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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

#141

Post by maxboone »

denysvitali wrote: post #34
b3lvedere wrote: post #30

I never liked the Surface series that much. It looks very nice, until you actually start working with them. Then they feel like a weird tablet with slow Windows on it. You can optimize it a little, but not much. Quite expensive as well and sometimes support is horribly slow. I gave my wife an old Lenovo Yoga 2 in 1. That thing works nice using it as a flipped tablet to watch Netflix, but here also the performance isn…

The Surface Pro X (with Linux) runs pretty well. When I was running Windows on that, it worked nicely too

How's the peripherals support on Surface Linux?

I've been wanting to switch to Linux on my Pro X SQ2 for a while due to the WSL2 support on it being terrible (might be fixed now [1]) but always thought that most stuff such as LTE, webcam and surface connector wouldn't work [2].

[1] https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/11274#issuecomment-2... [2] https://github.com/linux-surface/surface-pro-x/issues/1#issu...

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#142

Post by vel0city »

criddell wrote: post #134
vel0city wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standby works fine for me on Windows and has for a long time across dozens of different devices. Chances are if the system keeps waking from sleep, they have some third-party app that keeps waking the system.

The machine isn't waking from sleep, it's that the standby processing is intensive enough and the hardware is so poorly designed that the computer heats up which requires the fan to run. > When Modern Standby-capable systems enter sleep, the system is still in S0 (a fully running state, ready and able to do work). Desktop apps are stopped by the Desktop Activity Moderator (DAM); however, background tasks from Microso…

> hardware is so poorly designed

So, don't buy poorly designed hardware? Even my $300 Walmart (Motile) laptop suspends with Connected Standby enabled without issue.

I've had over a dozen devices since 8.1 came out, none of which had problems with Connected Standby.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#143

Post by haspok »

throwaway3306a wrote: post #126
vel0city wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standby works fine for me on Windows and has for a long time across dozens of different devices. Chances are if the system keeps waking from sleep, they have some third-party app that keeps waking the system.

Macbooks also wake from sleep while closed and yet it doesn't destroy the computer. How is the computer supposed to do background checks / send its location etc if it can't wake up for a short while?

I don't want my computer to do _anything_ if I set it to sleep, other than keep the memory contents alive for some time. Although these days even Ubuntu with KDE starts up so fast that the only reason for sleep (instead of shutdown) is to keep some programs running, with some mid-work state.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#144

Post by gosub100 »

jasonjayr wrote: post #119
trelane wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standby doesn't work on Windows?

In the last few years; Microsoft started pushing this "Modern standby"[1] thing, which lets the CPU run while suspended or something. IIRC it is so a PC can run background services, wifi and what not, like tablets + cell phones. It is causing so many issues, because the common use case for a laptop is to close the lid, and then stuff it into a padded bag. If anything starts up the laptop for whatever reason, all that…

I really hope this doesn't become a contributing factor in a future plane crash from an onboard fire in the baggage compartment. I could see someone throwing their laptop in a suitcase with a bunch of clothes and having that heat building up into a thermal runaway. It's asinine to me that there isn't a hardware thermal sensor that just shuts off power if the heat is too high. In addition to the tragedy of an accident, what will happen is they'll probably block everyone from bringing laptops with them.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#145

Post by the__alchemist »

b3lvedere wrote: post #30

I never liked the Surface series that much. It looks very nice, until you actually start working with them. Then they feel like a weird tablet with slow Windows on it. You can optimize it a little, but not much. Quite expensive as well and sometimes support is horribly slow. I gave my wife an old Lenovo Yoga 2 in 1. That thing works nice using it as a flipped tablet to watch Netflix, but here also the performance isn…

I think Surface Pros are very use-case dependent. It's perfect for mine, to the point I'm astounded there is no real competitor.

Use case: While traveling or at coffee shops, be able to switch between full laptop mode (as long as you have a table; doesn't work on your lap), and use with the pen for taking notes, drawing things etc. While not as critical as pen use, being able to take the keyboard off quickly when reading or watching videos saves space, and lets me get the screen closer.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#146

Post by dragonwriter »

throwaway3306a wrote: post #126
vel0city wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standby works fine for me on Windows and has for a long time across dozens of different devices. Chances are if the system keeps waking from sleep, they have some third-party app that keeps waking the system.

Macbooks also wake from sleep while closed and yet it doesn't destroy the computer. How is the computer supposed to do background checks / send its location etc if it can't wake up for a short while?

“How is the computer supposed to do background checks / send its location etc if it can't wake up for a short while?”

Why would I want it to do that? OTOH, coming back from pay of on modern hardware is fast enough that I just reenable hibernation and use that instead of sleep, now that MS has made sleep less sleep-ish.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#147

Post by the__alchemist »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #116

Sounds like every experience of mine with desktop Linux. Excitement, initial success installing, days of esoteric troubleshooting, then disillusion and abandonment.

This is an elegant, accurate description of my own experience. It's taken 20 years of regular attempts, but I've finally given up. ("This new release of Ubuntu / this new distro will be the one!") I use WSL if I want to compile a program for Linux users.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#149

Post by haspok »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #124
bdcravens wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but wonder if Dell tweaked the firmware. I know that I, and everyone I've seen discuss it, haven't been able to get a vanilla XPS (non-Developer edition, sold with Windows) with a typical off-the-shelf distro, including Ubuntu, to work 100%.

I've had a Dell XPS 13 9343 (2017 model, non-Developer edition) running Fedora for years without problems. I suppose you might consider it cheating because I replaced the original Broadcom WiFi card with an Intel WiFi card, as that driver was a bit flaky in the early days (whereas the Intel driver has kernel support). Other than the pitiful 4 hour battery life, the laptop still runs fine, and mostly does what I need…

Hey there! I no longer use my 9343, but I remember I was not able to run Fedora without breaking the sound support for it (Ubuntu had some kernel option set on startup that put the sound card to some legacy mode, instead of the I2C that Windows used). And I never managed to setup palm rejection, it was a constant pain whenever I had to use the (otherwise excellent) trackpad.

(The external "carbon-like" skin texture just disintegrated on it after a few years, and the hinges got loose, but otherwise it is tip-top, still functional!)

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#150

Post by xtracto »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #23
treesknees wrote: post #2

I 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'm actually rather fine with what WSL can do. Hell, many of the tools I use run fine on Windows itself. But for me, the biggest shortcoming of this arrangement is having to put up with Windows' UX. I hate every single second I have to interact with this steaming pile of crap.

This so much. I've run Linux in all my desktop machines for 10+ years. When I was younger it was mainly due to ideology, but now I really don't care.

Although most linux distros still have quirks (bluetooth issues, sleep/resume issues, no hibernation out of the box, high battery consumption, among a plethora a of other papercuts) I am sticking with it mainly because windows ux just sux so much.

Every new computer I buy I give the installed windows a try and oh my god, it becomes crappier with every version. For me Windows 2000 was the best... 20 years ago. It's been downhill from there.

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