I just learned about AFFiNE Pro (the much needed Linux alternative to OneNote), and I'm about to begin my transition to Linux journey on my i7 32GB RAM 1TB SSD Surface Pro 7+. Thinking I'll try and dual boot with Wubuntu. Any suggestions on where to start to enable Dual Booting with a Linux flavour?
Ive been running linux on a surface for a bit over a year now. It's fine. A couple months ago i stopped using the Linux surface kernel to cut down on my upkeep, though i do miss the touchscreen.
Now runnin linux on my old galaxy tab is great. Thin, fast (enough), and makes me feel futuristic as F when I walk around the house and SSH into my work comp.
Still using Fedora on Surface Pro 7. Camera still doesn't work due to no Intel driver, probably never will. My i5 G4 Ice Lake SP7 still overheats to high heaven due to no CPU fan. I need to BABY this device so it doesn't nuke itself. Actual CPU, GPU and I/O performance is way better on Linux than on Windows. Too bad it needs micro managing.
I have a surface pro 7 and personly prefer Linux, but really need good touch, kamera and exspecially pen support. So I would be interested how your experience was with the surface pen and linux if you use one.
Ironically, this is right as Microsoft released Windows 11 ARM ISOs to the public, so we could start seeing more Windows ARM devices like Raspberry Pi, and – more intriguingly – Apple Silicon Macs. As more of the world learns of native Windows on Mac, and as Linux keeps growing in popularity, this is a good thing – more ARM applications on Windows and eventually, Linux!
Have you ever considered trying one of the mobile-first distros on this device, such as Mobian? TechHut just came out with a video going over a(n admittedly overpriced) Linux laptop by Juno, and he seemed really satisfied with the Mobian experience.
Nice video, thanks! After watching it, I upgraded my Surface Go 2 to Fedora 41, hoping for a better battery life. Unfortunately, I'm still around 3.5à to 4 hours top. Still, I wouldn't go back to windows. I just wish battery life was a little better, and Waydroid less buggy. Otherwise. It's a pretty smooth experience.
Spent 2 or 3 days straight trying to get my surface pro 9 working. I had my old surface go working but had nothing but issues with the new one. Fedora installed but couldnt boot the second the kernel was applied. Tried about 10 distros over 3 days. Was a nightmare.
Surface laptop 2 with Intel and MiniOs Linux. Install tlp & tlp-rdw & cpupower-gui to throttle the CPU to the minimum and you'll get better battery life than windoze
Personally use linux on a chuwi Ubookx, works like a charm, quite like the form factor and for my use the older hardware does the job just fine. Especially for the price it's great.
I run debian 12 on my dell 7275 and i can say it's waaay better than windows, everything works except the camera because it's not as supported as the surface tablets. For web browsing and note taking with rnote it's good enough for me. Although I had to install a lot of extensions to gnome to make it truly a tablet friendly experience.
I'm running arch on my SP9 and to be honest, many things are not as smooth as on windows (mainly related to touch and pen input) but also most things work fine. Battery life is more like 4 hours for me when using auto-cpufreq in "powersave" mode.
I have a base 4gb spec Surface go 1st gen and with Fedora(Surface kernel) + GNOME it's a super enjoyable. If anything runs windows to slow, just get linux. I mainly use it to watch content from my Jellyfin Server which it does very good, especially with the nice screen being 16:10 1080p and IPS. It looks nice, it runs good and does everything i need better than Windows.
I had a Surface Pro 4 a couple of years ago and ran Linux Mint on it, which was fine (obviously I wasn't using touch on that). Now I'd go check out Universal Blue's Surface specific builds for that. Gnome does seem to be ideally suited for devices likes this indeed.
I have a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen2. And it's terrible, both in Windows and Linux… Except for the hardware issues, like the touchscreen not working if you hold it wrong or the magnetic keyboard just not working after a few months (there is a ribbon cable inside of the flexing part near the magnetic connector, which just breaks after a few months of use), there are some other, more software related issues. Cameras don't work too, the fingerprint sensor is unsupported (it's a Synaptics SPI-based sensor, which the libfprint project said will never be supported), it wakes up from sleep all the time on its own inside my backpack (when the magnetic keyboard connects to the tablet it wakes up the system, and in my backpack the magnetic connection isn't as stable). Also, it has an Atom CPU, just rebranded to a Core i7, but it heats up to 110°C even when doing anything more than browsing the web. Even while doing so, it's SO SLOW that I just don't want to use it except for when I absolutely have to… I was using Gnome on it before, but I remember there were some bugs that make me switch to KDE Plasma. And let's just say than on KDE they at least tried to make the touch experience work. Every app has special controls just for touch use, like Dolphin which works similarly to a file manager on Android. But then, the desktop is SLOW… There are bugs with the panel where it would show a tooltip all the time with no way to un-hover that element, the panel would just freeze, the on-screen-keyboard is trash and there is none on SDDM (so to log in i have to plug in the physical keyboard), and many many more issues… Also, then there is the palm rejection when handwriting. On Windows, it identified my hand perfectly (and not to mention all the other windows ink goodies!), but on Linux the only form of palm rejection is the proximity of the pen. Here, that is about 1-1.5cm, which I sometimes exit and end up scrolling with my palm. Overall, I hate this device and use it just because it was cheap (I didn't know jt was going to be that bad back then) and I use it at school for textbooks and handwritten notes. I'd love to switch to a 360° laptop, which could also replace my main laptop (which I bring to school whenever I have to do anything more than just textbooks and notes). But there is no good and cheap option, of couse with Linux support! I'd love to see one made by Framework!
