Disable SecureBoot for the time being.
For booting my Archlinux kernel (4.3 series on the USB drive I made), I needed the following options:
nomodeset intel_pstates=no_hwp
You can edit the parameters by hitting the e key on the ArchISO boot option
in the EFI bootloader entry screen (oh yeah - I used EFI)..
nomodeset avoids enabling KMS, meaning you don't need the intel graphics
driver. intel_pstates=no_hwp tells the kernel not to try handing off CPU
frequence changes to the new Skylake P-State hardware support. From my testing,
no turning this support off caused the machine to hang on reboots. I think the
Linux support for this particular feature isn't quite ready yet, so for now
I'm fine with using the older methods for power management; they've not done
me wrong on other Linux laptops.
When after installation is complete, you'll want to get the xf86-video-intel
driver installed. Once that's done, you can remove nomodeset, leaving the
only necessary kernel parameter after installation being the intel_pstate
one.
- Webcam
- Keyboard (including special functions)
- touchpad
- trackpoint "nipple"
- Wireless
- 4k monitor support (see below, though)
- Volume rocker switch
- Suspend
- Speakers (Had to use phono-qt5-vlc as a backend)
- Microphone
- Video (though there's flickering when switching applications in KDE 5/plasma)
- Fingerprint scanner
- HDMI port
- Any OneLink+ accessories (I don't have any, but the NIC seemed to be recognized by NetworkManager)
- LTE-A card (Didn't get the hardware for it)
- I have done nothing specific to enable the touch screen, but tapping the screen sometimes moves the mouse cursor, other times does not. The included pen doesn't seem to work, it may need some wacom drivers. ** Use xf86-input-evdev and the touch screen, along with the pen, will work.
- Resuming from suspend when suspend was triggered by inactivity. Sometimes it resumes, sometimes it doesn't.
My 4k Dell monitor works under KDE, however I have to have it plugged in prior to powering on the machine. Plugging it in while the laptop's already on and using the internal screen caused the external monitor to get into a weird state; I couldn't get any resolution to display accurately, so the KDE task bars were showing up in the upper left quadrant of the monitor.
Note I only tried the miniDisplayPort connection for the monitor so far.
Connecting to work exchange required the following for Thunderbird:
* [ExQuilla](https://exquilla.zendesk.com/home)
* Lightning for calendaring
* [exchangecalendar](https://github.com/Ericsson/exchangecalendar/)
I'm still testing the waters here - I'd rather not use OWA for accessing exchange, but thus far Thunderbird + Lightning hasn't been super reliable for calendar notications, either.
I had to use the Phono VLC backend in order to make KDE programs output sound.
Vidyo (the video conferencing application I use at work) worked without any extra shenanigans, though it generates a lot of empty windows in my plasma task manager. I'm not sure if that's inherit in their design or a bug, but it hasn't hurt the actual use of the program.