Linux On A Microsoft Surface Is AWESOME

[@MichaelNROH]

There is an updated video for running Linux on a Microsoft Surface for 2024: kzbin.info/www/bejne/epCWi4Z5a8hgrbM

[@giusn]

I have a Surface Book 2. I just installed Fedora 36 and HOLY COW! Basically everything works perfectly, including the detach, the camera and the pen. The pen even works better than in Windows 11 with Xournal++.

[@BenjaminWheeler0510]

@fernando henriques camera compatibility doesn’t work for anything yet

[@BenjaminWheeler0510]

@fernando henriques but, I have the same issue with the pen (Surface Pro 7)

[@magicfairycome]

THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING!!! I mean I'm using an HP Envy x360 convertible and ParrotOS, but xournal++ and Write (by stylus labs) were the first and only 2 notetaking apps I've tried thus far, and they're both INFINITELY better than any notetaking app I've ever used in the past 5 years on Windows, obviously including OneNote. And I've tried just about every single notetaking app in existence on Windows. It's so frustrating, mindblowing, and also amazing (now that I'm actually using linux) that some random linux dudes make better software than multi-billion dollar companies like microsoft...

[@vixxo548]

@giusn How is the battery ? How many hours ?

[@shrirammadurantakam]

@@magicfairycome include rnote in the list its also great

[@mstarOnYT]

Got myself a Surface Go 3 for Uni last year and Fedora works way better then Windows. Everything except for the cameras worked just as expected. Now, with the latest kernel release from the linux-surface team those work too. Need a bit of fine-tuning, but they work good enough already. Am happy with my choice

[@aleckbo]

Do you dual-boot? Just curious

[@mistercrisper84]

@@aleckbo if you have secure boot off, yes you can have grub to handle it but only with secure boot off or signed kernels. So yes, dual boot is possible.

[@LazyPCRehab]

How are the speakers and battery life? Just picked up a base model for a crazy good price and thinking about trying to install to a Micro SD card and making grub boot to it.

[@mistercrisper84]

@@LazyPCRehab camera not working - touch not properly functional sometimes - Bluetooth freezes and doesn't keep settings - pen not working - speakers were performing very well audio was very good. I had latest Fedora and latest surface kernel for my surface pro 7 - still a lot of job but progressing very fast. Battery life? Well battery life was just incredibly long, it had a very very very well balanced and long lasting power setup. 2 days without charging and still 60 % of course not all hardware is fully functional, but it's impressive 😍

[@IhateCCP]

@@mistercrisper84 wow ok. I have fedora 36 and 37(beta) on Surface Pro 4. Touchscreen not working. I am reading about the right kernel. Will try again.

[@Julian_H]

Got a Surface Go 3 and installed ubuntu on it - I'd be lying if I said I had no issues, but after getting most things resolved it's now almost a perfect device for a cs student. Great for taking notes with xournal++, plus all the benefits of development you get with linux, and considering the low specs it's all very smooth.

[@dandiaz19934]

I love and really appreciate your honesty man!

[@michelparker9215]

I've installed Kali Linux on my Surface Pro 7, but the resolution isn't compatible. I've tried to change it from settings, but the problem persists. Additionally, in tablet mode, I can't double-click, and I can't zoom in.

[@FlorianXXV]

Dude you are my soulmate. I got a Surface Go and Installed Ubuntu with Xournal++, to use for my cs bachelor lol. Though I did have issues as well, xournal would crash but I fixed it with an updated driver.

[@UltimateArts13]

How’d you fix charging

[@jasper2virtual]

Microsoft ：Why Surface is better than Apple silicon MacBook? Linux User ：because it can run Linux

[@DMSBrian24]

Asahi devs be like: hold my beer

[@yuvrajsingh15823]

​@@DMSBrian24It is still in development.

[@tkabiranik]

Tada!!!

[@iagomorandi6543]

@@DMSBrian24 Asahi is still not working since you are not able to use you laptop thunderbolts =(

[@DrFizzyQuizzler]

I had the Original Surface Pro back in and around 2015, it came with windows 8 installed, but within about a year I had Ubuntu installed on it. almost nothing worked, even the WIFI was not working and I had to buy a wifi dongle for it. but it was amazing to me. fast forward about 2 years later and almost everything worked with the stock Ubuntu Kernel. glad to see that I wasn't the only one crazy enough to do this.

[@kerimtim]

5:32 Wow I never thought that this setting would be hidden deep down there, I've been trying this all day. Thank you man

[@uwuifyingransomware]

I'm very excited to install linux on my new surface, it's a bit of a learning curve since I've never used things like shim for validation. Was initially going to install it with arch (that's what I use on my desktop), I did try that and had some issues with secureboot and shim, going to try again but I have to say fedora does look appealing for this purpose.

[@mistermistero652]

I have arch running on my surfacebook 2, but i dont have secureboot enabled

[@jean-clairguichard1895]

@uwuifyingransomware did you find out about this? I was trying this today, but I'm stuck with the wrong kernel. and an error "bad shim signature" could you eventually help? (I tried to install fedora silverblue, for some reasons... but I was thinking with the workstation version and see if it works better.) Thanks for your help anyway

[@poligarpi]

I own a SP 7, been using Linux and windows hopping that the touch drivers will get better and to have pen support, the developers added pen support a month ago, since then I just removed windows out of my life

[@dannygboyo]

which distro? can you point me towards installation/set-up help/instructions. thank you

[@poligarpi]

@@dannygboyo man, just install any distro you like, and google how to install the Linux surface kernel

[@sanjay59741]

How is it now. Did it improve? I own SP7+ and read that the camera will not work.

