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[GUIDE] Dell XPS 15 (9550) Mojave 10.14 / 10.15 Quick Installation

Krim404

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Krim404
Krim404
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2 hours ago, e.fiocco said:

    nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>

    media: autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
    status: active

 

because mine is working with 1gbit, i would just want to ask you, if it's possible, that something else is not working as it should (like switch/router/bridge, broken cable, interference, ...)

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Gymnae
Gymnae
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It seems that my Samsung 950 Pro died.

I did not change to 4k sector size and used Windows and MacOS in parallel. Problems began long ago, my Laptop was always a special snow flake when it came to low memory errors during startup, which others didn't have. Then Windows 10 started slowing down - the sttartup took up to 10 minutes without reason. I did a on-the-spot reinstall and Windows got back to speed, but MacOS didn't boot anymore: Black screen, white cursor top left after Clover. 

After updating to 1.7 and 1.8 things got weirder: Sometimes after POST, self diagnostics came up and stated no HDD was installed. But SATA, SATA-1 and M2 is active in BIOS. Sometimes, when re-seating the 950 Pro, it's recognzied again. So I strongly assume that either the drive is bye bye or something's wrong with the board. 

Luckily, I extended my warranty. DEEEEELLLLLL, COME HERE!

 

EDIT: Dell decided to send me a new SSD. My next step is to go a different route. Instead of re-installing MacOS directly on the SSD, I will install Linux as the main OS to act as a host to MacOS. MacOS is to run in an virtualized environment (QEMU and KVM) with hardware pass through.


I hope to achieve the following by this method:

  1. Rock solid base system
  2. Access to the SD-card reader
  3. Proper sleep of the guest OS via the host OS
  4. Parallel usage of Windows and MacOS
  5. Native hardware access for MacOS to hardware it can deal with
  6. Resilience when Clover or MacOS updates could cause trouble
Edited by Gymnae
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Krim404
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On 8/23/2018 at 9:48 AM, Gymnae said:

It seems that my Samsung 950 Pro died.

I did not change to 4k sector size and used Windows and MacOS in parallel. Problems began long ago, my Laptop was always a special snow flake when it came to low memory errors during startup, which others didn't have. Then Windows 10 started slowing down - the sttartup took up to 10 minutes without reason. I did a on-the-spot reinstall and Windows got back to speed, but MacOS didn't boot anymore: Black screen, white cursor top left after Clover. 

After updating to 1.7 and 1.8 things got weirder: Sometimes after POST, self diagnostics came up and stated no HDD was installed. But SATA, SATA-1 and M2 is active in BIOS. Sometimes, when re-seating the 950 Pro, it's recognzied again. So I strongly assume that either the drive is bye bye or something's wrong with the board. 

Luckily, I extended my warranty. DEEEEELLLLLL, COME HERE!

 

EDIT: Dell decided to send me a new SSD. My next step is to go a different route. Instead of re-installing MacOS directly on the SSD, I will install Linux as the main OS to act as a host to MacOS. MacOS is to run in an virtualized environment (QEMU and KVM) with hardware pass through.


I hope to achieve the following by this method:

  1. Rock solid base system
  2. Access to the SD-card reader
  3. Proper sleep of the guest OS via the host OS
  4. Parallel usage of Windows and MacOS
  5. Native hardware access for MacOS to hardware it can deal with
  6. Resilience when Clover or MacOS updates could cause trouble

i would not suggest doing this. vm-mac with linux base will take a hell lot of memory, performance and power. also linux on the 9550 is not as smooth as osx. nvme-ssds are unstable, my ssd was broken, too. Has nothing to do with the os and will not improve by using another os. i think this will stress the nvme even more than native.

Edited by wmchris
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Gymnae
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On ‎8‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 6:29 PM, wmchris said:

i would not suggest doing this. vm-mac with linux base will take a hell lot of memory, performance and power. also linux on the 9550 is not as smooth as osx. nvme-ssds are unstable, my ssd was broken, too. Has nothing to do with the os and will not improve by using another os. i think this will stress the nvme even more than native.

 

You might be correct regarding installing Linux, I'm bumping into problems right from the start. 

But in regards to Performance, with KVM and PCIe passthrough and allocating dedicated ressources, it should be fine - once it runs.

