I would like to share with you a very cool project that develops drivers for correct operation of Microsoft Surface devices on Linux. I myself use Surface Pro 6 with these drivers and everything works like a charm (battery life is good, cameras work, stylus, keyboard, touchscreen, screen). The developers are gods. From myself, I would recommend using Fedora Linux distribution, as I got the best battery life on it and didn’t experience any additional bugs. If you don’t like GNOME, you can try spins.
Links to project resources:
- Home Page.
- Table of supported features.
- Installation Guide.
- Page with known bugs and their solutions.
- Wiki.
Awesome additional resources:
- User experience from Michael Horn.
- Installation instructions (non-official): Link. Link.
I wanted a small device to take notes on for school, but that I could also do development on for my cs classes. Got a surface go 3, put fedora (gnome) on it, added the surface kernel, and it’s honestly a better tablet experience than windows. I use xournal++ for notetaking and the stylus and touchscreen all work great.
I didn’t need a note taking app before looking up that app. I’ll try it!
I’m grabbing a decommissioned surface pro 7 from work today! Just need to order a charger for it, and I’ll try this out :)
So far so good. I put fedora on it, and starting to play around. Gnome seems pretty well suited to the tablet.
Yeah, it’s ARM-based, and while that’s gaining in popularity, differences between drivers and chipsets still make support challenging.
i run debian sid on a surface go and i love it. my daily driver, and one of my favorite PCs in a very long time.
a little funny since the freeze lifted due to the sheer number of new versions all appearing at once, but nothing is breaking. typical post-freeze hiccups - they subside quickly, nothing has gotten in the way of being productive, and im used to it after 23 years of running Sid.
i would think that 23 years of primarily running one distro would be more notable, haha
Using a Pro 6 with Linux (Arch now, but used Ubuntu and Fedora in the past). I wouldn’t say that camera works like a charm, far from that.
Time to whip out my old Surface Pro 4, wonder if it will help with the screen flickering issue.
Microsoft wants to give Linux a nice warm hug and then squeeze and squeeze and all the warmth disappears this is actually quite a high pressure oh that hurts Microsoft no ow are those needles coming out of your arms I think I hear bones splintering and screaming oh no it’s me I’m screaming I’m hearing myself screaming I’m turning into
This is cool, but if Microsoft would <3 Linux, they would do this themself.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/79Jj0jWXyWo
https://piped.video/6_EHEmz_j4o
https://piped.video/BreV6N0GApk
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Obviously emulated
oh lord that pic is unnerving
Thanks for sharing!
I applaud Linux on as many laptops as possible. But given Microsoft’s history of EEE, bad security practices and multiple and on going privacy violations I would really not recommend using anything Microsoft. If you must use fx Surface I would recommend buying a used one. Or better yet a used Thinkpad or similar enterprise laptop used.
Agree on privacy. And why bother when Intel/AMD have their Management Engine (ME) and AMD their equivalent.
But why support a company like Microsoft when they have a long history of prioritizing profit over user freedom (FOSS/EEE), security and privacy?
Perhaps you think the device is good?
By all means use it if it suits your needs 🙂 My point is that there are alternatives, like fx Lenovo Yoga or similar, where you dont support Microsoft and their history of bad behavior.
We all got different priorities and if it isn’t something on your radar, that’s fine. For me I would rather be without than buy a Surface for the mentioned reasons.
I don’t know the current state of Lenovo, but I do remember not so long ago they were shipping some pretty bad software on their laptops… so I find it a tad ironic to mention Microsoft’s bad behavior, but then recommend Lenovo 😅
I don’t really use laptops, I have an old 2015(?) MacBook that runs Fedora on it for whenever I need something portable on the rare occasion, so I don’t know whose good vs bad these days.
I know Lenovo is no angel but still a single piece of sand compared to the vast desert of Microsoft in terms of bad bahaviour.
We deserve System76, Tuxedo, Framework, PineBook etc. And if that doesn’t suit the use case a used Thinkpad, Macbook (a sandbox in the analogy) or Dell is OK options. There’s IMHO plenty of options that’s better than the desert of Microsoft 🙂
That’s completely fair on all accounts! I’d love to be able to try the offerings from the better companies some day, but money has been very tight and they’re definitely on the pricier side (for good reason of course) at least on my own scale of what I have available - the MacBook was given to me second hand so I didn’t find it myself or else I would’ve definitely spent the money on a really nice System76 laptop!
For sure, and to be clear, I do agree with you. Ultimately, we’ve all got our own priorities, and I can absolutely understand why someone might be reluctant to throw money at Microsoft; I’m certainly one of those people myself (obligatory “I use Arch”). My only point is that some people may simply think the devices are good and don’t have any qualms about supporting Microsoft, as is their right too.
This is why I bought the Dell 5290 2-in-1. It can be opened and the battery and ssd can be replaced for cheap.
Fwiw, this is NOT an official Microsoft release, it’s like Asahi Linux, where the community made it Linux-compatible
