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Created September 3, 2018 22:19
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Dell XPS 13 9370 Dual Boot Win 10 and Debian Linux
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xps-13.md

Dell XPS 13 9370 Dual Boot Win 10 and Debian Linux

Windows Preparation and Setup

  1. Download Win 10 installation ISO and create a bootable USB drive.
  2. Boot, F12 for system menu, select BIOS Setup.
    • System Configuration -> SATA Operation and change from "RAID On" to "AHCI".
    • Secure Boot -> Secure Boot Enable and change to "Disabled"
  3. Reboot, F12 for system menu, select the external USB drive and install Win 10.
    • Select "Advanced Installation".
    • Delete all existing partitions.
  4. When complete, install the previously downloaded Wifi drivers to get Wifi working, run updates, install other drivers, etc.
    • Shrink volume by going to "Disk Management", select drive C:, and Actions -> All Tasks -> Shrink Volume.
    • Disable "fast startup" at System Settings -> Hardware and Sound -> Power Options -> Choose what the power buttons do and uncheck "Turn on fast startup".

Linux Preparation and Setup

  1. Download Debian and create another bootable USB drive. I used the debian-9.5.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso image.
  2. Boot, F12 for system menu, select the external USB drive and start the installation.
    • The font will be very tiny so get a magnifier.
    • Wifi installation will fail due to non-free firmware, skip setup.
    • Mirror selection will fail since no network, skip too.
  3. On another USB drive (or the same one after reformatting), download the Wifi firmware, I used firmware-atheros_20180518-1_all.deb.
  4. Mount the USB drive, find the firmware, and run (as root) dpkg -i firmware-atheros_20180518-1_all.deb.
  5. Update /etc/apt/sources.list as needed, making sure to add non-free.
  6. Confirm Wifi is working, apt update and apt full-upgrade.

Misc

To make a bootable image From macOS, assuming the USB drive is disk2:

sudo diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk2
sudo dd if=./IMAGE.iso of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m
# or if coreutils are installed:
sudo gdd if=./IMAGE.iso of=/dev/disk2 bs=1000000 status=progress

Another option is to use Boot Camp Assistant to make the image.

To restore a bootable USB drive from macOS:

sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk2
# interactive prompt
auto dos
quit

Then format the drive.

Debian Wiki article on this machine.

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