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I Finally Found a Solid Debian Tablet: The Surface Go 2

248 points by edward 4y ago

b112 4y ago
In the comments, there is a question about LTE working or not. That's a good question, wish the author replied. Anyone know if y/n?
- snthd 4y ago
  They linked the hardware support matrix: https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Supported-Devices-and-Features#feature-matrix https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Supporte... https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Surface-Go-2#enabling-the-lte-modem https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Surface-... >The LTE version of the Surface Go 2 features the same Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 modem as the Surface Pro 2017 with LTE and the original Surface Go with LTE. The following thread is dedicated to enabling the LTE modem of those systems on Linux
  - b112 4y ago
    Didn't see that, thanks.
- mrbuttons454 4y ago
  It works, with some tweaking. I have a Surface Go 3 with Debian Testing. The Go 2 and Go 3 have the same LTE modem. This article was VERY helpful: https://kepi.cz/surface-go-2-lte-modem https://kepi.cz/surface-go-2-lte-modem Edit: I'm not using the Surface Linux kernel, just the stock Debian Testing kernel.
- hollandheese 4y ago
  Yep! Even the eSim works (as long as you register it in Windows first).
leephillips 4y ago
I’m enjoying Debian on a Surface Pro 3. The hardware, especially the screen, is excellent, except for the keyboard on the cover, but I use a wireless keyboard. Cameras worked with no fuss. It’s not perfect—I have occasional issues after waking from sleep—but it’s close.
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ge96 4y ago
Random comment about the device: I have the weak version and I'm amazed at its sleep battery preserve capability. Put it in airplane mode, hit the power button to turn off screen, then leave it on my desk for weeks, still has battery later on/wakes up.
- csdvrx 4y ago
  > Random comment about the device: I have the weak version and I'm amazed at its sleep battery preserve capability. Put it in airplane mode, hit the power button to turn off screen, then leave it on my desk for weeks, still has battery later on/wakes up. ACPI S01x done right is great: it can consume less power than S3 suspend and resume faster! (though after a few weeks, I think your surface may have gone into S4 hibernate)
- ge96 4y ago
  Will note: I would not recommend the weak SG2 (Pentium Gold Y) as far as usability. It's one of those where you open up a couple of browser tabs and it starts to really perform badly. It gets better if you plug it in, particularly for the updates, they run faster while plugged in. I really just got it to have a Windows tablet that was not too expensive, I had an SB2 before but I ended up selling it. The SB2 was a cool device though. Also I wanted drawing but I ended up using an e-ink tablet for that (also concern with battery) my stuff is just doodles/note taking, so no color is fine and e-ink means long battery life.
deepsun 4y ago
As for decent powered charger try one from https://frame.work https://frame.work -- it also has both power and USB-C cords detachable, so you can use any other USB-C you like, as well as custom length (or plug) power cords.
- csdvrx 4y ago
  > As for decent powered charger try one from https://frame.work https://frame.work -- it also has both power and USB-C cords detachable, so you can use any other USB-C you like, as well as custom length (or plug) power cords. Uh? That's HUGE! I recommend instead a AOHI GaN USB-C PD charger: the 30W is much smaller and sufficient to charge most laptops https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097BWY4WG https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097BWY4WG The chubbier AOHI 65W I got when I thought I may need it now sits at home. I also got a USB-C cable with an integrated display to monitor how much the devices are drawing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MS545VF https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MS545VF
  - Macha 4y ago
    > the 30W is much smaller and sufficient to charge most laptops Even the M1, which is praised for it's power efficiency can hit 40-50W under load. Such a charger will let the battery run down if you actually use your laptop for intensive tasks while charging. I don't think that qualifies as "most laptops" (and forget high end Intel laptops that are more than a generation old, they'd draw more than that watching a 4k movie)
    - csdvrx 4y ago
      > Even the M1, which is praised for it's power efficiency can hit 40-50W under load I've sometimes seen high draws thanks to the small display on the cable, but I rarely do very intensive task at a coffeeshop. The small charger is mostly for the peace of mind. At home, I've got the chubby 65W if needed.
  - deepsun 4y ago
    Nah, 30W is not enough, tried. In Europe, there is a company that does decent custom chargers, but it's nowhere on Amazon (wonder why): https://www.promate.net/collections/wall-chargers https://www.promate.net/collections/wall-chargers
deleted 4y ago
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scandox 4y ago
> I have a wonderful System76 Lemur Pro I bought one of these recently but the keyboard is making me very sad. Especially the arrow keys are almost too small for my fingers.
akvadrako 4y ago
Does anyone have experience with Linux on the latest model, the Surface Go 3? I'm considering getting one of these as they seem like ideal travel devices, but uneasy about having to rely on a small community for basic driver support. Official Linux support would be much better.
- filmgirlcw 4y ago
  I don’t have one anymore (it was an internal device that I gave back when I left Microsoft proper), but I had one last summer and while most of my testing on it was for Windows 11 builds, I did put Linux on it before and after release. And it worked well. I don’t think official support will ever happen, but the Linux Surface project is very good and has lots of users internally at Microsoft who are very committed to helping report bugs/contribute back because they use it for work and for play. There’s a whole community of Linux enthusiasts at Microsoft and unsurprisingly, many use Surface devices, including the Surface Go line. If I were to buy a Surface Go again — maybe the next model will be a little speedier (that was my main gripe with the 3), I think I would primarily use it as a Linux box, with Windows installed just in case , just as OP has.
- hollandheese 4y ago
  Honestly from everything that I've heard is that the Go 2 is overall a better device especially under Linux. Plus it's cheaper. Everything works except for the cameras. I mean the cameras can be made to kinda work, but in their current state don't produce a very good picture.
maxbaines 4y ago
Made possible by the Linux Surface project, have been using this on Surface laptop 3s for a few years its pretty great and an active project. https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface
w4rh4wk5 4y ago
For what it's worth, I can recommend the Surface Go (2 and 3) as a tablet, even if you do not intend to run Linux. Simply because it's x86 and your not running Android or iOS. While the actual tablet experience in Windows 11 is mediocre, the fact that I run plain, regular desktop apps makes the device so much more enjoyable to use. It's not a replacement for a decent laptop, but as a tablet, I'd pick this one over crappy Android or locked-down iOS any time of the day.
