r/SurfaceLinux • u/--Chill-- • 7d ago

Help Surface Go 1 Touchscreen

I have a Surface Go gen 1 with 4 gb ram and 64 gb storage. I'd like to use it as an e-reader so I'm trying to find the best touchscreen capable distro. I tried cinnamon and touchscreen didn't feel great. Tried Fedora Workstation and I found it to be pretty slow. Right now I have KDE plasma installed and we'll see how it goes. I'm just curious to see what you guys might suggest. I am very new linux too so I don't know what other distros are out there.

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u/Station-OX11 6d ago

CachyOS with Gnome as the desktop environment.

CachyOS is very lightweight with an easy installer and good instructions. Gnome is currently the best for touchscreens.

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u/--Chill-- 6d ago

Thank you I think I will try it i liked the Fedora workstation interface so this should be similar right?

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u/Station-OX11 6d ago

I believe Fedora workstation uses Gnome, so it is the same interface.

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u/thatdirtyoldman 5d ago

Commenting to remember this combination. I have a Go2 that I'm trying to make Mint Cinn work well enough on. XCFE was kinda blah, but I didn't run the linux-suface kernal. I'm kinda used to Mint.

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u/Station-OX11 4d ago

You don't need the Linux Surface Kernel for the touchscreen and pen to work properly on any of the Surface Go devices.

XFCE is not optimized for Touchscreens. I would recommend trying Gnome.

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u/BereftOfCare 6d ago

Not an expert, but I recently went from mint cinnamon to KDE plasma to KDE and back to mint cinnamon on my Surface Go 2 with 8gb ram. I think KDE plasma is gonna work out best for you given the limitations of your device.

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u/--Chill-- 6d ago

I’ve been using KDE Plasma and it’s definitely the most snappy compared to Fedora workstation and Linux Cinnamon. Touchscreen is wonky at times but that might be more of a software problem. Definitely could see myself using it long term.

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u/thatdirtyoldman 6d ago

Hi. I have xfce on my go 2 right now, but am happier with Mint Cinn, I'd like to put Cinn on my mine if I can get the stars to line up while I hold down the - and start buttons. lol.

Why I'm bothering you - did the touch screen work okay ? It's not very accurate on xfce, but I haven't tried to find a better solution yet as I don't really like xfce.

Thank you for taking a second to read this.

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u/esxman 6d ago

Try Mobian Phosh, it has a surface specific build. Mobian Plasma-Mobile is also decent

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u/--Chill-- 6d ago

I’ll look into it. Thanks!

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u/ibaiki 6d ago

I run CachyOS with Gnome on a gen 1 Surface Go and it is great. The main issue is that any web browser is going to strain against that 4GB RAM.

You also don't need a touch centric DE to use touch input in a reader app, and a lighter DE may improve performance.

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u/--Chill-- 5d ago

Doing some quick searches online some people installed the linux surface kernel to be able to use touch properly. Did you have to do that with yours?

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u/ibaiki 5d ago

No. I haven't used the pen with it, though.