However, I'm being told by support that only the hardware is supported; the operating system (the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS installed at factory) is not supported. Is the support engineer I'm talking to off message or is he correct that there's no support for non-hardware issues?

Hi Bob,

I'm sorry for the poor support experience. It's the case that the support person you talked to is misinformed. I will pass this thread along so the ProSupport people involved directly with Project Sputnik can look into this and reach out to you.

Seems to be a known/common problem with the Broadcom WLAN devices (was that item perhaps a bad choice by the Sputnik team?)

Unfortunately, the problem is that we didn't have the choice. We have to use the same hardware configurations as provided with the Windows version, and only the Broadcom card was made available except for the vPro configurations.

Thanks very much for the fast response.

Sorry about my comment about choice of WLAN. Although it seems less than ideal, I don't believe any of the problems with it won't be solvable in drivers/software and I'd prefer to avoid any solutions that involve return or hardware replacement.

Regarding getting support for the issue I reported, I trust that ProSupport will get in touch in due course.

I'm keen to tolerate these issues and let the support process run its course as long as they're getting triaged and will receive attention at some point, as I'd rather keep this device like a product (rather than going down the route of making my own fixes) as the experience has been excellent on the whole and I would like to see more Linux based problems become available. (For example, I'm also suffering from many suspend failures but I can see that's already got a lot of attention and an official solution is probably imminent.)

Hope the product is selling well and being enjoyed.

Thanks,
Bob

Just so you know, here is what I am getting from my drivers as reported channel support:

gshulegaard@ronin:~$ sudo iwlist wlan0 f
wlan0     32 channels in total; available frequencies :
          Channel 01 : 2.412 GHz
          Channel 02 : 2.417 GHz
          Channel 03 : 2.422 GHz
          Channel 04 : 2.427 GHz
          Channel 05 : 2.432 GHz
          Channel 06 : 2.437 GHz
          Channel 07 : 2.442 GHz
          Channel 08 : 2.447 GHz
          Channel 09 : 2.452 GHz
          Channel 10 : 2.457 GHz
          Channel 11 : 2.462 GHz
          Channel 12 : 2.467 GHz
          Channel 13 : 2.472 GHz
          Channel 14 : 2.484 GHz
          Channel 32 : 5.16 GHz
          Channel 34 : 5.17 GHz
          Channel 36 : 5.18 GHz
          Channel 38 : 5.19 GHz
          Channel 40 : 5.2 GHz
          Channel 42 : 5.21 GHz
          Channel 44 : 5.22 GHz
          Channel 46 : 5.23 GHz
          Channel 48 : 5.24 GHz
          Channel 50 : 5.25 GHz
          Channel 52 : 5.26 GHz
          Channel 54 : 5.27 GHz
          Channel 56 : 5.28 GHz
          Channel 58 : 5.29 GHz
          Channel 60 : 5.3 GHz
          Channel 62 : 5.31 GHz
          Channel 64 : 5.32 GHz
          Channel 66 : 5.33 GHz
          Current Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)

Here is my general system information:

gshulegaard@ronin:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:    Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS
Release:    14.04
Codename:    trusty
gshulegaard@ronin:~$ uname -a
Linux ronin 3.19.0-18-generic #18~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed May 20 09:38:33 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
gshulegaard@ronin:~$

I am US based, so I don't have an easy way of testing 12 and 13 channel support, but the drivers apparently are reporting support for it.

I started a thread about how to upgrade your 14.04 kernel in place here:

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/t/19632562

Thanks very much for your input. For clarity about my setup, I've kept the factory image and I've performed apt upgrade and dist-update, but not applied anything out of normal channel. Although my output (below) seems to indicate the enablement of channels > 11, the fact is if I change my home wifi to channel 12 or 13 the laptop never sees it. (And though there are academic points to be made that one should really only be using 1, 6, or 11 for optimal performance, that's not useful if you're in a cafe where channel 13 is configured. That's how I 'proved' the issue: networks in 12,13 that my Nethunter tablet could see but not my laptop.)

