Tutorial: Installing Manjaro Linux on the Dell XPS 15 9570

In the second part of the series, you have learned about the technical basics of a Linux installation (BIOS, UEFI, MBR, GPT, GRUB, SEDs, LUKS).

In this third and last part, I guide you step by step through the installation of Manjaro Linux on the Dell XPS 15 9570.

Let's start…

Hardware upgrade of the Dell XPS 15 9570

The hardware upgrade (which I planned in part 1) proved to be fast and uncomplicated. After loosening twelve screws on the underside, it's easy to remove. Underneath, you can directly access the SSD and the RAM. Here, you can see the inner workings with already exchanged components:

Boot images

First, you need to download the Manjaro image – and "Rufus" (or "Win32 Disk Imager") to write it to a USB drive. You also need the "PBA Rescue System" to manage the encryption of your SSD.

• Manjaro: https://manjaro.org/download/#gnome (current version: 18.0.4)
• Rufus: https://rufus.ie (current version: 3.5.1497)
• Win32 Disk Imager: https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/files/latest/download
• PBA Rescue System: https://github.com/Drive-Trust-Alliance/sedutil/wiki/Encrypting-your-drive (the 64-bit version "RESCUE64.img.gz", currently available in version 1.15.1)

It is best to create two bootable USB drives so that you can change it if necessary without having to rewrite the image. But it also works with one. In the following screenshots, you can see how to do this with Rufus (with the Win32 Disk Imager it should work just as well).

Manjaro boot image

For the Manjaro boot drive, it is necessary to set the partition scheme to GPT and the target system to UEFI. With the rest of the settings, you can leave the default values:

After clicking on "Start," you have to select "Write in DD image mode":

If you write the image in ISO image mode instead, the following error message appears after booting: "Welcome to GRUB! … Error: unknown filesystem."

PBA (pre-boot authorization) rescue system

For the PBA boot drive, the partition scheme and target system are predefined and cannot be changed:

UEFI settings

Before installing Linux on the Dell, you have to change the following UEFI settings (see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_15_9570#UEFI):

• System Configuration / SATA Operation: here you have to change to "AHCI" (default is "RAID"); otherwise the NVME SSD is not recognized by Linux.
• Secure Boot / Secure Boot Enable: you need to remove this checkmark; otherwise neither the PBA nor the Manjaro image can be booted.

You can get to the UEFI settings by pressing F2 shortly after starting the computer (i.e., when the manufacturer logo appears).

Installing Manjaro Linux

The actual installation of Manjaro Linux is uncomplicated. Insert the appropriate USB drive, configure the UEFI settings to boot from the USB flash drive and restart the computer. The following screen appears:

Here, you set the language and keyboard layout, and you should change the setting "free" to "nonfree." This refers to the graphics drivers. The "free" versions were developed by the community and are open-source, while the "nonfree" versions come directly from the graphics card manufacturers.

Once you've made the desired settings, click on "Boot: Manjaro.x86_64 gnome" to continue loading the rescue system. Once this is complete, the following welcome screen appears:

The screenshot is from a VM, so a wired internet connection is displayed. When installing on a laptop, you have to configure the Wi-Fi at this point. To start the installation, click on "Launch installer."

In the installer, select your language, location, and keyboard layout. Then the hard disk is partitioned. In the example, the entire hard disk will be erased and formatted by the installer. If you want to use software encryption, you have to check "Encrypt system" and enter a passphrase (as long a password as possible).

Next, enter your username and password and start the installation. At the end of the installation, check "Restart now" and click "Done":

Then the laptop restarts and boots into the installed Manjaro Linux:

After logging in, the desktop appears:

Finally, you should perform the optimizations recommended at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_15_9570 step by step.

SSD encryption setup

To encrypt the SSD, follow the instructions at https://github.com/Drive-Trust-Alliance/sedutil/wiki/Encrypting-your-drive.

My first attempt failed because, in the last step, I accidentally installed the zipped PBA image into the shadow MBR instead of the unzipped one. This was reflected in the fact that the laptop screen remained black after rebooting.

After installing the unpacked image, everything works as desired: after a complete shutdown and restart, the PBA boots and asks you for your passphrase:

Now enter your passphrase, the laptop boots again – and this time successfully into Manjaro Linux.

Data transfer from the Bitlocker encrypted Windows hard drive

The installation is finished now. If you want to transfer data from an old Windows PC, it's best to connect its hard drive to the new laptop using a SATA thunderbolt adapter.

If the hard disk is encrypted by Bitlocker, you need the tool Dislocker to mount the encrypted partitions. With the following commands, you mount the first partition in read-only mode to /mnt/sda1:

sudo pacman -S dislocker
sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1-dislocker
sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1
sudo dislocker -r -u -v -V /dev/sda1 -- /mnt/sda1-dislocker
sudo mount -o loop,ro /mnt/sda1-dislocker/dislocker-file /mnt/sda1Code language: plaintext (plaintext)

The data was now available in the directory /mnt/sda1. You may proceed accordingly for additional partitions.

By the way: the commands above mount the partition in read-only mode. If you don't want this, you have to omit the -r from the dislocker command and the ro option (including the comma before it) from the mount command. The last two commands would then be:

sudo dislocker -u -v -V /dev/sda1 -- /mnt/sda1-dislocker
sudo mount -o loop /mnt/sda1-dislocker/dislocker-file /mnt/sda1Code language: plaintext (plaintext)

Summary

With the transfer of the data to the new laptop, this series of articles is finished.

I hope this article helped you to install Manjaro (or another Linux distribution) on a Dell XPS 15 (or other hardware). If you have any questions or get stuck at any point, please ask using the comment function. I do my best to help.

If you liked this article, feel free to leave me a comment or share the article using one of the share buttons at the end.

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