What distribution do you recommend for a Surface Pro 8 tablet?
from HunterLF@lemmy.zip to linux@lemmy.ml on 11 Mar 20:19
https://lemmy.zip/post/33842407

I am sick of windows, I have Fedora KDE Plasma 6 on my main pc, and I want to migrate to Linux on my tablet, too, even if I lose some functionality. I also have a stylus for it. I know there are apps that work with it on Linux.

#linux

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Bogasse@lemmy.ml on 11 Mar 20:25 next collapse

I briefly used Fedora (Gnome) on my SP7 which worked super well. Then I moved to NixOS because I’m a nerd 🤓

gramgan@lemmy.ml on 11 Mar 21:24 next collapse

I’m curious how it worked on NixOS. Do you happen to have any Nix config files you can share?

Bogasse@lemmy.ml on 11 Mar 23:07 collapse

Sadly I kept it private because it exposes a bit of my company’s network structure (with encrypted secrets, but still…) :/

It’s not the best experience though : the pencil doesn’t work as well as in Fedora (GNOME doesn’t detect tablet mode, which only seems to affect buttons behavior) and it recompiles the kernel everytime it needs to be updated (very often, so I pinned a version).

HunterLF@lemmy.zip on 11 Mar 22:31 collapse

I’ve never used NexOS. I’m a beginner with Linux, started with the steam deck, fell in love with it, tried bazzite on my main pc, hated the non-imutability of the os and then went to Fedora KDE Plasma, and I love it, everything is just easy to use. But I was thinking of trying Arch KDE. (SomeOrdinaryGamer made a video recently with Arch, and it intrigued me)

Bogasse@lemmy.ml on 11 Mar 23:05 collapse

I’d say arch is a great distro if you love to tinker a lot and/or want to learn a lot about the Linux ecosystem. If you don’t recognize yourself in previous sentence I’d probably stick with fedora 🤷

HunterLF@lemmy.zip on 12 Mar 06:08 collapse

In fact, I do find myself in the sentence, I tinker with all types of stuff, I wouldn’t have tried all of this if I didn’t also like it. I could always be comfortable and stay with Windows, but Linux is fun and and it teaches me a lot about operating systems and networking. Thanks for your words, now I think I will try going with Arch, I decided.

funkajunk@lemm.ee on 11 Mar 21:00 next collapse

Check out the Linux Surface project github.com/…/Supported-Devices-and-Features#featu…

The Surface Pro 8 looks to have everything supported, except for the camera.

infeeeee@lemm.ee on 11 Mar 21:06 collapse

On a surface you should use the surface kernel and its patches: github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface

If I were you I would pick one from the well documented distros from its wiki: github.com/…/Installation-and-Setup#surface-kerne…

Obviously it should be possible to install this on any distro, but you can save yourself from a headache if you just follow a tutorial, if you have never done such a thing.

Usually it’s easier if you have the same distro on both of your computers, so you don’t have to think about which computer are you on, it’s simpler if everything is the same. All the same programs available, same repos, etc.

HunterLF@lemmy.zip on 11 Mar 22:24 collapse

Thanks for the response, I’ve been tinkering, and before I read your message, I already started configuring the kernel for the surface. Now I am calibrating the touch. Sometimes, I wished I had something else than the surface, preferably something with an AMD processor… life would be a lot easier…