This is actually really cool. As Win10 gets to EOL, these devices will become dirt cheap and now there is an alternative to keeping them going since a 7th gen i5 really isn't that terrible to deal with!
You can actually install Windows 11 on those just fine, if you disable the checks in the installer. You even get updates except for the yearly major ones. I have an i7 version of this Surface - performance is still pretty great for typical use, though the fans tend to run quite hard.
Can confirm Ubuntu is great on Surfaces. Windows 11 ran like a dog, but my Go 2 was saved from the scrap heap by Ubuntu 22.04. It’s now my work machine.
Not a Surface, but a Dell 'Surface Pro-like' (5290) and I've been using Mint, so Ubuntu 22.04 Cinnamon Edition. Can also confirm Ubuntu's core works great!
Okay, you got me with this one. Most of these sorts of "install on old hardware" videos I watch and think "that's pretty neat". This is the first one I've watched that actually has inspired me to purchase some old(er) tech and revive it.
I ran into an old Lenovo Yoga 2 laptop/foldy tablet thingy, for almost nothing, and was inspired. An ssd upgrade and ubuntu install later, it's become quite a useful gizmo. It rides passenger, with music, videos and podcasts while I veg out on my Xbox, but unlike my actual tablet or phone, it's easy to back stuff up, flash drives, or whatever else. I wasn't planning on it, but it's sort of replaced my PC and tablet, as it's sitting there booted and handy.
Did you manage to get the touch screen keyboard to popup as it should? I also installed Ubuntu on a Lenovo Yoga, and while most things work, the on-screen keyboard does not, and noone seems to have a solution for it...
@ unfortunately I didn’t get the pop up keyboard working, the best I could do was use the screen keyboard within the accessibility features, but it’s not great. I don’t really use it, so it never bothered me, but it’s definitely an issue if it’s something you need. Given what I have into it, and how much I use it, it’s wonderful, but it’s not perfect.
@@xxHANNONxx Thanks for the reply. Yea, I did the same thing with the accessibility feature and can activate it manually. Interestingly enough, whether this "just works" or if its something that I installed that I don't remember, the popup keyboard works as it should with core gnome apps under wayland. So, firefox, it works, chrome, it doesn't and I have to use the accessibility switch. It would be nice if this could be figured out...
There are a few good-to-knows I must point out as a Surface Pro owner for people looking to buy. 1. Almost all SPs released before the 8 have soldered SSDs which at some point will die and cannot be easily replaced. 2. All i3 and i5 SPs have no active cooling system - they just sink heat to the chassis, so they will run quite hot if pushed, and always if charging while in use. 3. SP 6 and earlier don't have a USB-C port (which can be used for charging), so require the power connector shown. Make sure you can acquire one. 7 and up support USB-C PD so it's not really needed.
A few recommendations: 1. If you are using a popular distribution like ubuntu/fedora/debian/various others then do not turn off secure boot, set it to "Microsoft & 3rd Party CA" 2. TPM is absolutely recommended
@@ChristianArnold5107 GPG, Chromium, Firefox and i believe Thunderbird use it. At least those are the common tools. There is also an extension of SSH that adds supports to it. Plus i believe the built in system keyring managers(gnome keyring/KDE wallet) also use it. probably other things too. It's also very good to combine it with secureboot.
@@ChristianArnold5107some say it's to lock you to Windows, but in the server world where many people are trying to bust in your server and plan some malicious programs. It might help, although I haven't seen it yet (maybe because TPM is working?). Distros I know supports TPM is Ubuntu 20.04, Proxmox, RHEL, and Alma Linux
Just so you know, the power connector, is indeed a power connector. But MS have a dock that plugs in, so that connector is another USB3 - albeit not in standard form. On Ali express you can find adapters that allow it to be used as a port, or you can still get the MS dock thing.
This is incredible timing. I just dug out my old Surface Pro 5 *yesterday* and turned it into a smart picture frame running Ubuntu with some Minecraft servers in the background 🤪
I've got a Surface Pro 6, 8 GB/ 256 GB model i5 8th gen (black model w00p) with a black Brydge bluetooth clamshell keyboard thingy. Running Ubuntu on it with the Linux Surface Kernel: I've been running this thing with Ubuntu for about a year now and I actually use it as a side-kick device for my job. Mostly for coding in VSC, running images in Docker (cybersecurity stuff) and just mucking about with it. I friggin LOVE my SP6 with Linux, it's SO much better than the stock Windows installation. Only thing not so super great is the current status of the camera support, way too dark mostly for using in meetings, but ah well. Just the fact I can run my favorite OS on my favorite little device thanks to the AWESOME community maintaining this is mindblowing imho
@bluephreakr no, guvcview does not detect the camera, some apps work with the camera, some applications don't. I think I read on the Linux Surface GitHub repo I'd have to create a loopback device using gstreamer in order to enable other apps to use the cam that don't use libcamera (out of my comfort zone here), should try that first, perhaps then I can get guvcview working. Awesome tip, thanks!
My dad was getting tired of Windows. His Surface Pro 7 updated from Win 10 to Win 11 without his consent. It added cryptolocker without his consent. It added so much that's just absolutely useless and bogs down performance without his consent. After a while, I finally grabbed his Surface Pro 7 and installed Ubuntu on it and he doesn't wanna go back to Windows now. My nearly 70 year old father who knows nothing about tech is now a Linux user and thriving with it.
Yeah, usually older people have no problems with Linux. It's younger people who need online multiplayer, proprietary software Linux can't use etc that do. This is not shocking. Older people tend to only use their computer for word processing, email, browsing the internet/reading news and watching videos on TH-cam and Facebook. Linux can do all of those things just fine. I am not dogging on Linux here, I am young and an arch user (btw), but acting delusional about the capability of Linux for usage cases that it just can't do is one of my pet peeves about our community.
Yep I got my dad an old dell pc from my school district for $25 on gov deals that already had Ubuntu installed. All he wanted to do was learn to type and do online stuff. He is 60 and it works perfectly and I don’t really have to help him with it too much.
I have an HP Elite X2 with the same gen CPU. I bought it discounted as sorta new-old-stock from HP. When Microsoft announced the requirements that would exclude my computer from W11, my machine was *still under warranty*. Thankfully Ubuntu works nicely on it.
