With Ubuntu 16.04 to 17.04 I got:
* Ubuntu running
* encrypted home directory in Ubuntu
* encrypted Windows partition
* dual boot with Windows 10 Pro (it works fine)
* Suspend/resume work fine with the nVidia 381 driver
* I can also run the Windows 10 Pro (guest) from Ubuntu (host) as a virtual machine,at full resolution.
* That is,I can choose whether I want to boot Windows natively,or as a virtual machine from Ubuntu.
* I also have a shared folder so that Windows (as virtual machine) can access my linux encrypted home directory. This way,all the data and documents can live on the Ubuntu partition and I don’t need to allocate extra space for data in the Windows partition.

However,there are a couple of small outstanding problems:
* trying to run Office alternatively natively and on the virtual machine (you have to commit to either one)
* drag’n’drop from Windows to Ubuntu
* Sometimes,bluetooth dies after suspend/resume (possible fix below)
* Sometimes the dual boot disappears and the laptop will boot Windows directly (but see below for easy fix).

Table of Contents

• Laptop specs
• Installation steps
  
  • Prep work with Windows
  • Installing Ubuntu
  • Upgrading things
    
    • Graphics card driver
  • Fixing problems
    
    • Touchpad
    • Windows update removes your dual boot
  • Run your native Windows 10 Pro install as guest on VirtualBox with Ubuntu as host
    
    • Prep work
    • Letting VirtualBox boot the native Windows 10 Pro installation as a virtual machine
    • Enabling full resolution for the guest Windows 10 Pro virtual machine
    • Bidirectional interaction between Ubuntu host and Windows guest
    • Shared folders
  • Encrypting Windows partition
• Outstanding problems
  
  • Office detects hardware change when booting natively/virtual machine
  • Drag’n’Drop from Windows to Linux not working
  • Bluetooth stops working after suspend/resume
• References

Created by gh-md-toc

Laptop specs

• 15.6-inch (3840 x 2160) 4K 282ppi IPS InfinityEdge LCD glossy
• 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ (3.8GHz boost) 4 cores,8 threads
• Windows 10 Home 64-bit
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 GPU Mobile with 4GB GDDR5 RAM
• 16GB 2400MHz DDR4 RAM (Up to 32GB)
• 512GB PCIe SSD Lite-On CX2-8B512-Q11 NV (Up to 1TB SSD)
• WiFi Qualcomm Atheros 802.11ac single-band 2x2 MIMO
• Bluetooth 4.1:
  
  • lsusb reports: Qualcomm Atheros
  • Invoice reports: Killer 1535
• 1x USB-C 3.1
• 2x USB 3.0
• HDMI
• Kensington security slot
• SDXC card slot
• Stereo speakers
• HD webcam
• Single mic
• 3.5mm headset jack
• UK tiled keyboard
• Two-button trackpad
• 97 WHr,6-cell lithium-ion battery,removable (design capacity 8509 mAh)
• 357mm x 235mm x 17mm
• 2kg

Installation steps

Prep work with Windows

1. Plug the power cord into the laptop

2. Start laptop and go through the Windows 10 set up process

3. Create a Windows recovery USB stick so that we can reset the laptop to factory settings if things go wrong.

4. Go to the XPS 15 9560 drivers webpage and update the BIOS (version 1.1.3 at the time of this writing)

5. Other driver updates

   • Graphics card: nVidia n17P-G0

6. Change SATA Operation so that Ubuntu can see the SSD

   1. Login into Windows 10,and set up Safe Mode: “Change advanced Startup Options” -> “Restart Now” -> “Troubleshoot” > “Advanced options” > “Startup Settings” > “Restart”

   2. Boot laptop and press F12 -> BIOS Setup

   3. System Configuration -> SATA Operation

   4. Change SATA Operation from “RAID On” to “AHCI”

   5. Apply and Exit. This will reboot the laptop,and provide several boot options

   6. Choose “4. Safe Mode”

   7. “Start” -> “Windows System” -> “Control Panel” -> “Device Manager”. Check that the “IDE ATA/ATAPI controller” is “Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller”

   8. Reboot normally. This should boot into the regular Window 10

   9. If you reboot and go into the BIOS,SATA Operation should still be AHCI

Installing Ubuntu

1. Create a bootable USB stick with Ubuntu Live. Either 16.04 LTS,16.10 or 17.04 seem safe (although for complex resizing of partitions,gparted from the 17.04 Live USB hangs up,whereas gparted from 16.10 works fine). 17.10 used to corrupt the BIOS of Lenovo laptops,and I had serIoUs issues when upgrading to it on my laptop,but it worked fine for a clean reinstall on my workstation. Presumably,a clean reinstall should also work on my laptop.