[@poligarpi]

@@sanjay59741 Is way better now, but I'm no longer using the SP7, I was tired of dealing with MS products so I'm now using an HP Envy x360 that has way better Linux support, pretty much everything works out of the box

[@poligarpi]

@@sanjay59741 no, it doesn't work, but for the rest is great, I'm no longer using the SP7, currently shifted to a HP Envy x360 so I could not be able to give any updates on this, the HP is working awesome for far 😅

[@kote315]

I don't like gnome on desktops (I prefer more classic GUIs), but on touch screen it can be really good. Something like this would be the perfect device for me to study (previously) and work (now). That is, I need a small lightweight computer with different physical ports and a fully functional OS. At one time, such devices were netbooks, but now they, as a class of devices, are practically dead. Android tablets are not suitable for me - they usually do not have the necessary ports (usb, ethernet, etc.), and the OS is too limited. Great for fun, but not for work. So a Windows or Linux tablet with a physical keyboard seems ideal. The only problem is that these are either unusable Chinese junk or rather expensive models.

[@die_lokki287]

Why not 14 inch laptop

[@MyurrDurr]

I love Fedora too! Somehow it only uses 6gb of storage space on my laptops SSD upon install! Really great

[@coffeeflush5313]

Subscribed due to this video. For me lack of camera support is the negative, but as soon as that is added, I am moving away. Win 11 killed my tablets performance and battery. But really looking forward to this. Great video, look forward to your content.

[@EeshanShukla]

Loved this video. Never thought about buying a Surface before this. Thanks

[@daddie212]

i tried 2 linux distro on my surface go (manjaro,debian) and now i'm using it with FideOs(chromeOS with android support) and it work wonderfully

[@brettdent1540]

Awesome video! Installing Fedora as I type this! Looking forward to the power profiles so hopefully will prevent eating my battery life.

[@MichaelNROH]

If you have a Surface Pro 7+, 8 or 9 which requires additional drivers, there now is a script available which automatically installs all dependencies for you: github.com/themediocredev/LTSS Currently, only Fedora is officially supported, but the script can easily be altered.

[@kevinlamek1935]

Bonjour, Le tactile ne fonctionne pas nativement pour les surfaces 8 ? Il est obligatoirement nécessaire d'installer le script ? ---- Hello, The touchscreen does not work natively for surfaces 8? Is it necessary to install the script ?

[@nortonis3565]

Thank you for the information. It is only Surface Pro 7, think the basic version with 4gb and i3 10th gen cpu. I have Mint on in now and i like it a lot, but a little sad about non function touch.

[@gmt1]

I have Fedora 36 stock on an Acer 2-in-1 and everything 'just works'. Touchscreen is good, touchpad gestures fantastic, it even auto-detects when I flip into tablet mode. Battery life is also better without Windows 10 scanning for 'viruses' 12 times in a row everyday. I don't use encryption, but it is free on Linux and not for Windows Home. Much snappier overall. Recently switched to Fedora 36 on my Windows 11 desktop and its great (although I can't get Davinci Resolve working at all).

[@MichaelNROH]

I made a video about Davinci Resolve

[@gmt1]

@@MichaelNROH Thanks man, most up-to-date guide I've seen lol. Doesn't help me personally, though. Gotta mess with AMD Pro drivers and Kernal versions that risk borking my system so I gave up. Using Kdenlive now but its color correction is absolute garbage.

[@sujeewa8067]

Linux is getting better for every single thing! Yay go linux!

[@fennecbesixdouze1794]

The tough part for me here is longevity. I bought a Chromebook in a similar circumstance and lucked out: I bought it because it was very cheap and people had patched the Linux kernel to support all the hardware on it so I figured I could run Linux. For a while it was a bit frustrating to use the patched kernel, because it took a while to bring down upstream changes. Luckily within a few years, the hardware on my Chromebook was supported natively on the Linux kernel itself, and I could abandon the custom patched kernel. As long as it is relatively promising that hardware support for these devices will make their way upstream into the Linux kernel itself at some point, I'd be comfortable purchasing a Surface tablet to run Linux. However, I'm a bit wary as I don't know how sure of a thing that is. If for some reason the hardware support doesn't make its way upstream, or the developers on surface-kernel abandon the project, I'd be left a sad camper.

[@MichaelNROH]

Using a more niche product like a "Tablet"-PC and Lightweight laptops will probably always result in more of a hassle. But this isn't exclusive to Linux. In my case, even Windows has major flaws when not using a custom Surface version. A regular Windows installation with the typically ISO, will have no touchscreen, camera or some additional feature support. It's more the nature of the device itself, in my opinion

[@johnsmith6024]

I don't think you need to worry about longevity or the custom kernel getting abandoned. I've been running Debian on my Pro 7 for over a year now and the developer is very active and pushes updates basically weekly. He's even had a bunch of people join him since I started using it so he is no longer alone on the project. It even had a fork for the Surface ARM devices now that he recomends and links to from his GitHub. And yes he does push all his work upstream to the mainline kernel as well. It just doesn't show up there near as fast.

[@Atticore]

I tried doing this a few years ago and almost nothing worked, especially the touch screen, which was a no go for me since I use it primarily as a drawing tablet. Seeing that it's finally possible is so exciting, because a surface pro with linux is exactly the kind of laptop and drawing tablet i've always wanted! If only clip studio worked better on linux...