I put fedora on my Surface Pro 2 a few years ago. It was awesome. I used it like everyday until I bought my iPad. I didn’t have to make any modifications to it. Everything worked right out of the box. Touchscreen, removable keyboard, and rotation. The main reason I bought an iPad was because the touch screen was intermittently going out. And the iPad was on sale at the time.
I got an SP5 with a smashed screen and spicy battery. I removed both and have that running as a node in my Proxmox cluster. Another SP with 4GB RAM is running Debian and is my dedicated Klipper server. Mega bonus that I can run KlipperScreen on the touch display, too!
I happened to catch your video last night and was just retiring my Surface Pro 3. I just finished installing Ubuntu and the Surface Pro update and have to say what a great find! Nothing short of Unbelievable! Thanks
Great vid, I bought a Surface Pro 6 near launch and I've used it pretty much every day since then, even 6 or 7 years later it still impresses me how capable of a device it is. I think I'll give this a shot, I've been wanting to try out Linux as I've been more and more dissatisfied with recent Windows releases and updates. It's been a good 15 years since I played around with Ubuntu.
I had Ubuntu on a Surface Pro 2 for my work computer for a few years after Win 8.1 went out of support. It was almost perfect, and if it was possible to pull the hard drive without risk of total destruction, I'd probably still be using it. I switched to a ThinkPad for easier upgrades and recovery. Sometimes I miss the touchscreen and ease of presenting with the tablet form factor. One thing I remember having trouble with was the automatic sleep when the cover was closed. It would never sleep/wake properly so I turned off the sensor and just used the power button to wake and sleep.
I miss my surface pro 6. I had it running Mint. Stupid thing stopped charging. And it wasn’t the charger, I bought a new one lol. I may have to buy a new one lol. They’re so handy. I love them. Especially with Linux.
Don't buy another with a busted screen. The battery is probably the only issue you have with yours. Just buy a battery as another device will have a battery that is just as worn down as your last.
My Surface Pro 2 stopped charging and it turned out to be a very small chunk of metal stuck to the magnet. Too small to see looking into it, but big enough to stop it from connecting.
I love running EndeavourOS (Arch based) on my SP5! The Linux Surface project supports most of the older devices so this is a great way to give them new life!
This is actually wonderfully timed, I had *just* retired my SP4 a few weeks ago and I don't want to get rid of it just because the OS won't be able to recieve security updates anymore, that and the battery's gone a little... puffy (there's also some cosmetic damages that I want to get fixed up, but that's minor). And from my experience with that same device, the Surface Pro is an incredibly versatile tablet that's got more computing power than, well, most thing's that I would need a computer for; furthermore it was and still is more, well, for the lack of a better term, tablet, than most tasks that would be more ideal for usage with a tablet or smartphone. Frankly it's more like I was never able to fully utilize what the SP4 had to offer and if it wern't for the battery and the days of Windows 10 being numbered, I wouldn't have thought about retiring it for at least a few more years. Honestly I could almost feel the twinkle in my eyes as I was watching this video!
This is pretty cool! I just tried fedora on a surface pro 2 (4 gb RAM, 256 GB storage), it worked pretty well - screen rotation, mouse pad, sound, touch worked but brightness didn't for some reason and battery drained pretty quick. I ended up installing windows 10 home then, that worked better, and is snappy, and the battery lasted 2-3 hours with moderate use.
I had a work Surface Pro in 2016. It got a whopping 30-45 minutes of battery life. I made them take it back and give me a Lenovo Think(book?) and it was way better with about 4-5 hours of battery life. Yeah, that doesn't sound like much today --but back then that was great battery life.
I went down this particular rabbit hole recently with my Surface Pro 4. I tried surface-linux with both Debian and Fedora. It worked better on Fedora but still left a lot to be desired, particularly in the touch screen keyboard department. The Linux based one is basically unusable. It doesn't properly come up when clicking some text inputs, and manually bringing it up is a pain. What I ended up doing is using the Brunch framework. Brunch is a bootloader that allows you to boot ChromeOS on a lot of devices that would not normally be supported. It basically works like an Android tablet now, and is the best 3rd party OS I've used on it.
This is perfect timing! I just sold my Surface Pro 6 to a friend and they wanted to install Ubuntu, then your video uploaded a couple days ago!!!! He's even more excited to try Ubuntu on it since Windows 11 is slower on the surface pro 6
Just installed Fedora 41 KDE on a Windows tablet from 2016. Touchscreen works out of the box, but autorotation doesn't. Anyway, I'm happy. It's an Atom with 2 Gigs of RAM (nowhere near Surface), and it lives again! Fedora runs surprisingly smooth on such a low-spec hardware.
I've been using second hand surface pros as my travel devices for a few years now. Just went from surfacegate pro 4 (the screen was showing signs of dying) to a 7+. They're just great little things for that
I did this with my Surface 5 a couple of months ago. Using Linux Mint and I'm really happy with it. Microsoft going from telling me Win 10 was to be the last version to forcing obsolescence... smh. I thought Satya did a good job turning MS around, but their crappy ways have been creeping in again recently
Loooove my surface 2 for archival video capture, pairs great with my set up and is light enough that I can rest it on top of my devices and not worry about damaging the machines below it. Glad to see I can just jump over to regular ole ubuntu when the time is right for any upgrades.
I put Kubuntu on my sp3, but it was not doing touch or rotate. This was a greet find! Can't wait to see how involved the battery replacement is. Mine likely will need one before too long.
I rock Fedora on my SPRO3, it is one of the ones that suffer from the bad wifi+bt combo cards. Have to use wifi dongle on the one USB port on the device, but otherwise runs flawlessly. I have another SPRO5 with a shattered front display running Arch operating as a semi-headless miniserver hosting Navidrome, sits in my living room connected to my sound system. Even in death they still have purpose 👍
Also I'm not the one who broke these! I got them extremely cheap because of their issues. They are almost near impossible to open without shattering the display. The cost in labor and parts far outweighs having a repaired system. Only useful to repair for data retrieval if bitlock'd drive on a Surface that DOES NOT have a removable/serviceable NVME.
