Got myself a VERY affordable refurbished surface laptop 3
Intel graphics, intel chip - damn this will run Linux like a breeze.
Boy was I wrong. Microsoft in their wisdom have some shenanigans going on.
Managed to find a kernel on GitHub, when I installed it broke secure boot (my fault for not fully understanding) and then ended up losing access to the whole system.
Long story short I’m back on windows 11 and researching how not to screw it up.
I realise you didn’t ask for any of this info, but sometimes it’s nice to vent :)
Chalk it up as a lesson learned. There are some hoops you have to jump through, when installing Linux on a machine built and set up to use windows. One of these is secure boot.
IIRC the older surfaces have some challenges. But usually, there are just a few switches you have to set right in the BIOS/UEFI-interface and then some things to be aware of when installing Linux (that don’t really have anything to do with being a windows machine, but with older hardware). One thing is to be aware, i& your running it in BIOS or UEFI mode. Afair, that has implications from the partition table on your system drive down to the possible partitioning-schemes of some system folders.
And I don’t have experience with surface laptops, but I don’t think you’d need any obscure kernels from github. The mainline Linux Kernel should be fine, if you set it up correctly. And you shouldn’t be using Kernels from somewhere else, if you don’t absolutely know what you’re doing. (And even then, you’d be better off compiling it yourself, with the right settings).
Usually though, it’s just a matter of having the right kernel-params set during boot and loading appropriate models, which can all be done with a stock kernel, either by using the right boot-flags or even on a running system.
Compiling kernels, to my understanding, is something for Gentoo users, tinkerers and embedded system devs. Or if you want a streamlined installation on your laptop with minimal overhead; though that already puts you in the tinkerer category in my books.
I’ve got fedora and bazzite running on Surface Pro 5 and 4 without any issue. Touchscreen even works on Bazzite which was unexpected. Maybe the laptop is doing some weird things under the hood :(
I’d say that unless you want a “game console” like experience, bazzite is maybe not the right option. It’s not bad but if you want a daily driver computer it’s probably not what you’re looking for.
It’s fedora based, so if you’re curious about it, I’d just suggest using fedora. The big difference between it and Debian being the DNF package manager vs the APT package manager.
For the secure boot issues, Debian derived systems shouldn’t have any specific issues, but it does require some extra steps on set up to get working properly, ones that are not going to be obvious at first glance In the documentation but should be fairly easy to do in the live boot session before instal.
Also, I’m confused as to why you would download a kernel from GitHub? if you want to install Mint or Ubuntu, you should probably just use one of the ISO images they offer on their websites, write it to some sort of storage medium (probably flash drive), boot from that and then configure the install in the live session.
the bigger difference to Debian, at least for me, is that before is based on the atomic version of fedora. I’m very happy with bazzite on my home pc, so i tried (the corresponding) fedora silverblue on my work laptop (10yo) and it works perfect!
There are immutable/atomic distos downstream of Debian and Arch as well.
But I’m just not convinced atomic or immutable systems really bring anything to the table in regards to a daily driver. Like, the problems they solve are not that prevalent in my experience, and the limitations seem very extreme.
I’ve got bazzite running as a desktop OS and have done so for years. Not everyone is running virtual machines or modifying system files. Some people are using their computers for regular desktop stuff (like gaming, web browsing, photo and video editing, etc.).
you’d probably want to change over to that kernel after getting the system running with the standard kernel rather than starting with it. Since most of the additional support is for ancillary things like multi touch support.
Something you couldn’t really do with something like bazzite as it is immutable.
Got myself a VERY affordable refurbished surface laptop 3
Intel graphics, intel chip - damn this will run Linux like a breeze.
Boy was I wrong. Microsoft in their wisdom have some shenanigans going on.
Managed to find a kernel on GitHub, when I installed it broke secure boot (my fault for not fully understanding) and then ended up losing access to the whole system.
Long story short I’m back on windows 11 and researching how not to screw it up.
I realise you didn’t ask for any of this info, but sometimes it’s nice to vent :)
Chalk it up as a lesson learned. There are some hoops you have to jump through, when installing Linux on a machine built and set up to use windows. One of these is secure boot.
IIRC the older surfaces have some challenges. But usually, there are just a few switches you have to set right in the BIOS/UEFI-interface and then some things to be aware of when installing Linux (that don’t really have anything to do with being a windows machine, but with older hardware). One thing is to be aware, i& your running it in BIOS or UEFI mode. Afair, that has implications from the partition table on your system drive down to the possible partitioning-schemes of some system folders.
And I don’t have experience with surface laptops, but I don’t think you’d need any obscure kernels from github. The mainline Linux Kernel should be fine, if you set it up correctly. And you shouldn’t be using Kernels from somewhere else, if you don’t absolutely know what you’re doing. (And even then, you’d be better off compiling it yourself, with the right settings).
Usually though, it’s just a matter of having the right kernel-params set during boot and loading appropriate models, which can all be done with a stock kernel, either by using the right boot-flags or even on a running system.
Compiling kernels, to my understanding, is something for Gentoo users, tinkerers and embedded system devs. Or if you want a streamlined installation on your laptop with minimal overhead; though that already puts you in the tinkerer category in my books.
I’ve got fedora and bazzite running on Surface Pro 5 and 4 without any issue. Touchscreen even works on Bazzite which was unexpected. Maybe the laptop is doing some weird things under the hood :(
I tried mint and Ubuntu - both Debian based though, worth giving Bazzite a whirl. If nothing else it’ll give me something to do for a few hours 😀
I’d say that unless you want a “game console” like experience, bazzite is maybe not the right option. It’s not bad but if you want a daily driver computer it’s probably not what you’re looking for.
It’s fedora based, so if you’re curious about it, I’d just suggest using fedora. The big difference between it and Debian being the DNF package manager vs the APT package manager.
For the secure boot issues, Debian derived systems shouldn’t have any specific issues, but it does require some extra steps on set up to get working properly, ones that are not going to be obvious at first glance In the documentation but should be fairly easy to do in the live boot session before instal.
Also, I’m confused as to why you would download a kernel from GitHub? if you want to install Mint or Ubuntu, you should probably just use one of the ISO images they offer on their websites, write it to some sort of storage medium (probably flash drive), boot from that and then configure the install in the live session.
the bigger difference to Debian, at least for me, is that before is based on the atomic version of fedora. I’m very happy with bazzite on my home pc, so i tried (the corresponding) fedora silverblue on my work laptop (10yo) and it works perfect!
There are immutable/atomic distos downstream of Debian and Arch as well.
But I’m just not convinced atomic or immutable systems really bring anything to the table in regards to a daily driver. Like, the problems they solve are not that prevalent in my experience, and the limitations seem very extreme.
that is probably just a matter of taste. it took me a bit to get used to it, but now i barely feel any limitations and enjoy it quiet much.
They’re great for less tech savvy people, though terrible if you do know more and want to muck about your system more.
I’ve got bazzite running as a desktop OS and have done so for years. Not everyone is running virtual machines or modifying system files. Some people are using their computers for regular desktop stuff (like gaming, web browsing, photo and video editing, etc.).
https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface
That was the kernel I installed,
Thanks for the advice, the tinkering is honestly part of the fun! I’ll try again this weekend :)
you’d probably want to change over to that kernel after getting the system running with the standard kernel rather than starting with it. Since most of the additional support is for ancillary things like multi touch support.
Something you couldn’t really do with something like bazzite as it is immutable.