- frou_dh 4y ago
  As a tablet, you'd pick a mediocre tablet experience with a regular desktop experience over a good tablet experience? As a tablet?
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    This presumes there is a good tablet experience.
    - least 4y ago
      This requires some elaboration. I'd argue that iPadOS offers an excellent tablet experience because it was built with its unique set of properties in mind. It doesn't behave exactly like a phone and it doesn't behave exactly like a laptop, but you do see elements of both in it. It offers a lot of applications that do all sorts of wonderful things. It's a great way to draw/paint, you can sculpt stuff in 3d, you can create full music tracks with professional quality. You can write books on it, you can watch your tv shows, read your comic books, and do a whole lot of stuff in a way that for me, is simply much more delightful than sitting at my computer. There's plenty of uses that it doesn't serve very well, though. The coding experience is lackluster at best. The fact that there's only one web browser engine is a miss. The fact that the concept of extensibility is severely gimped or nonexistent in applications is a miss (though the addition of extensions to safari helps a bit). The fact that there's no reasonable way to side load officially supported by Apple is awful. A lot of these points are probably ones that are important to the hacker crowd on HN so to those people they probably find it hard to overlook those shortcomings. I use my iPad every day and I love it for the things that it does do. To me that is enough to consider it a good tablet experience.
inawarminister 4y ago
Huh, I might go get a surface go* 1 (with 8gb of ram) as my Linux tablet. Trying to find out which android tablet I can install PostMarketOS on is a bit too difficult. Any issues with the first generation? Edit: sorry, my bad, I meant surface Go 1, not surface pro 1, which is too old I think.
- lucas_codes 4y ago
  Do your research, the surfaces tend to have a lot of hardware issues. There are many threads on the support forum about people losing functionality like touch after updates. I have the surface pro 3 and lucky haven't had major issues, but it has series battery drain while powered off.
dboreham 4y ago
Depending on your needs it may be easier to use WSL2 under Windows vs native Linux since you get full device support. Fwiw I used Surface Go <n> in this mode for years as my "light travel coding" platform but have recently upgraded to the arm-based Surface Pro X. Much (much) faster than the Goen, 16G ram and 1Tb SSD available. Also a full sized keyboard - the most annoying thing I found about the Go is not being able to type quickly. The Pro X is physically larger but not much heavier. Since my bags are all large enough for it, the practical payload difference when traveling is minimal.
- ttarr 4y ago
  I think WSL is overrated. I haven't used Windows for years but it was forced upon me by my new employer. Overall I'm not impressed, at least when compared to a full native Gnome experience. Not sure how people are managing, any filesystem operation (on C: for e.g.) takes forever, also GUI apps feel sluggish and heat the laptop.
  - hnra 4y ago
    Did you use the WSL graphics support in Windows 11? If so then that is pretty disappointing that it performs poorly.
    - e3bc54b2 4y ago
      I am using WSL2 right now and it is not better than 'glass of cold water for someone stuck in hell'. It is better than running Virtualbox, but doesn't hold a candle to real thing.
  - distances 4y ago
    I entered a project with the understanding that the client's systems work with Linux, but that wasn't the case. WSL saved me there -- for me it's much much better than developing on pure Windows. Still at the bottom of my choices though (Linux > Mac > Win WSL > Win).
    - 4y ago
atraac 4y ago
I've been using Surface Book 2 as a work laptop and at this point I won't buy a single Microsoft's hardware beyond an Xbox. It was utterly bad. Lack of thunderbolt so USB-C docks won't fully work, lack of HDMI ports, insane thermal throttling, had issues handling 1000hz polling rate mouses(seriously), quite often laptop would just not turn on until specific reset combination of keys was pressed, general performance issues with time. Whole thing was also very fragile and scratched very easily. And the worst part - power button sticks out so much it was randomly turning on in my laptop bag or backpack, quite often heating really badly and discharging to death. I would come to work almost every day without power. Never again.
- tluyben2 4y ago
  Similar experience. And MS accusing me I dropped it and refusing warranty. I did not drop it; it was broken out of the shop. It never worked well even after I paid for fixing (they just sent a new one). Would be nice if it worked but maybe they should learn something about customer experience and hardware quality from other vendors.
- iasay 4y ago
  Similar experience here. Just shipped 20 off to a recycler. They didn’t even get to a year old. Replaced with thinkpad L series which suck but at least they actually work.
- madjam002 4y ago
  I agree, generally terrible performance all around and poor build quality for the price (almost £3,500 fully specced out). I installed Linux on it recently thanks to the linux-surface project which improved the experience quite a bit as I don’t have to deal with Windows 11 shit anymore, but the performance is still dreadful. You know it’s bad when after 30 mins of it being on it’s slower and laggier than a £500 laptop. Will never by a Surface product again, easily one of the worst purchasing decisions I have made.
- Lucasoato 4y ago
  Similar experience, with a Surface Pro 4 many years ago. After one year it bricked but thanks god I still had the warranty and they sent another one... Am I asking too much? I want a tablet with high precision drawing and low-latency to take notes about everything. Add an ARM processor and I'd buy it today, damn it.
googleide 4y ago
I've used one, not great, but why would you spec a Go out, its a cheap coffee shop laptop, and at least warranty is pretty good in Asia. Keyboard broke, okay do you have a CC, yep, well send you a new one, send us the old back, as long as it isn't your damage (i guess water or obvious drop) its job done and no charge to CC. Small delay as part had to come from Hong Kong to Thailand first. Much better than travelling to and speaking to bloody genius if you happen to get an on the spot appointment with one of the clowns. This was meant in response to the people complaining about build quality
- csdvrx 4y ago
  > I've used one, not great, why would you spec a Go out, its a cheap coffee shop laptop I've done most of my recent coding work on a Go, like, most of my sixel stuff! The size is just right, so it followed me everywhere, and by spending 5 min on it here and there, I could get a lot of work done! Also LTE is great: I don't want to waste even a minute looking for Wifi password. That's another productivity multiplier! After that, I got a X1 nano, it's a great device but a bit too big for me, even it's just about 1 inch larger in both dimensions and about the same thickness. More recently, I've moved to a X1 Fold, and it's even smaller than a Go when folded so it's now my favorite device! There were a few drivers problems I had to tackle, but now it's rock solid on Windows 11. Also, the OLED screen is ideal to use at night!
jcuenod 4y ago