Thank u so much. I needed this video. I'm currently looking for a 11inch MacBook Air or a small surface Pro for a portable small Linux machine, and this project that enables all hardware capabilities makes me wanting a surface even more THANK YOUUUU
Good luck. I've broken 2 surface screens, trying to replace the battery. Luckily is was just the glass, not the LCD panel. So I replaced the battery and used clear packing tape around the edge to protect from shards.
This is amazing. I have a Surface Pro that I can't install Windows 11 on. It just missed the cutoff for Windows 11. So coming across this video is actually perfect for me. I had hesitations when I saw the title. I wasn't sure if they keyboard or touch would work well but I'm glad to see they do. I wonder if the Surface Pen works with it, too. It'd be cool to find a Linux app to write and draw in with my existing Surface Pen. Definitely going to give this a try.
Best of luck on the battery replacement! Surfaces are orders of magnitude more difficult to replace the battery on than ipads (which are already not ideal)
I'm using a Dell latitude 5285 with 16 GB of RAM and that very same processor. I'm running Windows 11 pro with no issues. Ubuntu Linux does not work that well because the cameras don't work. I wish they did. I replaced the battery and upgraded to 1tb of storage as well. The screen was meant to be easily replaced so getting inside was easy. No heat gun needed and it came off in about a minute. I wish this machine got as much love as the surface since it was so repair friendly and had a kick stand like the surface.
oh hell yeah, surface linux rules! my partner had snagged me a surface go 1 off ebay around the beginning of the year as a creative tablet i could stuff in my purse (tbh i wanted a go 2 but i'll take what i can get for $80) and i was surprised at how painless it was to put endeavourOS on it. odd that touch didn't work for your device under the mainline kernel, because i remember mine working in the liveISO. of course it works much better once the surface kernel is installed and running. type cover sleep/wake was also noticeably different between mainline and surface kernel.
I've got my hands on a lenovo counterpart to this, a thinkpad x1 tablet gen 3 last week, the screen is a little scuffed, didn't get a keyboard but with an 8th gen i7, 16gb of ram, an easily replaceable 2280 ssd, two thunderbolt 3 ports and lte connectivity all for less than 160 dollars I couldn't let it go to e-waste. Runs windows 11 okayish but this video has inspired me to give linux on a touchscreen only device a go
Ah, a Surface Pro 5 :) I still use one as my daily driver. Well, used it until I somehow managed to damage the outer glass at the corner about a week ago. It's fixable, not sure how economical it is to do so though. This is still a decent tablet/laptop hybrid. Mine is the same Core i5 model as shown here but with an LTE modem included. I imported it from the US. I love the build quality of these things, the case is all metal. They are really built to last. Sadly, the hardware does show signs of age. Type cover keyboard's outer skin is peeling off badly. And that 8GB of RAM is very easy to overhwelm with just a few heavier websites or desktop apps open.
Very interesting. I have a surface go 1 (and 2, but 2 runs w11), and I have often thought about putting linux on the go1, but I thought it would be alot harder than what you showed. I have gone into the surface bios before, so I can manage that. I might choose a different flavor of ubuntu through, but, maybe not. Cool. video.
I picked up a Dell Latitude 7200 2in1 i7 8th gen a couple years ago for $350 and it runs Fedora KDE spin like a champ, and I didn't have to install any weird kernel patches to get everything to work. It's essentially a clone of the Surface Pro. Oh, and my install supports UEFI secure boot and the Fedora logo appears on the boot screen.
Better to hunt for something else, these things are barely holding on, with various reliability issues and a battery that is guaranteed to be shot. I think it would be better to just look for some chinese Windows tablet with decent specs (12+GB of RAM), until the tariffs start anew.
Personally I've found they're still too expensive on eBay compared to other computers of a similar age and specs, but if you can find a good deal at a business or government auction you can sometimes get them cheaper.
I have the same Surface Pro, albeit with 4GB of RAM because I'm cheap. I've dabbled with alternative operating systems on it and noticed a couple things. One big I did notice with all of them is screen rotation stops working if the device goes to sleep. Maybe that's been fixed in the latest patches, but was still an issue when I messed around with it half a year ago. Cameras also either don't work or need special configuration. GNOME is also counterintuitively not great for touch. FydeOS works really well with them though except for the aforementioned bugs. But it's not free.
Id always been interested in a surface but was unhappy with how quickly they became obsolete. Happy to see they're getting good support on linux. Might pick up a cheap one locally to tinker with
I still use my Surface 5 in the workshop. Unfortunately, the top ½" of the touchscreen is no longer working, which is right where fullscreen title bars are positioned. I have to keep a Bluetooth mouse on hand, defeating the purpose.
Thank you so much for this! I have a Surface Pro 7 thats been my sidekick/main laptop for almost 5 years now. It runs Win11 just fine, but i know its end of life for Windows is coming soon, and i really dont wanna give up having a tablet running a desktop os, because it comes in handy!
Really nice to see this. I have an HP Envy Ryzen and Windows wont support it. Curious what Ubuntu has for the touch screen pen support. Which I'm kind of upset about. It HAS a TPM and otherwise meets every requirement besides being 1 gen behind on the processor.
Well now I know what I'm doing with my trusty old SP3! I upgraded to a Framework and haven't used it much since, but this seems like it might be a way to keep it going as a Krita device, if the pen drivers are good, in addition to a couch/kitchen tablet
After six years, my Surface Pro 6 is still running very well. Eventually MS will probably force me to "upgrade" to Windows 11, and Ubuntu seems like a viable alternative. Thank you for the instructional and edifying video!
What is the main difference between this and Ubuntu 24.4LTS nimble numbat? I recently installed this on a 7 yr old hp AMD laptop with a touchscreen and the touchscreen worked straight away? I ask as I also have an old surface pro with win10?
I have always felt that GTK apps and Gnome (much like the Metro UI on Windows) are geared towards touchscreen devices more than keyboard and mouse, so I’m glad to see Gnome and GTK being used with a touchscreen device.
The Ubuntu installer says there isn't enough space to install. Gparted does not show the internal disk, whereas disks shows a bunch of loopback devices. Windows is no longer on the device. Is there any way I can access the internal disk to wipe it?
If you wanna use it for TH-cam i wonder how well TH-cam on TV works 🤔 You get an extension with the same name that messes with things like user agent, then go the url. Its like the youtube app on smart tvs
I've got a base spec 4/64gb Surface go 1st Gen and Fedora with the Surface Linux Kernel runs beautifully mostly streaming Jellyfin 4K content from my homeserver. For my usecase its more than capable and the screen is sooooo good for being an IPS.
