I Finally Found a Solid Debian Tablet: The Surface Go 2 • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by jshen » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 7:38 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #193

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…

Agreed, this is why I find Chromebook, with its great Linux container support, so nice. I know the author mentioned he tried this on a Lenovo Chromebook and said it was dog slow. I have it running on my Pixelbook and with maxed out RAM it worked well. Soooooo sad there hasn't been much news on a new Pixelbook, was such a great device.

Can you properly install a browser other than chrome on a chromebook these days?

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

#202

Post by 0des » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 7:55 PM UTC

jshen wrote: post #201

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, this is why I find Chromebook, with its great Linux container support, so nice. I know the author mentioned he tried this on a Lenovo Chromebook and said it was dog slow. I have it running on my Pixelbook and with maxed out RAM it worked well. Soooooo sad there hasn't been much news on a new Pixelbook, was such a great device.

Can you properly install a browser other than chrome on a chromebook these days?

you can install firefox on linux and run it as an app in chromeos but the performance isn't great on pixelbook i7. I ran into a lot of issues with regard to networking between the chromeos layer and the linux layer, its like they're nat'd or something rather than bridged, so good luck running a test environment for some things without extra steps.

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

#203

Post by zac23or » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 8:00 PM UTC

jancsika wrote: post #198

zac23or wrote: post #141

It's a "Solid Debian Tablet" because it boots. Linux religionists ignore all problems after booting. Linux and Oss in general are religions like Apple is. "Apple has NEVER done anything wrong," an Apple cleric told me about Antennagate. I've been using Linux for programming work for ten years now, but every time I buy a new machine I try to use Linux natively. In the last attempt, Linux stopped working after I tried…

> In ten years I never got hardware that runs 100% on Linux. You've never used XPS 13 Developer's Edition. It ships with Ubuntu. The hardware runs 100% on Linux. I even checked with the intel GPU command that measures whether it's actually using accelerated video. Everything works on Firefox and Chromium. Well, except those Reddit videos that use the web blob API, but those seem to buffer and screw up on every OS I'v…

> Well, except those Reddit videos

Reddit videos are something, it is horrible on all systems/networks I've tested. :D

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

#204

Post by mkesper » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 8:13 PM UTC

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'…

Debian supports UEFI with secure boot too so this must be some specific quirk.

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

#205

Post by linmob » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 8:36 PM UTC

csdvrx wrote: post #175

linmob wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android is running a Linux kernel, yes. But, as an enthusiast GNU+Linux desktop user you'll find that you can't do your linuxy stuff on Android - sure, termux does a lot, but it's just not the same. The Surface Go 2 that the article is about, is an x86_64 device - I recently aquired one and it's really quite nice with Linux in my limited testing. The biggest difficulty with a standard desktop GNU+Linux on a tablet is…

> The biggest difficulty with a standard desktop GNU+Linux on a tablet is that most distributions are not optimized for easy tablet use - KDE Neon User Edition e.g. does not come with a virtual keyboard preinstalled. Ubuntu 22 on a Lenovo X1 Fold gave me the OSK without installing anything - though the touchscreen was not supported by default, the driver is under work cf https://github.com/quo/ithc-linux

Some distros do, and GNOME has been good to me too on many distributions with delivering a working virtual keyboard OOTB. KDE Neon, however, which I wanted to try after reading that KDE Plasma 5.25 has better tablet support, comes without a virtual keyboard (and AFAIK does not come with an easy option to install one, you need to know that it you have to install maliit-keyboard).

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

#206

Post by npteljes » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 8:38 PM UTC

zac23or wrote: post #184

npteljes wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your assessment. Linux and open source is, very often, an aftermarket solution. As such, it lags in things like hardware support, design trends, integration with other products. In fact, this is one of the things Microsoft made sure with their business tactics regarding Windows: that Windows should be the primary PC platform. They did their hardest to support this software-wise, with things like backward…

> ings Microsoft made sure with their business tactics regarding Windows: that Windows should be the primary PC platform...and with ruthless business deals Yes, without doubt, Microsoft make a lot of bad things to Windows being the primary pc platform. > That said, I lucked out with my Linux experience. Everything I need works well My friend who uses a USB dongle for Wifi says the same thing!

