I haven’t had a great time with Linux on a tablet without a keyboard and mouse but PostmarketOS is 100% usable IMO. Even the on screen keyboard on the login screen works.
Did you use the linux-surface kernel? It has additional community maintained patches for surface devices and detailed installation instructions for the best linux experience. From their feature matrix they seem to have full support for sgo2.
Not sure if its available on pmOS though.
I’ve recently installed ZorinOS on my Surface Go 2 as part of my migration away from US software. Had a great experience too so far, way faster than Windows 11 like 2-3x faster which is crucial as my base model only has 4GB RAM.
Only issue is my camera isn’t working, but I rarely used it (unfortunately still have a work laptop for teams calls). Now just need to migrate rest of services away from Microsoft account and close it.
x86, ARM, are intended to be multipurpose, right? So why tf does the OS running on it need multiple layers of abstraction and have the right drivers to support common features? Wouldn’t it be possible to standardize the interfaces for audio, hw video acceleration, etc. so that you just need one audio driver for all x86 CPUs, another for ARM and be done?
The CPU might be the same, but the audio chip, trackpad, etc. might be different and require a new driver.
Yeah, but why isn’t that handled in hardware or microcode?
I’m not sure how you’d handle hardware in hardware.
Microcode is usually only run on the CPU, so in that case the implementation would be called “drivers”. If you ran it on the device it would be called “firmware” and the OS still has to know how it address its interfaces somehow, and implementation is again called a “driver”.
I mean some kind of unified interface spec and the hardware conforms to it?
Because when there’s a new hardware function, the driver has to add support for it.
The app launcher UI is hilarious, the name is too long so it adds 3 more periods to it and cuts off even more of the name.
How’s the battery life compared to Windows?
So far it seems really good. I haven’t tested it to much though.
I also tested Linux on the Surface 2 Go once, I think Fedora, but it just wasn’t smooth and stable enough. Constantly some kind of misbehavior. So I went back to Windows after all.
First mistake was using a microsoft device.
Daily driving a Surface Go 1 with Fedora since 2022.
It works really well except for cameras, sometimes bluetooth and being laggy 1 time out of maybe 30 startups.
The last problem can be solved just by plugging and unplugging the usb-c cable connecting it to a screen.
I’m really happy with it even if it’s not what I’d bought if I had gotten back to Linux already when I got it.
Not saying it can’t be done. I know it can. And glad it can. Gives people who locked into buying a M$ product the option. That’s part of the beauty of Linux and open source.
I just would never recommend anyone to go buy a surface for the sole purpose of running Linux.
I ran Arch on mine when I had it. And it had its drawbacks. When I bought my next machine, a Lenivo, I had so much better support. It made the whole experience that much better.
I hate Microsoft. And I hope they crumble. Every last bit of them.
What’s also great is that’s some evil company products like my wifés MacBook Pro 2012 or my Surface Go 1 might get cheaper than other friendlier devices once they aren’t supported anymore.
So, if you’re willing to go through some difficulties, you could get them for cheaper than something from Lenovo.
But yeah I ain’t a fan of these companies…
I have an older lenovo T590 that work great. And a T15. They can be had at reasonable prices. T590 has an 8th gen i7. The T15 has a 10th gen i7. They work well for me.
But yeah, absolutely get your point.
