this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023

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Linux for Microsoft Surface devices. It is reality! (upload.wikimedia.org)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/technology

119 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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:

Awesome additional resources:

User experience from Michael Horn.
Installation instructions (non-official): Link. Link.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Should also mention Nobara Linux (which is funnily enough based on Fedora) has Surface Linux patches baked into its kernel.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

WOW. Such a cool detail! 🤯 Nobara is good.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Such a fast bot 😆 Love you! 😍

[–] Reygle 27 points 1 year ago (8 children)

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.

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[–] telllos 27 points 1 year ago (9 children)

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.

[–] interesting_bat 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] telllos 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

The Microsoft ❤️ Linux image is a weird choice. WSL is neat but Microsoft will never support Linux on their hardware.

[+] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Back when I was having issues with the Linux desktop (2016-19), I used WSL to get access to Linux's useful tools. I was always on and off with Linux, mainly due to having components that don't work with it well (mainly to do with NVIDIA and Broadcom WiFi).

Now I'm full-on Linux. Only exception is Apple Music (virtual machine) or some gaming scenarios (dualboot). Stuff like mods that work better on Windows, or steering wheel games (I have a Logitech wheel that works so much better on Windows than Linux).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You don’t need an entire VM just for Apple Music! There’s an open source client for it available on Mac and Linux. They just dropped development, but it still works. https://github.com/ciderapp/Cider/releases/tag/v1.6.2

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I have tried Cider before. It's a solid client, but there's some stuff that's still missing for me. I can live without lossless audio, but gapless playback when listening to albums is very important for me and Cider doesn't support it unfortunately.

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[–] dinckelman 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's actually pretty funny. Back around 2018 I bought an XPS13, being hailed as the golden standard of linux support on a laptop, and my buddy bought a Surface Pro (3 or 4, cant remember). With these patches, his machine not only ran better, but also had 4x the battery life, compared to my fully supported (on paper) machine

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

wwoohh. Awesome work from Surface side.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I highly recommend it! I've been running PopOS! On my Surface Pro 3 for years. It works perfectly, and functions extremely well with the form factor

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[–] bfr0 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I've had nothing but issues with Microsoft hardware... Even excluding Xbox stuff, my SP4 had major issues with video corruption and hard freezes. Multiple RMA attempts came back defective or damaged, even the first party folio keyboard went bad. These were widespread defects and once warranty was up I was sol.

The only thing that somewhat extended its life before it went full spicy pillow was putting Linux Mint on it with some kernel patches.

Thank God this community exists, but I'll never buy another surface product as long as I live.

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[–] rizoid 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm currently running EndeavorOS on my Surface Laptop 4. I'll admit it was a pain to get working right, especially since I have the amd model, but damn once it's working its so nice.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (10 children)

I guess I’m missing something, but I don’t understand buying a MS hardware product and then installing Linux, surely just buy a different product in the first place?

Same with people buying Google Pixel’s and then removing the stock Android. Isn’t the Pixel’s hardware rubbish, and the only reason to buy it the software?

I’m pro Linux, just not seeing the point of giving money to these companies and then installing Linux… I think some people do it with the Pixel as a protest, which makes little sense when they’ve given money to the company :/

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Because some people purchase and use devices for practical purposes, not just ideological.

Perhaps the Surface hardware is the most practical for some people?

[–] deweydecibel 8 points 1 year ago

Also, Linux Surface is maintained for older devices, which will be useful when Windows 10 support ends.

[–] emptyother 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Jup. Surface Pro: Very lightweight, solid, powerful (for its size), fan-less (some models), both tablet and laptop, has an okay stylus. Whats not to like? Oh, right, the default OS. 😊

[–] deweydecibel 7 points 1 year ago

And that some models can't upgrade to 11, so support for them ends when Windows 10 support ends. Linux Surface will extend their life.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In the case of the Surface Go family, there isn't really anything comparable from other companies. It's unironically the best compact tablet I'm aware of that you can put Linux on, and it runs Pop!_OS without issue once you disable Secure Boot. The only better Linux tablet for me would be an iPad Mini, but you can't put Linux on one of those and even if you could it's ARM-based so most proprietary apps won't work on it.

In general, your tablet options for something smaller and handier than full-size 2-in-1s are pretty limited if you don't want to be running iPadOS, so excluding Microsoft's devices from the running if you want to put Linux on your tablet is pointless. Yeah, buying a Surface Laptop to put Linux on there is a bit weird, but I can see the Surface Pro family yielding a good ARM Linux tablet some day.

[–] deweydecibel 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Same with people buying Google Pixel’s and then removing the stock Android. Isn’t the Pixel’s hardware rubbish, and the only reason to buy it the software?

Because Pixel allows the removal of stock android where some phones, like Samsung's, actively prevent it.

But you're not entirely wrong. There are non-Pixel phones with better hardware and unlockable bootloaders. Often it's a preference thing. Though it should be said, the more popular the phone, the more likely it has robust support from the custom rom community, and Pixels are popular.

Also, "stock Android" doesn't mean "everything is accessible and configurable" Android. They may put a Pixel-based rom right back on, just a version that's not so restrictive. Many don't need a reason to use custom roms beyond just having more knobs and levers for their phone than stock allows them.

Honestly, one of the major reasons I use Lineage, beyond the big obvious reasons, is solely to keep the "Hold back button to kill foreground app" function that stock android removed long ago.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Pixel phones allow to relock bootloader on Custom ROMS, that's why developers use Pixel devices. Good firmware support is also around.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Buying new, sure, what you're saying makes sense. I think buying used for the form factor or whatever and not wanting windows is a fine choice, though.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's actually very tempting. I always liked the form factor of the surface but I didn't want windows for it.

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[–] Nonononoki 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Also, consider REFind (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/REFInd) when you dual boot. It's the only boot manager that supports touch screens.

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[–] ClaretNBlue 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm actually looking into purchasing a Surface Pro 7/8 to replace my current laptop, and was wondering about compatibility for dual booting

[–] rizoid 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Its honestly very usable. Touch has some weirdness and I haven't gotten it working on my device but its one of the laptops not the tablets so I don't really care for touch. Look through the Table of Supported Features that OP linked to make sure whatever device you plan to pick up supports everything or is at least being worked on.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

ITs been a while but last time I tried installing Linux on my surface book 2 it was such a mess and had so many problems.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If it was long time ago maybe you should try it again. Many improvements were made. Also, disable secure boot in BIOS, it is kinda meh on Linux.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah that’s what I’m thinking after reading this. Might be worth a try. I did disable secure boot last time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

❤️

[–] rDrDr 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Very intersting thanks for the heads up.

My Surface Book 2 is quite long in the tooth at this point, windows drags on it but I imagine linux would fly. I'm surprised to see such extensive support for it.

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[–] iturnedintoanewt 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It's all fun and giggles until you try to use the cameras. Most recent models are not only incompatible, but unlikely to be compatible anytime soon. SP7 owner using KDE Neon for years.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Surface Go 2 with Manjaro Gnome as a daily driver here, everything works fine, even the camera.

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[–] KidDogDad 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How does stylus support work? Are there good Linux apps for hand writing notes?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Xournal++ and Rnote are the best options for hand written notes. Both available as a Flatpak from Flathub.

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