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.
Lemmy community. tiddeR community
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.
Should also mention Nobara Linux (which is funnily enough based on Fedora) has Surface Linux patches baked into its kernel.
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.
Yeah it works- and has for quite a while. My SP3 ran Ubuntu fine back in the day, but it didn’t save it from being an unservice-able piece of shit with failing hardware that overheated in 5 seconds flat.
I am sarcastically shocked that it didn’t prevent the hardware from being shite.
I’m somehow really surprised by the linux community embracing the surface. It’s a horrible piece of hardware. It’s designed to be short lived. Hard to repair or upgrade. Limited connectivity. Etc. I’ve had user come back with their surface where the battery had pushed the screen out.
It’s the best “laptop” I’ve ever owned. Overly expensive, but it’s legitimately the first laptop I’ve had that hasn’t died in a few years. It feels like Microsoft’s response to the Mac-book.
It’s exceptionally bad if one wishes to repair or upgrade, as you stated. Outside of that though - performance, reliability… it’s been pretty good.
As I typed this I remembered that in the past year it’s started hard locking seemingly at random requiring a full shutdown via holding the power button. So, not quite as consistent as a Mac-book.
I’ve supported over the last few years surface pro 4 and hp X2 G4. They are nightmarish devices. The surface pro had constant freeze issues where people had to force restart them, then after two years, the battery wouldn’t last, but we couldn’t change it, because I believe the screen was glued. We had also keyboard and touchpad issues.
Now the X2, same kind of system as the surface, but we have issues where machines become really, really hot. So hot that some have their heat sink burning the displays. We have issue where dust gets in between the display and webcam. Last but not least, your keyboard will die after two year of use, the small connector gets damaged bye folding the keyboard overtime. Making the machine unusable, overtime. Machines that are out of warranty can’t have their keyboard replaced and new keyboard cost a fortune.
Now, if you take any professional grade laptop. Like a Lenovo T or some HP Elite book. You could keep machine in rotation for years after the warranty was over, we had 10+ years old laptop being used as loaner or for short assignments. Because we could upgrade the RAM, HDD->SSD, battery etc. Also don’t get me started on the connector, a surface had 1 USB A one mini DP and a proprietary connector. The x2 3 usb-c port.
The surface are very expensive for what they offer.
IMO, hardware should be very important for the linux community, it must be as important as software!
I cannot say I agree.
I am a road warrior, a linux admin and a salesman. I have my SP9 ARM and while ARM on Windows has been a disappointment, the hardware is top notch and does everything I need.
Plus I work in very dirty environments, so it is nice to be able to buy a new keyboard when needed
There are hundreds of better alternatives, to a MS surface. For linux enthusiasts, hardware should be very important, as important as the software, OS your running.
Greetings from a Surface Book 2 running Fedora 38! Everything works nicely (dtx included), battery life is great. Switching from W10 to Linux on this machine was probably one of the best decisions I could make.
Hmm I’m also still using a surfacebook 2 but with windows 11 and it’s been giving me some issues like hard locks and sometimes overheating. Does the gpu work too or is that not possible? Might switch if that is supported and it does have better battery life.
Surface-linux page for SB2 says their kernel does support Nvidia variants. Not really sure about the battery life because mine only has an iGPU.
My pops has a Surface, first Gen. Middle-tier model. It runs Windows 10, poorly. Do you reckon Linux would work on a first-Gen device?
