4 ms·

First of all, this is a beautiful piece of hardware. I hate that I have to ask this, but do these ship with locked bootloaders? If they don't, they might be a

First of all, this is a beautiful piece of hardware. I hate that I have to ask this, but do these ship with locked bootloaders? If they don't, they might be a candidate for beautiful Hackintoshes or Linux laptops. I just can't bring myself to run something that isn't unix under the hood and OSX has been a pretty decent balance of openness/unixness/ecosystem with a pretty nice looking UI and a thriving software market. I haven't tried Windows 10, but I suspect I'd be just as unhappy with it as I was with Windows 9 on a Surface. I'm still a fan of the MacBook hardware, but a detachable screen is something you just won't see out of the Apple camp. I would love to have a laptop that converts into a tablet for light use/presentation/travel. A Hackintosh would be ideal, but I'd easily consider a Linux distro if it meant I could use something like this. It didn't ship with USB-C ports (shame), but it sounds like you might be able to buy an upgraded "bottom" and take advantage of that when it ships (that's huge!): http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2015/10/23/surface-book-user-upgrade/ http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2015/10/23/surface-book-user...

DIVx0 11y ago
I'm in the same camp as you. I really like this hardware but I don't want to use Windows. I don't think we'll see any good support for all of the modes it can operate in on other operating systems though at least not for a long while and then in very limited capacity. Me not wanting to use Windows is more about unfamiliarity with what modern windows is like for a non MS centric developer. My previous experience dates back to the XP days where trying to do anything other than MS things was a chore. I _really_ like the surfacebook, maybe it's time to take another look at windows?
- mmastrac 11y ago
  I think the biggest barriers to me would be the awesome package ecosystems in unix land (mysql, postgres and mongo are all a single "brew install" away!). I also would miss working in bash in iTerm and/or Apple's Terminal. Unless they've done a lot of work on the command prompt, it'll be moving back into a world of pain.
  - mirkoadari 11y ago
    Have you taken a look at Chocolatey and OneGet? I've been an avid Windows user as I grew tired of resolving Linux issues daily, and haven't really missed anything. Chocolately + ConEmu + Git for Windows (comes with ssh and most of the unix tools) + PowerShell for more complex scripts.
    - nilkn 11y ago
      I'm very new to Windows development. How does this compare to something like babun?
  - jameshart 11y ago
    Chocolatey. Powershell.
nilkn 11y ago
Windows 10 is quite nice -- actually the UX is better than OS X in my opinion -- but I really do sympathize. On my desktop machine at home, intended primarily for gaming, I sometimes run a Vagrant VM, and I have babun setup for when I want a Unix-like terminal but not a full VM (a preconfigured Cygwin distribution).
- criddell 11y ago
  I like Windows 10 as well. I do wish that Microsoft would make a professional version of 10 with defaults set to whatever is most secure. The way the OS silently and continuously pushes data to the cloud makes it hard to recommend 10 for use where security matters (like in medicine, banking, etc...). It should also be easier to uninstall the Bing bloatware.
  - Splines 11y ago
    Windows 10 LTSB is what you would use if you want control over updates and don't need the app store on a PC used in an appliance setting: http://blogs.windows.com/business/2015/01/30/windows-10-for-enterprise-more-secure-and-up-to-date/ http://blogs.windows.com/business/2015/01/30/windows-10-for-... > For example, systems powering hospital emergency rooms, air traffic control towers, financial trading systems, factory floors, just to name a few, may need very strict change management policies, for prolonged periods of time. To support Windows 10 devices in these mission critical customer environments we will provide Long Term Servicing branches at the appropriate time intervals. On these branches, customer devices will receive the level of enterprise support expected for the mission critical systems, keeping systems more secure with the latest security and critical updates, while minimizing change by not delivering new features for the duration of mainstream (five years) and extended support (five years). On Long Term Servicing branches, customers will have the flexibility to deliver security updates and fixes via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) which allows full control over the internal distribution of updates using existing management solutions such as System Center Configuration Manager or to receive these updates automatically via Windows Update.
    - criddell 11y ago
Analemma_ 11y ago
No x86 computer ships with locked bootloaders, it's part of the spec that you have to be able to disable SecureBoot in the BIOS. Having said that, I don't think Linux will be a good fit for this device. People will first have to reverse-engineer the locking mechanism (which is done in software in Windows). That'll probably happen quickly, but then there's the issue of the hybrid graphics, which Linux has never played well with IME. That's assuming Linux drivers will be available for the dGPU at all; it's apparently a custom part from Nvidia and there may not even be a binary blob for them on Linux.
- bitwize 11y ago
  No x86 computer ships with locked bootloaders, it's part of the spec that you have to be able to disable SecureBoot in the BIOS. Not for Windows 10 it's not!
- michaelbuddy 11y ago
  I don't think the release mechanism is in Windows, I think it's firmware. I heard you can't release it if your battery level is too low (a setting that might be changed or change-able) but I myself released the screen on a model unit while it was in a boot sequence.
- great_kraken 11y ago
  This really is the problem. The amount of hardware wizardry going on here is going to be nearly impossible to support on GNU/Linux or any POSIX-like OS without support from Microsoft. Unfortunately, they don't "get" this, and they operate in a vacuum where they believe that the software they create is just the best thing for everyone. I honestly have no idea how they operate under this presumption. Are they unaware of the millions of developers using Macbooks purely for this reason?
  - dman 11y ago
    Why single out Microsoft here? Which other commercial vendor is going out of their way to enable bootstrapping OSS code on their platform?
widowlark 11y ago
So, having just checked my Surface Book BIOS, I can speak to a few things: - There is SecureBoot configuration, and it can be reconfigured and disabled. - There are USB and PXE boot options available, so running Linux from those shouldn't be too difficult - It looks like the 'MuscleWire' is controlled by firmware, not windows, as I was able to detach the device in BIOS outside the OS. So give it a few months, I am sure someone will get debian on this thing!

