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Finally coming around to using Linux. How's it on a tablet? (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by Abdoanmes@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I'm 43 and not really starting using Linux. I've dabbled with distros on and off over the years, but I never made the full switch because work always had some program or policy that just wouldn't play nice with Linux. With all the crappy Microsoft decisions, bloatware, and ads I decided to try and use Linux exclusively on a personal device, and I'm absolutely loving it!

I've been working with Ubuntu as my main distro, and I've also been playing around with distros on a Raspberry Pi. To really challenge myself, I installed Linux on an old Surface Pro 3, and guess what? It just works! I was pleasantly surprised by how smooth the setup was and how well it performs.

I missing any key steps or tips to make the experience even better on a Surface? Any insights would be greatly appreciated. I was planning to buy a new tablet that runs Linux but this is working better than expected. I'm really enjoying the flexibility and control Linux offers and want to keep this momentum going.

I have read up and tried plenty, just looking for some perspectives out there specific to your tablet experiences.

EDIT Thank you for all the suggestions and insights! I'm going to continue using the Ubuntu build for the next few months. Still lots more to learn, but I'm excited to see how this goes. I have everything setup I need to function as a Linux only tablet experience. no more dependency on Windoze.

EDIT 2 I have been using Ubuntu for a few weeks and it generally works. The touch has been great but I do notice it is a bit buggy at times and the virtual keyboard leaves a lot to be desired. I did read this article today that talks about their experience more on a Surface Pro 4. https://www.binwang.me/2024-07-12-A-Review-of-Linux-on-Surface-Pro-4.html

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[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 42 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Gnome works quite well on a larger touch-screen. Edit: ah, Ubuntu should have that by default.

[–] Abdoanmes@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It worked immediately without much fuss. That's why I was scratching my head. Was it always this easy!? I'm enjoying the experience so far

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 20 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Installing Linux on most hardware became really easy maybe 5 years ago.

[–] Abdoanmes@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago (2 children)

What changed to make it happen? I am so done with other OS and Linux does everything I need. I really need to learn more about what's happening and how to better use it so I can further customize and configure.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 16 points 4 months ago

Nothing specifically, just nice improvements cumulating over the years.

[–] Pacmanlives@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Lot of just general progress, Linux was so fringe when I started in 2002 compared to now. Most enterprise customers are using Linux the past 15 years and hardware venders are now seeing more and more Linux adoption. We can kind of thank Chrome a bit for that but also more people generally having an interest and using it and developing drivers for their hardware

[–] Abdoanmes@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

It sure did. That's why I was surprised. Thank you!

[–] Michal@programming.dev 5 points 4 months ago

One annoying thing though is you can't scroll terminal on a touchscreen, it'll just start selecting text. Maybe there's a non default terminal with touch support.

[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 33 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

You might want to look at Surface Kernel for Linux. The link below shows their matrix of features on various Surface products and support within the Surface for Linux kernel. You would install Ubuntu and then install these updates to make Surface hardware function better. They have a lot of bespoke hardware in their laptops and tablets that aren't supported by the Ubuntu Linux Kernel out of the gate. https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Supported-Devices-and-Features#feature-matrix

[–] Abdoanmes@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ok this is getting to the question I had. I found a few YouTube videos that went into detail about updating the kernel. I was wondering what's the purpose when it was working as well as it has. I'm going to try to do this and follow the guides. Initially I had to overcome a BitLocker issue and a bug where I couldn't overwrite the partition. Once I finally got Ubuntu running I was ready to dive into making it touch compatible, but it was already there. I suspect this makes it even better

[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago

If it works well for you, don't worry about it. The matrix will show what kind of support improvements you might expect over the standard kernel.

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Whoa, I don't know why I've never considered Linux on a tablet. I have a couple that are gathering dust in a closet, and if this is doable, it sounds like a fun project!

[–] Abdoanmes@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago (2 children)

On this Surface Pro, touch, rotation, and even the pen is working! I didn't expect it to just work and it is.

