Live data from Hacker News

Building Microsoft Surface Pro 3 [video]

channel9.msdn.com

11–20 of 29 posts

Re: Building Microsoft Surface Pro 3 [video]

#11
post #7

Did somebody already install Linux on it? I think my next laptop will either be a MacBook 12 inch or whatever this new very light apple laptop is called. Or a Surface 3. I just need to be sure it runs Linux.

There is a subreddit for this, although I'm not sure what the current state-of-the-art is

http://www.reddit.com//r/surfacelinux

Here's a thread specifically about the Surface 3 (non pro)

http://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/35dmup/surface...

Re: Building Microsoft Surface Pro 3 [video]

#12
post #7

Did somebody already install Linux on it? I think my next laptop will either be a MacBook 12 inch or whatever this new very light apple laptop is called. Or a Surface 3. I just need to be sure it runs Linux.

Surface can run Linux since Surface 1. http://www.geek.com/microsoft/linux-users-rejoice-heres-ubun... I'd definitely look into just... installing Hyper-V and then installing Linux as a VM. But people have wiped the Surface Pro for Ubuntu.

You won't want to do that without Windows 10, enabling Hyper-V before Windows 10 resulted in you loosing connected standby, but with Windows 10 it works great.

Re: Building Microsoft Surface Pro 3 [video]

#13
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surface can run Linux since Surface 1. http://www.geek.com/microsoft/linux-users-rejoice-heres-ubun... I'd definitely look into just... installing Hyper-V and then installing Linux as a VM. But people have wiped the Surface Pro for Ubuntu.

You won't want to do that without Windows 10, enabling Hyper-V before Windows 10 resulted in you loosing connected standby, but with Windows 10 it works great.

Connected Standby only works for a couple of Windows Store / Metro Apps though. I don't think that's a big loss...

Re: Building Microsoft Surface Pro 3 [video]

#14

The Surface Pro 3 is really sweet. Main reason: the stylus and high-quality screen. This is the closest thing to a digital sketchpad yet. I've been waiting for the Sony A4 e-ink tablet forever (and several other e-ink products that never materialized), and finally gave in to the Surface. Unfortunately, despite being much better than what I expected, it's not great to use outdoors or in bright light. However it does b…

There is no LCD tablet (iPad, Surface etc) that is great to use outdoors.

My Galaxy Note works well; perhaps yours was a defective unit? The Note pen is too small as you found out but it is designed to be fit in the phone so that's a trade-off. However the Galaxy Note is Wacom based are there are many other pens that work with phone. I use a big pen from an old tablet Pc on the Note. The Note series with its Wagon digitizer also has a much higher resolution than the Surface with 1024 pressure levels.

I would buy the Galaxy Note Pro (13") as well but I'm waiting for the Surface Pro 4

Re: Building Microsoft Surface Pro 3 [video]

#15
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unfortunately the Pro 3 uses an n-trig 256-pressure levels sensor, which has a much lower resolution than the previous versions which were Wacom based. For writing/jotting down is ok, but for drawing the difference is noticeable. The lower sensitivity takes a toll when you try to customize the response curve... >I'm appalled why so many tablet vendors don't ship with a digitizer built-in. Strip that useless rear-fac…

I've pulled apart wacom tablets before and the panes really aren't that thick, you're talking a single layer of flex PCB. I find it difficult to believe that this was the defining reason for them not using it in their hardware. The 8 bits of resolution they ended up with are probably not all ending up being useful either, which sounds like a pretty disappointing user experience.

Problem is Wacom manufactures the PCB and the PCB is actually rather thick because Wacom doesn't use hyper-modern extra thin stuff.

Its just a grid of wires, basically, theres no reason that it HAS to be that thick, just that they've essentially not changed how they've been made for the past decade.

Wacom doesn't think they need to compete in the tablet market vs modern touch digitizers, so they don't bother doing so, even though they'll license/sell it to anyone with enough cash.

Its confusing to me that Microsoft and Wacom couldn't make a deal: I've used Wacom tablets before, hardware wise, its the best pen interface I've ever used; software wise, well, the apps themselves were laggy as fuck, but Microsoft (due to Surface) has been making a huge push to fix that, and there is literally no reason for it to happen anyways, especially if scribbling with a mouse doesn't do the same (its not caused by the driver or the hardware, because Wacom sample apps don't do it).

Re: Building Microsoft Surface Pro 3 [video]

#16
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surface can run Linux since Surface 1. http://www.geek.com/microsoft/linux-users-rejoice-heres-ubun... I'd definitely look into just... installing Hyper-V and then installing Linux as a VM. But people have wiped the Surface Pro for Ubuntu.

You won't want to do that without Windows 10, enabling Hyper-V before Windows 10 resulted in you loosing connected standby, but with Windows 10 it works great.

