Dell XPS

While newer Dell XPS series notebooks and ultrabooks (as well as a number of other similar models from a variety of manufacturers) generally work fine out of the box, there are known quirks with their touchpads and brightness controls. Specifically, the XPS series (and others in the "ultrabook" class) use a Cypress touchpad that mostly works out of the box, however it does not support any multitouch features without an updated driver. Luckily, Dell and Cypress have been working together to write one and have released preliminary code that makes functions like two-finger scroll work correctly with the new device.

As for the brightness controls, out of the box these devices appear to operate only at maximum brightness. This too is easy to fix with the addition of a few simple scripts.

To make these changes, do the following:

1. Download the latest Cypress touchpad driver package from the ubermix web site on the device you are attempting to setup and double-click to install the driver.
2. Open a terminal and "sudo gedit /etc/rc.local"
3. When the file appears, add the following line near the bottom, right before the "exit 0" line (copy and paste is the easiest way):

   /bin/echo 0 > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness

4. Save and close the file.
5. In the same terminal, type "sudo gedit /etc/pm/sleep.d/10_dell_xps_ultrabook"
6. When the file appears, copy and paste the following into it:

   #!/bin/sh
   
   # Action script to enable backlight on Dell XPS 13.3 ultrabook
   
   case "${1}" in
   	resume|thaw)
   		/bin/echo 0 > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness
   		;;
   esac

7. Save and exit
8. Finally, in the same terminal, type "sudo chmod +x /etc/pm/sleep.d/10_dell_xps_ultrabook"
9. Close the terminal, reboot, and your brightness/clickpad should work properly.