[@sanjayKumar-sx5bv]

Meanwhile mircosoft : **internal screaming intensifies**

[@alkeryn1700]

i remember compiling a custom kernel on my surface pro 4 at the time lol.

[@V3n0m151]

9 months later and still no camera. Its a bummer because I was debating doing this on my Surface, but unfortunately there still isnt support for the Camera on the SP7

[@speedyfox9080]

This is sure to be cool. I owned a surface but next I sold it because I got in love with my Thinkpad

[@SqueezyTheOrca]

Now try fedora 39 with KDE on it, which should give you a windows-like experience.

[@MichaelNROH]

I'm not really looking for a Windows experience tbh

[@SqueezyTheOrca]

sadge.

[@Subh8081]

I had a Surface Pro 3. I installed Zorin OS Lite on it. Got 5+ hours battery backup compared to 3 hours in Windows with same use case mix. And everything worked. Now I have Surface Pro 7+. I am waiting for the camera to be supported before kicking Windows out and running Linux as I use my surface for Teams calls a lot.

[@Bushidounohana]

Coming to this a year late, but have been tempted by older Surface devices as potentially cheap play toys, and am happy to hear that even a year ago Fedora was well suited for reinvigorating these devices. I recently picked up a Razer Blade Stealth 2016 and immediately wiped the drive and threw Nobara on it (Glorious Eggroll’s custom “recipe” for Fedora, as it were), and haven’t looked back.

[@johnreese8278]

Using Zorin 16 on a Surface Pro 3. It is excellent, far better than Windows ever was.

[@toucan221]

I am not a laptop fan, but after watching this, it looks exciting, look like worth doing. Thank you Michael ❤❤

[@docbryant]

I've been running Fedora on a Surface Pro 3, and it works wonderfully. I want to put an Arch based distro on there, but for some reason none of the Arch based distros recognize the Wifi hardware for the Surface. But, hey. Fedora is working just fine for the time being.

[@dregerdroger8326]

Hi, did you also experience random touch screen or device freeze? Only Reboot solves it for me and happens a lot ... Got the Surface 3 (non pro) Thx

[@alexeykramarenko7898]

I've Microsoft Surface 3 (2 Gb RAM). Bodhi Linux 6.0 is really cool with it, besides it doesn't show battery level, however Ubuntu 20.04 does. BL consumes only 230 Mb RAM, and that's why Windows is much worse choice for this tablet.

[@enriquelnx]

I've used Linux for years and i never thought I would say this.. But you really convinced me to buy a Surface. At least, is there another tablet that allows you to install Linux?

[@linux42069]

I really want to get one of these for a drawing tablet. I can't wait until the stylus support gets better

[@Duesi2024]

Also installed fedora on my SGO3. Windows Explorer and overall performance FU**ed me up. I'm Quote happy now. Camera isn't Wirkung yet, but not a big deal.

[@jamescameron1861]

My Surface 4 Pro has cooling issues on Windows 10. It seems that things have come a long way since I last checked. Excited to ditch Windows on my Surface as well. I would also agree that Gnome seems a better fit than Windows on touch hardware

[@BigDaddyJoe2k3]

Did u switch over? If so, how do u like it? I also have a SP4 and plan on doing this.

[@black_horse_lover2655]

Were you able to get touch to work? I’ve been really struggling with that.

[@gordon3002]

@@black_horse_lover2655 I’ve also been struggling with touch, I’ve been getting ghost touches everywhere. Had any luck getting it to work ?

[@black_horse_lover2655]

@@gordon3002 Not yet. I haven’t been able to get any sort of touch at all. But I’m not too smart and I’ve seen other people get it, so don’t give up!

[@alternatuber6698]

4:43 this tool is very handy thanks for the info

[@MrNicetux]

I have a Surface Pro 3 and i'm happy with it. Linux Mint is really running smooth on it without any problems, all devices was workin oob.

[@timothyfender1222]

I too have a Surface Pro 3 and want to try Mint on it. Can you give some insight on the install of it on the SP3? Thanks

[@vladislavkaras491]

Huh... Did not expect to use Linux that easy on a Windows device :D Thanks for the video!

[@m4l490n]

Very nice!! And to think I have been wasting a lot of time looking for a Linux tablet when the solution is this simple!! By the way, have you tried the fly-pie gnome extension? I think that extension would enhance your tablet experience!

[@PearComputingDevices]

I bought a Probook 845 g8 x360 with the Ryzen 7 5850u... I installed Ubuntu 22.00 plus the Hp dev one driver pack from Pop OS and everything just work great on it and yes very fast, snappy. 8 cores, 16 threads and 16 gb of ram you would hope it would be. While I didn't buy it for the 2 in 1 format, it also works great. It's essentially the guts of the dev one in a 2 in 1 after all.

[@encapsulatio]

I can't find anything named Probook 845

[@PearComputingDevices]

@@encapsulatio I am probably a little off on the specific model number but it's an 8th gen of that series. Not highly important to the take away of that APU. You could put that same APU as AMD calls them in to any other model and pretty much have a linux compatible rocket at your fingertips. Now that's more to the important point.

[@pointlessco.6363]

I have had ubuntu running for like 1.5 years (just upgraded from ubuntu 21.04 to 22.04) on my Surface Pro. It's really great other than the fact that both my cameras don't work. It got me into linux.

[@dandiaz19934]

damn, it wasn't able to find compatible drivers for it?? :(

[@michelparker9215]

I've installed Kali Linux on my Surface Pro 7, but the resolution isn't compatible. I've tried to change it from settings, but the problem persists. Additionally, in tablet mode, I can't double-click, and I can't zoom in.

