use vim v8 instead

  • vim/vim#851
  • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/vim

• vim plugins

  • https://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen
  • https://github.com/jeetsukumaran/vim-filebeagle
  • https://github.com/nvie/vim-flake8
  • https://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive
  • https://github.com/crusoexia/vim-monokai

• my super minimal .vimrc

execute pathogen#infect()
syntax on
filetype plugin indent on

" allow per-project overrides, safely
set exrc
set secure

set autoindent
set smarttab
set expandtab
set tabstop=8
set shiftwidth=4
set softtabstop=4

if has('gui_running')
    set guifont=Ubuntu\ Mono\ 11
    set guioptions-=T
    set guitablabel=%0.15t\ %M
endif