 

I'll stil give it a go. Manjaro Linux, when running from USB, has native Support of the SD-Card reader, really good power management and is blazing fast. Besides my Hardware and install woes, I'm still optimistic. 

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phaberest
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10 hours ago, Gymnae said:

I'll stil give it a go. Manjaro Linux, when running from USB, has native Support of the SD-Card reader, really good power management and is blazing fast. Besides my Hardware and install woes, I'm still optimistic. 

1

I'm running Manjaro as my second distro, but it is giving me issues with the sleep and most of the times it doesn't shut down. I tried to fix that in the past but ended giving up, let me know if with the latest kernel the situation has improved!

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Gymnae
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10 hours ago, golimpio said:

@phaberest @Gymnae I'm also interested in this setup as well (QEMU + KVM), even though I understand it might have some issues like the ones @wmchris have pointed out.

 

I'm wondering if this specific discussion should be moved to another topic, so we keep this one clean.

 

I agree, this doesn't belong here. You had a great idea, so I created a new Topic: 

Please, please contribute - let's make this a group project :)

 

In the meantime: I installed it correctly, the 4k sector alignment required some tinkering. Sleep, Optimus and shutdown work well so far. 

Edited by Gymnae
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holographic96
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So I have 10.13.6 up and running. I accidentally installed that instead of 10.13.0/.1/.2...my bad. Where exactly do I get 10.13.0 from if the app store only points to the newest version? Anyways, i followed the tutorial and I have 10.13.6 up and running. Everything seems to be working, uhd, touchscreen, backlight, wifi, m.2, sound. I haven't tried the headphone jack yet. The only annoyance, and idk if it's just how its supposed to behave or not is that the keyboard backspaces really slowly, and scrolling is god awful, its really janky and just plain garbage and slow. Anyone know of any possible solutions? I followed every step. I guess the only thing I've confused about is when it says 'i recommend moving some of the kexts from the clover folder to /library'. Would that help? I also installed the voodoops2 kext already. 

Edited by holographic96
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Mr.C
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9 hours ago, holographic96 said:

So I have 10.13.6 up and running. I accidentally installed that instead of 10.13.0/.1/.2...my bad. Where exactly do I get 10.13.0 from if the app store only points to the newest version? Anyways, i followed the tutorial and I have 10.13.6 up and running. Everything seems to be working, uhd, touchscreen, backlight, wifi, m.2, sound. I haven't tried the headphone jack yet. The only annoyance, and idk if it's just how its supposed to behave or not is that the keyboard backspaces really slowly, and scrolling is god awful, its really janky and just plain garbage and slow. Anyone know of any possible solutions? I followed every step. I guess the only thing I've confused about is when it says 'i recommend moving some of the kexts from the clover folder to /library'. Would that help? I also installed the voodoops2 kext already. 

 

Why do you want to downgrade your system if everything works fine? It makes no sense for me.

Deleting text is slow for me too but it does not bother me.

 

The choppy scrolling issue depends on two things:

- our touchpad is not fully supported, there is a promising work called VoodooI2C but it is very unstable and buggy right now

- OS related, need to buy a "supported" mouse.  If you do some research you will find out that this is a common issue even on an "official" hardware. MacOS just doesn't like any mouse

Edited by Mr.C
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phaberest
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On 9/10/2018 at 9:04 AM, Mr.C said:

Why do you want to downgrade your system if everything works fine? It makes no sense for me.

Well, actually I personally thought about doing it as well. 10.13.4 and up are not working with displaylink drivers (USB dock connected monitors can only clone the screen instead of extending it). Lucky I'm too lazy to format again. :/

 

BTW I too just updated to 10.13.6 (I was still using 10.12.6 before) and everything works except that I'm unable to use 4 fingers swipes on the touchpad, it keeps taking it as it was a 3 fingers swipe (that corresponds to ⌘ + directional). Did anyone have the same issue?

 

UPDATE
I also found out that the mic is lost after sleep, this is something I have had on previous versions as well but I was able to manage a workaround. I tried installing AppleHDA patches instead of AppleALC but none of them seems to work (I ended up loosing audio entirely). After sleep I loose the speakers audio which is restored after inserting and removing the audio jack, but it doesn't apply to the mic.