I had an old Surface Pro 4 lying around. I didn't want to just throw it away cause it was still in good condition, and I know my mother wanted something around the house to use rather than her bulky old laptop. I'm not sure if it was a bad USB, bad install, whatever, but Windows 10 would not boot from the USB I made with the media creation tool. No matter what I did, it just weirdly wouldn't work… So I put Fedora on it, was my first time using Fedora as I'm a PopOS user, but I thought Pop just didn't feel right for the Surface at the moment, It has a few quirks on my desktop rarely, praying 24.04 fixes that once Cosmic DE is ready…
Long story short, I had done this about 4 months ago. The Surface Pro 4 felt faster, its battery lasts a bit longer now (going off of test data I had saved cause I'm weird like that and test all of my hardware every so often), and Gnome just felt so much nicer to use on a tablet than Windows 10 ever did.
If you have an old surface lying around and it feels bogged down. I believe that Linux is a great way to spark some life back into it, rather than create more e-waste.
I need more tablets that have Linux and especially arm cpu
excellent
Thinkpad X12
Fydetab Duo
I just learned about AFFiNE Pro (the much needed Linux alternative to OneNote), and I'm about to begin my transition to Linux journey on my i7 32GB RAM 1TB SSD Surface Pro 7+. Thinking I'll try and dual boot with Wubuntu. Any suggestions on where to start to enable Dual Booting with a Linux flavour?
Ive been running linux on a surface for a bit over a year now. It's fine. A couple months ago i stopped using the Linux surface kernel to cut down on my upkeep, though i do miss the touchscreen.
Now runnin linux on my old galaxy tab is great. Thin, fast (enough), and makes me feel futuristic as F when I walk around the house and SSH into my work comp.
Honestly. . I would never buy a Surface. They are difficult to tear down/ dis-assemble.
Still using Fedora on Surface Pro 7. Camera still doesn't work due to no Intel driver, probably never will. My i5 G4 Ice Lake SP7 still overheats to high heaven due to no CPU fan. I need to BABY this device so it doesn't nuke itself. Actual CPU, GPU and I/O performance is way better on Linux than on Windows. Too bad it needs micro managing.
Very interesting. Not that i ever use a tablet, grin.
The no auto rotate killed fedora 41 for me. Until it’s fixed I’ve installed KDE Neon that uses plasma mobile.
I am also running Fedora 41 on SurfacePro 5 and have been using phosh. Works much better as a tablet than with Windows.
I have a surface pro 7 and personly prefer Linux, but really need good touch, kamera and exspecially pen support. So I would be interested how your experience was with the surface pen and linux if you use one.
Ironically, this is right as Microsoft released Windows 11 ARM ISOs to the public, so we could start seeing more Windows ARM devices like Raspberry Pi, and – more intriguingly – Apple Silicon Macs. As more of the world learns of native Windows on Mac, and as Linux keeps growing in popularity, this is a good thing – more ARM applications on Windows and eventually, Linux!
How can i run linux surface project in ubuntu based Bodhi Linux?
How did you get Microsoft 365 working on Linux, I have been trying forever and it has never worked
Next: Android on a Microsoft Surface ARM
Have you ever considered trying one of the mobile-first distros on this device, such as Mobian? TechHut just came out with a video going over a(n admittedly overpriced) Linux laptop by Juno, and he seemed really satisfied with the Mobian experience.
We installed Edubuntu using surface-Linux on a Surface Pro 4(?). It's genuinely used by the kids to supplement their learning.
Nice video, thanks! After watching it, I upgraded my Surface Go 2 to Fedora 41, hoping for a better battery life. Unfortunately, I'm still around 3.5à to 4 hours top. Still, I wouldn't go back to windows. I just wish battery life was a little better, and Waydroid less buggy. Otherwise. It's a pretty smooth experience.
Spent 2 or 3 days straight trying to get my surface pro 9 working. I had my old surface go working but had nothing but issues with the new one. Fedora installed but couldnt boot the second the kernel was applied. Tried about 10 distros over 3 days. Was a nightmare.
Linux looks very good on a tablet compared to Windows.
