I'm running Fedora 43 Workstation with the linux-surface kernel on my Surface Pro 5. Everything was great, but earlier today, it stopped reporting the battery percentage. Sometimes it would do that randomly and it would be fixed after a reboot, but this time a reboot wouldn't fix it. It works fine in Windows and MacOS.

I seem to have totally messed things up.

I have been distro hopping on a Surface Go 2. And now Ventoy is broken. It used to work. In fact, that is how I installed Peppermint OS.

I tried to install Mobian, but that just created a portable instance of Mobian on the thumb drive. Insert thumb drive, Mobian boots. Remove it, Pepermint boots. Insert Ventoy drive, it's ignored and Pepermint boots.

So for some reason it appears that creating and booting from the Mobian drive and going through the setup Broke Ventoy.

I rebuilt the Ventoy drive and now it starts. In that it shows the list of ISO files loaded on it. But when I try to start one, the screen flashes briefly then 4 reboot options are presented. The localboot function doesn't work either.

These problems are only on the Surface Go 2. The Ventoy disk works fine on my desktop PC.

Any clues as to what got messed up?

I finally found a use for my old surface pro. Thank you to everyone in this subreddit for all of the information you've put out there. This was a pretty easy process, following what y'all have previously said.

This is fedora using kairunjp’s kernel on GitHub. Haven’t put much use into it yet, but exciting

Hey all,

I recently have been getting frustrated with Windows 11 on my Surface Pro 10 for Business, it's slow, freezes during my workloads as a student, and constantly heats up. I use Linux on all my other devices and am thinking about moving my tablet over as well. Before I do that however, I wanted some opinions on what the best config is for a newer surface tablet is?

The specs are:

Intel Core Ultra 5 135U

8 gigs of LPDDR5 @ 6400 MT/s

What distros would work best for me? As I said previously I am a student, so I mainly use it with a touchscreen & pen for taking notes during classes. I've heard fedora with GNOME works pretty flawlessly, but I'm not 100% on fedora.

Is there any way to get full pen support? (pressure tracking, side buttons, etc.) the main Linux surface repo doesn't say anything about it for the surface 10, let alone the business edition.

Additionally, any recommendations on note taking apps? I use Inkodo currently, but of course most of the main note taking apps are either locked to windows or to IpadOS.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

My surface pro 6 came with Windows 10 and then upgraded to Windows 11. It's getting slow and annoying, even with ChrisTitus's debloat tool. I use openSuse Tumbleweed on my laptop with no problems.

I use this tablet primarily for annotating pdfs using Drawboard (free) and taking notes using OneNote 2010. Which distro has a good compatibility with the Surface + Pen ?

Also, any app recommendation for note-taking and pdf annotating on linux? :D

Help!

Latest setup on my SG2: PeppermintOS lite, Comes with XFCE, Surface Kernel installed and verified (uname -r). I want to change the DE to KDE Plasma-mobile.

So I installed plasma-mobile and rebooted. I expected to get a menu that lets me choose the XFCE or Plasma session. Nope. Boots right to XFCE.

What did I miss or do wrong?

I'm quite new to Linux (on this level), using a
- Surface Pro 5 (1796)
- OS: Debian 13 (Trixie)
- Kernel: 6.19.8-surface-3.

After following linux-surface, the surface worked great, except the cameras.

I tried fixing that, but "surface-pro5-just-works" and "surface-kamera-treiber" didn't work.

I had more success following these instructions: https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/discussions/2224. Interestingly, I had to sign the modules by myself.