 

UPDATE 2
I'm trying to use VerbStub version but I get no audio. I checked AUDL value in SSDT-Config.aml and it seems like it is already set on 0x48 (72). I tried to inject it from clover as well, but I got no improvements. @Mr.C may I ask you if you had to do any additional step to get it to work? I followed the readme over and over but I must have done something wrong.

 

Attached my IOreg

phaberest_ioreg.ioreg

UPDATE 3
Audio working! Sorry guys, I had removed the AppleALC kext from clover (discovered it is necessary by reading https://github.com/wmchris/DellXPS15-9550-OSX/issues/47)
The right speaker doesn't output any sound but at least the left works and the mic seems to be working after sleep.

Edited by phaberest
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Mr.C
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On 9/11/2018 at 3:18 AM, phaberest said:

UPDATE 3
Audio working! Sorry guys, I had removed the AppleALC kext from clover (discovered it is necessary by reading https://github.com/wmchris/DellXPS15-9550-OSX/issues/47)
The right speaker doesn't output any sound but at least the left works and the mic seems to be working after sleep.

Edited 1 hour ago by phaberest

 

Well thats weird. Not so long ago I had no sound too. All I had to do to purge all the audio-related files and configurations (you can find them inside the installation scripts here: DellXPS15-9550-OSX/10.13/Post-Install/Additional Steps/Audio/ ) then I installed the VerbStub version manually (again, open the script). 

 

For the mic issue, I have no info, I disabled the mic in the BIOS settings

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phaberest
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19 hours ago, Mr.C said:

 

Well thats weird. Not so long ago I had no sound too. All I had to do to purge all the audio-related files and configurations (you can find them inside the installation scripts here: DellXPS15-9550-OSX/10.13/Post-Install/Additional Steps/Audio/ ) then I installed the VerbStub version manually (again, open the script). 

 

For the mic issue, I have no info, I disabled the mic in the BIOS settings

It seems like the internal speaker came back to life after a few reboots, it was most probably a kernel cache issue.

The trackpad is the only left problem to be solved. It is somehow laggy in the scroll and doesn't recognize more than three fingers... I'd give I2C a try.

The mic is working and I don't need to plug and unplug jack to get audio back after sleep, awesome!

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Mr.C
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17 minutes ago, phaberest said:

The trackpad is the only left problem to be solved. It is somehow laggy in the scroll and doesn't recognize more than three fingers... I'd give I2C a try.

 

Let me know if you find any solution for the trackpad. I2C is unreliable yet :( 

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phaberest
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59 minutes ago, Mr.C said:

 

Let me know if you find any solution for the trackpad. I2C is unreliable yet :( 

I just booted with the old kext we used before VoodooPS2Controller, ApplePS2SmartTouchPad.kext, it recognizes all the fingers but is slower and less sensible.

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phaberest
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I'm testing VoodooI2C and it is actually less unstable than what I expected. The multitouch gestures are all recognized even if four fingers swipes are mapped to ⌘ + Q and ⌘ + W and they can't be changed.


The double tap to right click is almost not working and the scroll is a bit laggy, as it is the palm recognition.

Anyway I'd overall consider it usable . I just installed VoodooI2C.kext and VoodooI2CHID.kext, while keeping VoodooPS2Controller.kext for the keyboard.

BTW I used it just for one day, maybe it's too soon to say if it's the case to keep it.

--- EDIT ---

Giving VoodooPS2Controller another run

Spoiler

I just found out how to get back the four fingers swipes on VoodooPS2Controller, it's just a plist setting to be changed!

 

From the folder containing the kext (in my case I needed to use sudo as mine was in S/L/E/ 


sudo vi VoodooPS2Controller.kext/Contents/PlugIns/VoodooPS2Trackpad.kext/Contents/Info.plist

(use nano or any other editor instead of vi if you are more comfortable with it)

 

You'll need to find (with the latest version available it's at line 273) 


<key>TrackpadFourFingerGestures</key>
<false/>

and change it to 


<key>TrackpadFourFingerGestures</key>
<true/>

then rebuild the kext cache, restart and you're done, four fingers swipes will be matched with ⌘ + ^ + direction. :hbd:

-- (sad) EDIT ---
Forget it. I didn't notice it stil gets four fingers as three fingers.