7th gen Intel will probably do general computing for a LONG time with a Linux distro! I'm guessing 4k youtube silky smooth isn't a big deal. How much RAM could you get those in? Edit: they came with 4, 8 or 16 GB of ram, 8 is probably fine if you use fewer tabs than i do. 16 should be plenty for quite a while! 4 GB? That IS getting a bit rough in 2024. It's probably fine for general use, especially just as a tablet.
How does scrolling work for you guys.. Running Mint on a Pro5 and you have to be dead center on the scroll bar or you find yourself opening anything you accidently touch.
9:55 Not as bad as my lifebook with a battery that discharges in 2 minutes 🔥 if you're curious, that lifebook is a P1510 from Fujitsu. it's likely from 2004 judging by the microsoft certificate of authenticity sticker. it ran Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, then it went through Lubuntu, Puppy Linux, and currently Arch Linux 32. Installed the i3 window manager on it and it's been alright. as a matter of fact, i3status reports the battery charge at 1.38% when the battery internally reports its fully charged. i set it to not use the design capacity, but rather last battery charge capacity i probably need to seek out a battery replacement for it, but who knows if there's even any brand new battery packs for this thing, its 20 years old! maybe i'll pull the battery pack open and put in some new battery when im comfortable doing so
I literally just did this with a Surface Pro 5 - Works nice, once I figured it out - and the custom kernel to get the features like touchscreen working. Still need to figure out how to pin that kernel...
I started drawing and digital editing on my Samsung Note 2 but lacked good apps (Sketchbook was the best one at the time -when it was free) then I got a Surface 3 (non pro) for drawing a few years back and it was nice but was def not very powerful. years and years later I had the chance to try other drawing pads and a Lenovo laptop that had a pen but the support and capability wasn't there. about over a year ago I got a Surface Book 2 and it's been amazing. yeah the battery is def degraded and it gets warm but for drawing it's prob the best you can do without going Ipad/Apple pencil route, or separate drawing screen.
Hi, I need help. My cameras are not working, and I would like to know if there is a way or solution that works in this case... I have already tried the Linux Kernel tutorial.
Thanks for showing this. If/When you might have time or interest: would you please consider showing how older (increasingly sluggish) Amazon Fire 7 & Fire 8 tablets (circa 2018-2021) might be switched to Tablet Linux such as Linux Mint? Love your channel, brother.
I just noticed that Ubuntu 24.10 actually brought back the startup sound from 4.10, wonder if it's possible to add that to 24.04 LTS (because I don't feel like ditching long term support).
Ubuntu Linux with their modified GNOME dock is in my view superior to both Apple and Microsoft's UI for surface devices. It just feels way better to use. The only huge issue? Touchscreen not enabled by default, have to use terminal to get it going. That is a big drawback for most people.
how can something that USB3.0 be ready for screpping, if still working new?, USB3.0 not even the defacto USB standard yet, the USB/c but still requiers a lot flapping around adaters to anything USB 1 or 2 to plug in?
Nice video, want to do something similar some time. Would have been fun to see the difference between the game performance on the Windows 10 OS Vs Ubuntu, it would have been interesting to see if it gave it a boost at all, perhaps even on two types of games like a native Linus one Vs one that relies on the proton compatibility layer.
Microsoft: noOooOO, you can't use an old surface in 2024, put it in the trash users/programmers: hey, do you want to keep using a surface and also on linux? well, we have a community project for that!
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
This is actually really cool. As Win10 gets to EOL, these devices will become dirt cheap and now there is an alternative to keeping them going since a 7th gen i5 really isn't that terrible to deal with!
Mine is an 7th gen i3, which I am planning on upgrading to a 7th gen i7, which is the best upgrade for it. Replacing the motherboard, yay.
If it keeps them useful and out of a landfill that's a good thing for everyone. 👍
19 HOURS AGO WTF
You can actually install Windows 11 on those just fine, if you disable the checks in the installer. You even get updates except for the yearly major ones.
I have an i7 version of this Surface - performance is still pretty great for typical use, though the fans tend to run quite hard.
@@thecomputergeek101old how? the processor is soldered in every device after 4th gen
Surface Connect is not just a power conector like MagSafe. It also connects to a Surface dock that provides video, audio, network and USB.
dude was talking out his ass
Much as I enjoy Sean's content, his Apple was showing here.
Try Ubuntu unity
Can confirm Ubuntu is great on Surfaces. Windows 11 ran like a dog, but my Go 2 was saved from the scrap heap by Ubuntu 22.04. It’s now my work machine.
How is touch-only in the Go 2? I love the hardware but it's painful to use Windows without a keyboard.
Also have a go 2 and interested to hear someone trying this
Not a Surface, but a Dell 'Surface Pro-like' (5290) and I've been using Mint, so Ubuntu 22.04 Cinnamon Edition. Can also confirm Ubuntu's core works great!
@@FlameSoulisI've gor that one, do you know if it still has pen support with ubuntu
I wish there were better options for the OG RT. Last I saw, they barely had raspberry pi OS running on it and it wasn't that great.
Okay, you got me with this one. Most of these sorts of "install on old hardware" videos I watch and think "that's pretty neat". This is the first one I've watched that actually has inspired me to purchase some old(er) tech and revive it.
I ran into an old Lenovo Yoga 2 laptop/foldy tablet thingy, for almost nothing, and was inspired. An ssd upgrade and ubuntu install later, it's become quite a useful gizmo. It rides passenger, with music, videos and podcasts while I veg out on my Xbox, but unlike my actual tablet or phone, it's easy to back stuff up, flash drives, or whatever else. I wasn't planning on it, but it's sort of replaced my PC and tablet, as it's sitting there booted and handy.
Did you manage to get the touch screen keyboard to popup as it should? I also installed Ubuntu on a Lenovo Yoga, and while most things work, the on-screen keyboard does not, and noone seems to have a solution for it...
@ unfortunately I didn’t get the pop up keyboard working, the best I could do was use the screen keyboard within the accessibility features, but it’s not great. I don’t really use it, so it never bothered me, but it’s definitely an issue if it’s something you need. Given what I have into it, and how much I use it, it’s wonderful, but it’s not perfect.