I keep checking youtube for reviews of people running linux on surface tablets. The surface-linux project looks like it's done some really great work and surface pro tablets do equally well. The one piece of hardware I wish there were more work on is the Surface X (especially after seeing how successful the Asahi project has been).
denysvitali 4y ago
Or better, the Surface Pro X (when this is done): https://github.com/Sonicadvance1/linux/issues/27 https://github.com/Sonicadvance1/linux/issues/27
smallerfish 4y ago
I have a surface go 1 running (currently) PopOS, but have been on Kubuntu also. It's a great travel computer, combined with a USB-C dock, mini keyboard, bluetooth headphones and a wireless trackball. I use it to run chrome, zoom, bitwig, and the terminal; I don't think I've ever attempted intellij on it, but it would probably be ok (that said the screen size is too small for me to really want to code on it). Things have steadily gotten better in terms of support via linux-surface, but it's definitely on the wild-west edge of the linux universe; current issues: 1) The wifi driver isn't in the mainline kernel yet for whatever reason. After doing a dist upgrade you have to copy the driver into two locations. This is documented on linux-surface's site; I wrote a script to do it, and it's not that bad. 2) Camera doesn't work. Gives me a good excuse to do off-camera zooms while travelling. :) 3) PopOS specific issue: cannot run their system updater with the linux-surface PPA active. This is really annoying, and probably enough reason for me to just switch back to Kubuntu on it. (Also, I don't like Gnome's insistence on switching to lodpi mode, despite my having set up fractional scaling).
- LAC-Tech 4y ago
  1) The wifi driver isn't in the mainline kernel yet for whatever reason. After doing a dist upgrade you have to copy the driver into two locations. This is documented on linux-surface's site; I wrote a script to do it, and it's not that bad. That's a very Debian issue. It's the only distro where I've ever had to do silly things like that.
- ArtWomb 4y ago
  I've got a vintage Surface One. 32-bit, WinRT. I'd love to just even run a cross compiled golang binary on it. If I recall correctly, even Dropbox wouldn't install. But I've never been tempted to boot linux into it, just because its such an esoteric device, even though the nvidia popos image works. The Adobe paint program is rather elegant. And perhaps the device can run MAME ;)
JohnHaugeland 4y ago
I have one of these and it's wonderful Cellular internet is the bees' knees
darkamaul 4y ago
https://archive.ph/jCczB https://archive.ph/jCczB
highwaylights 4y ago
It doesn’t sound solid reading the author’s post. - EFI didn’t work. - The camera doesn’t work. - The SSD is too small so needed to be topped up with a MicroSD (awful). - Not lap-friendly for travelling (type cover). - Windows 11 needed to be kept around despite not being used (and sometimes rewrote the boot menu, if I’m reading this correctly). This sounds like a downright painful experience. I’m not sure why you’d want this, and it sounds like the author might be trying to force a tablet to be a laptop when they’d have just been better of with a laptop to begin with.
- jlkuester7 4y ago
  Not disagreeing with you per we, but I will note that the author may be judging the tablet as compared to other mobile devices running Linux. With the exception of the PinePhone and a few other devices Linux on mobile devices is truly painful/broken in most cases (and in ways that make this tablet look almost fully featured...).
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    Not true. Linux on BayTrail hardware is pretty much rock-solid by now (at least if you're running Fedora-derived distros). The thing is it can take many years to get to that level of support. It's absolutely normal for newly released hardware to be broken in many ways.
  - Agamus 4y ago
    Untrue. I'm no expert, but I have never had a problem setting up LineageOS on a Samsung - works like a charm, and I love it.
    - rhn_mk1 4y ago
      Lineage is not Linux in the sense that Debian is. They share the kernel and that's it.
  - mrbuttons454 4y ago
    It's pretty broken on the Pinephone too
martyvis 4y ago
I bought a Lenovo Thinkbook 14s Yoga about 1 month ago. Great FHD 360 degree touch screen with a neat docked stylus. Comes with 8GB soldered RAM + 8GB SODIMM that can be swapped for up to 32GB. The 500GB Nvme drive comes with Win10 but having a 2nd empty M.2 slot meant it was easy to put in another drive that now has Ubuntu, Fedora and a sweet ChromeOS installation. Only problem I'm having is getting the built-in mic to work on ChromeOS.
floatboth 4y ago
Put UEFI on the chromebook!! Argh don't write it off, chromebooks are the best x86 platform by far. MrChromebox provides pre-made coreboot+edk2 builds for a ton of chromebooks, but you can make your own too.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  The Lenovo Chromebook Duet uses ARM, not x86, so I don't think MrChromebox supports it. I'm unclear on whether ARM Chromebooks even can support coreboot and/or edk2; do you happen to know if that's possible?
  - floatboth 4y ago
    arm chromebooks usually run coreboot too; the utility of edk2 there would be questionable, as on none of them ACPI tables can cover all the HW, so u-boot would be good enough.
- leni536 4y ago
  Last I checked, you can't do that on more recent models, can you?
  - floatboth 4y ago
    You can, why would that be the case? MrChromebox currently publishes only RW_LEGACY firmware (not full ROM, only replacing the stock SeaBIOS) for AMD Picasso/Dali and Intel Tiger Lake devices, but a) that's enough to boot whatever you want and b) you can build your own full ROM.
seltzered_ 4y ago
I've been using an HP Elite X2 G4 tablet and it's been truly solid: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/comments/s6k1qr/raised_tablet_pc_setup/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/comments/s6k1qr... Only thing that doesn't work is the fingerprint reader. There was a better writeup from someone using debian on a surface pro 6 to run their law firm: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29199395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29199395
mark_l_watson 4y ago
Cool that they are happy with their setup. The author tried the Lenovo Duet Chromebook, which I also have. I agree that the resources on the Duet are light weight for running Linux containers, but I find it very useful nonetheless. To be honest, when I travel with the Duet, I usually SSH into a remote server, but, I do something’s locally. I would like something like the Duet for twice the price with more computational horsepower. The combination of zero-hassle ChromeOS with good Linux container support (also no hassle) is a time saver.
- linmob 4y ago
  Agreed. The Lenovo Duet Chromebook is quite nice, and if one ever gets tired of Chrome OS (or once Google drops it, there's already a distribution [1] that supports it. [1]: https://github.com/Maccraft123/Cadmium https://github.com/Maccraft123/Cadmium
j_walter 4y ago
I have used a SG and SG3 for Kubuntu and have loved it. Add the "Onboard" on screen keyboard and it's a great tablet.
squarefoot 4y ago
I was given years ago a Asus Transformer tablet (don't have the exact model here) by a relative who bought it by mistake and couldn't use it, so I installed Debian Linux on it. For what I can recall, everything but the camera worked, including audio although it needed some post-install tweaking. WiFi, BT, battery management, detachable keyboard and all else worked out of the box. I also seem to recall that the camera was supported later, but I had no use for it and never tried to make it work again. I didn't keep the tablet however ; that was like 4-5+ years ago and at that time the only way to have a working screen rotation was to use Gnome3, which with only 2GB RAM walked like molasses.