bob@BOB2:~$ sudo iwlist wlan0 f
wlan0     32 channels in total; available frequencies :
          Channel 01 : 2.412 GHz
          Channel 02 : 2.417 GHz
          Channel 03 : 2.422 GHz
          Channel 04 : 2.427 GHz
          Channel 05 : 2.432 GHz
          Channel 06 : 2.437 GHz
          Channel 07 : 2.442 GHz
          Channel 08 : 2.447 GHz
          Channel 09 : 2.452 GHz
          Channel 10 : 2.457 GHz
          Channel 11 : 2.462 GHz
          Channel 12 : 2.467 GHz
          Channel 13 : 2.472 GHz
          Channel 36 : 5.18 GHz
          Channel 38 : 5.19 GHz
          Channel 40 : 5.2 GHz
          Channel 42 : 5.21 GHz
          Channel 44 : 5.22 GHz
          Channel 46 : 5.23 GHz
          Channel 48 : 5.24 GHz
          Channel 52 : 5.26 GHz
          Channel 54 : 5.27 GHz
          Channel 56 : 5.28 GHz
          Channel 58 : 5.29 GHz
          Channel 60 : 5.3 GHz
          Channel 62 : 5.31 GHz
          Channel 64 : 5.32 GHz
          Channel 100 : 5.5 GHz
          Channel 102 : 5.51 GHz
          Channel 104 : 5.52 GHz
          Channel 106 : 5.53 GHz
          Channel 108 : 5.54 GHz
          Current Frequency:5.18 GHz (Channel 36)
bob@BOB2:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:    Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS
Release:    14.04
Codename:    trusty
bob@BOB2:~$ uname -a
Linux BOB2 3.13.0-52-generic #86-Ubuntu SMP Mon May 4 04:32:59 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I had read a note on a Broadcom release note (I have lost the link to it) that suggested that the driver was designed to disable transmission on channels >11 unless it received transmissions from APs in the area that were on those channels, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I think this is something I can tolerate for now without going down experimental routes, but I would like a support channel open, please, to identify whether I'm doing something wrong or whether some intervention is required.

Thanks,
Bob

Hello,

That's a week since support's last email to me where I was told I don't get any support for Ubuntu. Is anyone going to reach out to me? It's very disappointing that there's no attempt to even acknowledge the issues in the support channel. I hope that Dell isn't thinking that the desirability of the XPS 13 means that I'm going to tolerate a lack of response. The reason I purchased was to get a Ubuntu certified product and not have to do a lot of manual troubleshooting and fixes, but it seems that that's exactly what we're being expected to do.

Bob

Unfortunately, this is not unusual.

I have now been in contact with ProSupport for 15 days.  I think they are currently being swamped given the device issues being reported in this forum.

Hello,

I just wanted to give a response to conclude my wireless issues. This happened over a month ago but I'm only getting around to reporting it now as working on fixes has consumed far too much time and I lost interest in the laptop for a while.

A Dell Pro Support engineer got in touch and was very helpful. While he was quite interested in trying to solve the Broadcom issue I reported (Channel 12/13 unavailable) we mutually agreed that the most pragmatic decision was to replace the WLAN card with an Intel version. A replacement card was provided for free and as it was authorised by support the warranty is not invalidated. I'd be interested to know if he ever managed to resolve it (being able to open a channel with the vendor would help) but I suspect that it's a problem that will take a lot of will and pressure on Broadcom to solve, so I'm not holding my breath.

I've been using the Intel WLAN card with a fresh installation of Ubuntu 15.04 and it's been working flawlessly for me (i.e. fixing the channel issue and also fixing the reliability issues). So that's the most important issues dealt with for me.

In my experience using Ubuntu 15.04 (currently 3.19.0-21-generic) and firmware A04 I don't get any of the much reported key repetition. I have been able to type this whole email without any issue, so this could be the way I type or luck.

However, I have other issues that are still annoying me and I think I'm going to need to divert some attention into them now. These are trackpad issues, possible bluetooth issues, text rendering issues after resume from suspend, and a general feeling that battery life has reduced.

Assuming that this community is still the best place to get support (no slight against Dell Support, but I don't think they're really geared up to support Linux yet and so asking here will yield faster solutions or at least anecdotal suggestions) I'll raise some new posts and see if anyone bites. It's a bit of a pity though that the team doesn't seem to have attempted to centralise the information here. I mean, there are a lot of posts and it's clear that some very persistent and savvy users have found tolerable if not definitive fixes for a lot of problems. Yet all we seem to have is one stickied post with some articles that are possibly not the correct solutions, and digging into the last 3 months of workarounds and suggestions is hard work.

I'm probably hoping for too much; what I'd really like is a "Here's how to get the XPS 13 9343 to production standard in 1 hour" blog post. =) But I may as well ask, is there any kind of consensus about what the best steps are to have as many bugs fixed as possible?

Regards,
Bob

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the post. We really appreciate your patience and are glad that the card replacement worked out well for you. Yes, our support for Linux in EMEA is not up to the level we'd like. It's something we are hoping we can fix.

We are still working with our partners on resolving the channel 12/13 issue that you saw with the Dell Wireless card. Unfortunately, I don't have any specific information I can communicate about that other than it has not lost our attention.

We've been trying to centralize information more. There are actually a few more knowledge base articles than are shown in the sticky. I'm not sure why the sticky has not been updated, but I'm bringing this up internally.

Jared, Is it a recommended way to solve the issue with wifi? to send a xps 13 9343 for replacement of wlan?

Jan,

I can't answer that. You'd have to talk to one of our support people since that's their call.