[@kimtaiferragamo]

good to know...I was skeptical until I saw this.....thanks

[@dragonek_gnu_linux_pl]

The most important are some thing. Gnome, package manager no spyware :* gnome is the best thing avinable in linux :)

[@matthewsjardine]

I can agree with a lot of what you said, except for the battery life claim. I love Linux, and it is my preferred OS, but I have never gotten anywhere near as good battery life out of my devices on Linux, as compared to their native operating systems of Windows or macOS. I have used multiple devices, from multiple manufacturers, and with different performance profiles... I systematically get 2 hours less on Linux than I do on Windows. It has been my only real gripe with Linux. I am far from the only one that has had this experience. My colleagues have experienced the same, and it is also something I see a lot in the community forums. There are utilities that can make the experience better, but out of the box, do not expect better battery performance.

[@dohboi6987]

"Just imagine a day when everything just 'worked' ! " How many times have I heard that from IBM / PC crowd. While I was (actually) multitasking on my Amiga in 1990 lmao "Just imagine a day when everything just 'worked' ! " Thanks kid, that brought back some good memories.

[@nymusicman]

Just put Pop_OS! on my Surface Go 1. Everything out of the box. I didn't need to change a thing. So nice!

[@igorgiuseppe1862]

switching between an low clock for the cpu and high clock, takes time, that is why i recommend play games on "performance" mode, at least if the game is heavy

[@MichaelNROH]

Well, a Surface does not have the GPU power anyway, but generally speaking, it does not really affect performance that much since the CPU is not going to clock down during gameplay anyway. At least, I'm not noticing any drops in fps or latency improvements. It really comes down to the optimization and multithreading capabilities of the game tough. It can help, but very rarely.

[@igorgiuseppe1862]

@@MichaelNROH as surface is probably better than my current note, and there are quite a lot of games that i can play if i dont care about playng the latest games, gaming is not about playing the latest relases only

[@jyudat4433]

i really want a more portable PC, and holy crap this is so cool

[@lanceevans1689]

Great vid, thank you!

[@crimestoppers1877]

Thank You. I just viewed EC's YT channel using Linux Mint installed on an old X86 Surface Pro 2. I am very surprised at his work but yours is AMAZING with >> M$ft Surface Pro7 +

[@mistercrisper84]

Thank you man you've just convinced me going to Linux... Well my uefi is locked I have to send it back for a replacement to boot any custom kernel. Yesterday I've just tried Ubuntu with generic kernel wow I am amazed, true: Linux on surface is 10000 smoother, safe and powerful than Windows. I'm pretty sure full Linux support is coming soon for surface users.

[@MarkGereau]

Great video! very entertaining and so much good information.

[@zerrubabbel]

A year later, and independent of this video, I'm running Arch on a Surface Laptop Go 2, and Garuda on a Surface Go 2, and can confirm, Great Linux devices!

[@SuvacoDoce]

Things were not great with me with using Linux in a surface pro. I owned a Surface Pro 6, sold it two months ago. Although touchscreen works, pen works but… it’s far from ideal. It seems the touch sample has some problems; the pen writing and drawing is completely inconsistent. I tried with both Wayland and Xorg. It’s barely usable if you want to write, it’s totally unusable if you need to draw or constantly write (like a student using onenote like apps). Unless someone just developed a really great new touch drive or has made a breakthrough, I do not recommend to install Linux unless as an interesting test device. Or if you don’t need a reliable touch and pen support.

[@MichaelNROH]

Ok, that is interesting. I've not come across these problems but maybe it's because the newer pen is not registered as a touch device?

[@mateiberatco500]

I used Surface Go 1 and 2, and both worked fine with pen. Including pressure sensitivity. But I'm not using them enough (mostly writing temporary math to avoid paper). I did see a review where they tested 2 Wacom digitizer technologies, and the ones in SGO1/2 had some zig-zagging on diagonal lines; but the KZbinr did this test in Windows, so a HW limitation, not SW. I also own a 2-in-1 Lenovo and a Wacom Pen that can switch between the 2 techs (and working on Surfaces and Lenovo by just using the switch).

[@SuvacoDoce]

@@MichaelNROH it showed to me as a registered pen/touch device. Every time I tried to draw a continuous line, the line kept getting interrupted every 2 or 3 centimeters. As if the touch and pen sampling rate was low.

[@RizalBoon]

I love the performance of Fedora 36 in my SP5, but it is still too unstable for my work use, especially on the touchscreen side.

[@MichaelNROH]

What kind? I didn't notice stability problems

[@RizalBoon]

@@MichaelNROH sometimes the touchscreen goes haywire and trigger random locations on the screen. I did not have this issue on Windows 10 though, so it couldn't be the display itself. Also, resolution scales terribly on multiple display because you cannot set independent scale for different display, causing the UI to either be so small or so big, following the main display's scale.

[@mathsDOTearth]

I run Linux on my surface book 2 and it is awesome

[@OldAussieAds]

I’ve owned a Surface Pro 3 for years now. When I first got it, it had Windows 8.1 pre-installed. In tablet mode, that was a perfect pairing. Then Windows 10 came out and I upgraded. It was a better desktop UI, but Tablet mode regressed big time. So I wiped Windows and installed Ubuntu (the first LTS with Gnome as the DE). It was a bit rough around the edges at first with the odd crash here and there, but many upgrades since (now 22.10) and it’s smooth sailing. Gnome is by far the better tablet OS compared to Windows. Except for one thing - battery life. So it’s fine around the house, but I’d struggle taking it on the road unless there was a power point nearby. All in all, if you have an old Surface device and are wanting to breath new life in it, Linux gets the thumbs up from me.