cycatz 4y ago
How about XPS 13 2-in-1 or HP spectre 360 ? They can be flipped 180-degrees backwards and have pen support. I recently had a post on reddit asking for the recommendation for a linux 2-in-1 laptop: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/vjc8ta/recommendations_for_a_linux_2in1_laptop_in_2022/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/vjc8ta/recom...
zac23or 4y ago
It's a "Solid Debian Tablet" because it boots. Linux religionists ignore all problems after booting. Linux and Oss in general are religions like Apple is. "Apple has NEVER done anything wrong," an Apple cleric told me about Antennagate. I've been using Linux for programming work for ten years now, but every time I buy a new machine I try to use Linux natively. In the last attempt, Linux stopped working after I tried using a Bluetooth joystick: Linux froze and never booted again. In ten years I never got hardware that runs 100% on Linux. I remember using a ThinkPad in 2010 and the wifi randomly disconnects 10 or more times an hour. I have issues with Flash animations, Youtube, sound, etc, a mix of hardware and software issues. If the ThinkPad is the best hardware for Linux, the worst is not imaginable. But... My friend, a religious Linux uses Linux every day, and for him linux is perfect, his laptop just needs a wifi dongle on USB because linux doesn't support the motherboard wifi chip. And there is a problem when Linux changes the integrated graphics card to a 3D graphics card, the screen goes black because when changing Linux sets the luminance of the screen to 0. The religious person accepts all weird religious things because it's good for you: "now I understand video drivers". No, you don't understand. After every failure in my Linux experience, my religious friend and the internet have told me I'm using either too old or too new hardware, or hardware from a bad vendor (Nivida is Satan) or the wrong Linux distribution (anything that isn't be Debian, Ubuntu included) and I'm too stupid to use Linux. Linux is the land of enlightened people and I'm not one of those people. And some people say "Linux is open, fix the bug yourself"... I love Linux, but I'm not religious about Linux, so to me the current status of Linux on real hardware is a disgrace. Linux works great on VirtualBox or equivalent, I use WSL for my daily work and I love working on Linux on WSL. Windows is a shit show with a lot of problems. But I never lost a Windows because of a joystick.
- deleted 4y ago
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- pessimizer 4y ago
  I'd say your experience is atypical. When I'm preparing to buy a new device that I expect to install Linux on, I look it up and make sure that everything will work (or the steps to take to ensure everything will work.) I buy the device, install Linux on first power-up, it installs fine, I never have any significant problems that I wasn't expecting. Instead of constantly accusing people of being religious zealots (in order to associate them with irrationality), how about just doing an hour of research before making your next attempt?
aposm 4y ago
I have no idea why you'd willingly use a Surface with Linux (let alone call it a solid Linux tablet) given all these problems, but I have a Dell Latitude 5290 2-in-1 (available for under $300 as off-lease refurb depending on specs) which fixes almost all of these. The only real issue is the camera which does not work for similar reasons, but I don't find that to be a big loss because I have a phone with a far better camera on me at all times.
PrivateButts 4y ago
I've been messing around with Linux on some old Surfaces I pulled from the recycling cart at work. Linux on the laptop is fine, but boy howdy has it been a bad time on a tablet device. Wayland seems to have really thrown a wrench in the works. I tested: - Ubuntu 22.04 LTS - Login screen showed the on screen keyboard (OSK) after enabling it in the accessibility menu, but had annoyances like shift staying on after hitting a key - Gnome was okay as a tablet interface, but OSK didn't work in non GTK apps, including Firefox - Autorotate worked once, but then never worked again - After waking up from sleep, the device would go back to sleep after 1 minute, regardless of what I was doing. - Kubuntu 22.04 LTS was like using a desktop OS with only a mouse. No autorotate or OSK - Fedora ran so poorly I gave up on it before testing it thoroughly - Manjaro had a working OSK throughout the OS, but autorotate was busted. It had the same sleep issue after Ubuntu. In addition, the camera didn't work in every OS I tried. I eventually just put W10 back on them.
causality0 4y ago
I would pay good money for a Surface 2 with modern internals. The form factor is lovely and the 1920x1280 display is just perfect at ten inches.
jansommer 4y ago
I recently got the same tablet in a cheap second-hand deal. Seller had never used it so battery is excellent. Bought it because I wanted to kill time by installing Linux, and it actually wasn't as bad as expected. Could have just disabled secure boot and be done with it, but that was probably where I spent most of my time. Waydroid is was easy to install so I can run both Android and Gnome, but x86-64 Android is so limited in software that I uninstalled it. What I found was that it's a cool way to play Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Playing that game on a tablet gives the feeling of playing an interactive board game. It runs smoothly in Wine. A pretty important thing in the game is the ability to right click, which didn't work, and I would assume Windows have the same problem (I don't think Windows tablet support would be sufficient), so I wrote a mouse hook in win32 c that enables long press to right click. There's lots of annoying nuances, like the Gnome 42 icons in the activity list is really small, the on screen keyboard is small and almost unusable in landscape mode (but big in portrait mode) and camera works for gstreamer apps only so no browser support (and the suggested fix doesn't work for Fedora 36). I removed Windows and have locked the boot order so it won't be altered. All in all 10/10 as a tablet for someone looking for excuses to tinker with Linux (and win32!).
- hollandheese 4y ago
  > There's lots of annoying nuances, like the Gnome 42 icons in the activity list is really small, the on screen keyboard is small and almost unusable in landscape mode (but big in portrait mode) I've switched to KDE (Arch) on mine. The on-screen keyboard is vastly better.
bitwize 4y ago
This story inspired me to revive my Acer Switch 5 tablet. When I booted it last (before today), the display was glitchy. I don't know if it's faulty hardware or Linux, but I do know the glitches never appeared in the Windows recovery environment. Recent (5.13.x and later) kernels seem to have ameliorated the glitch problem, which would cause the display to flash off for a split second from time to time. Very distracting. Small glitches still appear, but very infrequently. Anyway, with a fresh Void install and EFI fuckery-duckery, it somewhat resembles a working tablet now. I'll have to get a new battery for the pen but that's a minor detail.
antran22 4y ago
Has anyone tried installing Linux on a Chromebook machine? I see that there are a few Chromebook tablet, but I am not sure that the support for this setup would be prevalent now.

