A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4
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A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4
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Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4
#2I know this doesn't fit the author's goals but I still think the trick with the surface line is using WSL instead of trying to run native Linux. Things have improved over time but when I was using my Surface Pro 4, Linux support was still pretty lacking. Maybe things will get better now that they're practically EOL with Win10 ending next year and no support for Win11.
Unfortunately my SSD started to fail and battery life was poor enough that I ended up buying something else. The iFixit repair score reflects how much of a pain it would be to replace both of those. I do miss it sometimes, I really liked the 3:2 aspect ratio.
Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4
#3I know this doesn't fit the author's goals but I still think the trick with the surface line is using WSL instead of trying to run native Linux. Things have improved over time but when I was using my Surface Pro 4, Linux support was still pretty lacking. Maybe things will get better now that they're practically EOL with Win10 ending next year and no support for Win11. Unfortunately my SSD started to fail and battery…
Does WSL handle multi-touch/gestures well?
Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4
#4I know this doesn't fit the author's goals but I still think the trick with the surface line is using WSL instead of trying to run native Linux. Things have improved over time but when I was using my Surface Pro 4, Linux support was still pretty lacking. Maybe things will get better now that they're practically EOL with Win10 ending next year and no support for Win11. Unfortunately my SSD started to fail and battery…
Does WSL handle multi-touch/gestures well?
As far as I know it only supports basic tapping/clicking for GUI applications and not multi-touch or gestures.
Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4
#5The Intel m3-6y30 used on this surface is just fantastically puny a core. 4.5W design spec, tdp down to 3.5 up to 7W. Tiny GPU. The 7200u on my Samsung Book 12 is a 15W configurable from 7-25W; so much more headroom. 0.8GHz vs 2.5GHz base clocks! Admittedly the 7200u is also a year newer but both are Sky Lake.
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/88198/i...
One interesting thing happening in Linux now is bpf control over hid devices. Perhaps it might be possible to filter palm reads out at the kernel level with this, or eliminate ghost inputs. Hypothetically it should allow filtering the data arbitrarily. Classically I've used interception-tools in userland to do some light remapping, reading a device filtering and emitting as a virtual uhid, but this should be faster & slicker. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.11-More-HID-BPF
I really need to switch from my Samsung Book 12 to another copy (which I already own); mine's OLED is pretty cracked: remarkably invisible when looking straight on at it, but the touch went from sometimes not working to never working. I also want to try a pen with it.
The 4GB of ram can be obnoxious. I feel like with a better nvme not sata SSD it wouldn't be such an issue but paging stuff out or in really makes the whole system lag badly sometimes, which is terrible.
I also hella recommend hibernate. I didn't trust it for years, but one day ran low on power while suspended & watched systemd wake my system up, then hibernate it, and was shocked shocked shocked that it resumed latter & worked. It takes ~10s to boot up but being able to put a project aside, and come back weeks later & pickup where I left off is amazing. Use hibernate! I think you can configure it to hibernate after X amount of time sleeping.
Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4
#6I'm using a Surface Pro 7 to run Fedora, and my experience is mostly the same, although it runs a bit faster and without the ghost touches. The main annoyance I face is probably the fact that touch in Firefox occasionally breaks.
Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4
#7I'm using a Surface Pro 7 to run Fedora, and my experience is mostly the same, although it runs a bit faster and without the ghost touches. The main annoyance I face is probably the fact that touch in Firefox occasionally breaks.
Can you share a bit more about your experience here, in particular setting the system up?
I have a bashed up Surface Pro 7 I took traveling with me. I upgraded my main PC to a Surface Pro 9 when I housed up and have been wondering what to do with with the Pro 7 because it's so battered from being thrown around and used outdoors for a year that it's not really sellable. I was thinking of turning it into a dedicated outdoor/travel computer, installing Fedora and Steam for point and click adventures, and maybe some MIDI/DJ controller software to play tunes. But I no longer have a keyboard for it, so I would need to be able to do the full Linux install by touchscreen. My other Surface is 100% bluetooth input devices to avoid cables, docks and dongles, so I could potentially pair one of those if it would help during install phase, but I wouldn't want it permanently paired. It seems like the advice online is generally "if you don't have a USB keyboard, don't bother", though. Do you think it's worth a shot?
Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4
#8I'm using a Surface Pro 7 to run Fedora, and my experience is mostly the same, although it runs a bit faster and without the ghost touches. The main annoyance I face is probably the fact that touch in Firefox occasionally breaks.
Can you share a bit more about your experience here, in particular setting the system up? I have a bashed up Surface Pro 7 I took traveling with me. I upgraded my main PC to a Surface Pro 9 when I housed up and have been wondering what to do with with the Pro 7 because it's so battered from being thrown around and used outdoors for a year that it's not really sellable. I was thinking of turning it into a dedicated ou…
I don't think anything could go wrong just booting into the live distro, but I did my setup with a keyboard and I don't know how it would work without.
Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4
#9I'm using a Surface Pro 7 to run Fedora, and my experience is mostly the same, although it runs a bit faster and without the ghost touches. The main annoyance I face is probably the fact that touch in Firefox occasionally breaks.
Can you share a bit more about your experience here, in particular setting the system up? I have a bashed up Surface Pro 7 I took traveling with me. I upgraded my main PC to a Surface Pro 9 when I housed up and have been wondering what to do with with the Pro 7 because it's so battered from being thrown around and used outdoors for a year that it's not really sellable. I was thinking of turning it into a dedicated ou…
wouldn't you be able to plug in a USB keyboard?
Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4
#10I know this doesn't fit the author's goals but I still think the trick with the surface line is using WSL instead of trying to run native Linux. Things have improved over time but when I was using my Surface Pro 4, Linux support was still pretty lacking. Maybe things will get better now that they're practically EOL with Win10 ending next year and no support for Win11. Unfortunately my SSD started to fail and battery…
I guess that works because Linux power management is almost as bad as Windows so not a lot is lost. I'll never understand how people pick mobile devices with such short battery life. I further don't understand how literally no company other than Apple is able to deliver decent battery life. Even Microsoft's first party offerings which aren't infected by OEM bullshit are garbage in this regard.