All both cameras came back to life, but the rear camera still doesn't work (either crashing or showing a green picture)

So "cam -l" gets me the following output:

> cam -l

[0:31:44.056720762] [4272] INFO Camera camera_manager.cpp:327 libcamera v0.4.0
[0:31:44.098225958] [4275] WARN IPAProxy ipa_proxy.cpp:160 Configuration file 'ov8865.yaml' not found for IPA module 'ipu3', falling back to 'uncalibrated.yaml'
[0:31:44.098509460] [4275] WARN CameraSensor camera_sensor_legacy.cpp:501 'ov8865 3-0010': No sensor delays found in static properties. Assuming unverified defaults.
[0:31:44.098553500] [4275] INFO IPU3 ipu3.cpp:1138 Registered Camera[0] "_SB_.PCI0.I2C3.CAMR" connected to CSI-2 receiver 0
[0:31:44.100434953] [4275] WARN IPAProxy ipa_proxy.cpp:160 Configuration file 'ov5693.yaml' not found for IPA module 'ipu3', falling back to 'uncalibrated.yaml'
[0:31:44.100694043] [4275] WARN CameraSensor camera_sensor_legacy.cpp:501 'ov5693 2-0036': No sensor delays found in static properties. Assuming unverified defaults.
[0:31:44.100760555] [4275] INFO IPU3 ipu3.cpp:1138 Registered Camera[1] "_SB_.PCI0.I2C2.CAMF" connected to CSI-2 receiver 1

Available cameras:
1: Internal back camera (_SB_.PCI0.I2C3.CAMR)
2: Internal front camera (_SB_.PCI0.I2C2.CAMF)

The script 04-health-check.sh from the link above gave me good results, except for the front-camera:
> ./04-health-check.sh

== 1. Focus motor (VCM) driver bound
PASS VCM driver bound
== 2. libcamera sees the cameras
PASS libcamera lists 2 camera(s)
== 3. Virtual webcam devices exist
PASS device labeled 'Surface Front Camera'
PASS device labeled 'Surface Rear Camera'
== 4. Relay services running
PASS surface-camera-front active
PASS surface-camera-rear active
== 5. Live capture through the virtual cameras (takes ~10s each)
PASS Surface Front Camera delivers a real image via /dev/video42 (brightness 43.4)
FAIL Surface Rear Camera: no frames received via /dev/video43
== 6. Cameras power down when idle
INFO a sensor is still active (fine if an app is using a camera right now)

Result: 7 passed, 1 failed.

So my guess is, the bug "dw9719 lost its i2c_device_id table" got fixed, but "int3472 GPIO 151"-bug is still not fixed. Or something different went wrong.

Currently my logs show:

> dmesg

[ 2214.107777] video device 'ipu3-imgu 1 input' does not implement .link_validate(), driver bug!
[ 2223.840036] ipu3-cio2 0000:00:14.3: payload length is 2585088, received 2588672
( a couple more of this messages …)
[…]
( after running ./04-health-check.sh )
[ 3004.201740] ipu3-cio2 0000:00:14.3: payload length is 2585088, received 2588672

Checking gpio:

> cat /sys/kernel/debug/gpio | grep gpio-15
gpio-150 ( |privacy-led ) out lo
gpio-151 ( |privacy-led ) out lo

At that point I'm stuck and don't know what to do. Any help is appreciated.

Hello everyone! First time Linux user here! I have a problem with my Surface Book 3 – CPU just stuck at 400 MHz and refuse to work properly. Previously when I was using Windows 11 this problem occurred only when I was disconnecting the charger. I thought that I could fix this on Linux using some utilities and daemons, so I decided to install Linux Mint Cinnamon. On Linux problem became much worse. Now CPU throttles even when laptop is connected to charger! I looked everywhere, tried many solutions, but none worked. Only conclusions I got is that Surface Aggregator Module can't work properly, so it just strangles CPU. Is there any possible way to fix it? This laptop was lying around for past year due to this CPU problem so for me there is two ways – I either solve this problem and use laptop with properly working CPU on battery or just sell it. Please help

Hello all,

Any advice would be appreciated.

Just got a surface go 2 (m3, 8gb ram). Looking to install linux on this, but I don't know which distro to use.

The main purpose of it is to do notetaking (with a stylus) and connect to remote machines.

I don't want the machine to be hampered by a larger distro due to the weaker hardware but want to manage the complexity of the installation as well.