@@xxHANNONxx Thanks for the reply. Yea, I did the same thing with the accessibility feature and can activate it manually. Interestingly enough, whether this "just works" or if its something that I installed that I don't remember, the popup keyboard works as it should with core gnome apps under wayland. So, firefox, it works, chrome, it doesn't and I have to use the accessibility switch. It would be nice if this could be figured out...
@@brianfield4170 if youre running gnome you can just swipe up from the bottom and the keyboard will appear no matter what
There are a few good-to-knows I must point out as a Surface Pro owner for people looking to buy.
1. Almost all SPs released before the 8 have soldered SSDs which at some point will die and cannot be easily replaced.
2. All i3 and i5 SPs have no active cooling system - they just sink heat to the chassis, so they will run quite hot if pushed, and always if charging while in use.
3. SP 6 and earlier don't have a USB-C port (which can be used for charging), so require the power connector shown. Make sure you can acquire one. 7 and up support USB-C PD so it's not really needed.
A few recommendations:
1. If you are using a popular distribution like ubuntu/fedora/debian/various others then do not turn off secure boot, set it to "Microsoft & 3rd Party CA"
2. TPM is absolutely recommended
Is there much use for TPM on Linux? Not hating, just curious
@@ChristianArnold5107 GPG, Chromium, Firefox and i believe Thunderbird use it.
At least those are the common tools.
There is also an extension of SSH that adds supports to it.
Plus i believe the built in system keyring managers(gnome keyring/KDE wallet) also use it.
probably other things too.
It's also very good to combine it with secureboot.
Does Secure Boot really matter?
@aviat4ion I would say probably not. But it probably would get rid of that red bar with the unlocked icon at the top of the screen
@@ChristianArnold5107some say it's to lock you to Windows, but in the server world where many people are trying to bust in your server and plan some malicious programs. It might help, although I haven't seen it yet (maybe because TPM is working?). Distros I know supports TPM is Ubuntu 20.04, Proxmox, RHEL, and Alma Linux
Just so you know, the power connector, is indeed a power connector. But MS have a dock that plugs in, so that connector is another USB3 - albeit not in standard form. On Ali express you can find adapters that allow it to be used as a port, or you can still get the MS dock thing.
This is incredible timing. I just dug out my old Surface Pro 5 *yesterday* and turned it into a smart picture frame running Ubuntu with some Minecraft servers in the background 🤪
😁🤘
I've got a Surface Pro 6, 8 GB/ 256 GB model i5 8th gen (black model w00p) with a black Brydge bluetooth clamshell keyboard thingy. Running Ubuntu on it with the Linux Surface Kernel: I've been running this thing with Ubuntu for about a year now and I actually use it as a side-kick device for my job. Mostly for coding in VSC, running images in Docker (cybersecurity stuff) and just mucking about with it. I friggin LOVE my SP6 with Linux, it's SO much better than the stock Windows installation. Only thing not so super great is the current status of the camera support, way too dark mostly for using in meetings, but ah well. Just the fact I can run my favorite OS on my favorite little device thanks to the AWESOME community maintaining this is mindblowing imho
Even when tinkering with the camera settings in guvcview?
@bluephreakr no, guvcview does not detect the camera, some apps work with the camera, some applications don't. I think I read on the Linux Surface GitHub repo I'd have to create a loopback device using gstreamer in order to enable other apps to use the cam that don't use libcamera (out of my comfort zone here), should try that first, perhaps then I can get guvcview working. Awesome tip, thanks!
My dad was getting tired of Windows. His Surface Pro 7 updated from Win 10 to Win 11 without his consent. It added cryptolocker without his consent. It added so much that's just absolutely useless and bogs down performance without his consent. After a while, I finally grabbed his Surface Pro 7 and installed Ubuntu on it and he doesn't wanna go back to Windows now. My nearly 70 year old father who knows nothing about tech is now a Linux user and thriving with it.
a mainstream linux is not hard, just like any operatingsystem it takes some time getting used to it
Yeah, usually older people have no problems with Linux. It's younger people who need online multiplayer, proprietary software Linux can't use etc that do. This is not shocking. Older people tend to only use their computer for word processing, email, browsing the internet/reading news and watching videos on TH-cam and Facebook. Linux can do all of those things just fine. I am not dogging on Linux here, I am young and an arch user (btw), but acting delusional about the capability of Linux for usage cases that it just can't do is one of my pet peeves about our community.
Yep I got my dad an old dell pc from my school district for $25 on gov deals that already had Ubuntu installed. All he wanted to do was learn to type and do online stuff. He is 60 and it works perfectly and I don’t really have to help him with it too much.
@@ArchLarsby younger people do you mean gamers?
0:23 A wise man once said “ow…”
I just wonder how many takes it took to get it to do that...
@@SenileOtaku Probably only the one. Things like that happen.😉
I have an HP Elite X2 with the same gen CPU. I bought it discounted as sorta new-old-stock from HP. When Microsoft announced the requirements that would exclude my computer from W11, my machine was *still under warranty*. Thankfully Ubuntu works nicely on it.
I put fedora on my Surface Pro 2 a few years ago. It was awesome. I used it like everyday until I bought my iPad.
I didn’t have to make any modifications to it. Everything worked right out of the box. Touchscreen, removable keyboard, and rotation.
The main reason I bought an iPad was because the touch screen was intermittently going out. And the iPad was on sale at the time.
I got an SP5 with a smashed screen and spicy battery. I removed both and have that running as a node in my Proxmox cluster. Another SP with 4GB RAM is running Debian and is my dedicated Klipper server. Mega bonus that I can run KlipperScreen on the touch display, too!
I feel you on that danger pillow and damaged screen.
Wow, I think this was the smoothest Linux experience I've seen you have on this channel. Usually something goes horribly wrong on custom hardware.
right? this is so satisfying to look at
Nice. I had trouble getting Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on my old SurfaceBook 2.I'm sure I was just missing a step or something, but glad you got yours to work.
I happened to catch your video last night and was just retiring my Surface Pro 3. I just finished installing Ubuntu and the Surface Pro update and have to say what a great find! Nothing short of Unbelievable! Thanks
Great vid, I bought a Surface Pro 6 near launch and I've used it pretty much every day since then, even 6 or 7 years later it still impresses me how capable of a device it is. I think I'll give this a shot, I've been wanting to try out Linux as I've been more and more dissatisfied with recent Windows releases and updates. It's been a good 15 years since I played around with Ubuntu.
