Kubuntu 20.04 on an Fujitsu Esprimo Q558

I replaced the old Esprimo Q9000 by a new machine, my choice was a Q558 because of a good offer. The Q558 comes with an Intel® i5-9400T, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD and no operating system. The machine is Zero-Noise designed, the fan runs a few minutes after start, then it is quite. The processor is astonishingly powerful, just video rendering using ffmpeg produced enough heat to let the fan rotate. For me quite unusual this is a brand new machine, I usually like to buy refurbished 3-12 month old hardware. Beside one power management quirk, all works very well running Kubuntu, but read the details:

Disclaimer

This page describes my personal experiences with my hardware only. This is nothing official from any vendor! I am not responsible for anything you do with your hard- and software. For any support contact the respective vendors! Please respect the legal notice.

Who should read the following description? The machine runs mostly „out-of-the-box“. All the rest is due to you. Be willing to learn, follow instructions form Ubuntu geeks, accept to fail and start again.

A good resource for hints, tips and questions is http://ubuntuforums.org/

Preparations

I used the SSD from my old machine, you do not need any tool for this. It is very easy, but better safe than sorry, you find a “ESPRIMO Q558/Q958, System Upgrades and Repairs”-Guide at https://support.ts.fujitsu.com/ read the manual.

Open the case on the top by pressing the clip and slide the cover, then open the mount (drive cage) carefully, there it is. Memory extension would be the bottom cover.

Monitor, PC and lamp is powered via socket board with switch. To avoid the short run-up after power is back, I changed the BIOS option “Power Failure Recovery” to “Disabled”.

Installation of Kubuntu 20.04 „Focal Fossa

Installation runs smoothly, no binary drivers needed. Beware there is a power management issue, I had no problem during the installation, nevertheless maybe if you install unattended and come back to a frozen machine, better add “pcie_aspm=off” as boot parameter. Press “e” for edit, in the GRUB menu, which is the black screen menu right after start.

The system seemed fine, but after entering some power management state the system came back nearly frozen, eating hell a lot of resources.

less /var/log/syslog

showed a lot of those entries

Jul 19 11:26:38 q558 kernel: [ 2458.685052] pcieport 0000:00:1c.0: AER: Corrected error received: 0000:00:1c.0
Jul 19 11:26:38 q558 kernel: [ 2458.685123] pcieport 0000:00:1c.0: AER: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Corrected, type=Data Link Layer, (Transmitter ID)
Jul 19 11:26:39 q558 kernel: [ 2458.685125] pcieport 0000:00:1c.0: AER: device [8086:a33c] error status/mask=00001000/00002000
Jul 19 11:26:39 q558 kernel: [ 2458.685126] pcieport 0000:00:1c.0: AER: [12] Timeout

There is an issue with Active State Power Management (ASPM), means I switch it off and wait for system or Linux updates to try it again.

sudo vim /etc/default/grub

add “pcie_aspm=off” to the following line:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash pcie_aspm=off”
save the grub file and

sudo update-grub

reboot whenever you like.

++ Graphics card

„Intel® UHD Graphics 630“ works with the correct resolution and 3d support. The open source intel driver seems to be fine

++ USB

All functioning.

++ Network – LAN

The cable „Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller“ interface runs.

No WiFi or Blutooth in my configuration of the machine.

++ Audio

„Realtek ALC671“ is doing the job as designed. As soon as you connect a device like loudspeakers pulseaudio switches the profile.

LSPCI Listing

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 8th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation UHD Graphics 630 (Desktop)
00:12.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH Thermal Controller (rev 10)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH USB 3.1 xHCI Host Controller (rev 10)
00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH Shared SRAM (rev 10)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH HECI Controller (rev 10)
00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH SATA AHCI Controller (rev 10)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH PCI Express Root Port #5 (rev f0)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device a315 (rev 10)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH cAVS (rev 10)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH SMBus Controller (rev 10)
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH SPI Controller (rev 10)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0c)

LSUSB Listing

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 04d9:1603 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 1a81:2205 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. Laser Mouse
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

BIOS version

V5.0.0.13 – R1.24.0 (06.05.2020)

Any hints?

Please send me any hints, new tips, report errors, etc. via comment below. Please no support requests, thanks!

Links

Fujitsu support, bios updates and documentation:
http://www.fujitsu.com/de/support/

https://www.fujitsu.com/de/products/computing/pc/desktops/esprimo-q558/

Learn why things work on a system

Yesterday I migrated a 10-year-old laptop to a new one. Therefore I installed the new system (10 min via proxy), installed standard software (20 min via script) and transferred the user data 1:1. For this purpose I dismounted the hard disk of the old laptop. Remove a screw at the side slot, open the cover, take out the HDD and copy it via a SATA-USB3 hard disk adapter (25 min depending on the amount of data), log in, be amazed that everything is ready and works. Continue reading “Learn why things work on a system”