Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

changelog.complete.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 240 posts

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

#221

Post by theK »

nicbou wrote: post #153
Macha wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPad is out, too locked down for my tastes. Android is out, they've basically thrown in the towel in this space. Their newest release claims "We're back for real this time", but they already dumped it once. I'd take a desktop with touch experience over a "phone app on big screen" experience 100%. So I've ended up with a Surface Go as my tablet when I replaced my nvidia shield k1 also. The UI can be janky, but hav…

It comes down to what you want to do with your tablet. I want to replace paper books and notebooks. The iPad is unrivalled for that. If I need a machine to type on, I need a full OS on a full laptop. I just pack both.

I think the iOS experience is great at first but starts to break down very fast as soon as you want it to interact with your selfhosted world.

There still isnt an easy way to give an ipad an SSH identity and sync arbitrary folders for example.

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

#222

Post by vanviegen »

nicbou wrote: post #150
vanviegen wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I teach a university course for which we require students to install Linux on their Windows laptops, all of them different. These are overwhemingly inexperienced students that we give a short manual, mostly about tweaking a few bios settings before you insert the installation medium. Of the 35 students in my class, 25 completed the installation without issue, with all hardware (never asked about fingerprint scanners)…

It's not just about getting it to run. The devil is in the details: sleep mode, bluetooth, power usage, etc etc. Usually, the first 90% went great, and the last 10% took whole weekends to fix.

I included that in 'running fine', though admittedly some of these laptops may not be showing great battery life and may experience the occasional issue waking up from sleep mode. These students have been using their Linux installations for almost a year now; enough time for any subtle problems to emerge.

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

#223

Post by nicbou »

theK wrote: post #221
nicbou wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes down to what you want to do with your tablet. I want to replace paper books and notebooks. The iPad is unrivalled for that. If I need a machine to type on, I need a full OS on a full laptop. I just pack both.

I think the iOS experience is great at first but starts to break down very fast as soon as you want it to interact with your selfhosted world. There still isnt an easy way to give an ipad an SSH identity and sync arbitrary folders for example.

This is fine for me. My iPad is a mostly disconnected device on purpose. It's truly just a notebook.

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

#224

Post by npteljes »

smoldesu wrote: post #214
npteljes wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wil…

I don't think Linux's goal is to eat the world (or should be), which seems to be a common misconception in and outside of the community. Linux does not make a good desktop operating system in an age of smartphones and iPads, and I think that's perfectly fine. Linux effectively has 2 communities to cater to: - Developers, sysadmins and power-users who intend to exploit the depth of it's featureset or - Crypto nerds, p…

I disagree with this assessment. I'd love Linux, or any other free OS to eat the world; I think that standards, protocols, operating systems, and other utility-like components should be 100% open, free and unencumbered.

Also, Linux is pretty much a panacea. We have it demonstrated currently. It works perfectly well in server, desktop, laptop and mobile environments. It continues to prove itself as a viable alternative to whatever else these platforms run.

The crux of people's Linux issues is not a technical one. Linux, as a platform, doesn't have the clout the alternatives do have. This means that the tinkering that comes with integrating systems falls on the Linux people, and the end users. Neither of them have the information, which often doesn't leave the manufacturer, and the adequate time and know-how to keep up - so the systems end up working less reliably. Which, of course, works out well in favor of the companies that offer end-to-end integrated systems - Apple, Google, Microsoft.

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

#225

Post by linmob »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #216
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'…

> You can have a similarly bad experience with Linux on a laptop Yes, but not with a laptop mentioned in an article called "I Finally Found a Solid Debian Laptop". This is not a solid debian tablet, it's a shitty unsupported tablet. Thinkpads (t series) are solid linux laptops, with occasional mini quirks, this tablet is far from anything "solid".

Honestly, I have one. I put KDE Neon User Edition (based on 20.04) on it (a somewhat bad choice, as it does not ship a virtual keyboard by default yet, GNOME is generally better there), and it installed just fine.

Touch works, the Pen works (with pressure sensitivity) rotation works, WiFi and Bluetooth work, Standby (deep sleep, I put to sleep for 8 hours and it only lost 5%) works (including wake-up).

Non working: Webcams.

All that OOTB, without switching to a special kernel or similar. If that’s "shitty unsupported tablet" in your book that's ok, but in my book it's pretty cool and way better than what I've seen on my last ThinkPad (L380 Yoga) when I got it, where standby wouldn’t just work.

