I’m 43 and not really starting using Linux. I’ve dabbled with distros on and off over the years, but I never made the full switch because work always had some program or policy that just wouldn’t play nice with Linux. With all the crappy Microsoft decisions, bloatware, and ads I decided to try and use Linux exclusively on a personal device, and I’m absolutely loving it!
I’ve been working with Ubuntu as my main distro, and I’ve also been playing around with distros on a Raspberry Pi. To really challenge myself, I installed Linux on an old Surface Pro 3, and guess what? It just works! I was pleasantly surprised by how smooth the setup was and how well it performs.
I missing any key steps or tips to make the experience even better on a Surface? Any insights would be greatly appreciated. I was planning to buy a new tablet that runs Linux but this is working better than expected. I’m really enjoying the flexibility and control Linux offers and want to keep this momentum going.
I have read up and tried plenty, just looking for some perspectives out there specific to your tablet experiences.
EDIT Thank you for all the suggestions and insights! I’m going to continue using the Ubuntu build for the next few months. Still lots more to learn, but I’m excited to see how this goes. I have everything setup I need to function as a Linux only tablet experience. <sigh of relief> no more dependency on Windoze.
Is there a DE with an onscreen keyboard that can be used in the terminal?
The onscreen keyboard used with Plasma (steam deck as well) is missing CTRL and other keys needed when navigating a terminal. It also fails to pop up on electron apps.
I think it was called OnBoard, basiclly a 1:1 keyboard clone on ur screen.
Sounds like it’s a bust to use terminal on a tablet. Damn.
You can get a small Bluetooth keyboard. They make them really tiny, for this exact use case (smartphones and tablets).
Since this is a Surface you can probably find one that’s been specifically designed to integrate with it (act as a cover).
You might want to look at Surface Kernel for Linux. The link below shows their matrix of features on various Surface products and support within the Surface for Linux kernel. You would install Ubuntu and then install these updates to make Surface hardware function better. They have a lot of bespoke hardware in their laptops and tablets that aren’t supported by the Ubuntu Linux Kernel out of the gate. https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Supported-Devices-and-Features#feature-matrix
Ok this is getting to the question I had. I found a few YouTube videos that went into detail about updating the kernel. I was wondering what’s the purpose when it was working as well as it has. I’m going to try to do this and follow the guides. Initially I had to overcome a BitLocker issue and a bug where I couldn’t overwrite the partition. Once I finally got Ubuntu running I was ready to dive into making it touch compatible, but it was already there. I suspect this makes it even better
If it works well for you, don’t worry about it. The matrix will show what kind of support improvements you might expect over the standard kernel.
I use ThinkPad X1 yoga with Fedora 40 (Gnome)
- Enable fractional scaling and install Display scale switcher gnome extension - makes it easier to increase scaling when in tablet mode for easier touch input.
- logging in on a touchscreen can be a pain, in particular entering the password with on-screen keyboard. Special characters and numbers are not shown by default. On windows you have the option to use pin instead with a numeric keyboard. If you have a fingerprint reader compatible with linux that might work for login (mine doesn’t).
- Linux is very terminal-oriented, but Gnome terminal is unusable on a tochscreen. never mind typing commands - try scrolling long outputs - you can’t scroll with touchscreen, it will just start selecting text (i dont remember how this works in Windows)
- Google chrome supports gestures, so you can swipe left/right on the page to navigate back/forward. This does not with Firefox. Chrome also has a more touchscreen-friendly UI you can enable in chrome://flags/#top-chrome-touch-ui (Touch UI layout) although I haven’t noticed a significant difference.
- while you’re messing with google flags you may want to change Preferred Ozone platform to Wayland - this fixed blurry scaling for me
I was looking at Lenovo and this is good input. It sounds like everyone is not a fan of the tablet keyboard and the terminal is straight bollocks no matter the distro. I keep hearing Fedora and Wayland. I’m going to have to learn about them a bit more.
If you’re planning to get the 3rd gen x1 yoga, don’t. I had to disable thunderbolt ports in BIOS to get it to sleep correctly. Otherwise touch screen would not work after wake. And stylus doesn’t work correctly with Wayland. It stops working after few seconds of use.
I only know that I was pleasantly surprised how well GNOME ran on a surface device of a friend.
Yeah, me too. It just works!
You use fedora https://lemmy.world/post/16899331
I’ve been tempted to try and install plasma mobile on a tablet.
I don’t have Linux on a tablet right now but my first thought was that you might want to check into what Steam Deck users are doing with “Desktop Mode.” It has a touchscreen and virtual keyboard so it’s essentially a tablet-like experience (though it has touchpads and a few buttons, obviously, and isn’t a tablet). It runs KDE by default, which I’m not as familiar with as Gnome, but it might have more users than any other GNU/Linux touchscreen product.
Last time I had a Linux tablet, there were also some Firefox/Chrome/Gnome extensions that made it more touch-friendly. Like instead of selecting text, one finger swipe scrolled, two-fingers zoomed in, etc. like a typical tablet. Not sure if that’s still an issue. But if you do run into an issue, it might already be solved by an extension.
Hopefully, someone has more up-to-date advice. The tablet I had (and probably still have in a drawer somewhere) was an experimental Ubuntu Touch device and there’s been huge strides since then.
Thank you, that gives me a direction to start researching. I’ve been wondering the experience and it seems like it has been developing.
I don’t think tablets are fully supported but I see gnome devs continuing to make steady progress there. Stoked for a future where (real) open source catches up to phones and tablets, we are close…
Ok, that makes sense. I suppose a Surface Pro is still kinda a computer with a touchscreen. Overall I was impressed with how smooth the experience was and look forward to it developing.
Whoa, I don’t know why I’ve never considered Linux on a tablet. I have a couple that are gathering dust in a closet, and if this is doable, it sounds like a fun project!
On this Surface Pro, touch, rotation, and even the pen is working! I didn’t expect it to just work and it is.
The pen?! Damn, that’s impressive.
The one I might use is a an old Galaxy Note. I wonder if I’ll have similar luck.
There’s a big difference between an Android tablet and a PC tablet…
Am I getting my hopes up for nothing? =(
Probably, android devices and especially Samsung can be locked down. I don’t know your model though I feel like there are 4,327 variants of “galaxy note”.
Well all the Linux distros you see being discussed in this thread for PCs. There’s a much wider array of driver support in the kernel for x86 related hardware. ARM tablets, especially Samsung devices, have speciality hardware. Honestly, you’ll be lucky if you can get past any bootloader issues on a Samsung.
