• Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
    2·
    2 years ago

    I have an OG Surface Pro. The first one. It’s running Windows 10 at the moment and it’s doing fine except for the occasional wifi/Bluetooth bugs. I’m using it exclusively in tablet mode with the pen. No keyboard.

    When Windows 10 is going to reach its end of life, I’d like to install Linux on it. But I need it to have a tablet style interface with gestures if possible.

    Do I need any special distro or drivers on that hardware? And what would you recommend as the desktop environment?

  • Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de
    1·
    2 years ago

    (Copypasting an answer to another comment on this post, slightly modified, here, so it reaches more people.)

    I had a MS Surface too a while back.
    After installing Linux, it felt like a totally different device. Just like you, I thought “That is how it was supposed to be!”.

    I strongly recommend you to try the silverblue-main-surface-image from universal-blue.org.

    Why?

    • Because you need the linux-surface-kernel for it to work properly. Otherwise, most functions, like touchscreen, webcam, adaptive brightness, auto-rotate and more won’t work at all.
    • You can install the kernel on other distros too, but it might break. I had that already happening. On uBlue, it’s baked in and won’t break. And if it does, you can just roll back.
    • It comes with Gnome by default and provides you a great touchscreen experience
    • And you can install Waydroid easily, which gives you access to Android apps. Distrobox is already pre-installed and gives you access to the software of every distro available, including Arch.

    I don’t recommend using another DE than Gnome for that. Especially those “light weight” ones like XFCE are horrible for touchscreens, and if you use a browser, those few hundred MBs RAM less used by them is negotiable.

    Gnome is, like it or not, king for devices like that. The gestures on touchscreen, big icons, and more, is only surpassed by Android.

    • Yerbouti@lemmy.ml
      1·
      2 years ago

      silverblue-main-surface

      Do you know where I can find simple clear explanation on how to do a fresh install of this? I’m kind of a noob… I’ve installed standard Fedora on a Surface and it works well but I have a few bugs.

      • Guenther_Amanita@feddit.deEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        Go to https://universal-blue.org/installation/ and download the image. It’s a net-installer, so you can use a small USB stick too. Then just install it the way you would any other distro, e.g. Fedora Workstation. Done.

        For me, that didn’t work at the time due to internet problems. If you encounter issues, do the following:

        1. Go to https://fedoraproject.org/silverblue/ and download the normal Silverblue version there and install it the same way you did the Workstation.
        2. Go to https://universal-blue.org/images/, open your terminal and rebase. Do that by pasting rpm-ostree rebase ostree-unverified-registry:ghcr.io/ublue-os/silverblue-surface (I think that’s the correct image) and wait for it to download and apply.
        3. Reboot
        4. Open the terminal again and paste rpm-ostree rebase ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/silverblue-surface:latest. Wait and reboot again.
          It isn’t as elegant as the first option, but if it doesn’t work, then consider the alternative steps.
        • TheLightItBurns@lemmy.world
          1·
          2 years ago

          You are a champion! Thank you for this info! I’ve been wanting to install something else on my Surface pro 7 since I started using W11 on it and immediately disliked it. Your comment just turned that into a much easier process for my weekend!

          • Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de
            1·
            2 years ago

            You’re welcome! Glad to help.

            Just remember that Silverblue/ the immutable desktops are still relatively new. For more information, read my newest post about image based desktops. It’s hopefully written in a way everyone can understand it, no matter the prior experience :)

  • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Surface Laptop 3 running Kubuntu, such an improvement over what it was “designed” for.

    I’m sure it is an improvement until… you’ve to use Wine to run something Windows only or a VM and end up on the exact same spot as initially but with extra steps and less performance. 😂 😂 😂

  • JK_Flip_Flop@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 years ago

    I’ve got a Surface Pro 5 with the dogshit m3 processor and 4GB of Ram, anyone have any concept of how it’d run under linux? It basically folds at any real task in Windows

  • wingsfortheirsmiles@feddit.ukEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Getting a surface pro 8 soon, looking forward to getting Linux on it!

    Edit: installed Pop OS on my SP8, had to switch to Wayland and also needed to do some tweaks to get the keyboard to work to decrypt but it’s running well so far. I believe you can get the camera working with the proprietary camera stack but it’s not a priority for me right now

  • ULS@lemmy.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

    Is KDE good for touch? I always though gnome would be the way to go for touch.