Hyper-V "replaces" your NIC with a bridge adapter, sorta like how you use br0 that bridges to eth0 on Linux, so that could be the cause of that (ie, Hyper-Vs bridge doesn't know how to speak the connected standby API and pass it through to the real NIC).

Re: Building Microsoft Surface Pro 3 [video]

#17
post #3

The Surface Pro 3 is really sweet. Main reason: the stylus and high-quality screen. This is the closest thing to a digital sketchpad yet. I've been waiting for the Sony A4 e-ink tablet forever (and several other e-ink products that never materialized), and finally gave in to the Surface. Unfortunately, despite being much better than what I expected, it's not great to use outdoors or in bright light. However it does b…

>Unfortunately the Pro 3 uses an n-trig 256-pressure levels sensor, which has a much lower resolution than the previous versions which were Wacom based. For writing/jotting down is ok, but for drawing the difference is noticeable. The lower sensitivity takes a toll when you try to customize the response curve... >I'm appalled why so many tablet vendors don't ship with a digitizer built-in. Strip that useless rear-fac…

Unless you're some serious super-artist that does massively high res painting and lives in Photoshop or whatever all day, their sensors are fine.

The guy that draws Penny Arcade dicked around with a Surface 3 Pro and now he absolutely loves it and does a lot of art on it. No real issues reported (and any issues hes reported has been fixed quickly by Microsoft, which, well, Microsoft actually fixing issues promptly fills me with a kind of hope that I haven't had in a long long time).

Microsoft kinda feels like... the Google I wish Google was. I'm not sure how to actually describe this. A company that, yes, makes money, but also makes cool shit and I want to throw money at them to keep making cool shit.

As opposed to the post-Gates Balmer era that drove all their products (sans XBox) into the ground. Well, further into the ground. I'm not trying to flame Microsoft here, but Windows 95 is why I converted to Linux on my desktop full time, and Windows 2000 was the only sane Windows in my opinion between Windows 3.1 and Windows 8.x.

Re: Building Microsoft Surface Pro 3 [video]

#18

The Surface Pro 3 is really sweet. Main reason: the stylus and high-quality screen. This is the closest thing to a digital sketchpad yet. I've been waiting for the Sony A4 e-ink tablet forever (and several other e-ink products that never materialized), and finally gave in to the Surface. Unfortunately, despite being much better than what I expected, it's not great to use outdoors or in bright light. However it does b…

There is no LCD tablet (iPad, Surface etc) that is great to use outdoors. My Galaxy Note works well; perhaps yours was a defective unit? The Note pen is too small as you found out but it is designed to be fit in the phone so that's a trade-off. However the Galaxy Note is Wacom based are there are many other pens that work with phone. I use a big pen from an old tablet Pc on the Note. The Note series with its Wagon di…

I've pretty much found my Note indispensable. The amount of crap I used to drag along to meetings (notebooks, papers, pens, etc.) is down to zero. I've gone through entire days bouncing around meeting to meeting with my portable "office" in my pocket and nothing else. I can't see going back to a non-pen-enabled device any time soon.

Every once in a while I find myself forgetting about the Note and looking for a pad of paper or a pen somewhere (because I don't have any on my desk any more) and slapping myself because I don't need those things anymore.

I've toyed with getting a Note Pro, but it's just too expensive IMHO. If it was down to within $50-100 of the same sized regular tablet I might dive in.

Bonus: killing time with FlipaClip has brought me more fun than I've had since I was 10 years old.

Re: Building Microsoft Surface Pro 3 [video]

#19
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unfortunately the Pro 3 uses an n-trig 256-pressure levels sensor, which has a much lower resolution than the previous versions which were Wacom based. For writing/jotting down is ok, but for drawing the difference is noticeable. The lower sensitivity takes a toll when you try to customize the response curve... >I'm appalled why so many tablet vendors don't ship with a digitizer built-in. Strip that useless rear-fac…

Unless you're some serious super-artist that does massively high res painting and lives in Photoshop or whatever all day, their sensors are fine. The guy that draws Penny Arcade dicked around with a Surface 3 Pro and now he absolutely loves it and does a lot of art on it. No real issues reported (and any issues hes reported has been fixed quickly by Microsoft, which, well, Microsoft actually fixing issues promptly fi…

My perspective on windows 2000 is somewhat different because I came from NT4. 2000 required a lot more hardware to do basically the same thing. I thought it was a step down.

Re: Building Microsoft Surface Pro 3 [video]

#20
post #7

Did somebody already install Linux on it? I think my next laptop will either be a MacBook 12 inch or whatever this new very light apple laptop is called. Or a Surface 3. I just need to be sure it runs Linux.

There is a subreddit for this, although I'm not sure what the current state-of-the-art is http://www.reddit.com//r/surfacelinux Here's a thread specifically about the Surface 3 (non pro) http://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/35dmup/surface...

So the short answer is that it does not work. Lots of fiddling and they dont even get the native resolution working according to the posts.
Post reply on HN