Main:Dell Precision 5530 Setup

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This page provides helpful extra steps in order to pave the way for installing openSUSE on a Dell Mobile Precision 5530 laptop. As of 2019, this is the current power user laptop issued by the company, sporting 32 GB of RAM, an Intel Core i7-8850H Hexa Core and an NVIDIA Quadro P1000 with 4GB/Intel HD Graphics.

However, installing Leap 15.x or Tumbleweed may be impossible by just doing it the traditional way with booting from a stick using F12. Also, without extra steps, the built-in SSD might not be detected at all. In summary, installing openSUSE feels somewhat brittle on these laptops - which is weird, as Dell offers options to ship it with Ubuntu.

In general it seems Tumbleweed seems more stable as people seem to be reporting less issues.

These steps worked for installing Leap 15.1 on a Dell Mobile Precision 5530.

Prerequisites

Prepared USB drive with the openSUSE 15.1 image.

BIOS Settings

These steps will enable detection of the SSD and disable Secure Boot.

  • Press F2
  • System Configuration > SATA Operation > AHCI > Confirm
  • Secure Boot > Secure Boot Enable, choose Disabled

Kernel Parameters

  • Turn off the laptop and insert the prepared USB drive
  • Press F12 when booting
  • Select USB drive (without `Partition x` or anything)
  • Press E when `Installation` is highlighted
  • Go to line `linuxefi` and append `nomodeset` to the line
  • Press F10 to continue booting
  • Install your Leap as you desire

Post-Install notes

  • adding the `nomodeset` parameter will scramble up your boot menu, but it is necessary for installing. It appears you can change the boot parameter later to `nouveau.modeset=0`, so your laptop detects other screens. It should also solve issues with suspending.
  • Do not install any tools like `bbswitch` in order to switch off the NVIDIA graphics card. This completely screwed up all my efforts (OS won't boot anymore, random shutdowns, ...). If you find a way to turn off the NVIDIA graphics without messing up everything, please note it down here. It might work with Tumbleweed however: [1]
  • If you have issues with suspending/closing the laptop and waking up the machine again, try installing a newer kernel.
 ```
 sudo zypper ar --refresh https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/stable/standard/ kernel_stable`
 sudo zypper in -f kernel-default
 sudo zypper in -f kernel-firmware
 ```

Make sure you have Secure Boot turned off, otherwise the new kernel won't boot. Beware though you might run into issues with screen detection.

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