248 points by edward 4y ago

b112 4y ago

In the comments, there is a question about LTE working or not. That's a good question, wish the author replied. Anyone know if y/n?

snthd 4y ago
They linked the hardware support matrix: https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Supported-Devices-and-Features#feature-matrix https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Supporte... https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Surface-Go-2#enabling-the-lte-modem https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Surface-... >The LTE version of the Surface Go 2 features the same Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 modem as the Surface Pro 2017 with LTE and the original Surface Go with LTE. The following thread is dedicated to enabling the LTE modem of those systems on Linux
- b112 4y ago
  Didn't see that, thanks.
mrbuttons454 4y ago
It works, with some tweaking. I have a Surface Go 3 with Debian Testing. The Go 2 and Go 3 have the same LTE modem. This article was VERY helpful: https://kepi.cz/surface-go-2-lte-modem https://kepi.cz/surface-go-2-lte-modem Edit: I'm not using the Surface Linux kernel, just the stock Debian Testing kernel.
hollandheese 4y ago
Yep! Even the eSim works (as long as you register it in Windows first).

leephillips 4y ago

I’m enjoying Debian on a Surface Pro 3. The hardware, especially the screen, is excellent, except for the keyboard on the cover, but I use a wireless keyboard. Cameras worked with no fuss. It’s not perfect—I have occasional issues after waking from sleep—but it’s close.

deleted 4y ago

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ge96 4y ago

Random comment about the device: I have the weak version and I'm amazed at its sleep battery preserve capability. Put it in airplane mode, hit the power button to turn off screen, then leave it on my desk for weeks, still has battery later on/wakes up.

csdvrx 4y ago
> Random comment about the device: I have the weak version and I'm amazed at its sleep battery preserve capability. Put it in airplane mode, hit the power button to turn off screen, then leave it on my desk for weeks, still has battery later on/wakes up. ACPI S01x done right is great: it can consume less power than S3 suspend and resume faster! (though after a few weeks, I think your surface may have gone into S4 hibernate)
ge96 4y ago
Will note: I would not recommend the weak SG2 (Pentium Gold Y) as far as usability. It's one of those where you open up a couple of browser tabs and it starts to really perform badly. It gets better if you plug it in, particularly for the updates, they run faster while plugged in. I really just got it to have a Windows tablet that was not too expensive, I had an SB2 before but I ended up selling it. The SB2 was a cool device though. Also I wanted drawing but I ended up using an e-ink tablet for that (also concern with battery) my stuff is just doodles/note taking, so no color is fine and e-ink means long battery life.

deepsun 4y ago

As for decent powered charger try one from https://frame.work https://frame.work -- it also has both power and USB-C cords detachable, so you can use any other USB-C you like, as well as custom length (or plug) power cords.

csdvrx 4y ago
> As for decent powered charger try one from https://frame.work https://frame.work -- it also has both power and USB-C cords detachable, so you can use any other USB-C you like, as well as custom length (or plug) power cords. Uh? That's HUGE! I recommend instead a AOHI GaN USB-C PD charger: the 30W is much smaller and sufficient to charge most laptops https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097BWY4WG https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097BWY4WG The chubbier AOHI 65W I got when I thought I may need it now sits at home. I also got a USB-C cable with an integrated display to monitor how much the devices are drawing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MS545VF https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MS545VF
- Macha 4y ago
  > the 30W is much smaller and sufficient to charge most laptops Even the M1, which is praised for it's power efficiency can hit 40-50W under load. Such a charger will let the battery run down if you actually use your laptop for intensive tasks while charging. I don't think that qualifies as "most laptops" (and forget high end Intel laptops that are more than a generation old, they'd draw more than that watching a 4k movie)
  - csdvrx 4y ago
    > Even the M1, which is praised for it's power efficiency can hit 40-50W under load I've sometimes seen high draws thanks to the small display on the cable, but I rarely do very intensive task at a coffeeshop. The small charger is mostly for the peace of mind. At home, I've got the chubby 65W if needed.
- deepsun 4y ago
  Nah, 30W is not enough, tried. In Europe, there is a company that does decent custom chargers, but it's nowhere on Amazon (wonder why): https://www.promate.net/collections/wall-chargers https://www.promate.net/collections/wall-chargers

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scandox 4y ago

> I have a wonderful System76 Lemur Pro I bought one of these recently but the keyboard is making me very sad. Especially the arrow keys are almost too small for my fingers.

akvadrako 4y ago

Does anyone have experience with Linux on the latest model, the Surface Go 3? I'm considering getting one of these as they seem like ideal travel devices, but uneasy about having to rely on a small community for basic driver support. Official Linux support would be much better.

filmgirlcw 4y ago
I don’t have one anymore (it was an internal device that I gave back when I left Microsoft proper), but I had one last summer and while most of my testing on it was for Windows 11 builds, I did put Linux on it before and after release. And it worked well. I don’t think official support will ever happen, but the Linux Surface project is very good and has lots of users internally at Microsoft who are very committed to helping report bugs/contribute back because they use it for work and for play. There’s a whole community of Linux enthusiasts at Microsoft and unsurprisingly, many use Surface devices, including the Surface Go line. If I were to buy a Surface Go again — maybe the next model will be a little speedier (that was my main gripe with the 3), I think I would primarily use it as a Linux box, with Windows installed just in case , just as OP has.
hollandheese 4y ago
Honestly from everything that I've heard is that the Go 2 is overall a better device especially under Linux. Plus it's cheaper. Everything works except for the cameras. I mean the cameras can be made to kinda work, but in their current state don't produce a very good picture.

maxbaines 4y ago

Made possible by the Linux Surface project, have been using this on Surface laptop 3s for a few years its pretty great and an active project. https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface

w4rh4wk5 4y ago

For what it's worth, I can recommend the Surface Go (2 and 3) as a tablet, even if you do not intend to run Linux. Simply because it's x86 and your not running Android or iOS. While the actual tablet experience in Windows 11 is mediocre, the fact that I run plain, regular desktop apps makes the device so much more enjoyable to use. It's not a replacement for a decent laptop, but as a tablet, I'd pick this one over crappy Android or locked-down iOS any time of the day.