[@kbhasi]

Sounds to me like you installed Ubuntu 18.04 and upgraded from there.

[@juanjomtz4606]

Have you tried installing auto-cpufreq?

[@5inque_wu]

Damn I was so excited to get a surface laptop go 2 with arch +gnome.

[@yuvrajsingh15823]

Please update this video on surface pro 11. I am looking to buy and run linux on it.

[@josepineda1795]

I just installed Ubuntu on my Surface Pro 6 with an i5 and 8gb ram and I'm loving it! Windows 11 uses too many resources. I do wish Adobe had support for Linx, but I can remotely connect to my work pc.

[@ttoommxxmmoott]

Endeavour OS (arch based) works wonderfully on SP5. However, touchscreen is really not great, doesn't really get input well at all. And the cameras don't work on browsers, you can create some sort of backloop but that's a pain in the ass and actually doesn't work anymore. So I suggest put Linux on it exclusively if you want to REVIVE your laptop, but otherwise don't, at least yet..

[@fiat-voluntas-tua]

Thank you 🙏 !

[@TheTytan007]

IMO both Windows 11 (especially after this year's update) and Gnome are quite comparable when it comes to the touch only experience. Although they both have specific pros and cons. I've replaced Windows 11 with Fedora on my Asus 2in1 to test some things out. I definitely prefer GNOME's dashboard over the current start menu. The thing that Windows definitely does better is the touch keyboard - it's almost on pair with the iPadOS keyboard. Gesture support and window manipulation using touch are also slightly better on Windows 11 22H2.

[@MichaelNROH]

I agree on the touch keyboard. The default one in Gnome feels kind of small and not that satisfying to use.

[@TheTytan007]

@@MichaelNROH It baffles me that of all desktop environments it's KDE that has one of the best touch keyboards while Gnome's one is very basic

[@ebaystars]

very intersting as I was getting VERY ANGRY with a second hand surface 5 i gave to my wife, as the battery is next to dead (too complex to DIY change) so I run DC, the craposoftware detected my utter sadness and slowed the CPU right down to a crawl, sub 0.8Ghz, etc, I tried throttlestop, hammerstop etc, didnt work as I needed to set semething in the BIOS, but really had enough trying to find a BIOS core, I hate windoze anyway, so assumed there is no access to the BIOS in the way I need to on MOBOS, having had enough I put it in the near to the exit bin-it-later drawer, UNTIL I saw this -------- so a heartfelt thanks from Thailand as I hate throwing good tech away and cannot spend years delving into it, so Linux on my wifes surface here we come , and for me hehehehe proxmox etc on surplus rack Hua Wei servers yummy so cheap and tasty...

[@shahariaantu7934]

Sold! trying on SB2

[@itolikful]

IMHO Very optimistic about support features. 8 months have passed and camera issue still on Surface Pro 7 and later

[@deltax7159]

I have a surface pro 7 and wonder what my battery life would be like running ubuntu? About to pull the trigger on an M4 Pro MacBook pro for better battery life and better performance. Would love to know more about how long your battery lasts now.

[@arcadiosincero]

My company sells a product that uses Toughbooks as an interface to it. It might be cooler to use a Surface. We wouldn't even need things like the camera to work. Just the WiFi and Bluetooth and the touchscreen.

[@MichaelNROH]

True, but at least it's more robust 😅

[@parasiteunit]

Can confirm - it's genuinely awesome. Same as some Macs.... Linux distros presents some wonderful opportunities for some really useful technomancy

[@robinrai4973]

Juust installed it on my 2in1 and er, Windows has a LOT more touchscreen/touchpad gestures and general touch support that I already miss, hopefully the efficiency claims will be true

[@sufferingincorporatedtm1781]

i'm thinking of picking up a surface to replace my laptop and ipad, a tablet with linux's openess and independence sounds like the best portable device one could ask for :)

[@fish4096]

I'm thinking about doing this because my Surface Pro 5 can't upgrade to WIndows 11 and WIndows 10 support is going to end next year.

[@mistermistero652]

Kde plasma mobile is also quite fun on a surface. (have it on my SB 2)

[@mpakaboy]

My guy, please provide some data about 'longer battery life' as for now it became top 1 problem at least for me when I use my 7+ as a portable device

[@MichaelNROH]

I have an extended video and comparison about all of this planned, once all of the features like cameras work. For the while being, only personal experiences have to do.

[@mpakaboy]

@@MichaelNROH that works for me, I can find that out myself. But where did you get touchscreen driver for 7+? I saw you definitely used it. I happened to have one myself and guess what Hat is already installed there. Except I am completely lost about the touchscreen, do you still have a link?

[@MichaelNROH]

@@mpakaboy github.com/quo/ithc-linux This is the driver but by default it is only single-touch. They linked an experimental iptsd-fork which should become the default quite soon probably

[@mpakaboy]

@@MichaelNROH thanks for replies! I think I will have to revisit it some time later

[@preventcrueltyagainstanima3097]

I have successfully installed PCLinuxOS on Surface Pro device, in fact more than one Surface Pro device, the issue is that it runs fine on older devices, in recent surface pro devices the requirement is that Microsoft original Keyboard be replaced with external USB Kbd and Mouse.