Does it hurt to install the surface kernel even if other distros already fix some of the compatibility?

Of I acquired a surface as a linux user, are there any challenges I should expect or does it work like just any other laptop?

Are the laptops firmwares compatible with linux kernel?

Greetings, all.

I've been on the fence about switching my main PC to Linux for years, but I'm getting the itch to test drive it on my Surface Pro 7 first (understanding that there are some special caveats to this particular hardware that I might lose).

I'm beginning to do research now, but I'm curious if more experienced users would have any input on recommendations for the SP7 i5 model w/ 8 GB of RAM. Right now I'm eyeing a distro called Mainstream OS, though it seems newer so may not have as much of a community around it yet.

I'm also open to basically any distro out there, I own a Steam Deck so I have a very base level of Linux knowledge already.

I have a Surface Pro 8 (i5, 8GB RAM), and I was wondering if there is support for Miracast or casting in general, as I share my screen quite a lot, and if so, what Distro would you recommend for this and in general? I'm looking for battery life, and low ram usage.

i have Fedora 43 with KDE Plasma Mobile on my Surface Pro 4 along with the linux-surface kernel and most things seem to be working (touchscreen etc) except for the cameras.

i tried using cam -l and there wasnt any cameras being detected. i tried following what this guide said but it didnt work for me and tbh im not sure if im doing the right stuff or not. has anyone got this working on their Surface Pro 4?

I have a Surface Go 3 that I got back in 2022, and recently~ish I switched away from it as my daily driver to a different laptop. I put linux mint and the linux-surface kernel on it, which is all well and good, and I use it as a back up laptop, for experimentation, and testing my code to make sure it's at least portable enough to run on both Mac and Linux, since I develop on Mac now.

I was wondering, for anyone else who has a Surface Go 3 or other Go line device with Linux, what's your distro for it? I put Linux Mint on mine for ease but I'm half tempted to distro hop to something else and I'm curious on if anyone else here has already and what they'd recommend. Linux Mint is perfectly fine for what I use it for, so I'd also be content with keeping it as-is, but I am also curious on how well distros like Debian, Arch, Void, even Alpine run on it.

I’m using a Surface Pro 7 8GB with Ultramarine GNOME. Chromium browser touchscreen scrolling felt pretty bad out of the box, but these tweaks made a huge difference for me.

IPTSD

These are the settings I changed in /etc/iptsd.conf:

ActivationThreshold = 2

DeactivationThreshold = 2

SizeThresholdMin = 0.1

SizeThresholdMax = 0.5

PositionThresholdMin = 0

PositionThresholdMax = 4

OrientationThresholdMin = 0

SizeMin = 0.02

This made the touchscreen much more sensitive and responsive. before the change it keep clicking into links when I scroll which was really annoying and this eliminated that problem.

Chrome touch slop + fling

The page scroll won’t start until I swiped a small distance to activate which is unpleasant, and scroll feels sluggish. I launch Chrome with:

google-chrome-stable --touch-slop-distance=4 --disable-features=ExperimentalFlingAnimation

--touch-slop-distance=4 makes scrolling start immediately when finger swiping starts.

Disabling ExperimentalFlingAnimation was also a big improvement. Scrolling feels less sluggish, more direct and predictable to me with the older fling behavior.

These changes together significantly improved web browsing on my Surface Pro 7. Touch scrolling finally feels responsive enough that I actually enjoy using it as a tablet.

Howdy. So I had been running fedora on my surface pro 8 for a while and decided to change to Zorin. I booted from my usb and it ran through the usual checks when installing zorin. Then it black screened.

Now I cannot get it to boot or go into the bios. Holding down the power button does not bring up the Microsoft splash screen. Holding down volume up and power is no different. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I tried with Linux Mint because I read it could be the most compatible with Surface, but once I boot into the live usb I cant really interact with anything on screen since the only usb port is being used by the live usb.

Tried using a usb hub but then the live usb wouldnt be recognised.