frou_dh 4y ago
As a tablet, you'd pick a mediocre tablet experience with a regular desktop experience over a good tablet experience? As a tablet?
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  This presumes there is a good tablet experience.
  - least 4y ago
    This requires some elaboration. I'd argue that iPadOS offers an excellent tablet experience because it was built with its unique set of properties in mind. It doesn't behave exactly like a phone and it doesn't behave exactly like a laptop, but you do see elements of both in it. It offers a lot of applications that do all sorts of wonderful things. It's a great way to draw/paint, you can sculpt stuff in 3d, you can create full music tracks with professional quality. You can write books on it, you can watch your tv shows, read your comic books, and do a whole lot of stuff in a way that for me, is simply much more delightful than sitting at my computer. There's plenty of uses that it doesn't serve very well, though. The coding experience is lackluster at best. The fact that there's only one web browser engine is a miss. The fact that the concept of extensibility is severely gimped or nonexistent in applications is a miss (though the addition of extensions to safari helps a bit). The fact that there's no reasonable way to side load officially supported by Apple is awful. A lot of these points are probably ones that are important to the hacker crowd on HN so to those people they probably find it hard to overlook those shortcomings. I use my iPad every day and I love it for the things that it does do. To me that is enough to consider it a good tablet experience.

inawarminister 4y ago

Huh, I might go get a surface go* 1 (with 8gb of ram) as my Linux tablet. Trying to find out which android tablet I can install PostMarketOS on is a bit too difficult. Any issues with the first generation? Edit: sorry, my bad, I meant surface Go 1, not surface pro 1, which is too old I think.

lucas_codes 4y ago
Do your research, the surfaces tend to have a lot of hardware issues. There are many threads on the support forum about people losing functionality like touch after updates. I have the surface pro 3 and lucky haven't had major issues, but it has series battery drain while powered off.

dboreham 4y ago

Depending on your needs it may be easier to use WSL2 under Windows vs native Linux since you get full device support. Fwiw I used Surface Go <n> in this mode for years as my "light travel coding" platform but have recently upgraded to the arm-based Surface Pro X. Much (much) faster than the Goen, 16G ram and 1Tb SSD available. Also a full sized keyboard - the most annoying thing I found about the Go is not being able to type quickly. The Pro X is physically larger but not much heavier. Since my bags are all large enough for it, the practical payload difference when traveling is minimal.

ttarr 4y ago
I think WSL is overrated. I haven't used Windows for years but it was forced upon me by my new employer. Overall I'm not impressed, at least when compared to a full native Gnome experience. Not sure how people are managing, any filesystem operation (on C: for e.g.) takes forever, also GUI apps feel sluggish and heat the laptop.
- hnra 4y ago
  Did you use the WSL graphics support in Windows 11? If so then that is pretty disappointing that it performs poorly.
  - e3bc54b2 4y ago
    I am using WSL2 right now and it is not better than 'glass of cold water for someone stuck in hell'. It is better than running Virtualbox, but doesn't hold a candle to real thing.
- distances 4y ago
  I entered a project with the understanding that the client's systems work with Linux, but that wasn't the case. WSL saved me there -- for me it's much much better than developing on pure Windows. Still at the bottom of my choices though (Linux > Mac > Win WSL > Win).
  - 4y ago

atraac 4y ago

I've been using Surface Book 2 as a work laptop and at this point I won't buy a single Microsoft's hardware beyond an Xbox. It was utterly bad. Lack of thunderbolt so USB-C docks won't fully work, lack of HDMI ports, insane thermal throttling, had issues handling 1000hz polling rate mouses(seriously), quite often laptop would just not turn on until specific reset combination of keys was pressed, general performance issues with time. Whole thing was also very fragile and scratched very easily. And the worst part - power button sticks out so much it was randomly turning on in my laptop bag or backpack, quite often heating really badly and discharging to death. I would come to work almost every day without power. Never again.

tluyben2 4y ago
Similar experience. And MS accusing me I dropped it and refusing warranty. I did not drop it; it was broken out of the shop. It never worked well even after I paid for fixing (they just sent a new one). Would be nice if it worked but maybe they should learn something about customer experience and hardware quality from other vendors.
iasay 4y ago
Similar experience here. Just shipped 20 off to a recycler. They didn’t even get to a year old. Replaced with thinkpad L series which suck but at least they actually work.
madjam002 4y ago
I agree, generally terrible performance all around and poor build quality for the price (almost £3,500 fully specced out). I installed Linux on it recently thanks to the linux-surface project which improved the experience quite a bit as I don’t have to deal with Windows 11 shit anymore, but the performance is still dreadful. You know it’s bad when after 30 mins of it being on it’s slower and laggier than a £500 laptop. Will never by a Surface product again, easily one of the worst purchasing decisions I have made.
Lucasoato 4y ago
Similar experience, with a Surface Pro 4 many years ago. After one year it bricked but thanks god I still had the warranty and they sent another one... Am I asking too much? I want a tablet with high precision drawing and low-latency to take notes about everything. Add an ARM processor and I'd buy it today, damn it.

googleide 4y ago

I've used one, not great, but why would you spec a Go out, its a cheap coffee shop laptop, and at least warranty is pretty good in Asia. Keyboard broke, okay do you have a CC, yep, well send you a new one, send us the old back, as long as it isn't your damage (i guess water or obvious drop) its job done and no charge to CC. Small delay as part had to come from Hong Kong to Thailand first. Much better than travelling to and speaking to bloody genius if you happen to get an on the spot appointment with one of the clowns. This was meant in response to the people complaining about build quality

csdvrx 4y ago
> I've used one, not great, why would you spec a Go out, its a cheap coffee shop laptop I've done most of my recent coding work on a Go, like, most of my sixel stuff! The size is just right, so it followed me everywhere, and by spending 5 min on it here and there, I could get a lot of work done! Also LTE is great: I don't want to waste even a minute looking for Wifi password. That's another productivity multiplier! After that, I got a X1 nano, it's a great device but a bit too big for me, even it's just about 1 inch larger in both dimensions and about the same thickness. More recently, I've moved to a X1 Fold, and it's even smaller than a Go when folded so it's now my favorite device! There were a few drivers problems I had to tackle, but now it's rock solid on Windows 11. Also, the OLED screen is ideal to use at night!

jcuenod 4y ago

I keep checking youtube for reviews of people running linux on surface tablets. The surface-linux project looks like it's done some really great work and surface pro tablets do equally well. The one piece of hardware I wish there were more work on is the Surface X (especially after seeing how successful the Asahi project has been).

