Last Updated: 20/07/2017

I've been running Ubuntu 16.04 on a Dell Venue 11 Pro 7140 for a couple of years. The system runs very reliably, but application support for the touch screen is poor, and audio through the headphone jacks is unusable (but fine through the speakers). I'm considering switching to Ubuntu 18.04. I'd like to know. Nov 13, 2013 They have an SD card slot and a micro USB (which I could boot a usb from with an adapter). The only thing I'm worried about is if I come up against some kind of weird driver or hardware issue. I've googled 'linux on dell venue 8 pro' but have just found a bunch of reviews. I don't want to buy it unless I can get rid of windows and run ubuntu.

Hello World

As part of cleaning up, everything relating to the DV11 has moved to this sub-page.

Google Bait

Running Linux on Dell Venue 11 Pro (7130)

Device Status :: What works, what does not work.
Preliminaries :: Start at the beginning.
Power Management :: Stability and Battery life.
X.org :: A GUI is not a bad thing to have.
Wayland :: Nostalgia for the Future.
Firmware :: Blobs, Binary Blobs everywhere.
Near-Field Communication :: NFC on Venue 11.
Wireless.alt.venue11 :: Swap Module, Results Get!
Wireless 'ath6kl' :: The mystery of the dropping packets.
Bluetooth :: Something's there, can't quite reach.
Hardware Buttons :: 'Brave Press!'
Fun with Industrial I/O :: Watch the little sensors.
Venue 11 Pro Summary :: Silicon Insides.
Revision Log :: How this article has grown.

Currently Running

Fedora 25 on Venue 11, Kernel 4.11.8
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on Venue 11, Kernel 4.11.8

Bug Reports

Dell Venue 11 Pro, 7130, on Kernel 4.11.8

More or less like a normal PC in tablet form.
- Performed stock install from USB stick.
MicroSD card slot is NOT bootable.
- System will only boot from USB or internal SSD.
- System can PXE boot when combined with Venue Dock.
- Untested: RootFS on MicroSD. Grub, Kernel, InitRD on SSD.
Core i3-4020Y @ 1.50Ghz, 4GB, BIOS A12
64-bit UEFI, boots any X64 distro from USB.
With keyboard flap / case, just like a Laptop.
Keyboard flap can be 'hotplugged'.
- Depends on flap having been there since cold-boot.
Stock Intel Core-series hardware, just works™.
MicroSD slot (O2 Micro), works with kernel flag. #109231
- sdhci.debug_quirks2 = '0x10000'
- hdparm -t: 57MB per second, 32GB Samsung Pro µSD.
- Copying files to card, 50MB to 79MB per second.
CPU frequency scaling / power states
Battery Status
Device Charging while Linux is operational.
Reboot, Shutdown.
Suspends AND wakes properly.
- Works with keyboard flap folding and unfolding to screen.
- Works with pressing keyboard keys or touching trackpad.
- Temperamental when attempting wake power button. #102281
X.org
2D, 3D and standard / accelerated video playback. (H264)
WM's Tested: Gnome, XFCE
Backlight Brightness / DPMS
(Multi) Touchscreen and Stylus, Lanscape.
- Pen input: alt-button, 255 pressure levels
(Multi) Touchscreen and Stylus, alternate orientations.
- Manual: Script talks to xrandr and evdev.
- Automatic: Checkout iio-proxy.
Gnome on Wayland
Sound Output, Speaker / Headphones works.
- Headphones automatically detected and switched.
Sound Input, Internal microphones.
- Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
Sound Input, Apple earbuds mic.
- 0x19 or 0x1a not reported for ALC3223?
- ToDo: play with hdajackretask
WiFi: Dell Wireless 1537, registers in kernel.
- Chip is similar to Venue 8, different revision.
- Needs kernel patch as Device ID is not yet in mainline.
- Barely registers WiFi networks.
- Pretty much useless at this point in time.
WiFi: Qualcomm Atheros AR9462
WiFi: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565
WiFi: Intel Wireless 7260
WiFi: Intel Wireless 8260
Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Gyro, etc.
Hardware Buttons: Power, Volume Up, Volume Down, Meta
Touch sensitive front 'branded' button
Front 'Status' LED
- Turns on with Camera.
- Suppose it could be coaxed for status purposes.
Bluetooth: Dell Wireless 1537.
Bluetooth: Qualcomm Atheros AR9462
Bluetooth: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565
Bluetooth: Intel Wireless 7260
Bluetooth: Intel Wireless 8260
Bluetooth Tested with Apple Keyboard and Mouse.
Bluetooth at Gnome Login Screen, so KB + Mouse work:
- systemctl enable bluetooth.service
NFC: According to Dell, stock on all Venue Pro 11's.
- NXP PN544 NFC chip on a i2c bus.
- Needs Intel NFC Middleware to function.
Front Camera - OV 2722, Yes.
- USB, 0bda:5751, V4L2, Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
- Patch is now merged by Uncle Torvalds.
- Pre 4.10 Kernels, need patch
- Confirmed by by Infernix, 09/2016
Back Camera - IMX 175, Yes.
- USB, 114d:1000, V4L2, Alpha Imaging Technology Corp.
Mini HDMI port:
- Primary, Extend and Mirror modes.
- Hotplug DVI monitor 1920x1080
- Hotplug HDMI television 1920x1080 + Audio
- Use 'pavucontrol' to direct audio to HDMI port

