Installing Arch Linux on Dell G5 15 Gaming 5590

Written by Petr Zemek (s3rvac@gmail.com)
Last update: 2020-08-22 (changelog)

General Hardware Specifications

Component	Type	Status	Note
Processor	Intel Core i7-9750H (6 cores, 2.6 GHz, 12 MB cache)	Works	12 threads
RAM^*	32 GB DDR4 2666 MHz CL19 (2x 16 GB)	Works	31 930 MB (real)
Display	15.6" IPS 144 Hz @ 1920x1080 (Full HD)	Works
Video	Intel UHD Graphics 630 + Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 (6 GB)	Works	Proprietary nvidia drivers, optimus (NVIDIA only).
Audio	Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS	Works	Tested internal speakers and headphones.
Disk^**	Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 TB, M.2 PCIe/NVMe	Works	931.53 GB (real)
LAN	Killer E2500 Gigabit Ethernet	Works	Tested the 1Gbit mode.
WLAN	Intel Corporation Wireless-AC 9560	Works	Tested managed `802.11n` and `802.11ac` modes.
HDMI	-	Works	Tested on an external monitor (just video).
Mini DisplayPort	-	Works	Tested on an external monitor (just video).
USB	3x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 1x USB-C	Works	Tested on a flash drive, keyboard, and mouse.
Webcam	720p	Works
Touchpad	-	Works	Install `xf86-input-synaptics` or `xf86-input-libinput`^***.
Card Reader	2-in-1 SD/MicroMedia Card	Untested
Bluetooth	v4.2	Untested
Fingerprint reader	Goodix FingerPrint	Untested

^*: Replaced (original RAM was 2*8 GB).
^**: Replaced (original disk was Toshiba 512 GB).
^***: Try both to see which of them feels more responsive to you. If you use Wayland, libinput should be already installed, so there is nothing to do for installation.

Linux Identification (Outputs)

lspci, lsusb

Pre-Installation

In BIOS (press F2):

Disable RAID and switch to AHCII (System Configuration → SATA Operation → AHCI). Otherwise, you won't be able to install the system and boot from the disk.
Disable Secure Boot to be able to install the sytem (Secure Boot → Secure Boot Enable → Disable).

Installation

Get a recent image of Arch Linux and write it to a USB stick. Then, use this image to install the base system (guidelines). I've used archlinux-2019.10.01-x86_64.iso.
The disk is available as /dev/nvme0n1.
The kernel version I'm using is 5.3.7.arch1-1 (5.3.7-arch1-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Oct 18 00:17:03 UTC 2019 x86_64 GNU/Linux).

Nvidia Settings

To fix detection of external monitors with newer versions of the nvidia driver (440.44.8 or newer), copy 10-nvidia-drm-outputclass.conf to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ (ref).
To fix screen tearing, copy 11-nvidia-tearing.conf to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ (ref).

Suspend to RAM

By default, the very inefficient s2idle suspend variant is incorrectly selected, which causes e.g. fans to stay on after suspending the notebook to RAM. The much more efficient deep variant should be selected instead by adding mem_sleep_default=deep to kernel parameters (ref).
To fix long recovery times from suspend to RAM and ucsi_ccg dmesg errors ("failed to reset PPM!" and PPM init failed (-110)), blacklist the i2c_nvidia_gpu module (ref).

Keyboard Backlight

I have a European model, which has only white backlight. I am using this script to control the backlight. It requires the python-dbus package. You can increase the backlight by running set-keyboard-backlight.py + and decrease it via set-keyboard-backlight.py -.
There also appears to be a Brazilian model with RGB backlight. Based on two emails from people having this Brazilian model, the RGB backlight does not work on Linux. Please, let me know if you have RGB backlight and managed to get it working so I can post the HOWTO here.

User Reports

Below, you can find reports from other users who have shared their experience with me.

2020-07-28: Dell G5 5590 (9340), Russia

Keyboard backlight controlling works without additional scripts.

Suspend to RAM works fine now, fans are shut down properly, and there are no long recovery times. Yet error is here:

		[    4.215446] nvidia-gpu 0000:01:00.3: i2c timeout error e0000000
		[    4.215449] ucsi_ccg 0-0008: i2c_transfer failed -110
		[    4.215451] ucsi_ccg 0-0008: ucsi_ccg_init failed - -110

Prime offloading works very great so you can have both Intel video for regular working and RTX2060 for gaming (don't forget to modify each game command with prime-run %command%). Just tested CS:GO and got 200-300fps in deathmatch.
Bluetooth is working flawlessly (using with Samsung Galaxy Buds+ and Logitech G603).
Fingerprint reader will not work until someone reverse-engineer it's protocol (or if Goodix will release it's specs so community would be able to write a driver), but it works in initially installed Ubuntu! So it's safe to mark it as semi-working and put a note like "get it from official Dell-Ubuntu image".

2020-08-20: Dell G5 5590 (9340), Russia

External monitor via HDMI will not work properly unless nVidia is set to primary GPU (with your 10-nvidia-drm-outputclass.conf). It will show your desktop, but screen refresh will lag (something like once per second).
With 10-nvidia-drm-outputclass.conf 3D performance might suffer greatly, unsure why, but I got 100fps in CS:GO max with it, mostly jumping between 70-80fps. Thought about vblank that might affect it but I always disable it everywhere.
Please, add note for 11-nvidia-tearing.conf that it might impact 3D performance and create issues with WebGL (as per NVIDIA Troubleshooting). Just hit it yesterday with WebGL.
Do not even try to install xf86-video-intel driver as it will crash X from time to time. Stay on modesetting driver for Intel.
A note concerning using PRIME with applications. Native applications can be run with prime-run from both terminal and menu entry. Wine applications can be run with prime-run from terminal but should be run with 'env DRI_PRIME=1' from menu entry. Proton (Valverized Wine, distributed in Steam to launch Windows games on Linux) can use prime-run without problems ('prime-run %command%' into game's launch parameters).

Changelog

2020-08-22 - Added a link to Arch Linux wiki for the notebook.
2020-08-20 - Added a report from a user.
2020-07-28 - Added a report from a user.
2020-06-22 - Added a keyboard-backlight section.
2020-05-31 - Mentioned the xf86-input-libinput package.
2020-03-15 - Added nvidia settings.
2020-01-02 - Tested Mini DisplayPort.
2019-11-01 - Added fixes of suspend to RAM.
2019-10-19 - Published the first version of this article.

Feel free to send me your remarks, questions, ideas, or hints that you may have at s3rvac@gmail.com.

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