r/SurfaceLinux

Hi, I've been trying to install for a couple of times now, after some research here I decided to go for Arch.

- I am booting with "none" in the UEFI Security (so when it boots I see the red bar and the unlocked lock above the Microsoft logo) and I am able to either use wi-fi or ethernet (usb dock with ethernet) .

-I am able to perform the Arch install instructions, chroot, change root passwd, etc. Until the reboot things look ok/similar as they should.

-AFTER rebooting using the ssd I can log in as root or as a previously created user but I don't have netowrk anymore. NetworkManager can't get the adapter up (though I see the adapter) and iwctl also is not enabling the wifi adapter.

I have tried installing the packages by booting usb and doing chroot... alas, as soon as I boot from the ssd feels like going back to step 1 because I can't bring up the network adapters.

Any ideas or support words?

Please, keep in mind, I am super slow to answer in reddit, but will do a check on the weekend so I can take notes, answer if there are questions here and try to come up with a plan.

Cheers!

Basically the title. I'm not sure if I should just reinstall. It definitely used to work fine, about a year ago it broke and I haven't been able to fix it since. I mostly just stopped using it but I'm wanting to use it more these days, so I need a solution.

If I need to reinstall, I'd like to continue with Debian, are others using it successfully on a SP9? Or should I just use a different distro with better compatibility?

does anyone know how far out we are from a release of kernel 7?

I see that libwacom-surface shouldn't be installed, but how does 26.04 work otherwise? I have an SP7 16G ram. I'm look to see if touchscreen, pen, and auto-rotation work, and does a proper return from sleep/screen lock. Does all that work? I'm thinking no because of libwacom.

linux will not install. volume up givs me the bios but that is it.

A few years ago I had the highest spec Surface Go 3. Windows ran absolutely awfully on it. It would regularly freeze and slow down because I was using Microsoft Office (crazy, I know).

Installing Linux on it is something that never even crossed my mind back then. It makes me sad because I ended up buying a Surface Laptop 7, which is super nice in terms of the hardware and build quality, but now that my interest in Linux is growing, I find out that Linux will not run on this new laptop.

I wish I had kept my 1000 euros and just installed Linux on the old Go 3, that would have been perfect. Instead, I let myself get lured in with pretty hardware, to be even further locked down into Microsoft's ecosystem.

Can't wait to sell this thing.

Buenas tengo una surfacego 1 de 8 y 128 quisiera saber que distro es la mejor la más compatible y usable quiero que sea un ordenador de ofimática usable nada más con Windows da pero a veces es lento alguien sabrá cuál es la mejor distro

I looking for options or opinions

I need some help regarding the installation and setup of linux on a 5th gen surface.
It has only 4 gb of RAM and i want to browse on it and use an android app natively on it.

I installed Fedora LXQt (google recommendation) but was very disapointed with the userfriendliness. Stuck right at changing the keyboard to "de", which i selected during installation, but never turned out to be "de". Wanted to install the surface-kernel and also that did not work properly. Scaling of windows is complicated...

I read a bit here and i think i might try Fedora Workstation in the hope it is used more often and i get better support online. This should also support Wayland (?which is for android apps?)

Is this the right way? I red that Fedora 44 has no Surface-Kernel yet? how do i force the install of the 43er version? Can you support me with some command lines?
Which is the right url for the surface-kernel?

Sorry, i am a beginner and want to revive my old Surface. Please help me :)

I'm currently rocking a 2015 ipad pro with a whopping 2gb of ram. It still works great, but the security updates have stopped, so I'm nervous about bringing it onto a public wifi. It's just for use in the home now.

I am considering upgrading to something new. I'm not a fan of buying new, and I've noticed there's a lot of used Microsoft Surface's out there that are very inexpensive.

So here's my question: Should I get another ipad, or should I make a try it for a Linux Surface?

Things that I use on my ipad: Procreate for drawing, Affinity photo and Designer, Garage band, and the browser.

I want to know if the touchscreen KDE or Gnome is good, and if this is a good idea? Has anyone tried this? Do you know of any good Pen+touch friendly apps?How is blender grease pencil 2D workflows on low spec hardware?

The title says it all. I forced an install of the Surface Kernel from the F43 repositories. It was working great. I went to use my touchscreen and surface pen tonight to attempt some art. And I noticed the pen wasn't working and the touchscreen non-responsive. I ran a uname -a and received this: Linux fedora 7.0.13-200.fc44.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri Jun 19 22:51:30 UTC 2026 x86_64 GNU/Linux.

Has anyone else experienced this? I mean, I love the 7.0 kernel, but no touchscreen.

I just installed linux mint in my surface pro 3 for the first time. I did everything right. Updated every firmware, installed the linux surface kernel step by step.Everything worked just great even the first 2 days wi-fi worked completely fine. But from yesterday it is very slow no matter what i do. I disabled the wifi power saving option, disabled the IPV6 mode for my router on the device and set a fixed dns point too but it is still slow. And not only my device is slow, whenever I connect every other device connected to my router doesnt get any bandwidth as well. But I tried to connect internet on it through my phone's hotspot and it works perfectly everytime i do that.

I have almost done everything I can find in the internet regarding this matter.

How do I connect wifi but not get slowed down and drain all the bandwidth from every other device?

Surprisingly my sp3 still works. But the battery is no more and the touch screen is dead. I remember it being fixed by directly connecting the charger to the device when I took it to repair.

Now I run it using wireless keyboard and mouse.

It now struggles very much even running windows 10.

It has 4 gigs of ram, 128 gigs of storage and the processor is i5-4300U

What distro should I look for?

I dont have much experience with linux but I know the basics.

I need help choosing the best distro to get started on it.

thought worth mentioning this lost feature, is this known yet?