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

#226

Post by deepsun »

csdvrx wrote: post #59
deepsun wrote: post #4

As for decent powered charger try one from https://frame.work -- it also has both power and USB-C cords detachable, so you can use any other USB-C you like, as well as custom length (or plug) power cords.

> As for decent powered charger try one from https://frame.work -- it also has both power and USB-C cords detachable, so you can use any other USB-C you like, as well as custom length (or plug) power cords. Uh? That's HUGE! I recommend instead a AOHI GaN USB-C PD charger: the 30W is much smaller and sufficient to charge most laptops https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097BWY4WG The chubbier AOHI 65W I got when I thought I may…

Nah, 30W is not enough, tried.

In Europe, there is a company that does decent custom chargers, but it's nowhere on Amazon (wonder why): https://www.promate.net/collections/wall-chargers

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

#227

Post by csdvrx »

deepsun wrote: post #226
csdvrx wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for decent powered charger try one from https://frame.work -- it also has both power and USB-C cords detachable, so you can use any other USB-C you like, as well as custom length (or plug) power cords. Uh? That's HUGE! I recommend instead a AOHI GaN USB-C PD charger: the 30W is much smaller and sufficient to charge most laptops https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097BWY4WG The chubbier AOHI 65W I got when I thought I may…

Nah, 30W is not enough, tried. In Europe, there is a company that does decent custom chargers, but it's nowhere on Amazon (wonder why): https://www.promate.net/collections/wall-chargers

They are all big and ugly, as if they had just glued the .uk plug.

Don't you have some with retractable or switchable prongs? That's a very nice feature of some of our North American adapters!

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

#228

Post by hollandheese »

fomine3 wrote: post #147
Macha wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPad is out, too locked down for my tastes. Android is out, they've basically thrown in the towel in this space. Their newest release claims "We're back for real this time", but they already dumped it once. I'd take a desktop with touch experience over a "phone app on big screen" experience 100%. So I've ended up with a Surface Go as my tablet when I replaced my nvidia shield k1 also. The UI can be janky, but hav…

Agree but a cons of Windows tablet is that Kindle app sucks. It's not minor problem since tablet is primary for reading books for me.

Honestly, use Calibre and DeDRM. The Calibre has pretty nice epub/mobi/azw3 reading software as well as the best library management.

Or just get an actual Kindle.

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

#229

Post by hollandheese »

LeSaucy wrote: post #69
least wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This requires some elaboration. I'd argue that iPadOS offers an excellent tablet experience because it was built with its unique set of properties in mind. It doesn't behave exactly like a phone and it doesn't behave exactly like a laptop, but you do see elements of both in it. It offers a lot of applications that do all sorts of wonderful things. It's a great way to draw/paint, you can sculpt stuff in 3d, you can cr…

I don’t think you can do much better than an iPad Pro in the tablet space, super refined tablet experience, combined with the Microsoft rdp app to a vm or other desktop for a full x86 windows env, apple rdp to macs/MacBooks, and blink mosh ssh to Linux systems. Yes running external systems is cheating but the actual end result is insanely functional. Say what you will about iPadOS but it still gets yearly major updat…

>Say what you will about iPadOS but it still gets yearly major updates and new features for free.

I really wouldn't call iPadOS 16 a major update for anything but the M1 iPads.

>Yes running external systems is cheating but the actual end result is insanely functional.

Now go somewhere without great internet connectivity and attempt to do work.

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

#230

Post by hollandheese »

dredmorbius wrote: post #155
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.…

Serious question: why not simply an ultra-light laptop? I've taken a hard look at what the strengths/weaknesses of tablets are (see my link-drop elsewhere in this subthread), and the one thing they're really good at seems to be reading ebooks. For which a dedicated e-ink ebook reader is far superior. Almost any productivity task is better done with a keyboard, ergo, laptop. Video and audio capture are more flexibly a…

> Handwritten notetaking is another possible application, though having a keyboard available makes typed notes and note-management systems viable. Then there's drawing / sketching. Again, e-ink kworks well for B&W there.

Have you actually tried using an e-ink device for taking notes? Sluggish and not nearly good enough compared to Goodnotes (iPad), OneNote (Windows), Xournalpp (Linux).

>Video and audio capture are more flexibly and usefully achieved with a dedicated camera or recorder, and both can be extremely inexpensive.

Can not work as well for making instructional videos as a tablet with screen recording.

>Audiobooks are pretty well suited to an e-ink tablet again.

Phones or an mp3 player.

Post reply on HN