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Surface Laptop 3 running Kubuntu, such an improvement over what it was "designed" for. (lemmy.world)
submitted 9 months ago by BlovedMadman@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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[–] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 30 points 9 months ago (6 children)

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?

[–] julianh@lemm.ee 35 points 9 months ago (3 children)

You'll definitely need this: https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface

Gnome is probably the best with touchscreens. I had issues with Ubuntu though so you probably want something more up to date, like fedora or arch.

[–] joojmachine@lemmy.ml 25 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Also, highly recommend checking out Universal Blue's Surface images! It's pretty much everything you need out of the box! https://universal-blue.org/images/surface/?h=surface

[–] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

To add another comment to your reply, have you tried it personally?

I'd like to back up my system before doing the switch. What do you recommend I use? Clonezilla with an external USB drive all plugged in using a USB hub?

[–] joojmachine@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 months ago

I haven't tried the Surface images due to not having one, but I am using their Silverblue images to make the whole NVIDIA drivers thing a bit easier on my system.

Also I haven't needed to backup my system in over a year now (I stopped hopping with Silverblue) so I don't remember the solution I used, but this seems good.

[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

From your live stick, bevor install, do

# cp /dev/your-disk /your/image.img

or to save space:

# gzip < /dev/your-disk > /your/image.img.gz

or faster but might need to install it first:

# lz4 /dev/your-disk /your/image.img.lz4

To get a list of your disks, there's lsblk.

I recommend partition-wise backup, it's always a bother to extract/shrink individual partitions in images of whole disks. That would be /dev/your-disk1 etc

[–] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 3 points 9 months ago

That's even better! Thank you!

[–] Gebruikersnaam@lemmy.ml 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, Fedora runs with wayland by default, which is really nice for touchscreens.

[–] passepartout@feddit.de 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Don't want to be the guy shitting on Ubuntu, but Fedora is the way to go in my experience and afaik.

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[–] Cyfress@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

Went to Fedora on Pro gen 1, works great. Pen input in Krita works great. Really miss the form factor of that first gen. I feel like they're too big now.

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[–] Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de 20 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

(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 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.de 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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 :)

[–] TheLightItBurns@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

I appreciate it! I’ll take a look at that post as well.

[–] Yerbouti@lemmy.ml 4 points 9 months ago

Thank you so much!!

[–] iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago

Just to comment here. I installed KDE Neon on my SP7+. It took a bit of messing with the UEFI secure boot, but after that trouble...it's been mostly problem free for a couple of years, since I did it. I reckon it's just easier to have it all baked in, in my case I kinda preferred KDE neon as my choice first.

[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Taskbar can even be moved!

Too difficult for a multi-billion dollar company.

[–] Underwaterbob@lemm.ee 11 points 9 months ago

I bought my wife an HP Stream 13 some years back. It came with Windows 8 installed. Which worked just fine until updates bloated it so much it literally took up the entire (paltry) SSD. Windows 10 came out and it offered a free upgrade, which would have been smaller. Unfortunately, every time I tried to do that, it just complained it didn't have the space to make the switch. I rolled it back to an older Windows 8 and disabled updates to try and keep using it. It complained constantly. I finally deleted the shit out of Windows and installed Lubuntu. It's worked since then without issue.

[–] space@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I have a Surface Laptop 5 as my work laptop. I hate it with passion, it's one of the worst laptops I ever used.

Beyond the lack of IO (not even a fucking hdmi port) and the piss poor cooling, the USB C display isn't connected to the integrated GPU, it uses a different display adapter that is so bad the mouse stutters on high res displays.

The built-in display has a 3:2 aspect ratio. I wanted to use a lower resolution so I could disable scaling (having different scaled monitors is annoying to use), none of the "supported" lower resolutions are 3:2 and they all have ugly black bars.

It has a touch screen, but the lid only opens about 120 degrees, making it completely useless.

And it uses "special" locked down hardware that is very hostile to other operating systems like Linux.

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[–] ULS@lemmy.ml 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] mercury@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

With Wayland it's pretty good

[–] ULS@lemmy.ml 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Is there a tablet mode?

[–] iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

Yup. I think I needed to manually install the touch keyboard. But once installed, it works as expected. Touch the screen or remove the physical keyboard, and touch mode gets activated. Whenever touching a text field, the soft keyboard pops out. It's massive, though (well, about the same size as the one for Windows).

[–] ULS@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 months ago

Nice!

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[–] gnate@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

ooh, I just snagged an old Pro X. Tempted to see how it runs with Linux on ARM before even messing with Win11 that's installed.

[–] JK_Flip_Flop@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago (7 children)

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

[–] Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Incidentally, I had the exact same device. It actually worked pretty good to be honest!

Of course it will not magically be a top tier device. Programs will need some time to load the first time, and then be thrown out of RAM again.
BUT, compared to Windows, it will be a difference between night and day!

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

Why?

  • Because you need the linux-surface-kernel for it to work. 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.

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.

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[–] krash@lemmy.ml 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Once the drivers got into the mainline kernel, running Linux on surface has been a dream. Except for using the pen, IR-cameras, booting from USB...

I think there's enough of us to have a SurfaceLinux community here :-)

[–] dgriffith@aussie.zone 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Except for using the pen, IR-cameras, booting from USB...

Reminds me of android ROMs about a decade ago.

"My new L33tM@st3r ROM has just been released! Now with kernel tweaks for buttery-smooth performance and major improvement to stock battery life! Comes with it's own tuning app so you can adjust it the way YOU want!

(Not presently working: bluetooth/wifi/camera/NFC/dialler/headphones but everything else is awesome!!)"

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[–] gveltaine@lemmy.zip 3 points 9 months ago

I'm looking forward to doing this on my 4, Windows is chugging hard lately

[–] neidu2@feddit.nl 3 points 9 months ago

When these launched they seemed interesting. I liked the concept, and they still do, but the biggest flaw was basing them on windows. I've seen windows on low-power devices before, and I'm not going through that again.

[–] wingsfortheirsmiles@feddit.uk 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

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

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