denysvitali 4y ago

Or better, the Surface Pro X (when this is done): https://github.com/Sonicadvance1/linux/issues/27 https://github.com/Sonicadvance1/linux/issues/27

smallerfish 4y ago

I have a surface go 1 running (currently) PopOS, but have been on Kubuntu also. It's a great travel computer, combined with a USB-C dock, mini keyboard, bluetooth headphones and a wireless trackball. I use it to run chrome, zoom, bitwig, and the terminal; I don't think I've ever attempted intellij on it, but it would probably be ok (that said the screen size is too small for me to really want to code on it). Things have steadily gotten better in terms of support via linux-surface, but it's definitely on the wild-west edge of the linux universe; current issues: 1) The wifi driver isn't in the mainline kernel yet for whatever reason. After doing a dist upgrade you have to copy the driver into two locations. This is documented on linux-surface's site; I wrote a script to do it, and it's not that bad. 2) Camera doesn't work. Gives me a good excuse to do off-camera zooms while travelling. :) 3) PopOS specific issue: cannot run their system updater with the linux-surface PPA active. This is really annoying, and probably enough reason for me to just switch back to Kubuntu on it. (Also, I don't like Gnome's insistence on switching to lodpi mode, despite my having set up fractional scaling).

LAC-Tech 4y ago
1) The wifi driver isn't in the mainline kernel yet for whatever reason. After doing a dist upgrade you have to copy the driver into two locations. This is documented on linux-surface's site; I wrote a script to do it, and it's not that bad. That's a very Debian issue. It's the only distro where I've ever had to do silly things like that.
ArtWomb 4y ago
I've got a vintage Surface One. 32-bit, WinRT. I'd love to just even run a cross compiled golang binary on it. If I recall correctly, even Dropbox wouldn't install. But I've never been tempted to boot linux into it, just because its such an esoteric device, even though the nvidia popos image works. The Adobe paint program is rather elegant. And perhaps the device can run MAME ;)

JohnHaugeland 4y ago

I have one of these and it's wonderful Cellular internet is the bees' knees

darkamaul 4y ago

https://archive.ph/jCczB https://archive.ph/jCczB

highwaylights 4y ago

It doesn’t sound solid reading the author’s post. - EFI didn’t work. - The camera doesn’t work. - The SSD is too small so needed to be topped up with a MicroSD (awful). - Not lap-friendly for travelling (type cover). - Windows 11 needed to be kept around despite not being used (and sometimes rewrote the boot menu, if I’m reading this correctly). This sounds like a downright painful experience. I’m not sure why you’d want this, and it sounds like the author might be trying to force a tablet to be a laptop when they’d have just been better of with a laptop to begin with.

jlkuester7 4y ago
Not disagreeing with you per we, but I will note that the author may be judging the tablet as compared to other mobile devices running Linux. With the exception of the PinePhone and a few other devices Linux on mobile devices is truly painful/broken in most cases (and in ways that make this tablet look almost fully featured...).
- zozbot234 4y ago
  Not true. Linux on BayTrail hardware is pretty much rock-solid by now (at least if you're running Fedora-derived distros). The thing is it can take many years to get to that level of support. It's absolutely normal for newly released hardware to be broken in many ways.
- Agamus 4y ago
  Untrue. I'm no expert, but I have never had a problem setting up LineageOS on a Samsung - works like a charm, and I love it.
  - rhn_mk1 4y ago
    Lineage is not Linux in the sense that Debian is. They share the kernel and that's it.
- mrbuttons454 4y ago
  It's pretty broken on the Pinephone too

martyvis 4y ago

I bought a Lenovo Thinkbook 14s Yoga about 1 month ago. Great FHD 360 degree touch screen with a neat docked stylus. Comes with 8GB soldered RAM + 8GB SODIMM that can be swapped for up to 32GB. The 500GB Nvme drive comes with Win10 but having a 2nd empty M.2 slot meant it was easy to put in another drive that now has Ubuntu, Fedora and a sweet ChromeOS installation. Only problem I'm having is getting the built-in mic to work on ChromeOS.

floatboth 4y ago

Put UEFI on the chromebook!! Argh don't write it off, chromebooks are the best x86 platform by far. MrChromebox provides pre-made coreboot+edk2 builds for a ton of chromebooks, but you can make your own too.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
The Lenovo Chromebook Duet uses ARM, not x86, so I don't think MrChromebox supports it. I'm unclear on whether ARM Chromebooks even can support coreboot and/or edk2; do you happen to know if that's possible?
- floatboth 4y ago
  arm chromebooks usually run coreboot too; the utility of edk2 there would be questionable, as on none of them ACPI tables can cover all the HW, so u-boot would be good enough.
leni536 4y ago
Last I checked, you can't do that on more recent models, can you?
- floatboth 4y ago
  You can, why would that be the case? MrChromebox currently publishes only RW_LEGACY firmware (not full ROM, only replacing the stock SeaBIOS) for AMD Picasso/Dali and Intel Tiger Lake devices, but a) that's enough to boot whatever you want and b) you can build your own full ROM.

seltzered_ 4y ago

I've been using an HP Elite X2 G4 tablet and it's been truly solid: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/comments/s6k1qr/raised_tablet_pc_setup/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/comments/s6k1qr... Only thing that doesn't work is the fingerprint reader. There was a better writeup from someone using debian on a surface pro 6 to run their law firm: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29199395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29199395

mark_l_watson 4y ago

Cool that they are happy with their setup. The author tried the Lenovo Duet Chromebook, which I also have. I agree that the resources on the Duet are light weight for running Linux containers, but I find it very useful nonetheless. To be honest, when I travel with the Duet, I usually SSH into a remote server, but, I do something’s locally. I would like something like the Duet for twice the price with more computational horsepower. The combination of zero-hassle ChromeOS with good Linux container support (also no hassle) is a time saver.

linmob 4y ago
Agreed. The Lenovo Duet Chromebook is quite nice, and if one ever gets tired of Chrome OS (or once Google drops it, there's already a distribution [1] that supports it. [1]: https://github.com/Maccraft123/Cadmium https://github.com/Maccraft123/Cadmium

j_walter 4y ago

I have used a SG and SG3 for Kubuntu and have loved it. Add the "Onboard" on screen keyboard and it's a great tablet.

squarefoot 4y ago

I was given years ago a Asus Transformer tablet (don't have the exact model here) by a relative who bought it by mistake and couldn't use it, so I installed Debian Linux on it. For what I can recall, everything but the camera worked, including audio although it needed some post-install tweaking. WiFi, BT, battery management, detachable keyboard and all else worked out of the box. I also seem to recall that the camera was supported later, but I had no use for it and never tried to make it work again. I didn't keep the tablet however ; that was like 4-5+ years ago and at that time the only way to have a working screen rotation was to use Gnome3, which with only 2GB RAM walked like molasses.