I had Ubuntu on a Surface Pro 2 for my work computer for a few years after Win 8.1 went out of support. It was almost perfect, and if it was possible to pull the hard drive without risk of total destruction, I'd probably still be using it. I switched to a ThinkPad for easier upgrades and recovery. Sometimes I miss the touchscreen and ease of presenting with the tablet form factor.
One thing I remember having trouble with was the automatic sleep when the cover was closed. It would never sleep/wake properly so I turned off the sensor and just used the power button to wake and sleep.
Good timing! I just setup Ubuntu on my Surface (non pro) 3 a couple days ago. :D
I miss my surface pro 6. I had it running Mint. Stupid thing stopped charging. And it wasn’t the charger, I bought a new one lol.
I may have to buy a new one lol. They’re so handy. I love them. Especially with Linux.
See if you can find one with a broken screen and swap your good screen in. If you have the skills that is...
@ I sort of do, however, I have access to an engineering shop and engineers who can walk me through it lll.
@@AddieDirectsTV Make sure it's the EXACT same model 👍
Ifixit will have a dismantle guide.
That should save you a lot of money !
Don't buy another with a busted screen. The battery is probably the only issue you have with yours. Just buy a battery as another device will have a battery that is just as worn down as your last.
My Surface Pro 2 stopped charging and it turned out to be a very small chunk of metal stuck to the magnet. Too small to see looking into it, but big enough to stop it from connecting.
I love running EndeavourOS (Arch based) on my SP5! The Linux Surface project supports most of the older devices so this is a great way to give them new life!
This is actually wonderfully timed, I had *just* retired my SP4 a few weeks ago and I don't want to get rid of it just because the OS won't be able to recieve security updates anymore, that and the battery's gone a little... puffy (there's also some cosmetic damages that I want to get fixed up, but that's minor). And from my experience with that same device, the Surface Pro is an incredibly versatile tablet that's got more computing power than, well, most thing's that I would need a computer for; furthermore it was and still is more, well, for the lack of a better term, tablet, than most tasks that would be more ideal for usage with a tablet or smartphone. Frankly it's more like I was never able to fully utilize what the SP4 had to offer and if it wern't for the battery and the days of Windows 10 being numbered, I wouldn't have thought about retiring it for at least a few more years. Honestly I could almost feel the twinkle in my eyes as I was watching this video!
This is pretty cool! I just tried fedora on a surface pro 2 (4 gb RAM, 256 GB storage), it worked pretty well - screen rotation, mouse pad, sound, touch worked but brightness didn't for some reason and battery drained pretty quick. I ended up installing windows 10 home then, that worked better, and is snappy, and the battery lasted 2-3 hours with moderate use.
I had a work Surface Pro in 2016. It got a whopping 30-45 minutes of battery life. I made them take it back and give me a Lenovo Think(book?) and it was way better with about 4-5 hours of battery life. Yeah, that doesn't sound like much today --but back then that was great battery life.
I went down this particular rabbit hole recently with my Surface Pro 4. I tried surface-linux with both Debian and Fedora. It worked better on Fedora but still left a lot to be desired, particularly in the touch screen keyboard department. The Linux based one is basically unusable. It doesn't properly come up when clicking some text inputs, and manually bringing it up is a pain. What I ended up doing is using the Brunch framework. Brunch is a bootloader that allows you to boot ChromeOS on a lot of devices that would not normally be supported. It basically works like an Android tablet now, and is the best 3rd party OS I've used on it.
This is perfect timing! I just sold my Surface Pro 6 to a friend and they wanted to install Ubuntu, then your video uploaded a couple days ago!!!! He's even more excited to try Ubuntu on it since Windows 11 is slower on the surface pro 6
Just installed Fedora 41 KDE on a Windows tablet from 2016. Touchscreen works out of the box, but autorotation doesn't. Anyway, I'm happy. It's an Atom with 2 Gigs of RAM (nowhere near Surface), and it lives again! Fedora runs surprisingly smooth on such a low-spec hardware.
I've been using second hand surface pros as my travel devices for a few years now. Just went from surfacegate pro 4 (the screen was showing signs of dying) to a 7+. They're just great little things for that
I did this with my Surface 5 a couple of months ago. Using Linux Mint and I'm really happy with it. Microsoft going from telling me Win 10 was to be the last version to forcing obsolescence... smh. I thought Satya did a good job turning MS around, but their crappy ways have been creeping in again recently
Loooove my surface 2 for archival video capture, pairs great with my set up and is light enough that I can rest it on top of my devices and not worry about damaging the machines below it. Glad to see I can just jump over to regular ole ubuntu when the time is right for any upgrades.
I put Kubuntu on my sp3, but it was not doing touch or rotate. This was a greet find!
Can't wait to see how involved the battery replacement is. Mine likely will need one before too long.
Practically everything is soldered down behind the screen, which is glued down.
Awesome video, I wanna get one too now, which version of the surface you have in the video?
Very cool!! I've had Ubuntu on the 1st Surface. It's great!! Looking forward to seeing you replace that battery!
Adama sighting! Such a pretty Bengal kitteh.
I've wanted a Surface for presenting at work, may be time to pick one up 🙂
4:50 that's like something out of a bad dream!
I rock Fedora on my SPRO3, it is one of the ones that suffer from the bad wifi+bt combo cards. Have to use wifi dongle on the one USB port on the device, but otherwise runs flawlessly. I have another SPRO5 with a shattered front display running Arch operating as a semi-headless miniserver hosting Navidrome, sits in my living room connected to my sound system. Even in death they still have purpose 👍
Also I'm not the one who broke these! I got them extremely cheap because of their issues. They are almost near impossible to open without shattering the display. The cost in labor and parts far outweighs having a repaired system. Only useful to repair for data retrieval if bitlock'd drive on a Surface that DOES NOT have a removable/serviceable NVME.