   You can create the bootable USB stick from Windows or Linux

2. Boot the laptop with the USB stick (you need to press F12 while booting,and then select the USB stick from the BIOS menu)

3. Launch Ubuntu Live with “Try Ubuntu without installing”

   • Note: Ubuntu Live freezes on the Dell XPS 15 in several versions. As pointed out by Milan P. Antonovic,you can solve this by adding nouveau.modeset=0 to the boot options.

4. Click on “Install Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS” or similar to start installation

5. Select language (e.g. English)

6. Select whether you want to connect to Wifi (in my case I couldn’t,because it doesn’t give you the option to enter the Wifi username,and our Wifi requires that)

7. Select “Install third-party software for graphic and Wi-Fi hardware,Flash,MP3 and other media”

8. Check “Turn off Secure Boot” and enter a password that you’ll need later

9. In “Installation Type”,it should have detected the existing Windows installation,and offer to install Ubuntu alongside (dual boot).

10. Now you’ll see the partitions in your drive. Select the main one,that contains Windows,and reduce it to make space for Ubuntu. For example,I reduced the Windows space to 50 GB,and left the rest for Ubuntu.

11. The rest of the steps (time zone,keyboard layout,login name and password) is straightforward,just complete them.m

12. After the system installs,you will have dual boot. Boot into Ubuntu,login and there you go.

13. If you want to upgrade the system to a later version,you can run

    sudo do-release-upgrade
    Both 16.10 and 17.04 seem safe,but 17.10 is a dangerous bloody mess that shouldn’t have been released.

Upgrading things

Graphics card driver

By default,Ubuntu uses the noveau driver. You can switch to the nVidia driver by launching “Additional drivers” from the dash,waiting for GUI to search for proprietary drivers,and then clicking on the nVidia driver,or using the command line. For example,to install v384 of the nVidia driver,

sudo apt-get install nvidia-384

This will ask you for permission to deactivate Safe Booting,as it’s a third-party driver. You’ll have to provide a password,the system will reboot,boot up into a configuration mode that will ask whether you want to deactivate Safe Booting,and ask for said password.

To avoid corruption of the window manager after resuming from suspend,you need version 381 of the driver or later. This is not in the regular repository of Ubuntu 17.04 at the time of this writing. To install the latest versions of the nVidia drivers,first you have to add the graphics team repositories

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt-get update

Now launching “Additional drivers” from the dash will provide more options,in particular v381.09. Select and click “Apply changes”.

The nVidia driver seems to work fine,and provides GPU acceleration. It also solves the window manager corruption after resuming from suspend caused by prevIoUs versions of the driver.

Fixing problems

Touchpad

Moving your hand near the touchpad can cause the mouse pointer jump to the bottom left corner of the desktop and open the Trash. Sometimes,it also makes your cursor jump back so that you type in the middle of the sentence. To fix this problem,Juan Hernández suggests replacing xserver-xorg-input-synaptics with xserver-xorg-input-libinput

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-libinput
sudo apt-get remove --purge xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
sudo reboot

Windows update removes your dual boot

After updating Windows,or installing a program,you may lose the dual boot (i.e. Windows boots without giving you the option to choose between Ubuntu or Windows). This is very easy to fix.

1. Reboot the machine.

2. Press F12 when the Dell logo appears. Apart from the BIOS options,at the top you’ll be given the option to boot in Windows or Ubuntu. Select Ubuntu.

3. Log in,and run in a terminal

   sudo grub-install

This will recover the dual boot. Alternatively,you can boot into the BIOS,and select the boot order as Ubuntu first,Windows second.

Run your native Windows 10 Pro install as guest on VirtualBox with Ubuntu as host

DISCLAIMER: The instructions in this section are particularly dangerous,and can corrupt or destroy your system. If you use these instructions,it’s really at your own risk.

Usually,in VirtualBox you create a virtual disk where you install your guest operating system (e.g. Windows 10 Pro). Thus,Windows,all its programs and data are all inside a large file somewhere within your linux install. For example,~/VirtualBox_VMs/win10pro.vdi.

However,here we want to do something different. Instead of creating a virtual disk,we want to run the already installed native@H_301_10@ Windows 10 Pro from Ubuntu.

Drag and drop operation from guest to host Failed.
Drag and drop error from guest (VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND).

Result Code: 
VBox_E_IPRT_ERROR (0x80BB0005)
Component: 
GuestWrap
Interface: 
IGuest {13a11514-402e-022e-6180-c3944de3f9c8}

cd /etc/pm/sleep.d
sudo touch 10_bluetooth
sudo chmod 0755 10_bluetooth
sudo emacs 10_bluetooth

#!/bin/bash
#Code from http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.PHP?t=1387211

. /usr/lib/pm-utils/functions

case "$1" in
    hibernate|suspend)
        rfkill block bluetooth
        ;;
    thaw|resume)
        rfkill unblock bluetooth
        rmmod btusb
        modprobe btusb
    ;;
    *)
    ;;
esac

exit