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The pen?! Damn, that's impressive.

The one I might use is a an old Galaxy Note. I wonder if I'll have similar luck.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There's a big difference between an Android tablet and a PC tablet...

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Am I getting my hopes up for nothing? =(

[–] KrapKake@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Probably, android devices and especially Samsung can be locked down. I don't know your model though I feel like there are 4,327 variants of "galaxy note".

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well all the Linux distros you see being discussed in this thread for PCs. There's a much wider array of driver support in the kernel for x86 related hardware. ARM tablets, especially Samsung devices, have speciality hardware. Honestly, you'll be lucky if you can get past any bootloader issues on a Samsung.

[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, you'll be lucky if you can get past any bootloader issues on a Samsung.

It was honestly trivial to wipe Samsung's and install LineageOS on a Galaxy Note 10+ and a Galaxy Tab 7. The bootloader isn't much of an issue.

Now, getting a random Linux system to install, rather than an Android system designed for these, sounds live a huge challenge.

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[–] i_am_hiding@aussie.zone 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I've been daily driving a Lenovo X230 tablet for the last four years. I use Xournal++ to take notes with the pen in classes and at work. Works great!

[–] Abdoanmes@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Xournal++ is amazing! It's really the reason a Linux tablet will work for me. I also appreciate using GB Studio and Aseprite with the pen. Makes retro game developing a lot more fun!

[–] Michal@programming.dev 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I use ThinkPad X1 yoga with Fedora 40 (Gnome)

  1. Enable fractional scaling and install Display scale switcher gnome extension - makes it easier to increase scaling when in tablet mode for easier touch input.
  2. logging in on a touchscreen can be a pain, in particular entering the password with on-screen keyboard. Special characters and numbers are not shown by default. On windows you have the option to use pin instead with a numeric keyboard. If you have a fingerprint reader compatible with linux that might work for login (mine doesn't).
  3. Linux is very terminal-oriented, but Gnome terminal is unusable on a tochscreen. never mind typing commands - try scrolling long outputs - you can't scroll with touchscreen, it will just start selecting text (i dont remember how this works in Windows)
  4. Google chrome supports gestures, so you can swipe left/right on the page to navigate back/forward. This does not with Firefox. Chrome also has a more touchscreen-friendly UI you can enable in chrome://flags/#top-chrome-touch-ui (Touch UI layout) although I haven't noticed a significant difference.
  • while you're messing with google flags you may want to change Preferred Ozone platform to Wayland - this fixed blurry scaling for me
[–] Abdoanmes@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I was looking at Lenovo and this is good input. It sounds like everyone is not a fan of the tablet keyboard and the terminal is straight bollocks no matter the distro. I keep hearing Fedora and Wayland. I'm going to have to learn about them a bit more.

[–] Michal@programming.dev 3 points 4 months ago

If you're planning to get the 3rd gen x1 yoga, don't. I had to disable thunderbolt ports in BIOS to get it to sleep correctly. Otherwise touch screen would not work after wake. And stylus doesn't work correctly with Wayland. It stops working after few seconds of use.

[–] lung@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I don't think tablets are fully supported but I see gnome devs continuing to make steady progress there. Stoked for a future where (real) open source catches up to phones and tablets, we are close...

[–] Abdoanmes@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

Ok, that makes sense. I suppose a Surface Pro is still kinda a computer with a touchscreen. Overall I was impressed with how smooth the experience was and look forward to it developing.

[–] zelifcam@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Is there a DE with an onscreen keyboard that can be used in the terminal?

The onscreen keyboard used with Plasma (steam deck as well) is missing CTRL and other keys needed when navigating a terminal. It also fails to pop up on electron apps.

[–] Abdoanmes@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like it's a bust to use terminal on a tablet. Damn.

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You can get a small Bluetooth keyboard. They make them really tiny, for this exact use case (smartphones and tablets).

Since this is a Surface you can probably find one that's been specifically designed to integrate with it (act as a cover).

