Dell Inspiron 2-in-1: Does Mint support tablet features?

[eek]

Hi all. I'm brand new to Linux Mint but have familiarity with Linux in general and UNIX specifically.

I recently got myself a brand new Dell Inspiron 3000 11 2-in-1 (it was on sale). Before doing so, I checked out the hardware (Dell does not make it easy to get detailed specs) and confirmed all the laptop hardware works with Linux. Even basic touch screen works well. I'm wondering if there is software/configuration I can make to improve the tablet experience with this thing? Specifically:

Auto screen rotate (which means interacting with the hardware that detects orientation, I never did find out what specific chip is used).

Detect when the screen is fully flipped (i.e. tablet mode) and turn off the trackpad and keyboard. (or a quick change button in the task bar to turn on/off).

Auto pop-up soft-keyboard for typing in tablet mode (or at least a quick-launch button in the task bar). This is somewhat less important as I can flip to laptop for typing.


If anyone is looking at getting one of these (and hasn't done their own research), some things you might want to know:

1) the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard (at least on the 3000 series), boo.

2) on the variant with the internal 2.5 inch 1TB hard drive, the hard drive is replaceable with moderate care. I replaced it with a 250GB SSD. It made a world of difference in performance. but NOTE: the HDD is 7mm thick. You need to be careful to get a 7mm (or 6.9mm) SSD. Some are thicker.

3) you can install Linux (at least ubuntu and descendants) in UEFI boot mode but you need to run the 64-bit version of the OS AND turn off "secure boot" in the BIOS. Ubuntu will force you to set a BIOS boot password. You can probably disable the BIOS boot password after the fact, but I wanted it set so I haven't tried.

4) Dell sticks 4 "recovery partitions" at the end of the disk, after the Windows 10 partition on the 1TB HDD. This makes it a PITA to free up disk space (Windows disk tool won't shrink the windows partition unless it is the last one on the disk).

5) I have no idea how well this thing runs Windows 10. I never tried.

6) I should add, with SSD installed running Linux, it has about 5 hours of battery life on a charge. Less than I hoped but pretty impressive for such a small laptop.

[eek]

I will assume that there are no good solutions to achieve my goal of a Linux 2-in-1 that fully supports the tablet mode.

Are there hacky but doable solutions? or solutions that get it part-way done?

[JerryF]

I will assume that there are no good solutions to achieve my goal of a Linux 2-in-1 that fully supports the tablet mode.

Are there hacky but doable solutions? or solutions that get it part-way done?

I was reading the manual and it does mention if you have Windows or Ubuntu, so I assume it would be able to have auto rotate, etc.

One thing I noticed is that if you get the same model with a Pentium or Core 3m, you get a slot for RAM instead of fixed, soldered RAM.

[eek]

I will assume that there are no good solutions to achieve my goal of a Linux 2-in-1 that fully supports the tablet mode.

Are there hacky but doable solutions? or solutions that get it part-way done?

I was reading the manual and it does mention if you have Windows or Ubuntu, so I assume it would be able to have auto rotate, etc.

One thing I noticed is that if you get the same model with a Pentium or Core 3m, you get a slot for RAM instead of fixed, soldered RAM.

I have the model with the m3. I can tell you for sure, the RAM is soldered to the board. I opened it up to replace the HDD with an SSD already. I was hoping to replace the RAM too.

I tried Ubuntu and the screen does not auto-rotate (with the default install). If there is a utility to easily manually rotate it, I haven't found it. Which is why I was asking here (also, I've got Mint on it now).

[JerryF]

I will assume that there are no good solutions to achieve my goal of a Linux 2-in-1 that fully supports the tablet mode.

Are there hacky but doable solutions? or solutions that get it part-way done?

I was reading the manual and it does mention if you have Windows or Ubuntu, so I assume it would be able to have auto rotate, etc.

One thing I noticed is that if you get the same model with a Pentium or Core 3m, you get a slot for RAM instead of fixed, soldered RAM.

I have the model with the m3. I can tell you for sure, the RAM is soldered to the board. I opened it up to replace the HDD with an SSD already. I was hoping to replace the RAM too.

I tried Ubuntu and the screen does not auto-rotate (with the default install). If there is a utility to easily manually rotate it, I haven't found it. Which is why I was asking here (also, I've got Mint on it now).

Sorry about the RAM slot. I misread the manual. It's only for "One SODIMM slot (Only on Inspiron 11–3168 shipped with Intel Pentium processor)"

For a 2-in-1 that supposed to support Ubuntu, you would think that it would have auto rotate, etc. already setup.

Take a peek at this posting in the forum. I hope this helps.
viewtopic.php?t=46152

[eek]

Take a peek at this posting in the forum. I hope this helps.
viewtopic.php?t=46152

I may not have the skills to write a proper program to automatically rotate the screen, but I should be able to turn the commands in that link to a script that I can attach to an icon or hot-key for quick screen rotation. Thanks.