[H-GEN] Ubuntu-16.10-beta2 resolves problems on Dell XPS-15

[Russell Stuart]

On Tue, 2016-10-04 at 16:46 +1000, Anthony Thyssen wrote:
> Basically when the laptop is open the display hinge will BLOCK the
> fan exhaust!

That was 2010, this is 2016.  I don't know what the situation was in
2010, but it doesn't have ventilation issues now.  In fact after a
series of laptops that had small, easily blocked openings, I was
pleased to see you'd need a well positioned blanket to block the
current XPS 15's air intake and exhaust.  (Although I can testify
putting it in a closed backpack while on also works well.)  Just to be
sure, I've got the fans spinning as I type this email (it takes a bit
of effort with Skylake).  The air is moving just fine regardless of
where the hinge is.

The current XPS is not perfect - compared to previous models the
keyboard sucks (they've copied the MacBook) and web cam is in an odd
position.  But apart from that I'm struggling to fault it in any way.
 It's by far the best laptop I've ever owned.  But that's not a
surprise, as this is the first crop of laptops that actually look good
against a MacBook.  I finally have something to thank Apple for - I'm
sure without them leading the way we would still be putting up with
pissant screens and poor battery life.

The issues I and now Greg have had are mostly due to Intel's GPU (ie,
common to all laptops that use it, regardless of OS).  Skylake has been
out for over a year now, and it's replacement (Kaby Lake) is shipping,
yet until a month ago Intel hadn't produced a fully functional GPU
driver, and the until the 4.7 kernel they hadn't produced matching
working OS driver.  Ubuntu 16.10 now ships with both.

Another issue Greg had was Gnome3 in Debian Testing didn't suspend on
the current XPS, and worse there didn't seem to be anybody else on the
planet who cared overly.