Linux: Spectre x360 13 late 2019 does not work with Linux

[MartinSLF]

I've owned every year of the spectre x360 13" laptop since it's inception, and immediately remove windows and install Linux. And never had any issues. Totally flawless. Until now.

The year's 2019 late edition  does not play well with linux.  The USB installer boots up  fine, and let's me

 install manjaro or ubutu, but on first reboot it just hangs at a black screen on manjaro and a purple screen on ubutu (ubuntu colors, so it at least got some distance into the boot process). After power cycling many times on rare occasion it will mysteriously boot up. And when it does acts a little unstable, for instance, chromium will  hang and not respond to input, but firefox will.

I've installed the latest F.06 firmware which seemed to have cpu stability fixes but made no difference at all.

Any  ideas?

[Riddle_Decipher]

@MartinSLF I'm afraid HP neither supports nor recommend using Linux on the device, we recommend you switch back to the OEM version of the OS for further assistance, if you wish to continue using linux OS, you may do so, at your own discretion!

P.S: Welcome to HP Community 😉

I hope that answers your query,  

If it did, simply select "Accept as solution", to help the community grow, 

And if you wish to thank us for our efforts, click on the thumbs up for kudos.

Have a great day ahead.

[FraserX360]

Hey,

I am thinking of getting the new x360 and running Linux (specifically, dual booted Windows/Ubuntu). Did you manage to solve the problem?

The Intel Optane module present in some versions of the laptop doesn't seem to interface with Linux very well. When dual booting Windows and Ubuntu, for example, Intel Optane has to be disabled for the installation to go smoothly. Perhaps this is why previous versions of the laptop (without Optane) worked with Linux while the current version fails to do so?

[MartinSLF]

No luck.  I used spectre x360 every version of it for years and not much issues at all. But the 10th generation is x360 is unusable.  It seems to me that it may be GPU related, as chrome won't work without disabling GPU features, and videos stored locally just freeze and display the initial frame but play audio.

I didn't get the sense that it's optane related unless that somehow has a side effect of also messing up video. I should maybe swap it out before I send the laptop back. Gonna keep trying till the Christmas return period is up in mid-January.

Another smaller  issue is that the system won't boot up with a USB mouse/keyboard dongle plugged in. Freezes in grub.

I had the same issues with dell xps13 (and unlike HP they have much better linux support and sell some models to work with linux) so really makes me wonder about your optane theory. The xps13 model I bought was not their linux-only model, it was a cheaper one I got from costco.

[FraserX360]

Ah, that's a shame. I'm still using an early 2016 x360 model - which works pretty well (outside of the occasional crash) - and was hoping that I could upgrade to the late 2019 model.

It looks like enabling USB legacy support in the BIOS has solved the grub-freezing problem for x360 owners with USB hubs/externals in the past.   (not sure if HP allows links: https://askubuntu.com/questions/884199/grub-freezes-when-logitech-unifying-receiver-plugged-in)

It does sound more like a graphics driver issue than a problem with Optane. If the latest drivers don't solve the issue then maybe there are CPU/graphics related commands you can supply via kernel boot parameters? For example, I set i915.enable_rc6=0 to disable one of the 6th gen CPU power states that can cause issues in the 2016 model (apparently). For your video and chrome problems, have you tried messing around with CompizConfig Settings Manager?

For Optane: if there's no way of disabling Optane in the BIOS, the only other solution I can think of is to reinstall Windows (i.e., dual boot) and disable Optane via Intel RST in Windows. The Optane module should then just appear as another storage device. I would definitely prefer NVMe storage given the price of the laptop.

The xps13 seems nice on paper but I'm put off by the keyboard, variable build quality, and coil whine problems that others have experienced. The Lenovo Yoga C940 seems like a good alternative to the x360, but has its own share of problems in Linux; most of the audio functionality is lost, and the microphone doesn't seem to work at all.

[MartinSLF]

They have removed legacy USB option in the BIOS for 2019. I did have to use that in my older x360.

I completely over-wrote the drive and blasted windows away.

For optane I didn't have have to disable anything. (guessing for windows, its usage is in software not hardware?)

gparted shows 953GiB and 27.25 GiB drives, so presume I can use the 27.25GiB drive maybe for root if I wanted?

I don't hear any coil whine myself on the xps but maybe didn't pay close attention. Build quality was definitely

an issue the bottom was warped slightly so that it would rock a little on my level desk.  The keyboard didn't bother

me but not sure how good it will be longer term.

I can play around with the settings manager today today or tomorrow, and let you know.

[MartinSLF]

BTW I'm on the manjaro unstable branch and just got updates to the video drives, and it didn't help at all.

I'm surprised Intel has not seen this.

[GoldxSpectre360]

Hiya,

 I've been reading along on and off for a bit and finally decided to dual boot Win10 with Linux Mint Tricia Using

HP Spectre x360 - 15-df _ _ _ _

I had run into the freeze issue but was able to bypass by

1. Secure Boot Disabled
2. Clear All Secure Boot Keys

Hope this helps!

[GoldxSpectre360]

I'm experiencing random freezing up on boot up.

I have to enter Bios and start from there.

Some apps are freezing up during operation

Sublime text 3. 

[mendigou]

I managed to install Manjaro on the 15" version without many issues by using an external USB mouse and Wi-Fi adapter. The internal ones worked after updating the kernel.

What I get is an incredible overheating problem. On windows the cores are at ~45° C, and on Linux they hover around 60. Other laptops I've owned with processors of similar TDP stay around 25 degrees.

I installed TLP and even with the lowest settings the cores stay hot.

I know there is a thermal control driver for windows, but the fact that the cores hover around 40 degrees with this driver active, and 60 without, seems completely insane to me.

Anyone experiencing the same?