Surface laptop 2 with Intel and MiniOs Linux. Install tlp & tlp-rdw & cpupower-gui to throttle the CPU to the minimum and you'll get better battery life than windoze
Personally use linux on a chuwi Ubookx, works like a charm, quite like the form factor and for my use the older hardware does the job just fine. Especially for the price it's great.
I'm glad you mentioned auto-rotate being broken for you, I'm experiencing the same thing on my Yoga 7 2in1
use fyde os
im daily driving arch on a Surface Pro 5 for a year now, also with gnome. Battery performance saddly doesnt seem as good as yours
interesting nerd stuff
You can enable Wayland in Chrome using developer settings
Wayland being broken, nothing new.
I run debian 12 on my dell 7275 and i can say it's waaay better than windows, everything works except the camera because it's not as supported as the surface tablets. For web browsing and note taking with rnote it's good enough for me. Although I had to install a lot of extensions to gnome to make it truly a tablet friendly experience.
I'm running arch on my SP9 and to be honest, many things are not as smooth as on windows (mainly related to touch and pen input) but also most things work fine. Battery life is more like 4 hours for me when using auto-cpufreq in "powersave" mode.
Fedora is only good in default desktop for tablets, not for mouse and keyboard users.
I have a base 4gb spec Surface go 1st gen and with Fedora(Surface kernel) + GNOME it's a super enjoyable. If anything runs windows to slow, just get linux. I mainly use it to watch content from my Jellyfin Server which it does very good, especially with the nice screen being 16:10 1080p and IPS. It looks nice, it runs good and does everything i need better than Windows.
We need Libreboot/Coreboot on the Surface line up. it would fix alot of issues I think
Can you use the Microsoft pen with some software to take notes ? For a student like me it would be nice
I had a Surface Pro 4 a couple of years ago and ran Linux Mint on it, which was fine (obviously I wasn't using touch on that). Now I'd go check out Universal Blue's Surface specific builds for that. Gnome does seem to be ideally suited for devices likes this indeed.
I have a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen2. And it's terrible, both in Windows and Linux… Except for the hardware issues, like the touchscreen not working if you hold it wrong or the magnetic keyboard just not working after a few months (there is a ribbon cable inside of the flexing part near the magnetic connector, which just breaks after a few months of use), there are some other, more software related issues.
Cameras don't work too, the fingerprint sensor is unsupported (it's a Synaptics SPI-based sensor, which the libfprint project said will never be supported), it wakes up from sleep all the time on its own inside my backpack (when the magnetic keyboard connects to the tablet it wakes up the system, and in my backpack the magnetic connection isn't as stable).
Also, it has an Atom CPU, just rebranded to a Core i7, but it heats up to 110°C even when doing anything more than browsing the web. Even while doing so, it's SO SLOW that I just don't want to use it except for when I absolutely have to…
I was using Gnome on it before, but I remember there were some bugs that make me switch to KDE Plasma. And let's just say than on KDE they at least tried to make the touch experience work. Every app has special controls just for touch use, like Dolphin which works similarly to a file manager on Android. But then, the desktop is SLOW… There are bugs with the panel where it would show a tooltip all the time with no way to un-hover that element, the panel would just freeze, the on-screen-keyboard is trash and there is none on SDDM (so to log in i have to plug in the physical keyboard), and many many more issues…
Also, then there is the palm rejection when handwriting. On Windows, it identified my hand perfectly (and not to mention all the other windows ink goodies!), but on Linux the only form of palm rejection is the proximity of the pen. Here, that is about 1-1.5cm, which I sometimes exit and end up scrolling with my palm.
Overall, I hate this device and use it just because it was cheap (I didn't know jt was going to be that bad back then) and I use it at school for textbooks and handwritten notes. I'd love to switch to a 360° laptop, which could also replace my main laptop (which I bring to school whenever I have to do anything more than just textbooks and notes). But there is no good and cheap option, of couse with Linux support! I'd love to see one made by Framework!
I am using win on 144hz and 125% scaling. when trying Linux in January either of those were reasons enough for me to not use Linux
I had an old Surface Pro 4 lying around. I didn't want to just throw it away cause it was still in good condition, and I know my mother wanted something around the house to use rather than her bulky old laptop. I'm not sure if it was a bad USB, bad install, whatever, but Windows 10 would not boot from the USB I made with the media creation tool. No matter what I did, it just weirdly wouldn't work… So I put Fedora on it, was my first time using Fedora as I'm a PopOS user, but I thought Pop just didn't feel right for the Surface at the moment, It has a few quirks on my desktop rarely, praying 24.04 fixes that once Cosmic DE is ready…
Long story short, I had done this about 4 months ago. The Surface Pro 4 felt faster, its battery lasts a bit longer now (going off of test data I had saved cause I'm weird like that and test all of my hardware every so often), and Gnome just felt so much nicer to use on a tablet than Windows 10 ever did.
If you have an old surface lying around and it feels bogged down. I believe that Linux is a great way to spark some life back into it, rather than create more e-waste.