[@MichaelNROH]

Hah, that's a new one but you are right. The most recent ones don't have the driver upstreamed to the mainline Linux kernel it seems

[@rick-d5c]

liked and subscribed, linux on MS Surface; Big major Linux fan here

[@dougd1115]

Running Ubuntu 24.01 on my Surface Pro 3 and it's doing a great job. Two things not working the camera and the on screen keyboard does not pop up using the Chrome-Browser.

[@alnicospeaker]

Is there any chance that drivers for the SP7 cameras will become available? I plan to install macOS, however the lack of camera drivers is the same problem as with Linux.

[@BriefNerdOriginal]

Could you please link in the video description the Surface compatibility website you told about? BTW, I wanted to install Linux on my Surface Go 2 but was swayed by the lack of clear documentation and a lot of negative comments about the compatibility

[@MichaelNROH]

Ohhh, my bad 🤦‍♂️ I thought I did. Thanks for noticing

[@BriefNerdOriginal]

@@MichaelNROH thanks to you :-)

[@SomethingRandomChannel]

I tried this on my surface about a year or 2 ago and found it was pretty bad with battery, pen and performance on wake up. Ended up going to windows 11 and it understandably performed better. Maybe in a couple years from now it’ll be ready to go

[@ahmedalsadi0010]

I read lot of pdfs who many hours i can get if power saver mode with only pdfs running. This can help me as student

[@walamo8971]

I just enjoyed watching how enthusiastic you are about it!😂😂 I guess this wont work on surface go?

[@giovannifavullo7065]

As you said a surface is a tablet (with pc functionalities) as such it is not a main device, for me it is important that I can work on it togheter with my phone AND my main pc; probably I got a bit locked in the windows ecosystem, but I use OneNote, OneDrive, phone link and powertoys to manage all my 3 devices as one: I'm talking about clipboard history, files, browsers, renote access, camera sharing, phone calls, earbuds connection, etc. Is there something which might reproduce this inter-device integration between an android a Windows pc and a linux surface?

[@vanodon2257]

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux. I use arch btw.

[@MichaelNROH]

I've said it in previous videos, that GNU/Linux and the Linux Kernel are different but in the context of referring to distributions, it's fine since it adds more confusion. You are 100% correct about the lingo, but I like to keep it simple as long as it stays in context.

[@vanodon2257]

@@MichaelNROH Obvc but have to copy pasta when the opportunity arises 🙃

[@speedyfox9080]

@@vanodon2257 No, Richard, it's 'Linux', not 'GNU/Linux'. The most important contributions that the FSF made to Linux were the creation of the GPL and the GCC compiler. Those are fine and inspired products. GCC is a monumental achievement and has earned you, RMS, and the Free Software Foundation countless kudos and much appreciation. Following are some reasons for you to mull over, including some already answered in your FAQ. One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS -- more on this later). He named it 'Linux' with a little help from his friends. Why doesn't he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff -- including the software I wrote using GCC -- and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. You don't want to be known as a nag, do you? (An operating system) != (a distribution). Linux is an operating system. By my definition, an operating system is that software which provides and limits access to hardware resources on a computer. That definition applies whereever you see Linux in use. However, Linux is usually distributed with a collection of utilities and applications to make it easily configurable as a desktop system, a server, a development box, or a graphics workstation, or whatever the user needs. In such a configuration, we have a Linux (based) distribution. Therein lies your strongest argument for the unwieldy title 'GNU/Linux' (when said bundled software is largely from the FSF). Go bug the distribution makers on that one. Take your beef to Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware. At least there you have an argument. Linux alone is an operating system that can be used in various applications without any GNU software whatsoever. Embedded applications come to mind as an obvious example. Next, even if we limit the GNU/Linux title to the GNU-based Linux distributions, we run into another obvious problem. XFree86 may well be more important to a particular Linux installation than the sum of all the GNU contributions. More properly, shouldn't the distribution be called XFree86/Linux? Or, at a minimum, XFree86/GNU/Linux? Of course, it would be rather arbitrary to draw the line there when many other fine contributions go unlisted. Yes, I know you've heard this one before. Get used to it. You'll keep hearing it until you can cleanly counter it. You seem to like the lines-of-code metric. There are many lines of GNU code in a typical Linux distribution. You seem to suggest that (more LOC) == (more important). However, I submit to you that raw LOC numbers do not directly correlate with importance. I would suggest that clock cycles spent on code is a better metric. For example, if my system spends 90% of its time executing XFree86 code, XFree86 is probably the single most important collection of code on my system. Even if I loaded ten times as many lines of useless bloatware on my system and I never excuted that bloatware, it certainly isn't more important code than XFree86. Obviously, this metric isn't perfect either, but LOC really, really sucks. Please refrain from using it ever again in supporting any argument. Last, I'd like to point out that we Linux and GNU users shouldn't be fighting among ourselves over naming other people's software. But what the heck, I'm in a bad mood now. I think I'm feeling sufficiently obnoxious to make the point that GCC is so very famous and, yes, so very useful only because Linux was developed. In a show of proper respect and gratitude, shouldn't you and everyone refer to GCC as 'the Linux compiler'? Or at least, 'Linux GCC'? Seriously, where would your masterpiece be without Linux? Languishing with the HURD? If there is a moral buried in this rant, maybe it is this: Be grateful for your abilities and your incredible success and your considerable fame. Continue to use that success and fame for good, not evil. Also, be especially grateful for Linux' huge contribution to that success. You, RMS, the Free Software Foundation, and GNU software have reached their current high profiles largely on the back of Linux. You have changed the world. Now, go forth and don't be a nag.

