Has anyone installed and used Linux on Microsoft Surface Tab? Which Surface model is most suited and which Linux diastro performs the best?

  • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
    5·
    2 years ago

    I’m currently running Fedora 38 on a Surface Pro 6!

    I’ve installed Fedora on a Surface Pro 4 and a Surface Pro 7 as well.

    Super duper simple. Runs well and snappy. I prefer it to Windows.

    The only downside is the battery life on standby is very bad (like all Linux distros).

    • Dookie@lemm.ee
      1·
      2 years ago

      do you even need a custom kernel anymore? i think most of the patches are upstream nowadays.

      • saba@lemmy.ml
        1·
        2 years ago

        I don’t know. I was just curious about microsoft surface and if linux could run on it and found that in a search.

  • gogozero@lemmy.sdf.org
    2·
    2 years ago

    im running debian sid on a surface go (1), stock kernel. everything except the cameras work perfectly (use the surface-linux kernel if you want the cameras to work). love this little device, my daily driver.

  • -spam-@kbin.social
    2·
    2 years ago

    Theoretically the older models are more likely to work better.

    I’ve got an sp3 that I want to throw something with gnome on to mess with. Haven’t tried it yet but from what I’ve seen it all works out of the box, including the pen and pressure support.

  • krash@lemmy.ml
    1·
    2 years ago

    I have ubuntu on a surface go 1 and it’s running better than stock windows (except for IR camera). On the SP7 it was working decently on the latest ubuntu release - even the WiFi OOTB. However, touch screen wasn’t working (ootb - custom kernel can enable it) and that was a deal breaker for me. I still need windows to boot from USB (!) as the device was designed this way, so don’t count on being totally defenenestraded. You will need windows for firmware updates too.

    Check out the Linux surface repo mentioned earlier, it’s full of good resources for Linux on surface device’s.