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[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Gnome is the go to for accessibility but it has a phone-like keyboard

This extension

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/6595/enhanced-osk/

Gives the full pc keyboard

[–] Salix@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 months ago

Unfortunately, it doesn't work on GNOME 46 yet. But looks like the porting is almost done!

https://github.com/cass00/enhanced-osk-gnome-ext/pull/15

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[–] Ranger@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I've been using Linux mint on a tablet & it's been good so far. Ironically the windows tablets are particular easy to put Linux on.

[–] Rooskie91@discuss.online 5 points 4 months ago

I had great success installing fedora on a Microsoft surface. It ran better on Linux than it did with windows lol.

[–] rainerloeten@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I only know that I was pleasantly surprised how well GNOME ran on a surface device of a friend.

[–] Abdoanmes@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Yeah, me too. It just works!

[–] luciddaemon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 months ago

I've been messing with linux on my xps tablet. It mostly works well, I just hate the onscreen keyboards right now. Maliit lacks documentation and modifier buttons, squeekboard doesn't scale to larger screens unless you manually build a dev branch, and wvkbd doesn't hide/respond to input boxes.

As for UI, I love plasma mobile personally. For other touch friendly UIs theres: gnome mobile, phosh, and hyprland + gesture plugin.

[–] sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

You can try Fedora on a Surface with the Ublue variants such as Aurora and Bluefin, there are ISOs specifically for the Surface. Fedora atomic variants work very well. I found Fedora Kinoite works great with a touchscreen laptop.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Y'all need to really stop recommending immutable distros to people who aren't even familiar or know what their regular setup will be. Like this poster who even said they are still going to have to work out Windows alternatives.

[–] capital@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago (18 children)

I think I disagree.

After using Bazzite, if I had to set something up for my mom, it’d be Aurora.

Updates are dead simple and most of what she would use would be flatpaks anyway.

They seem like a rock solid way to get into Linux with a low chance of breaking something.

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[–] Abdoanmes@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for these insights. From my laymen experience with Linux, I am a bit fuzzy on all the distros and variants. What's the major difference between Ubuntu (or whatever distro) and what you described? From your perspective

[–] sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today 3 points 4 months ago

You're welcome. I find Fedora to be much more up to date and refined than Ubuntu but also very stable still, at least the atomic variants as those are what I use. Also Ubuntu has all the controversy about trying to force their own packages at you as well as other things

[–] mariah@feddit.rocks 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I have the starlite. I ran gnome on linux mint. It was ok until i tried to change the display manager from lightdm to gdm. The touchscreen stopped working. Im gonna install debian when i get my usb hub

[–] mariah@feddit.rocks 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Update! I installed debian and fedora and its still broken. So i suggest not buying the starlite

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[–] Ringmasterincestuous@aussie.zone 3 points 4 months ago

My Surface Pro 4 (my last remaining windows install) is soon to suffer this fate.. not the Linux install, but having me just touch it in weird places.. for no real apparent reason 😈

[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I don’t have Linux on a tablet right now but my first thought was that you might want to check into what Steam Deck users are doing with “Desktop Mode.” It has a touchscreen and virtual keyboard so it’s essentially a tablet-like experience (though it has touchpads and a few buttons, obviously, and isn’t a tablet). It runs KDE by default, which I’m not as familiar with as Gnome, but it might have more users than any other GNU/Linux touchscreen product.

Last time I had a Linux tablet, there were also some Firefox/Chrome/Gnome extensions that made it more touch-friendly. Like instead of selecting text, one finger swipe scrolled, two-fingers zoomed in, etc. like a typical tablet. Not sure if that’s still an issue. But if you do run into an issue, it might already be solved by an extension.

Hopefully, someone has more up-to-date advice. The tablet I had (and probably still have in a drawer somewhere) was an experimental Ubuntu Touch device and there’s been huge strides since then.

[–] Abdoanmes@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Thank you, that gives me a direction to start researching. I've been wondering the experience and it seems like it has been developing.

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