It seems like it is not implemented https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/solved-dell-inspiron-15-3567-trackpad-issue.252682/#post-1751441 I wonder how it is that it used to work on 10.12.
I'm near to give up.

Edited by phaberest
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alex.daoud
alex.daoud
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Since I have this laptop myself, I thought I would let you guys know: I have just pushed v2.1 of VoodooI2C which replaces our custom multitouch engine with fully fledged native gestures. This means that your I2C trackpad will work almost identically to a Magic Trackpad 2 (save for force touch of course). Keep in mind that v2.1 doesn't support Mojave yet but I will push a new release to support it when it goes gold.

Note also that, thanks to experimental USB support on VoodooI2C, v2.1 supports the USB touchscreen on the XPS. As a result, we now have proper gestures on the touchscreen without purchasing touchbase's drivers.

Please make sure to read the "Supported Gestures" page for important information when using native gestures.
 
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Gymnae
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12 minutes ago, alex.daoud said:
Since I have this laptop myself, I thought I would let you guys know: I have just pushed v2.1 of VoodooI2C which replaces our custom multitouch engine with fully fledged native gestures. This means that your I2C trackpad will work almost identically to a Magic Trackpad 2 (save for force touch of course). Keep in mind that v2.1 doesn't support Mojave yet but I will push a new release to support it when it goes gold.

Note also that, thanks to experimental USB support on VoodooI2C, v2.1 supports the USB touchscreen on the XPS. As a result, we now have proper gestures on the touchscreen without purchasing touchbase's drivers.

Please make sure to read the "Supported Gestures" page for important information when using native gestures.
 

 

That actually might make me ditch my attempt at MacOS in a Linux VM and re-create a proper MacOS Partition! Very very cool, thank you!

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Mr.C
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20 minutes ago, alex.daoud said:
Since I have this laptop myself, I thought I would let you guys know: I have just pushed v2.1 of VoodooI2C which replaces our custom multitouch engine with fully fledged native gestures. This means that your I2C trackpad will work almost identically to a Magic Trackpad 2 (save for force touch of course). Keep in mind that v2.1 doesn't support Mojave yet but I will push a new release to support it when it goes gold.

Note also that, thanks to experimental USB support on VoodooI2C, v2.1 supports the USB touchscreen on the XPS. As a result, we now have proper gestures on the touchscreen without purchasing touchbase's drivers.

Please make sure to read the "Supported Gestures" page for important information when using native gestures.
 

 

Thank You for your hard work! I will try it as soon as possible! Many Thanks again!

:frantics:

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phaberest
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On 9/19/2018 at 12:24 PM, alex.daoud said:
Since I have this laptop myself, I thought I would let you guys know: I have just pushed v2.1 of VoodooI2C which replaces our custom multitouch engine with fully fledged native gestures. This means that your I2C trackpad will work almost identically to a Magic Trackpad 2 (save for force touch of course). Keep in mind that v2.1 doesn't support Mojave yet but I will push a new release to support it when it goes gold.

Note also that, thanks to experimental USB support on VoodooI2C, v2.1 supports the USB touchscreen on the XPS. As a result, we now have proper gestures on the touchscreen without purchasing touchbase's drivers.

Please make sure to read the "Supported Gestures" page for important information when using native gestures.
 

Amazing work man, this is definitely a revolution, well done!

 

I just installed it and it works like a charm! Feels absolutely native!ely going to keep it!

--- EDIT AFTER 1 DAY OF USE --
It still have issues with palm detection, but works flawlessly for the rest. I'm definit

Edited by phaberest
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alex.daoud
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19 hours ago, phaberest said:

Amazing work man, this is definitely a revolution, well done!

 

I just installed it and it works like a charm! Feels absolutely native!ely going to keep it!

--- EDIT AFTER 1 DAY OF USE --
It still have issues with palm detection, but works flawlessly for the rest. I'm definit

Palm rejection will work when RehabMan releases the new version of VoodooPS2 with the-darkvoid's new features. There is nothing I can do at the moment to hasten that. Alternatively you can build VoodooPS2 yourself with the-darkvoid's changes incorporated - v2.1.1 of VoodooI2C will automatically support it if you do that :)

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