Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off
Sorry, I&#x27;m gonna have to flame Dell out here.<p>I own a Dell XPS 13 9365, a 2-in-1 laptop.  Dell have decided, arbitrarily, not to support Linux on this machine, but you can still actually make it run by disabling Secure Boot and setting the SATA mode to AHCI.  Even then, Ubuntu doesn&#x27;t seem to detect when you&#x27;ve rotated the screen for tablet mode or stuff like that -- but that&#x27;s probably Ubuntu&#x27;s driver support.  The machine also can&#x27;t wake up from suspend mode, which I suspect is a driver thing.<p>Problem is, if you then apply a typical, recommended firmware upgrade from your Ubuntu Software Manager, it bricks the laptop.  The problem being, &quot;applying&quot; the firmware upgrade in Ubuntu just primes it to run when you restart the computer.  When you restart the computer, the BIOS detects a present firmware upgrade and applies it, without apparently double-checking that, you know, this <i>isn&#x27;t gonna brick the computer</i>.  I now have to wait for a technician to arrive today and replace my motherboard, then figure out how to change those BIOS settings <i>again</i> so that I can boot back into Linux.<p>Maybe Ubuntu could have stopped this by detecting compatibility issues between the firmware package and the hardware.  Dell&#x27;s BIOS <i>definitely</i> should have stopped this by detecting the compatibility issue between its own settings and the firmware package.  Alternately, if the issue is that, for instance, the BIOS won&#x27;t check these packages because I&#x27;ve disabled Secure Boot, the BIOS needs to bloody well differentiate between Secure Boot for operating systems (which we want off, because <i>we own our laptops, thank you very much</i>) and for BIOS&#x2F;firmware packages (which we want <i>on</i>, because why brick a good machine?).<p>Overall, great machine, but bad Dell, no cookie.