I get your point about the friend, I was quite the zealot myself, and I have known a few others too - they were so obnoxious that I was turned off of Linux for quite a few years.

When I say that everything I need works well, I do mean it, but the "I need" part does a lot of work. I don't need the fingerprint scanner, or the built-in sound card, or the bundleware that comes with the rgb gaming mouse.

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

#207

Post by npteljes » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 8:47 PM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #190

zac23or wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ings Microsoft made sure with their business tactics regarding Windows: that Windows should be the primary PC platform...and with ruthless business deals Yes, without doubt, Microsoft make a lot of bad things to Windows being the primary pc platform. > That said, I lucked out with my Linux experience. Everything I need works well My friend who uses a USB dongle for Wifi says the same thing!

> My friend who uses a USB dongle for Wifi says the same thing! I reckon you may have not tried a recent Linux kernel. Network hardware support is definitely better than MacOS at this point, and is creeping up on Windows in the consumer segment. I've used 5 different devices from 5 different manufacturers on Linux. Only one of them had a WiFi issue, which was only because the distro I was testing didn't ship with the…

It's not guaranteed to be an out of box experience unfortunately, and I say unfortunately, because of how the human mind works. For regular, pragmatic usage, Linux doesn't really have any upsides. So if someone changes, and everything works as it did before, yay, maybe we scored some privacy points, or one-upped a corporation? Great. But if someone changes and is facing issues, and sees no upsides, the conclusion will be clear: the change isn't worth it. This is among the first things that'll come to mind and again, with no positive effects to expect, the person is left with the feeling of regret, or feeling stupid.

This is why I'd like to see the following things in the technology space. Linux, Libreoffice, GIMP, etc being the default software they teach in schools. Them being used as defaults in governments. Linux coming preinstalled on computers by default, with Windows coming with an extra price tag. If these would magically happen somehow, the tables would have been turned - now it's up to Microsoft to adhere to a standard, and people would be confused as to why someone would bother tinkering with Windows and Office when the forms, submissions, contracts and presentations are expected in the libre formats anyways.

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

#208

Post by smoldesu » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

zac23or wrote: post #196

smoldesu wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My friend who uses a USB dongle for Wifi says the same thing! I reckon you may have not tried a recent Linux kernel. Network hardware support is definitely better than MacOS at this point, and is creeping up on Windows in the consumer segment. I've used 5 different devices from 5 different manufacturers on Linux. Only one of them had a WiFi issue, which was only because the distro I was testing didn't ship with the…

I tried it this year, with the gaming laptop I use for programming. After Bluetooth problem, I didn't try again.

Oh, well there's your problem. Gaming laptops are notoriously useless on Linux, oftentimes moreso than Macs. Gaming laptop manufacturers only sell products to Windows users, and likewise don't really care if they buy cheap components without proper driver support. It's a common and sad practice, but I kinda have to blame you for not doing your research here.

I do wish you luck in the future. Nobody deserves to be saddled with telemetry/adware just because their hardware is unsupported on other OSes, but blind-box reverse-engineering the drivers for all your esoteric Chinese WiFi cards is oftentimes not really worth the trouble. Like I said in the other post, Linux never claims to have driver parity with Windows (nor can it, really). However, informed consumers can pretty easily source hardware with excellent Linux support. HP and Lenovo sell first-party machines with Linux preinstalled and guaranteed driver support, as well as many other smaller manufacturers. With cheap, cobbled-together gaming laptops, that's often not possible.

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

#209

Post by pizza234 » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 8:56 PM UTC

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?

These are two acknowledged issues on Ubuntu (which is supposed to be fully supported):

1. sleep draining batteries: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1808957

2. keyboard lights turning on even when disabled: https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/keyboard-light-keeps-turning...

The second is just annoying; the first is serious (for a laptop).

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

#210

Post by chopin » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

idle_zealot wrote: post #149

solardev wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true even if you compile AOSP from source? (not being sarcastic here, just never looked into this)

You lose the spyware if you use AOSP (except any that’s baked into your OEM’s kernel blobs), but you also lose a lot of functionality. You can regain some by using a community-maintained AOSP-based OS like Lineage, but chances are that a bunch of device-specific hardware/software features will still be missing.

I am writing this from a Fairphone 4 with e/OS installed (AOSP based) and don't miss anything so far.