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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

#161

Post by rovr138 »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #108
rovr138 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want an iPad (Pro or whatever) with a full OS. I want to run the full browser I want, if needed, I want to be able to load up some code and review/run tests and maybe start coding something simple and keep going. There are apps that kind of help, but they're not the same. I also can't say I'm always online. I went with a Surface Pro. I'm running windows which I don't particularly like, but it'll have to do for now.…

Question: do you use Linux container support on Windows? I find Linux container support in ChromeOS to be sometimes useful.

Not sure if you mean WSL2 or Docker Desktop.

I've tried both. Both are a pain IMO (but Mac doesn't really improve this). With WSL2 you end up with another abstraction layer that you have to figure how to get your programs to work nice with.

With Docker Desktop, there's been some performance issues lately. Doesn't turn into a hoverboard like my mac, but the performance still lags.

I mainly use it to script small things on python and that's worked out fine. Haven't had issues with paths which was the most annoying things last time I tried it on Windows.

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

#162

Post by rovr138 »

rollcat wrote: post #128
least wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is better served by a laptop for the majority of people, though as someone that uses an unconventional keyboard anyway, a laptop is somewhat less compelling (since it occupies a lot of space with a keyboard that I actively avoid using), I can certainly see the appeal of a tablet for that purpose. I personally don't think Microsoft quite got it right with using Windows on a tablet, though it was certainly a lot b…

> This is better served by a laptop for the majority of people, though as someone that uses an unconventional keyboard anyway, a laptop is somewhat less compelling (since it occupies a lot of space with a keyboard that I actively avoid using), I can certainly see the appeal of a tablet for that purpose. I've switched to an Ergodox in early 2019 and I couldn't use a laptop since. MNT[1] is the only laptop manufacturer…

I've been using a Advantage Pro for over 10 years now and it's great. But I still travel and use my MBP's and now my Surface Pro's keyboard.

Besides shortcuts between Windows and Mac, I can type on any of them.

Of course, I prefer my Kinesis, but, it's not an issue really switching.

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

#163

Post by benlivengood »

linmob wrote: post #145
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…

You can have a similarly bad experience with Linux on a laptop; all these issues (except for virtual keyboard related ones) also occur there: - EFI is a bit difficult with distributions when Secure Boot is enabled. Ubuntu and Fedora support it, if you choose a different distribution you may have to tinker, as evidenced in the post; - camera: Well, Microsoft was doing fancy stuff here; and most distributions just don'…

Have you noticed a big problem with ZFS on 8GB of RAM? I've successfully ran fairly large (2TB, thousands of snapshots) zpools out of 4GB of RAM, with dedup off of course.

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

#164

Post by aposm »

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.

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

#165

Post by linmob »

benlivengood wrote: post #163
linmob wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have a similarly bad experience with Linux on a laptop; all these issues (except for virtual keyboard related ones) also occur there: - EFI is a bit difficult with distributions when Secure Boot is enabled. Ubuntu and Fedora support it, if you choose a different distribution you may have to tinker, as evidenced in the post; - camera: Well, Microsoft was doing fancy stuff here; and most distributions just don'…

Have you noticed a big problem with ZFS on 8GB of RAM? I've successfully ran fairly large (2TB, thousands of snapshots) zpools out of 4GB of RAM, with dedup off of course.

I don't use ZFS, so I can’t comment. Maybe the blogs author just wants to use that RAM for the web browser :-)

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

#166

Post by floatboth »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #115
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?

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.

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

#167

Post by PrivateButts »

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.

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

#168

Post by floatboth »

leni536 wrote: post #116
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?

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.

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

#169

Post by retcon »

goosedragons wrote: post #100
pxmpxm wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it's a linux "enthusiast" thing, rather than an american thing. Virtually every thread about linux on laptop starts out with someone claiming that it runs perfect on this or that hardware, then 20 other people chime in with all the things that actually don't work on the same same machine, and finally the original poster concedes with some weasel statement along the lines of "well it works for me". And the y…

OEMs sometimes will do things like use different Wifi modules (among other things) on the same exact model and it can be somewhat luck of the draw as to what works well with Linux. Distro choice also has a big impact. Like I tried Guix on my P14s and haven't been able to get Wifi working even with the latest non-libre kernel among other issues. Literally EVERYTHING works perfectly on Ubuntu 22.04 despite in theory no…

Your WiFi module in any ThinkPad should be a M2 card and there's a wide selection of alternatives for about thirty bucks.

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

#170

Post by b112 »

snthd wrote: post #8
b112 wrote: post #5

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?

They linked the hardware support matrix: https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Supporte... 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

Didn't see that, thanks.
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