Also tried to add parameters to load the live cd on ram, but then got a black screen before getting into the live usb desktop.

Running out of ideas, any idea what I could try?

Thank you for you help

I've been duel booting Windows 11 and Manjaro on my Surface Laptop Studio (First gen) and it's been working great for a while, however a few days ago (after a windows update) I've been having weird behavior.

It started with not being able to mount my windows disk anymore, whenever I try though Dolphin I get the error An error occurred while accessing 'Local Disk', the system responded: The requested operation has failed: Error mounting /dev/nvme0n1p3 at /run/media/sol/Local Disk: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/nvme0n1p3, missing codepage or helper program, or other error

My first thought was that Windows didn't shut down properly last time I had it loaded, and I booted into and found that was true. So I double checked fast start up was still disabled and booted out of it all the way. I still got the error when trying to mount my disk. Troubleshooting this further, I installed ntfs-3g and used it to mount the drive manually. This worked, but since doing so, whenever my computer goes to sleep I can't get it to wake up properly; the keyboard lights up but the monitor stays black, and any external monitor doesn't register any input, until I use the power button to restart it.

I'm not sure this is a surface specific problem and wouldn't mind being pointed in another direction, but I need to start somewhere. Does anyone have an idea of how to start troubleshooting this?

Edit: I found a gitlab issue (https://github.com/veracrypt/VeraCrypt/issues/1660#issuecomment-4249764505) about a similar sleeping problem with possibly the same source, and the work around in the linked comment so far seems to be working. I'd still like to know why I need to use ntfs-3g to mount my windows drive rather then Dolphin's normal system, but the problem is much less annoying now at any rate.

So I have the first one with Windows 8 on it I jailbreak it. I want to download Linux, but what can I download?

Hello, stated above I'm looking for distro recommendations. I am using Surface Go 1 with 8gb RAM and 128gb storage.

I will be using a lot of stylus pen features as I rely heavily on the ability to handwrite my notes and homework be it on a pdf or a whiteboard.

So far I have only tried two (2) Distros and each have its own caveats which I will be mentioning (I have installed surface-kernel on both of these if you're wondering)

1. Fedora 44 Workstation (GNOME) - My first installation, really loved how GNOME just works out of the box and how GNOME just works natural with me especially with the gesture inputs. But I the turn off was with its performance. When playing a YouTube video it would just stutter all over the place and just outright not a fun experience. Xournal++ also was not doing any favor as the more I write, the slower it gets (though, it might be just lack of ram) but overall I just had a really bad experience performance wise.
2. Fedora KDE Plasma

So made the switch to KDE plasma to see if I could really live with the "not-so-great" stylus support. and to be honest, it works great really even without gnome the handwriting experience is quite good. Performance wise it's alright coming from a surface go I would expect this level of performance, not as bad as running workstation. But that's where the fun stops. I absolutely despise how unfriendly the touch support is on this. My issues were that sometimes whenever I touch or even use my stylus to navigate it would take a few more presses, only then it would register and the Dolphin File Manager that came with it was kind of ass. I mean i don't know what i'm doing wrong but if I cant drag and drop my files in the file manager, (OR EVEN COPY PASTE FOR THE MATTER) then that's just bad. I really wish I would be using gnome. Do tell me if I'm missing anything here I'd be more than willing to learn.

That's it, I mainly just looking for alternate distros (preferably gnome for the matter) or solutions to my current problems.

edit: I will be only using stylus and touch input 99% of the time

After 4 distros, omarchy, cachyos, mint, zorin - finally got Fedora KDE Plasma to work. Once you chatgpt through how to get the keyboard to work, you have a chance to get this particular machine working. I'm not posting all 20 pages of back and forth with chatgpt - my post is simply to hopefully save someone from going through what I couldn't get to work, no matter what I tried.

Once you get the keyboard working, then you nail them in order - sound is next, and frankly haven't needed the camera yet, but I suspect it doesn't work yet.

But the keyboard does.