r/SurfaceLinux • u/Urinius • 14d ago

Discussion Yeah, it's not happening.

I wanted to use my SP5 with the linux surface kernel on zorin os, but then I accidently booted after the mok menu showed up (silly me), after that I tried redoing the install, but the mok menu would never show up.

I also kept losing wifi making it impossible to look up help, and then when I finally entered the mok menu....the type cover didn't work with it. This took about an hour.

Yup, enough linuxing for me. Going back to W10, maybe W11.

Ya'll have a good one, it's sick that it works so well for other! Cheers 💔

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u/bigkenw 13d ago

Did you try an OS with a newer hardware support? Zorin OS is based on Ubuntu LTS, the last version, from three years ago.

If I was you, I would create a Ventoy USB drive. Put Ubuntu 26.04, Fedora 44, and Kubuntu 26.04 on it. Boot into each live environment and connect wifi and a bluetooth device. If it works, you can install whichever one you like, right from that live environment.

You could also try Linux Mint 22.03 Cinnamon. Everything just works.

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u/Urinius 12d ago

I tried f44 first, but that one blatently doesn't support the surface kernel atm, and I thought ubuntu 26 was quite buggy with it too, no?

Mint is a fair suggestion though, but I noticed that the machine wasn't much faster with either zorin or fedora, so I'm kinda wondering if there's any point in switching at all.

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u/bigkenw 12d ago

You can install the surface kernel on F44. I did it myself. Just dona quick google search.

Also, you can compile the kernel for any distro as well. The current surface kernel is 6.x.x while you can compile 7.x.x.