[@kote315]

If I install a bunch of GNU software on Windows, should I call it GNU/Windows?

[@vanodon2257]

@@speedyfox9080 So you just use the base kernel, ahh i bet you a systemd hater aswell 🤔. Interesting choice.

[@JohnRPeck]

I have an old surface pro 3, the Microsoft driver for the keyboard cover is constantly getting "corrupted" and it stops working. I want to turn the device into an E-Reader. and still be able to do a little work on the device. Now I might try Fedora 36 on it. Wish me luck

[@MichaelNROH]

Fedora was the most pleasant experience for me so far

[@yogapratama5225]

If only the pen pressure works seamlessly on Krita, it would be perfect usage

[@naraydaniels7832]

To be honest Linux on a surface is cute and all but from my experience I don’t think it’s topping windows on the surface, I have a surface go 2 and though I understand there was touch issues,but it actually had the opposite effect than the ones you mentioned, draining more resources than Windows, thus more battery, and freezes up alot. I originally got my surface without an OS and added Manjaro gnome, and it was a nightmare, there was this thing I call “touch disease” where every time I touch my screen the distro would essentially fall apart, alongside having every resource issue I had earlier. And when my window manager fell apart I was left in a really bad position and lost a lot of data. I eventually switched to windows 10 and * Poof * my problems were gone, it was like I had a newer, much more powerful device, I even had enough room to run Bluestacks, the undisputed best android Virtual Machine, And my Windows’ window manager never falls apart. Honestly I can understand that Linux looks nice and all and has big buttons, but At least in my case, Linux is definitely not daily drivable on a surface. I currently do have Linux on my surface’s SD card, but I would never put it on my hardware again, and I would never suggest anyone else to do it either

[@naraydaniels7832]

@gilkesisking I say Linux because I tried it with Debian (current) and Manjaro(Past), and though Debian is doing alot better, I still shared some issues, and windows 11 is still vastly better, including the usage of less ram. I can try fedora, but it froze up on my 8gb VM, so would I try it on my 4GB Surface? No sir.

[@davidkisvari]

I've been running Manjaro KDE, Manjaro Gnome, KDE Neon and Now Ubuntu on a Surface Go 2 without any issues. Battery life is also fine. Only thing not working is the camera but that's a known issue.

[@naraydaniels7832]

@gilkesisking Did I forget to mention that Debian is doing A lot better, it’s doing more than just work. When I say “shared some issues” I mean gnome issues, like “touch disease”, things like the panel consuming a metric ton of ram, and lack of rotation has been fixed. XFCE,LXQT, and KDE are tip top. As for basing things off of a VM, that’s just the way things go, my Mac Pro essentially has all the resources to replicate my Surface (besides graphics) eightfold, It got 2x the resources my surface had and still failed (All other VM’s do spectacular on half load) while having the drivers built in. I admit I can just put it in a usb, and test it on my 16gb MacBook, but let’s be honest, why would I extend my hand further than I have now when I already have an OS that succeeded in the task I gave it? Either way I have nowhere else to put it. Look man I hate to sound like I hate Linux cause I don’t, I love it all. Linux has a lot of potential, but it also has a long way to go, especially in the consumer area. And just like how I don’t pull any punches with Mac OS or Windows I’m not gonna pull on Linux

[@Firefly55X]

It is going on almost a year. Where is the camera support for Windows Surface 3? How much longer?

[@jmw1982blue]

Waiting for when it catches up for my pro 8 :)

[@MichaelNROH]

Soon ...

[@whygamingwhy2404]

Gawsh you make it sound easy, then you look into the installation and it's a hell of a lot more work than just installing Linux onto the surface pro 4 haha

[@rene9901]

Thanks a lot for sharing this vedio .. it was so much needed to know as I'm planning to buy a 7 or 7+ ... and I will need Linux definitely.. just wanted to know some honest review about whether it works for both mode .. I need for two main reason .. bit of coding almost on daily basis and also for little bit of digital arts ... please suggest if I am making a right choice .. thanks in advance

[@MichaelNROH]

The touchscreen of the regular Pro 7 seems to be working fine with newer Kernels, right out of the box (singletouch), while the Pro 7+ needs a seperate driver install. The rest is pretty much identical in terms of functionality. The truth is, that if you want to put Linux on a newer Surface, than you have to do some extra work. I'm leaving a link to a Github Repo for you, which is dedicated to Linux on Surface Devices: github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface

[@rene9901]

@@MichaelNROH cool .. thanks so much

[@paulthompson1988]

Despite what you say, that the Surface is only a tablet, that only refers to your usecase. With the unit connected to a Surface Doc it can support two 4K monitors and a plethora of other devices. Even on its own, it can drive a single external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and very successfully operate as a desktop. Rather than your sub-set usecase, the unit is a hybrid 2-in-1 which is its intention of usual and advertised use of the device. Under its native operating system, it does run desktop apps very well. Also, Rnote is a very small subset of OneNote functionality, again it fits your usecase, but not most OneNote users. There are lots of shortfalls in the current implementations of Linux on Surface and unless you have a 'tablet mode only' use case. It is still not entirely viable (fully functional) as a hybrid 2-in-1 which it is on Windows. Many other 2-in-1 laptops (clamshell with 360deg screens) are much easier to set up on Linux and have more stable drivers. Certainly they are heavier, but at least everything works. On the Surface under Linux, Ink to text does not work. The stylus does not work reliably or even with full function, just very basic drawing pointer. The dock interface does not work. Contrary to what you said, the battery life of Surface under Linux is far below Surface under Windows - I had hoped it would be, measured it, and it falls way short. The long list goes on. I look forward to the day when a Surface device runs Linux and does deliver the full hardware capabilities, but we are a long way from that point. I have tried it with both a Surface Pro 7 and 8, and I have been using Linux as my main driver since the late 1990s, and know how to work around small issues. Sadly the Surface on Linux has many unresolved issues and I would not be recommending it to anyone as a serious solution. (ps. Just my opinion, and that and 50 cents are worth half-a-dollar, so take it lightly.)