cycatz 4y ago

How about XPS 13 2-in-1 or HP spectre 360 ? They can be flipped 180-degrees backwards and have pen support. I recently had a post on reddit asking for the recommendation for a linux 2-in-1 laptop: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/vjc8ta/recommendations_for_a_linux_2in1_laptop_in_2022/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/vjc8ta/recom...

zac23or 4y ago

It's a "Solid Debian Tablet" because it boots. Linux religionists ignore all problems after booting. Linux and Oss in general are religions like Apple is. "Apple has NEVER done anything wrong," an Apple cleric told me about Antennagate. I've been using Linux for programming work for ten years now, but every time I buy a new machine I try to use Linux natively. In the last attempt, Linux stopped working after I tried using a Bluetooth joystick: Linux froze and never booted again. In ten years I never got hardware that runs 100% on Linux. I remember using a ThinkPad in 2010 and the wifi randomly disconnects 10 or more times an hour. I have issues with Flash animations, Youtube, sound, etc, a mix of hardware and software issues. If the ThinkPad is the best hardware for Linux, the worst is not imaginable. But... My friend, a religious Linux uses Linux every day, and for him linux is perfect, his laptop just needs a wifi dongle on USB because linux doesn't support the motherboard wifi chip. And there is a problem when Linux changes the integrated graphics card to a 3D graphics card, the screen goes black because when changing Linux sets the luminance of the screen to 0. The religious person accepts all weird religious things because it's good for you: "now I understand video drivers". No, you don't understand. After every failure in my Linux experience, my religious friend and the internet have told me I'm using either too old or too new hardware, or hardware from a bad vendor (Nivida is Satan) or the wrong Linux distribution (anything that isn't be Debian, Ubuntu included) and I'm too stupid to use Linux. Linux is the land of enlightened people and I'm not one of those people. And some people say "Linux is open, fix the bug yourself"... I love Linux, but I'm not religious about Linux, so to me the current status of Linux on real hardware is a disgrace. Linux works great on VirtualBox or equivalent, I use WSL for my daily work and I love working on Linux on WSL. Windows is a shit show with a lot of problems. But I never lost a Windows because of a joystick.

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pessimizer 4y ago
I'd say your experience is atypical. When I'm preparing to buy a new device that I expect to install Linux on, I look it up and make sure that everything will work (or the steps to take to ensure everything will work.) I buy the device, install Linux on first power-up, it installs fine, I never have any significant problems that I wasn't expecting. Instead of constantly accusing people of being religious zealots (in order to associate them with irrationality), how about just doing an hour of research before making your next attempt?

aposm 4y ago

I have no idea why you'd willingly use a Surface with Linux (let alone call it a solid Linux tablet) given all these problems, but I have a Dell Latitude 5290 2-in-1 (available for under $300 as off-lease refurb depending on specs) which fixes almost all of these. The only real issue is the camera which does not work for similar reasons, but I don't find that to be a big loss because I have a phone with a far better camera on me at all times.

PrivateButts 4y ago

I've been messing around with Linux on some old Surfaces I pulled from the recycling cart at work. Linux on the laptop is fine, but boy howdy has it been a bad time on a tablet device. Wayland seems to have really thrown a wrench in the works. I tested: - Ubuntu 22.04 LTS - Login screen showed the on screen keyboard (OSK) after enabling it in the accessibility menu, but had annoyances like shift staying on after hitting a key - Gnome was okay as a tablet interface, but OSK didn't work in non GTK apps, including Firefox - Autorotate worked once, but then never worked again - After waking up from sleep, the device would go back to sleep after 1 minute, regardless of what I was doing. - Kubuntu 22.04 LTS was like using a desktop OS with only a mouse. No autorotate or OSK - Fedora ran so poorly I gave up on it before testing it thoroughly - Manjaro had a working OSK throughout the OS, but autorotate was busted. It had the same sleep issue after Ubuntu. In addition, the camera didn't work in every OS I tried. I eventually just put W10 back on them.

causality0 4y ago

I would pay good money for a Surface 2 with modern internals. The form factor is lovely and the 1920x1280 display is just perfect at ten inches.

jansommer 4y ago

I recently got the same tablet in a cheap second-hand deal. Seller had never used it so battery is excellent. Bought it because I wanted to kill time by installing Linux, and it actually wasn't as bad as expected. Could have just disabled secure boot and be done with it, but that was probably where I spent most of my time. Waydroid is was easy to install so I can run both Android and Gnome, but x86-64 Android is so limited in software that I uninstalled it. What I found was that it's a cool way to play Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Playing that game on a tablet gives the feeling of playing an interactive board game. It runs smoothly in Wine. A pretty important thing in the game is the ability to right click, which didn't work, and I would assume Windows have the same problem (I don't think Windows tablet support would be sufficient), so I wrote a mouse hook in win32 c that enables long press to right click. There's lots of annoying nuances, like the Gnome 42 icons in the activity list is really small, the on screen keyboard is small and almost unusable in landscape mode (but big in portrait mode) and camera works for gstreamer apps only so no browser support (and the suggested fix doesn't work for Fedora 36). I removed Windows and have locked the boot order so it won't be altered. All in all 10/10 as a tablet for someone looking for excuses to tinker with Linux (and win32!).

hollandheese 4y ago
> There's lots of annoying nuances, like the Gnome 42 icons in the activity list is really small, the on screen keyboard is small and almost unusable in landscape mode (but big in portrait mode) I've switched to KDE (Arch) on mine. The on-screen keyboard is vastly better.

bitwize 4y ago

This story inspired me to revive my Acer Switch 5 tablet. When I booted it last (before today), the display was glitchy. I don't know if it's faulty hardware or Linux, but I do know the glitches never appeared in the Windows recovery environment. Recent (5.13.x and later) kernels seem to have ameliorated the glitch problem, which would cause the display to flash off for a split second from time to time. Very distracting. Small glitches still appear, but very infrequently. Anyway, with a fresh Void install and EFI fuckery-duckery, it somewhat resembles a working tablet now. I'll have to get a new battery for the pen but that's a minor detail.

antran22 4y ago

Has anyone tried installing Linux on a Chromebook machine? I see that there are a few Chromebook tablet, but I am not sure that the support for this setup would be prevalent now.