Does anybody have experience of running Linux on previous Surface devices?
Touch works surprisingly well, but multitouch support in Ubuntu is quite primitive still. The pen works allright but without pressure sensitivity.
Coming from a ThinkPad W500 I'm very happy with it but it still has rough edges, like the lack of suspend mode. I do a full shutdown instead.
Huh? Some UEFI trickiness, or some kind of quirky intel cpu? Do you mean that it doesn't work for Ubuntu, or that there's no way to get s2disk/s2ram to work on the thing with a Linux kernel?
I starting setting hybernate up but I needed it encrypted and it seemed like too much trouble; AFAIK there is no special difficulty in this machine.
Another thing I forgot to mention and I actually find quite annoying is the volume buttons, which don't work for now. There was some tentative patch / module when I last tried last Christmas but it did not work at all.
Ah, I see. Thanks for clarifying. Another thing to look for if/when buying new hardware then (lack of s3/and or instantGo support arriving in Linux)
> I starting setting hybernate up but I needed it encrypted and it seemed like too much trouble
Not sure what you mean here. You'll need the encryption key on startup, of course (but you need that on a full boot anyway). Perhaps look into putting the/a copy of the key on an usb stick?
Unless Ubuntu has been been messing with the cryptsetup/luks boot/initrd-magic as found in Debian, it should "just work".
Works fine on my Thinkpad -- I generally just do "s2disk" from the command-line (I did look into getting S3+S1 to work -- that is first s2ram and disk, then after a while turn off, awakening from disk rather than ram -- that was a bit more of a hassle to get working -- and in the end I rarely need it anyway).
Fwiw I use the "hibernate" package along with a fully encrypted (except /boot) system, using cryptsetup/luks.
[edit: Tangentially related:
http://www.oxygenimpaired.com/ubuntu-with-grub2-luks-encrypt...
(note the bit about preparing the usb key with the encryption key is in a linked post)
I'm not sure I see much value in having the key be some random part of a randomzied usb stick... but it mentions most of the things required to mount encrypted partitions -- and the keyscript-option.
Also, be wary of Dragons when systemd comes around:
I suggest this for one simple reason: Many of the Surface's features are ultimately software/driver driven. For example, the keyboard, the pen (both halfs), even much of the touch interaction, and on screen keyboard.
So unless you have really incredible driver support, the Surface is going to just be obnoxious to try and use. You might wind up with a USB keyboard/mouse plugged in most of the time.
Can it be done? Maybe. Should it? Depends how much you like pain.
My worry is that Ubuntu wouldn't really work with the touch screen.
Edit: I should mention, she got the i5 1.9 GHz and mostly uses it for work (Excel / Outlook) and video (Skype / Netflix). No fan issues.