Thank u so much. I needed this video. I'm currently looking for a 11inch MacBook Air or a small surface Pro for a portable small Linux machine, and this project that enables all hardware capabilities makes me wanting a surface even more
THANK YOUUUU
I installed Ubuntu 22.04 on a similar Asus device and it works great! It's my daily tablet that I use for all kinds of stuff! I love it! :)
Good luck. I've broken 2 surface screens, trying to replace the battery. Luckily is was just the glass, not the LCD panel. So I replaced the battery and used clear packing tape around the edge to protect from shards.
Nice to hear linux is running well on a surface device, I have an Acer Switch 5 running windows 10 and just got notified this week about EOL
If you're looking for a good alternative now that neofetch isn't maintained, I like Hyfetch, it's very customizable.
This is amazing. I have a Surface Pro that I can't install Windows 11 on. It just missed the cutoff for Windows 11. So coming across this video is actually perfect for me. I had hesitations when I saw the title. I wasn't sure if they keyboard or touch would work well but I'm glad to see they do. I wonder if the Surface Pen works with it, too. It'd be cool to find a Linux app to write and draw in with my existing Surface Pen.
Definitely going to give this a try.
awesomeee!!! been waiting for a review for ubuntu on surface pro
just subscribed your channel bro!
Best of luck on the battery replacement! Surfaces are orders of magnitude more difficult to replace the battery on than ipads (which are already not ideal)
Luv it. I'll be doing this sometime in the coming year.
I love that you’re browsing Macintosh Garden, on Ubuntu, on a Microsoft Surface 😊
I'm using a Dell latitude 5285 with 16 GB of RAM and that very same processor. I'm running Windows 11 pro with no issues. Ubuntu Linux does not work that well because the cameras don't work. I wish they did. I replaced the battery and upgraded to 1tb of storage as well. The screen was meant to be easily replaced so getting inside was easy. No heat gun needed and it came off in about a minute. I wish this machine got as much love as the surface since it was so repair friendly and had a kick stand like the surface.
Does the camera work well? How is the Surface Pen working in Ubuntu? Greetings and thanks for the video
one of the best episodes. ❤ makes me want to Ubuntu surface my Samsung tablet.
oh hell yeah, surface linux rules! my partner had snagged me a surface go 1 off ebay around the beginning of the year as a creative tablet i could stuff in my purse (tbh i wanted a go 2 but i'll take what i can get for $80) and i was surprised at how painless it was to put endeavourOS on it. odd that touch didn't work for your device under the mainline kernel, because i remember mine working in the liveISO. of course it works much better once the surface kernel is installed and running. type cover sleep/wake was also noticeably different between mainline and surface kernel.
I've got my hands on a lenovo counterpart to this, a thinkpad x1 tablet gen 3 last week, the screen is a little scuffed, didn't get a keyboard but with an 8th gen i7, 16gb of ram, an easily replaceable 2280 ssd, two thunderbolt 3 ports and lte connectivity all for less than 160 dollars I couldn't let it go to e-waste. Runs windows 11 okayish but this video has inspired me to give linux on a touchscreen only device a go
On some devices (like this one), you can actually leave secure boot on the "Microsoft and 3rd party CA" option (Ubuntu is signed with a 3rd party CA)
Ah, a Surface Pro 5 :) I still use one as my daily driver. Well, used it until I somehow managed to damage the outer glass at the corner about a week ago. It's fixable, not sure how economical it is to do so though.
This is still a decent tablet/laptop hybrid. Mine is the same Core i5 model as shown here but with an LTE modem included. I imported it from the US.
I love the build quality of these things, the case is all metal. They are really built to last. Sadly, the hardware does show signs of age. Type cover keyboard's outer skin is peeling off badly. And that 8GB of RAM is very easy to overhwelm with just a few heavier websites or desktop apps open.
Very interesting. I have a surface go 1 (and 2, but 2 runs w11), and I have often thought about putting linux on the go1, but I thought it would be alot harder than what you showed. I have gone into the surface bios before, so I can manage that. I might choose a different flavor of ubuntu through, but, maybe not. Cool. video.
At 4:50, I was gonna say that was so cursed and weird and then i found out that you wrote "Cursed boot screen"
LOL nice
I picked up a Dell Latitude 7200 2in1 i7 8th gen a couple years ago for $350 and it runs Fedora KDE spin like a champ, and I didn't have to install any weird kernel patches to get everything to work. It's essentially a clone of the Surface Pro. Oh, and my install supports UEFI secure boot and the Fedora logo appears on the boot screen.
I can't stop looking at the black spot in the background...
Well that's my new project, hunting for a Surface Pro on e-bay right now 🙂
Better to hunt for something else, these things are barely holding on, with various reliability issues and a battery that is guaranteed to be shot. I think it would be better to just look for some chinese Windows tablet with decent specs (12+GB of RAM), until the tariffs start anew.
Personally I've found they're still too expensive on eBay compared to other computers of a similar age and specs, but if you can find a good deal at a business or government auction you can sometimes get them cheaper.
I have a surface Pro 7 with Chrome OS on it and it's absolutely fantastic.
Those things are a royal PITA to service. You have to go through the screen, like most tablets, but the glass is super thin and fragile. Good luck!
I have the same Surface Pro, albeit with 4GB of RAM because I'm cheap. I've dabbled with alternative operating systems on it and noticed a couple things. One big I did notice with all of them is screen rotation stops working if the device goes to sleep. Maybe that's been fixed in the latest patches, but was still an issue when I messed around with it half a year ago. Cameras also either don't work or need special configuration. GNOME is also counterintuitively not great for touch. FydeOS works really well with them though except for the aforementioned bugs. But it's not free.
Id always been interested in a surface but was unhappy with how quickly they became obsolete. Happy to see they're getting good support on linux. Might pick up a cheap one locally to tinker with
I still use my Surface 5 in the workshop. Unfortunately, the top ½" of the touchscreen is no longer working, which is right where fullscreen title bars are positioned. I have to keep a Bluetooth mouse on hand, defeating the purpose.
Thank you so much for this! I have a Surface Pro 7 thats been my sidekick/main laptop for almost 5 years now. It runs Win11 just fine, but i know its end of life for Windows is coming soon, and i really dont wanna give up having a tablet running a desktop os, because it comes in handy!
I need one of these! Will this be available on whatnot anytime soon?
Really nice to see this. I have an HP Envy Ryzen and Windows wont support it. Curious what Ubuntu has for the touch screen pen support. Which I'm kind of upset about. It HAS a TPM and otherwise meets every requirement besides being 1 gen behind on the processor.