[@A4orce84]

Any long term updates? I'm tempted to look for a portable Linux laptop, and this may fit the bill.

[@MichaelNROH]

Sooner than you might think

[@asunavk69]

Installing linux is a thing i've been trying to do on older windows tablets (the win8 era), problem is these device have 32bit efi with 64bit cpu or even 32bit cpu, and aside from windows linux 32bit efi boot if its 32bit os its not really easy, if the os is 64bit and even though it boots to 32bit efi the instrutions set of the x64bit cpu are not quite there and works real slow.. So aside from win8 32bit nothing else works good on them and its really sad, as w'd not mind using as an ebook or smt.

[@erdragh]

Fedora generally supports 32bit UEFI with a 64Bit OS.

[@mateiberatco500]

Actually booting linux on those tablets is pretty easy. All you need is to get EFI32 isolinux binaries (I got them from debian packages) and inject them in a regular linux image (ISO or flash drive). The problems I had, which I could not solve, were driver issues with Atom SOCs, including eMMC problems (would spew errors during install), no touch drivers, no wifi drivers (not just missing binary blob/firmware...the whole driver). I could basically use it just with USB hub with KB/mouse/network.

[@erdragh]

@@mateiberatco500 yeah then we ran into the same issues. I think the wifi worked once for me with fedora and the touch screen with the kde neon Test build for the kde mobile desktop, but I’ve gotten neither to work with what I’ve got currently installed on it. Right now I have installed SteamOs 3.0 using holoiso.

[@asunavk69]

@@erdragh hi, yes i succeded in installing the os 64 bit with 32bit efi boot however like @Matei Beratco mentioned there are drivers issues.. Being so slow and sluggish. Also trying to install windows back again(like on my surface) also fucks by a lot as either drivers wont be easy to install does not even recognize an usb pen drive.. Or on my x64bit tablet that i need a win key(can be solved but another pain) . These things were made with no proper thought for the future and imo should not be release with such problems in the table, whoever started this should at least consider linux was a thing..

[@surfing4fun]

@MichaelNROH Nice presentation. Can you give an update on newer Surfaces like 7+ or 8?

[@MichaelNROH]

I still use it, but I'm still waiting for camera support until the next video. Intel has been promising support which is why reverse engineering basically stopped.

[@alb673]

Interesting video. I am familiar with installing Linux, as dual boot as well. Can this be done on the Surface? I mean, just in case you need to run something that's just available for Microsoft

[@MichaelNROH]

Technically yes, but it's a matter of storage space. Running a whole OS off the SD card is heavily impacting it's lifespan, so you have to split your main storage

[@alb673]

Yeah that's what I normally have done on a laptop

[@johncalorino675]

Which Linux distro do you recommend? (I would like the most stable Fedora based distro, as Fedora is more secure than Debian, but it is also a lot less stable).

[@MichaelNROH]

Tbh, I would just would recommend Fedora 36. Sure it's not Debian Level since Debian is hard to beat, but it is not unstable in any way.

[@MrKilljay]

I'm not the OP, but I would recommend OpenSUSE. I run Tumbleweed on my laptop (using it now to type this very comment) and it's been solid so far. If you want maximum stability, I would recommend OpenSUSE Leap. It's a point release distro rather than a rolling one like Tumbleweed, so it's very unlikely anything will break.

[@DMSBrian24]

I think you might have been misinformed somehow. First of all, what do you mean by 'most stable Fedora-based distro'? Anything Fedora-based will have the same update schedule as Fedora. And by 'stable' we don't mean that sth breaks less often, it simply refers to the update schedule, yes, Debian is more stable but that's actually a bad thing for most desktop users. Also, what do you mean by 'Fedora is more secure than Debian'? Pretty much all major Linux distros are almost on par when it comes to security, probably the most major difference in this case being Fedora running a newer kernel version, which it does because it's 'less stable' (and no, secure boot support doesn't make it more secure, it's a useless feature for desktop users). You sound like me before I switched to Linux, not knowing anything about it and trying to "optimize" my ideal initial setup before ever actually trying to run any distribution, only to later find out most of the opinions floating around out there are just plain wrong and that there really isn't a major difference between all the distros except the very obvious - update schedule and package manager. Seriously, you'll be stuck in this state forever and it'll get you nowhere, instead of basing your choice or opinion on what others say, free up some 100gb on your drive and just install Linux, maybe distrohop a couple times just to see the differences and you'll be rid of most of those misconceptions after a short while of actually using it.

[@MrElectrifyer]

Please, do you know a GUI that that automatically transitions between mouse/keyboard mode and pen/touch mode depending on whether the Surface Pro's keyboard is connected? This GNOME 42 you showcased looks to only be a touch UI. I want it showing this touch UI when my Surface Keyboard is detached or folded back, and showing a mouse/keyboard UI with a Start Menu when my keyboard is attached and unfolded.

[@JustABigFan2010]

Can you please do a 1 year update

[@scottforbes0]

The only thing sorely missed on Linux is a way to factory reset the system to defaults, within the menu.