Enabling Full Disk Encryption on Dell XPS 9320 with Ubuntu 22

I did not find a clear set of instructions on how to enable full disk encryption on a newer Dell XPS 9320 that came with Ubuntu pre-installed. This machine is now replacing an older XPS13 (9360) that runs Linux like a charm but was feeling the effects of time. What I learnt so far:

• FDE cannot be enabled post-installation, only option in this case is to go for home directory (or any other) encryption
• Starting the system from the UEFI Ubuntu recovery partition will not provide the option to encrypt the disk when installing
• The machine will not boot from SD cards (I had no USB stick around, so I gave this a try)

The way I managed to do it was:

1. Backup your device as data will completely be erased
2. Create a recovery image in a USB stick with dell-recovery
3. Boot from this USB stick (press F12 to trigger the boot menu when the machine is starting)
4. In the installation process, enable LVM and enable encryption in advanced options

Voilà, but I found it non obvious.

• ubuntu
• dell
• encryption
• xps 9320