Comment by alisonatwork | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alisonatwork | Hacker News Reader

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Can you share a bit more about your experience here, in particular setting the system up?

I have a bashed up Surface Pro 7 I took traveling with me. I upgraded my main PC to a Surface Pro 9 when I housed up and have been wondering what to do with with the Pro 7 because it's so battered from being thrown around and used outdoors for a year that it's not really sellable. I was thinking of turning it into a dedicated outdoor/travel computer, installing Fedora and Steam for point and click adventures, and maybe some MIDI/DJ controller software to play tunes. But I no longer have a keyboard for it, so I would need to be able to do the full Linux install by touchscreen. My other Surface is 100% bluetooth input devices to avoid cables, docks and dongles, so I could potentially pair one of those if it would help during install phase, but I wouldn't want it permanently paired. It seems like the advice online is generally "if you don't have a USB keyboard, don't bother", though. Do you think it's worth a shot?

> "if you don't have a USB keyboard, don't bother"

I think you should be able to hardware reset without a keyboard - but in my experience - you really want console access when messing with bootloaders and alternative os'. Even if it is just to get to a point where on-screen/Bluetooth keyboard works... Often an USB Ethernet dongle can be useful as well (avoiding the catch-22 of needing network access to download wifi driver).

I don't think anything could go wrong just booting into the live distro, but I did my setup with a keyboard and I don't know how it would work without.

wouldn't you be able to plug in a USB keyboard?

I love that the Linux solution to a problem is just have this additional hardware to overcome it. I've run Linux as a desktop OS for years, so I'm not at all unfamiliar with all the hoops you have to jump through. Hoops that die-hard greybeards will deny exist because their personality is tied up in an operating system of all things. Surely 2024 is the year of the Linux desktop!

well you may only need the keyboard to install it right? there are thousands of USB keyboards everywhere. in the poorest most remote villages in Africa they probably have so many USB keyboards they make sandals out of them.

Except now you have sandals and perhaps still can't install Linux on a Surface.

Seriously, though, it's kind of ridiculous to make a case that just because there is so much electronic waste already in the world, might as well create some more of it. I don't own a USB keyboard and haven't owned one for a decade or more. Because I exclusively use Surface. Imo Windows tablets are the true cyberdeck of the 21st century.

Touchscreen devices should not require plugging in a keyboard to enter text or plugging in a mouse to click on things. The whole point of these devices is that they can work on their own, without peripherals. If you need to plug in to use them, then you might as well have just bought a laptop in the first place.

your expectations are unreasonable.

I think that if you are expecting Linux to work perfectly when there is no keyboard on a notoriously Linux hostile proprietary device maybe you should step up and write the driver for it yourself.

nobody is getting paid to specifically maintain the weird workarounds required to support the surface and your problem can be avoided by spending a nickel at the salvation army.

it might even work without one! I know the latest Ubuntu detects a touchscreen on my Thinkpad and provides an onscreen keyboard by default.

edit:

I sincerely believe that the best way forward is for people who use Linux to vote with their wallet and buy products from the companies who are not actively hostile to it.

I apply this logic to nearly ever device I buy and it results in less waste because I buy stuff I can actually fix! see this:

https://github.com/ubernaut/maintainable-device-scorecard

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