Blog / Hardware

ASUS Zenbook UX305LA 13.3-Inch Ultrabook with Ubuntu 14.04 Review

December 27, 2015

I finally replaced my 3-year-old Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook about 3 weeks ago with this cheaper ASUS Zenbook UX305LA model.

I originally intended to replace it with the newer developer edition of the XPS 13 line but then I found out a couple of days after I placed my order that an even newer model with a newer generation CPU that's more efficient and a faster SSD was just released. The newer edition also has …

Ubuntu users: How to upgrade the BIOS of your Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook

November 22, 2014

For a machine being sold with Ubuntu pre-installed, I find it surprising that Dell doesn't have a utility to make BIOS updates easy on Ubuntu.

Dell's BIOS update utility only runs on Windows or DOS.  So for us Ubuntu users, we'll need a way to run DOS on our machines and execute their update utility there.  Luckily, there's FreeDOS.

If you're having stability or performance issues, updating the BIOS is always worth a try. …

How to detect new sound devices using command line in Ubuntu 12.04

June 17, 2013

I sometimes connect my Ubuntu laptop to my LCD TV via the HDMI port to watch movies. When I plug in the cable the display works right away but the new sound device (the TV’s speakers) is usually not detected unless I log off and re-login.

An easier way to do this is to restart the pulseaudio service to detect the TV’s speakers via command line. To do this just type:

pulseaudio –kill

The pulseaudio …

Dell XPS 13 laptop won’t turn on, LED lights not working [SOLVED]

February 1, 2013

Yesterday morning I was using my Dell XPS 13 ultrabook and as usual, I closed the lid when I was done which puts the laptop on standby mode. Then 2 hours later, I went to a café to do some writing but when I tried to turn it on nothing happened! I pressed the battery indicator on the side to see how much battery was left and no lights showed up. I was pretty sure …

How to install the Ubuntu 12.04 ‘Sputnik’ image on your Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook

December 3, 2012

I got my new Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook a couple of weeks ago with the Windows 8 OS pre-installed. One of the main reasons I got this laptop was because of Project Sputnik, Dell’s attempt to build an Ubuntu-based developer laptop by working with Canonical.

I was waiting for Project Sputnik to finish before putting Ubuntu on it. About 3 days ago Dell finally announced that the developer edition of the XPS 13 …

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