My experience with the G5 5530 notebook, which has an i9 processor and an RTX 4060, running Ubuntu 22.04.

Hi Morg,

I've experienced some similar issues while testing various Linux distributions on my Dell G15 5530 (i9 13900HX / RTX 4060). From what I've gathered, there are a number of factors that are affecting stability, including: newer hardware being currently incompatible with the generic kernel, Nvidia drivers on Linux in general, Xorg to Wayland growing pains, and how it all comes together on your distribution of choice. I've been able to find a handful of solutions for reliably getting a Linux distro running on the G15 5530. Be sure to review Dell's guide for installing Ubuntu on their computers.

Since you're facing a handful of driver issues, I'd suggest reinstalling Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS, making sure to connect to a network and enabling proprietary repositories when prompted. Once the OS is installed, you will need to restart and download the latest OEM kernel, as it currently has the best compatibility with this laptop's hardware. At time of writing, 6.8.0-1013-oem is the latest OEM kernel for Ubuntu 24.04, which can be installed with the following command:

sudo apt-get install linux-image-oem-24.04

Because there are problems with the generic kernel on the G15 5530, you will likely need to install the new kernel in Recovery Mode via the GRUB bootloader. If you decide to install this in a Wayland session while using the generic kernel, there is a very high chance of your system crashing. If this happens, hold Alt + PrtSc, then press R S E I U B to safely reboot.

After the new kernel is installed, reboot your system and select the new OEM kernel for Ubuntu to run on. This process should also work for previous Ubuntu versions or Ubuntu-based distros, like Linux Mint or Pop OS, just adjust the kernel version accordingly. At time of writing, the latest versions of Linux Mint and Pop OS are based on Ubuntu 22.04.

Other tested and working operating systems are:

Debian 12 with generic kernel 6.1 + Nvidia driver 535 + Xorg sessions

- need to add the non-free repositories and manually install Nvidia proprietary drivers

- may need to disable BIOS features in Performance and Power relating to iGPU/dGPU switching

Bazzite 3.7.0 with fsync kernel 6.10 + Nvidia driver  560 + Wayland sessions

- practically zero configuration, really great out-of-the-box gaming setup

I've seen a bunch of people posting similar questions online, and haven't seen a definitive solution yet, so I've been trying to figure it out for myself. Hope this helps, I'm curious to hear about your results!

I have similar laptop but G16 and have issues when using kernel 6.8 or 6.11. I've tried those kernels on Kubuntu 24.04 and TuexedoOS (which is Ubuntu 22.04 based). I've also tried Nvidia drivers 540.xx and 550.xx. After each reboot my laptop freezes after couple of minutes. Only solution is to use kernel 6.5 which was still available in TuxedoOS. Wayland and X11 behaves the same.
Check this thread for more info:
https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/linux-general/dell-g15-5530-ubuntu-2204-lts-random-crash/66c5bd7796bc9473fe644b66
All in all - huge disappointment as this laptop was supposed to be compatible with Ubuntu :(

@ThekThe​ Have you tried installing the OEM kernel?

@isherrard​ On my TuexedoOS eom version are available only for kernels 5.17 - 6.5, there are no newer ones with oem.
I don't actually know which version was used in my previous Kubuntu (which was 23.10 upgraded to 24.10) apart from fact that it was 6.8.0-*.

@isherrard​ Thanks for this. I'm going to give it a try. Been battling for like 3 weeks. I want to do this for no other reason that it's something fun to get working. I've tried so many distributions now. Things will be fine, if connecting external monitor. But then as soon as I try anything that hints at using the 4060, system locks up and just the mouse cursor moves. After that, it's pretty much bricked. I then reboot to Windows and install yet another distro to see if that works. It's getting a tad frustrating now.

@jamrogza​ How did that turn out?