DIVx0 11y ago

I'm in the same camp as you. I really like this hardware but I don't want to use Windows. I don't think we'll see any good support for all of the modes it can operate in on other operating systems though at least not for a long while and then in very limited capacity. Me not wanting to use Windows is more about unfamiliarity with what modern windows is like for a non MS centric developer. My previous experience dates back to the XP days where trying to do anything other than MS things was a chore. I _really_ like the surfacebook, maybe it's time to take another look at windows?

mmastrac 11y ago
I think the biggest barriers to me would be the awesome package ecosystems in unix land (mysql, postgres and mongo are all a single "brew install" away!). I also would miss working in bash in iTerm and/or Apple's Terminal. Unless they've done a lot of work on the command prompt, it'll be moving back into a world of pain.
- mirkoadari 11y ago
  Have you taken a look at Chocolatey and OneGet? I've been an avid Windows user as I grew tired of resolving Linux issues daily, and haven't really missed anything. Chocolately + ConEmu + Git for Windows (comes with ssh and most of the unix tools) + PowerShell for more complex scripts.
  - nilkn 11y ago
    I'm very new to Windows development. How does this compare to something like babun?
- jameshart 11y ago
  Chocolatey. Powershell.

nilkn 11y ago

Windows 10 is quite nice -- actually the UX is better than OS X in my opinion -- but I really do sympathize. On my desktop machine at home, intended primarily for gaming, I sometimes run a Vagrant VM, and I have babun setup for when I want a Unix-like terminal but not a full VM (a preconfigured Cygwin distribution).

criddell 11y ago
I like Windows 10 as well. I do wish that Microsoft would make a professional version of 10 with defaults set to whatever is most secure. The way the OS silently and continuously pushes data to the cloud makes it hard to recommend 10 for use where security matters (like in medicine, banking, etc...). It should also be easier to uninstall the Bing bloatware.
- Splines 11y ago
  Windows 10 LTSB is what you would use if you want control over updates and don't need the app store on a PC used in an appliance setting: http://blogs.windows.com/business/2015/01/30/windows-10-for-enterprise-more-secure-and-up-to-date/ http://blogs.windows.com/business/2015/01/30/windows-10-for-... > For example, systems powering hospital emergency rooms, air traffic control towers, financial trading systems, factory floors, just to name a few, may need very strict change management policies, for prolonged periods of time. To support Windows 10 devices in these mission critical customer environments we will provide Long Term Servicing branches at the appropriate time intervals. On these branches, customer devices will receive the level of enterprise support expected for the mission critical systems, keeping systems more secure with the latest security and critical updates, while minimizing change by not delivering new features for the duration of mainstream (five years) and extended support (five years). On Long Term Servicing branches, customers will have the flexibility to deliver security updates and fixes via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) which allows full control over the internal distribution of updates using existing management solutions such as System Center Configuration Manager or to receive these updates automatically via Windows Update.
  - criddell 11y ago

Analemma_ 11y ago

No x86 computer ships with locked bootloaders, it's part of the spec that you have to be able to disable SecureBoot in the BIOS. Having said that, I don't think Linux will be a good fit for this device. People will first have to reverse-engineer the locking mechanism (which is done in software in Windows). That'll probably happen quickly, but then there's the issue of the hybrid graphics, which Linux has never played well with IME. That's assuming Linux drivers will be available for the dGPU at all; it's apparently a custom part from Nvidia and there may not even be a binary blob for them on Linux.

bitwize 11y ago
No x86 computer ships with locked bootloaders, it's part of the spec that you have to be able to disable SecureBoot in the BIOS. Not for Windows 10 it's not!
michaelbuddy 11y ago
I don't think the release mechanism is in Windows, I think it's firmware. I heard you can't release it if your battery level is too low (a setting that might be changed or change-able) but I myself released the screen on a model unit while it was in a boot sequence.
great_kraken 11y ago
This really is the problem. The amount of hardware wizardry going on here is going to be nearly impossible to support on GNU/Linux or any POSIX-like OS without support from Microsoft. Unfortunately, they don't "get" this, and they operate in a vacuum where they believe that the software they create is just the best thing for everyone. I honestly have no idea how they operate under this presumption. Are they unaware of the millions of developers using Macbooks purely for this reason?
- dman 11y ago
  Why single out Microsoft here? Which other commercial vendor is going out of their way to enable bootstrapping OSS code on their platform?

widowlark 11y ago

So, having just checked my Surface Book BIOS, I can speak to a few things: - There is SecureBoot configuration, and it can be reconfigured and disabled. - There are USB and PXE boot options available, so running Linux from those shouldn't be too difficult - It looks like the 'MuscleWire' is controlled by firmware, not windows, as I was able to detach the device in BIOS outside the OS. So give it a few months, I am sure someone will get debian on this thing!