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I have a Dell XPS 13 (9360) running Ubuntu 16.04.2

This machine has an NVME SSD drive which seems to draw much more power on Linux than on Windows since it cannot go to lower power states. Also, it seems to block the Intel processor to go into lower power states:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1664602

The bug report also informs that this was fixed in the 4.11 kernel (currently an RC). Ubuntu 16.04.2 is on kernel 4.8 which doesn't have any nvme power management.

Does anyone have experience with the 4.11 kernel on 16.04 in general? Maybe on a recent XPS 13?

sola
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I have been using Kernel 4.11-rc1 for a week, and 4.11-rc2 for a few hours. They have been fine, so far. I mainly use them on my test 16.04 server, but I did briefly try 4.11-rc1 on a 16.04 desktop VM guest on that same server host.

Note that development kernels are not supported here on askubuntu.com, and this might get put on hold.

Over on ubuntuforums.org, under the development sub-forum, we always have a thread going about the newest RC (Release Candidate) kernels. Yes, someone commented on that thread that power management for NVME is finally available.

Doug Smythies
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  • I have also installed the 4.11-rc1 kernel with Ukuu and it seems to be fine (no apparent negative effect yet). In fact, it feels faster and more responsive than with the 4.8 kernel. Coming back from sleep is at least 1-2s faster (was slower on both Windows and 4.8) Powertop shows that it now spends a lot of time in PC10 state (the lowest power state). – sola Mar 14 '17 at 21:02
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I did compile my kernel for the exact same machine before with the nvme patch obtained here. I currently run an arch linux, but didn't have any problems with a patched 4.10 kernel at all.

I tried to use 4.11 rc1 a week ago, but it somehow messed up the touchpad drivers, making the touchpad pretty unusable.

If you want a stable linux, better patch the current 4.10.2 with nvme instead of using 4.11.

Henri
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  • I believe that, If you use Ukuu on Ubuntu, you won't get a vanilla kernel but one that has already been patched up by the Canonical folks to quite an extent. Maybe this is why 4.11 rc1 didn't screw up the touchpad on mine. – sola Mar 18 '17 at 11:29
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It will land in Zesty's 4.10 soon : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1664602 In between, you can use a 4.10 patched kernel from Canonical dev here : http://people.canonical.com/~khfeng/lp1664602/

Francois
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Kernel 4.11 is already released by now, you can install the latest mainline kernel from http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/ which is http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.11.4/ at the moment.

Just download the deb-package linux-image-4.11.4-041104-generic_4.11.4-041104.201706071003_amd64.deb and install it with your package manager, then reboot.

rubo77
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