Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@chronon

chronon/xps-13.md

Created September 3, 2018 22:19
Show Gist options
  • Star 2 You must be signed in to star a gist
  • Fork 0 You must be signed in to fork a gist
  • Save chronon/e55cafd69772484795ff97c76229ecd3 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Save chronon/e55cafd69772484795ff97c76229ecd3 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Download ZIP
Dell XPS 13 9370 Dual Boot Win 10 and Debian Linux
Raw
xps-13.md

Dell XPS 13 9370 Dual Boot Win 10 and Debian Linux

Windows Preparation and Setup

  1. Download Win 10 installation ISO and create a bootable USB drive.
  2. Boot, F12 for system menu, select BIOS Setup.
    • System Configuration -> SATA Operation and change from "RAID On" to "AHCI".
    • Secure Boot -> Secure Boot Enable and change to "Disabled"
  3. Reboot, F12 for system menu, select the external USB drive and install Win 10.
    • Select "Advanced Installation".
    • Delete all existing partitions.
  4. When complete, install the previously downloaded Wifi drivers to get Wifi working, run updates, install other drivers, etc.
    • Shrink volume by going to "Disk Management", select drive C:, and Actions -> All Tasks -> Shrink Volume.
    • Disable "fast startup" at System Settings -> Hardware and Sound -> Power Options -> Choose what the power buttons do and uncheck "Turn on fast startup".

Linux Preparation and Setup

  1. Download Debian and create another bootable USB drive. I used the debian-9.5.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso image.
  2. Boot, F12 for system menu, select the external USB drive and start the installation.
    • The font will be very tiny so get a magnifier.
    • Wifi installation will fail due to non-free firmware, skip setup.
    • Mirror selection will fail since no network, skip too.
  3. On another USB drive (or the same one after reformatting), download the Wifi firmware, I used firmware-atheros_20180518-1_all.deb.
  4. Mount the USB drive, find the firmware, and run (as root) dpkg -i firmware-atheros_20180518-1_all.deb.
  5. Update /etc/apt/sources.list as needed, making sure to add non-free.
  6. Confirm Wifi is working, apt update and apt full-upgrade.

Misc

To make a bootable image From macOS, assuming the USB drive is disk2:

sudo diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk2
sudo dd if=./IMAGE.iso of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m
# or if coreutils are installed:
sudo gdd if=./IMAGE.iso of=/dev/disk2 bs=1000000 status=progress

Another option is to use Boot Camp Assistant to make the image.

To restore a bootable USB drive from macOS:

sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk2
# interactive prompt
auto dos
quit

Then format the drive.

Debian Wiki article on this machine.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment