Did I go wrong with this Laptop, was the question of the first day with my new toy. It came with windows family preinstalled and without giving a thought, I installed the latest Ubuntu on it. Nothing went fine. I am used to installing Linux on new PCs ready to go in under 30minutes. Took 90 this time ! Then the running of it was the same. Some programs installed in a second, then others took an hour. I was able to play 4K videos , but struggled opening up tabs in the browser. I was having the latest kernel, all updated, drivers and so, but nothing seemed to be working. No surprise, as actually I never could make Ubuntu up and running correctly on any device. I used a Macbook pro late 2012 and tried, finally went with Manjaro for years without one single reinstall or issue. Then I have also my R5 5600G, Asrock based desktop. Also my first choice was Ubuntu, If remember well that was version 22. Nothing worked out and I often had freezing with tiling and hot corners, and blacking out from python scripts. I have the Bookworm running on it since with not one single hiccup ! Then had Dell 7280 or something like that with a 4core old I7 in it. Again, Ubuntu dirtied itself multiple times in the first week, so the Fedora did a good job keeping that PC up for 2 years before selling it. I had the same experience with an old Lenovo too, where strangely the Ubuntu based Linux Mint took charge of the PC and doing it so since. A couple of weeks ago I had a 13450HX based DELL G15 coming in with Ubuntu, 22 preinstalled. I went with it, wow, could not even stand up the DELL pre-isntalled base system for more than 15seconds, before the first freeze. Then installed the latest U25 and again loads of issues, with nothing working on it, while Debian stood up right away.
So the DELL Insprion 14. I went first with Ubuntu 25 latest, to satisfy my hardware needs. As the I9 Core Ultra 185h is a 2023'Q4 Gen 14 CPU and my PC was produced in 2024 December. I need the latest Kernel and latest drivers. Wow, all sorts of issues popped up with it. Sudden blackouts, freezes, wifi drops, network drops, slow slow install speeds. Then installed, Ubuntu server and topped it with lightdm and cinnamon no-flavor. This one was better, but finally the install speeds were so slow, with sudden workflow drops and very slow program starts, that I needed to try a new thing.
Fedora 42. It was very promising, really, I kept it for 24hours. I installed GIMP, Inkscape, VirtualBox, Libreoffice, all the Python labs and all sorts of programs in a second. Used them and watched a couple of films. Then, installed VMWare and it took and hour. Then did a big update, it took me 70minutes. Then the browsing started to get out of hand with latencies. All updated, all great, all running. I was doing the firmware updates. Nothing made it work. Normally 6.8+ kernels are good, so running a 6.14 would be even better. I ran the base one and when did the big update, It went up to 6.14.5. Having still issues.
Final essay ! Debian Trixie. Nothing worked out fine, with this release either.µ
Is my laptop broken ? I tried with all sorts of boot options, messed around in the BIOS. I updated everything. Everything is perfect. I tried different distros, kernels, drivers. I mean, on a second try, I always succeeded to install ever lasting distros, since 2014. Always ! Second try ! Always !
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I reainstalled Win11. Wanted actually !
You need this on a second USB-Key when you install windows:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/849936/intel-rapid-storage-technology-driver-installation-software-with-intel-optane-memory-12th-to-15th-gen-platforms.html
The Rapid Storage Technology driver. If not, WIN11 won't see your GEN14 or GEN15 core ultra storage devices.
You, have to get into a windows pc to download this. I fired up a VM. Downloaded the driver. You have to extract the driver from the exe file using CMD Line:
- SetupRST.exe -extractdrivers "extracted_rst"
If it won't work use -extract or /extract, but normally the -extractdrivers works fine !
In your extracted driver directory, you go down till VMD folder and this is what you'll copy on your secondary USB drive.
Keep, the "hide" drivers ticked, your VMD Controller must show up automatically in the list !!!
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So, what could have been the problem with even the latest linux kernels ? I think that Fedora's firmware updater could not pull the latest updates for my PC. It did a Bios Update and installed some stuff in addition, but for this DELL combination it was not enough for flawless kernel execution.
The DELL updater actually did some other deep firmware updates. Including BIOS. Then it pulled all the latest drivers. The interesting thing is that it also asked me in a second driver release just a couple of days after, if I wanted to remove all previous driver versions and do a clean install.
I am nearly 100% sure, that after these firmware updates, I would be able to stand up a more than capable Fedora 42.
I will actually, keep the Windows 11 for now. Maybe for 1 year. I will see how the Debian Trixie Performs when the stable version will be out this summer. I also will see how the Win11 / Dell updater will keep on updating my firmwares, including BIOS. Then will pull on the Trixie.
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Why am I better off with a Linux ? First of all is CPU, memory and laptop battery use. Windows right from the start uses 12gb of memory. A solid Debian uses not even 2gigs ! That is a serious inefficacy problem. Than there is of course CPU. In case of a laptop this is crucial. I can run for instance nearly 20°C less temps on my R5 Desktop and also 15°C less temps on my previous DELL G15 if Debian was used. Even 5°C less constant temperature would be great, but 15 to 20°C means less fan usage, less heat build up, less issues.
Yesterday I have seen a 16 inch, I am not sure any more Lenovo or Asus laptop, that had only Core Ultra I7, but gen 2/15 for the same price as my Dell. The good thing was that it came with Sodimm DDR5s, so I could have updated it up to 64/128gb . As I virtualise a lot, until I don't have Linux running that would have been a better choice. However I also need battery life. A 120HZ 16" screen paired with an RTX4060, especially if WIN11 was obligatory, the battery usage would be way too high. I already have tried laptops with NVIDIA cards, from multiple brands. In best cases, battery life is around 3 to 4hours max. With my Core Ultra I9 185h and 14" 90Hz screen I can go for 7 to 10hours easy and when Linux will be going on it, probably it will be 1.2 to 1.3 times as much. When we can see Snapdragon laptops scratching the 30hours mark, with extreme efficacy, a laptop with sometimes sub 1h battery life is nothing useful.
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