Well now I know what I'm doing with my trusty old SP3! I upgraded to a Framework and haven't used it much since, but this seems like it might be a way to keep it going as a Krita device, if the pen drivers are good, in addition to a couch/kitchen tablet
The linux surface project works great on my surface pro 7. Im using linux lite and even some linux VMs for learning
After six years, my Surface Pro 6 is still running very well. Eventually MS will probably force me to "upgrade" to Windows 11, and Ubuntu seems like a viable alternative. Thank you for the instructional and edifying video!
What is the main difference between this and Ubuntu 24.4LTS nimble numbat? I recently installed this on a 7 yr old hp AMD laptop with a touchscreen and the touchscreen worked straight away?
I ask as I also have an old surface pro with win10?
I have always felt that GTK apps and Gnome (much like the Metro UI on Windows) are geared towards touchscreen devices more than keyboard and mouse, so I’m glad to see Gnome and GTK being used with a touchscreen device.
The Ubuntu installer says there isn't enough space to install. Gparted does not show the internal disk, whereas disks shows a bunch of loopback devices.
Windows is no longer on the device. Is there any way I can access the internal disk to wipe it?
If you wanna use it for TH-cam i wonder how well TH-cam on TV works 🤔
You get an extension with the same name that messes with things like user agent, then go the url. Its like the youtube app on smart tvs
Need the video on how to change the battery. I'm installing Ubuntu on mine tonight.
I've got a base spec 4/64gb Surface go 1st Gen and Fedora with the Surface Linux Kernel runs beautifully mostly streaming Jellyfin 4K content from my homeserver. For my usecase its more than capable and the screen is sooooo good for being an IPS.
7th gen Intel will probably do general computing for a LONG time with a Linux distro! I'm guessing 4k youtube silky smooth isn't a big deal. How much RAM could you get those in?
Edit: they came with 4, 8 or 16 GB of ram, 8 is probably fine if you use fewer tabs than i do. 16 should be plenty for quite a while!
4 GB? That IS getting a bit rough in 2024. It's probably fine for general use, especially just as a tablet.
How does scrolling work for you guys.. Running Mint on a Pro5 and you have to be dead center on the scroll bar or you find yourself opening anything you accidently touch.
On some surface models the touch screen doesn't work out of the box in WINDOWS.
9:55 Not as bad as my lifebook with a battery that discharges in 2 minutes 🔥
if you're curious, that lifebook is a P1510 from Fujitsu. it's likely from 2004 judging by the microsoft certificate of authenticity sticker.
it ran Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, then it went through Lubuntu, Puppy Linux, and currently Arch Linux 32. Installed the i3 window manager on it and it's been alright.
as a matter of fact, i3status reports the battery charge at 1.38% when the battery internally reports its fully charged. i set it to not use the design capacity, but rather last battery charge capacity
i probably need to seek out a battery replacement for it, but who knows if there's even any brand new battery packs for this thing, its 20 years old! maybe i'll pull the battery pack open and put in some new battery when im comfortable doing so
I have a Toshiba Satellite T130 and the battery in it has 4% battery health (224 mAh out of 5600 mAh)
I literally just did this with a Surface Pro 5 - Works nice, once I figured it out - and the custom kernel to get the features like touchscreen working. Still need to figure out how to pin that kernel...
A few weeks back, I made a touch-screen Ubuntu install on an old Inspiron. It’s great!
I started drawing and digital editing on my Samsung Note 2 but lacked good apps (Sketchbook was the best one at the time -when it was free)
then I got a Surface 3 (non pro) for drawing a few years back and it was nice but was def not very powerful.
years and years later I had the chance to try other drawing pads and a Lenovo laptop that had a pen but the support and capability wasn't there.
about over a year ago I got a Surface Book 2 and it's been amazing. yeah the battery is def degraded and it gets warm but for drawing it's prob the best you can do without going Ipad/Apple pencil route, or separate drawing screen.
Hi, I need help. My cameras are not working, and I would like to know if there is a way or solution that works in this case... I have already tried the Linux Kernel tutorial.
Thanks for showing this. If/When you might have time or interest: would you please consider showing how older (increasingly sluggish) Amazon Fire 7 & Fire 8 tablets (circa 2018-2021) might be switched to Tablet Linux such as Linux Mint?
Love your channel, brother.
Are there any touchscreen gestures in Gnome? Does three finger swipe up bring up overview like on a touchpad?
I just noticed that Ubuntu 24.10 actually brought back the startup sound from 4.10, wonder if it's possible to add that to 24.04 LTS (because I don't feel like ditching long term support).
I've been using endeavorOS on my surface pro 3 with plasma and it's absolutely amazing. Very snappy
I wonder if Phosh, a DE for mobile devices (mostly phones), would work on a surface.
Would you mind testing Xournal++ with annotating PDFs? How is the finger powered zoom and scroll?
i cannot believe you did this to a surface pro 2015 AMAZING
Great video!
I watched this on my Surface Pro 7 running KDE Neon :)
Ubuntu Linux with their modified GNOME dock is in my view superior to both Apple and Microsoft's UI for surface devices. It just feels way better to use. The only huge issue? Touchscreen not enabled by default, have to use terminal to get it going. That is a big drawback for most people.
how can something that USB3.0 be ready for screpping, if still working new?, USB3.0 not even the defacto USB standard yet, the USB/c but still requiers a lot flapping around adaters to anything USB 1 or 2 to plug in?
That is really awesome. Hopefully it never got broke.
Nice video, want to do something similar some time. Would have been fun to see the difference between the game performance on the Windows 10 OS Vs Ubuntu, it would have been interesting to see if it gave it a boost at all, perhaps even on two types of games like a native Linus one Vs one that relies on the proton compatibility layer.
Bonus info (a *lot* of folks miss this): there's a microSD slot hidden on the back -- you'll have to look under the kickstand to find it.
I run fedora on mine, it works great after you install the custom kernel
Microsoft: noOooOO, you can't use an old surface in 2024, put it in the trash
users/programmers: hey, do you want to keep using a surface and also on linux? well, we have a community project for that!
How is the pen on Ubuntu Touch? I'm really tempted to get one to run linux for a Krita machine.