Dell Venue 11 Pro, Camera Test Commands

Front Camera:
[~]$ mpv tv:// --tv-driver=v4l2 --tv-device=/dev/video0
Back Camera:
[~]$ mpv tv:// --tv-driver=v4l2 --tv-device=/dev/video1

Dell Venue 11 Pro, Dock Functionality

Working Correctly
- Ethernet via USB, ASIX Electronics Corp. AX88772X
- Charging
- Headphone Port
- USB Hub
Non Functional
- HDMI output, monitor detected correctly but no output.
- DisplayPort output, monitor detected but no output.
- drm/i915: *ERROR* Timed out waiting for DP idle patterns
- drm/i915: *ERROR* failed to train DP, aborting. (4.9)

MicroSD Card Slot Notes

Per Dell: SD card slot speeds on Dell Venue Tablets
Thread: Dell Venue 128GB MicroSD card support

uSD Cards used for testing
- 8GB, SanDisk Ultra (SDSDQUA-008G-UQ46A)
- 16GB, G.Skill (FF-TSDG32GA-C10)
- 32GB, Samsung Pro (MB-MG32D)
- 64GB, G.Skill (FF-TSDXC64GA-U1)

Venue 11 Pro (7130)
- SDHC, SDXC Support
- Bus Speed: 50MB/s (SDR50, DDR50), 104MB/s (SDR104)
- Tested: 32GB, 64GB card sizes.
- Untested: 128GB

Overall Experience

Apart from power button / keyboard flap quirks, no complaints.

The Venue 11 will basically run anything, because it's effectively behaving like a normal PC.

Public Service Announcements

GDM / LightDM notes.

Suspend / Hibernate Fine.
Power Button Bug.

Just works.

Likewise, works.

Atheros 6K / Dell 1537 wireless

For wifi to work we need a newer release of the ath6kl firmware then iscurrently shipped in the Linux firmware package.
Qualcomm has these in their ath6kl firmware repo.
The AR6004 folder sits in /lib/firmware/ath6k/ on your filesystem.

Hardware Requirements

The Venue 11 Pro series ship with an NXP PN544 NFC chip.

Software Requirements

Be advised, libnfc is not compatible with PN544 hardware.
The NFC module can be poked at if you go through the effort of compiling the Linux-NFC middleware made by Intel. Fedora doesn't seem to have this package in the default repo.
Everything else is already in place from Kernel 3.12 onward.
For other distributions you may be able to find the 'neard' package:
- In AUR for Arch.
- In Sid (Unstable) for Debian.
- In the Offical Repo for OpenSuse.
The 'neard' application manages everything pretty much but more importantly it contains a number of tools that allow us to verify NFC functionality.
Perhaps a source of enlightenment, the Intel NFC bugtracker.

TL;DR; nfctool

Working with 'neard'

Assuming you've succesfully compiled / package installed the middleware here's a series of commands that may offer some insight.
First start the monitoring tool.

Then launch 'neard' in another terminal

The monitor output should now have been updating like thus

You should now be able to read out the basics of the NFC hardware

Proceed to turn the hardware on and it will trigger the loading and initialization of the PN544 module + friends.

Enable Polling mode so the NFC radio will be able to 'scan' for a tag and (facing the front of the unit) swipe something with RFID along the back of the right hand side.
Keep in mind that while testing polling wil

Install Linux Dell Venue 8 Pro