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

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

#111

Post by jeroenhd »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #105
pizza234 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Linux professionally for a decade, on many machines (desktop/laptop), and the compatibility is really hardware-dependent. It's "for tinkerers" on some hardware, and "fully mainstream" on other. Choosing a Microsoft laptop to use Linux is asking for trouble :) I had two of them, and Microsoft had this awful idea of the connected standby, which caused standby/suspend problems (power-hungry standby, whic…

Which makes sense. If manufacturers designed laptops exclusively for Linux—only writing Linux drivers and rarely even testing Windows during product development—how well do we think Windows would run? Hardware designed to run one operating system isn't necessarily going to perform well with a different operating system, and expecting otherwise of every arbitrary machine on store shelves is unrealistic. Prospective bu…

You can see with the Steam Deck. Valve is slowly releasing drivers over time but in early stages Windows was inefficient, sound didn't work or didn't work well, sleep wasn't snappy, the list goes on.

It had all the problems your average Linux install will encounter without the enthusiast-written drivers to work around manufacturers' lack of support.

That said, the Steam Deck seems to be the first non-enthusiast device where the manufacturer actually cares. Even laptops that get sold with Ubuntu preinstalled from the factory don't seem to receive that much support over the years.

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

#112

Post by timbit42 »

hanklazard wrote: post #78
dwighttk wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person who has tried setting up Linux like 5-10 times over the years this sounds exactly like my experience and basically what I assume Linux use is always like. It’s just like cars, there are people who are super comfortable just tinkering around with cars and fixing crap and say “this car is great” and if I tried to drive it it’d break down 5 minutes in and I would consider it a total loss.

Pop!_OS is a piece of cake to install and has been my daily driver on a Lenovo CX1 for the past 3-4 years. (I’m assuming your comment is referring to Linux in general, not on a tablet). And I’m not a former CS major or anything. I’m on the verge of recommending it to my dad who only has experience with windows machines.

Lenovo hardware is known for being Linux compatible. Microsoft hardware is not. Let us know how it went when you try to install popos on a Microsoft Surface 2.

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

#113

Post by PontifexMinimus »

dwighttk wrote: post #67
highwaylights wrote: post #46

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…

As a person who has tried setting up Linux like 5-10 times over the years this sounds exactly like my experience and basically what I assume Linux use is always like. It’s just like cars, there are people who are super comfortable just tinkering around with cars and fixing crap and say “this car is great” and if I tried to drive it it’d break down 5 minutes in and I would consider it a total loss.

> As a person who has tried setting up Linux like 5-10 times over the years this sounds exactly like my experience and basically what I assume Linux use is always like.

It's not my experience at all. When I buy a computer to run Linux I normally get one with Linux preinstalled (normally the latest LTS Ubuntu). Then if I ever need to upgrade to a more recent version of Ubuntu it generally goes smoothly.

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

#114

Post by aidenn0 »

dwighttk wrote: post #67
highwaylights wrote: post #46

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…

As a person who has tried setting up Linux like 5-10 times over the years this sounds exactly like my experience and basically what I assume Linux use is always like. It’s just like cars, there are people who are super comfortable just tinkering around with cars and fixing crap and say “this car is great” and if I tried to drive it it’d break down 5 minutes in and I would consider it a total loss.

The Intel monoculture in laptops has been a boon for linux compatibility. A random mid-range laptop with the an Intel CPU, Intel WiFi chipset, and integrated graphics will usually run linux straight out of the box. Most webcams in laptops are UVC devices so also work.

Desktops are somewhat more hit-and-miss, as are discrete GPUs (I hear the newer AMD GPU drivers are much improved, but have no personal experience with them).

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

#115

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

floatboth wrote: post #58

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.

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?

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

#116

Post by leni536 »

floatboth wrote: post #58

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.

Last I checked, you can't do that on more recent models, can you?

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

#117

Post by vinceguidry »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #104
EnKopVand wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever had anything that resembled the experience or a MacBook Air with a M1? I have a windows running Lenovo t14 for work, and it’s a decent enough laptop but it’s sort of like the stone ages compared to my personal MacBook. It has a terrible mousepad, it’s bulky, it runs out of battery after a two hours even though its factory new (developer specs in non-tech enterprise), the screen isn’t very nice and it’s…

This does not exist. System76 and some others do a good job at trying, but despite many efforts over the last 20 years, this just isn’t possible. Consider that even the best Windows laptops are worse than MacBooks (and I would say this was true before the M1 but is inarguable now), despite the billions of dollars of investment from Intel, AMD, Dell, Microsoft, etc. I think the Surface line has historically had the cl…

System76 has started designing their own machines.

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

#118

Post by bharrisonit »

hdlothia wrote: post #109
pizza234 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Linux professionally for a decade, on many machines (desktop/laptop), and the compatibility is really hardware-dependent. It's "for tinkerers" on some hardware, and "fully mainstream" on other. Choosing a Microsoft laptop to use Linux is asking for trouble :) I had two of them, and Microsoft had this awful idea of the connected standby, which caused standby/suspend problems (power-hungry standby, whic…

The dell XPS developer edition that comes with linux pre installed has worked great for me. What are your complaints?

I've run debian on a non-dev xps 13 for years trouble-free.

My biggest gripe is docking station compatibility with the Dell TB16 which, to be fair, is largely own fault. Suspending the laptop while connected to three ext displays and input devices, then spinning it back up before re-connection produces some gnarly results.

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

#119

Post by snarfy »

atraac wrote: post #19

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 i…

The surface laptops are decent, but the rest of the line are not worth the premium.

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

#120

Post by leni536 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #60
csdvrx wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Agree, honestly I don’t see the point of WSL, it is far less hassle to either Remote Desktop into a real Linux machine, or run a VM. Windows is way more configurable than Linux. To this day, there's nothing like AHK on Linux! Also, Windows offers the best terminal experience. I've tried foot on Wayland, it's ok, but I want better than ok. I've spend too much time trying to squeeze a good experience out of xterm ( h…

Surely you need AHK because Windows is less configurable? I want basic window management that's been in KDE for decades, but corporate IT won't let me have AutoHotKey. It's so frustrating having to move windows around all the time rather than them just going where they should. No focus options, no pin-on-top (except in OneNote) ... it's really a massive climb down from Kde/Plasma. How are you using terminals in Windo…

I also prefer Linux, but Windows ships ssh nowadays. Even ssh server, but arguably that's way less useful than an ssh server on any other OS.
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