XPS13

Resizing Windows

Because of the pagination it is not easy to resize a partition to something useful. So lets disable pagination:

• Start -> Double click on File Explorer-> Propierties
• Avanced configuration -> Avanced options -> Performance -> Configuration
• Avanced options -> Virtual Memory -> Change
• Take notice of Minimum, recomenden and asigned values for future
• Disable admin automatically ....
.
• Accept, Accept, Accept, Accept

Restart

In order to make it more efficient:

• Clear all temportal files, trash, ....
• Remove content of c:\windows\Softwaredistribution\downloads

Defrag (a good tool is ultradefrag)

Resize (use windows tool without problem).

Restart

Re-Enable virtual memory according to the previous settngs

Installing Debian

Working on BIOS

The BIOS is our maain tool to allow linux to be installed in the laptop.

Because of the UEFI, the SecureBoot, the SATA operation and so on, there are many difficulties to install linux on the laptop. UEFI is quite OK with new debian (Debian 8), but there are still some stuff to tune.

After some trial/errors I managed to get something working, although may be some more efficient configurations:

When booting the laptop press F2.

The main settings you must modify in BIOS are:

• System Configuration -> SATA Operation . The laptop comes with a RAID On and it must be changed to AHCI . Notice that this will prevent the system to load in Windows, so if you want dual-boot you need to be on RAID on for Windows and AHCI for Linux.
• Secure Boot -> Secure Boot Enable . Move it to Disabled, if not the installation program will not even start.
• System Configuration -> USB/Thunderbolt Configuration . It happened to me that while installing linux the USB-C to Ethernet adapter was working, but once linux on I could not get it to work. By selecting Security level - No Security it worked.
• System Configuration -> USB PowerShare . To allow the charging of devices.

Installation

When booting press F12.

Select: UEFI: USB Flash Disk and go for install.

From now on, there are some importants issues to get into account. Once again, it is trial/error, so there are may be some more optimal solution. All the requirements are because GRUB will have some problems to install, so we will need to rework some stuff.

Until partitioning, everything goes as always.

In partitioning, select manual. As far as I understood, we need 2 partitions minimum. We need a ext2 for /boot in order to work on uefi later on. So create a /boot of 500MB and the rest, as you like ;).