I’m looking into a new tablet and it seems like grabbing a surface is a more affordable option to an iPad or other high end tablet. I can grab a decent one on marketplace for under $200 us. Is it worth it?
got nix on a surface go. works fine, but the storage is rather small, and nix store takes up a surprising amount of space
I rocked a Surface with Linux Mint for a few years. It worked great and was much more performant than Windows. I eventually got myself a proper laptop because I was wearing through multiple keyboard covers with the amount of typing I was doing, but I still keep it around as a backup.
Using Arch on Surface pro 6 for couple of years. Nothing much, just to read something on Calibre web and jellyfin client
I’ve had Gentoo (and later, Arch) on my Surface Pro 3 for a decade. It’s fully supported, touch screen and all.
I put LMDE on my partner’s old surfacebook and installed the surface kernel. It runs smoother than windows ever did, battery life improved too, full touchscreen. Though I did install fedora prior to LMDE and the touchscreen functionality may have been better with that, but the system was slower overall.
I have a surface go 3 and a surface pro 7. The first running cachyos, the second running arch. Both do run fine, but the pro 7 isn’t used much anymore. It used to do BSOD on Windows and on linux it just kernel freezes. Still, linux was a much better experience, except for the camera. The main issue with surfaces is the hardware. Highly prone to failure and not really repairable. I love the form factor as I prefer to use a split ergo keyboard, so a laptop keyboard isn’t useful to me, but I wouldn’t buy another as they aren’t good products long term imo.
I’ve done it on a dell xps and and surface 7 or 9 pro. Everything runs good if you use it as traditional. Once you go full touchscreen and do away with the folio keyboard. Typing is not worth doing. Touch input is ok on Mint or others but the in screen keyboard pop up almost never works. I went back to a laptop after 1500 plus dollars wasted. Battery life was subpar 3 hours or so. Seems great in theory and I almost used it to ditch the phone. Just isn’t ready fully. Laptop, all in one mini pc or desktop. Unless your truly browsing light or doing easy light things and want a bigger screen. It made me realize that 2 in 1s seem great on paper but practice they suck to hold, travel even in the house, generally just not what I was hoping. I used surface kernel and tried different distros. Returned both devices as it just wasn’t ready. Not having a full touch keyboard pop up in web, or OS use killed it entirely. I tried openboard and mints pre installed keyboard but nothing was fast and fluid. It was pecking slow and annoyed.
Depends what version of the Surface, but I have a Surface Pro 6 and it still performs well. I use the Surface Linux kernel.
