SamuZai
ActionRetro
ActionRetro

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Ubuntu... on an old Surface Pro?

Today we're saving an "obsolete" Surface Pro from the scrap heap and installing the latest version of Ubuntu! But is it at all usable?

Ubuntu... on an old Surface Pro?

Comments

How would I get mate & lubunti to have touch screen on this; as I have the correct Surface Pro that you were talking about(?)

sixcrootedHWAYS

Even if you re-calibrate the battery you should definitely look into replacing it. Just anecdotal but I've had 2 Surfaces and both died from swelling batteries. They were older models though.

Matt Pierce

oh yeah!

Action Retro

Great video! A friend of mine had a Surface Pro in college, and we were all impressed with it but it wasn't very practical. It didn't have a lot of performance for the price, it would get loud and hot when you pushed it, and it always bothered him that he couldn't use it on his lap very well. He ended up switching to Linux and the compatibility pretty middling at the time as well. He often wished he had a more boring laptop instead.

Tyler Compton

You might want to try to run powertop and do a calibrate and then an auto-tune.

Megan Alnico

"right beneath the surface" I see what you did there.

Rob Jobin

I documented the fun of installing Fedora 39 on it and my experiences with it on my blog: https://blog.linh.social/2024/03/02/installing-fedora-on-microsoft-surface-pro-3/

Linh Pham

I have a Surface Pro 3 that I got good discount on via Adobe Creative Cloud back in the day. While it wasn't exactly fast, but Windows 10 started to feel really slow on it. So, I yeeted Windows and, after trying out Ubuntu, then Debian, on it, I now have Fedora 41 on there with KDE Plasma. There were some issues with Fedora and Secure Boot for a little bit, but it's been enabled since the install of Fedora 40. I don't have any batteries for the Surface Pen to see if the stylus support works, but it's been a decent dev test machine.

Linh Pham

I just discover that I have a local Goodwill Computer Works about 30 minutes away. I was going to look for a trash can Mac, but this seems like it might be a better purchase.

GumbyX


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