I’ve got a Surface Pro 5 with the dogshit m3 processor and 4GB of Ram, anyone have any concept of how it’d run under linux? It basically folds at any real task in Windows
Incidentally, I had the exact same device. It actually worked pretty good to be honest!
Of course it will not magically be a top tier device. Programs will need some time to load the first time, and then be thrown out of RAM again.
BUT, compared to Windows, it will be a difference between night and day!
I strongly recommend you the silverblue-main-surface-image from universal-blue.org.
Why?
Because you need the linux-surface-kernel for it to work. Otherwise, most functions, like touchscreen, webcam, adaptive brightness, auto-rotate and more won’t work at all.
You can install the kernel on other distros too, but it might break. I had that already happening. On uBlue, it’s baked in and won’t break. And if it does, you can just roll back.
It comes with Gnome by default and provides you a great touchscreen experience
And you can install Waydroid easily, which gives you access to Android apps.
I don’t recommend using another DE than Gnome for that. Especially those “light weight” ones like XFCE are horrible for touchscreens, and if you use a browser, those few hundred MBs RAM less used by them is negotiable.
“KDE is heavy” is so 2000s. It’s been quite a while since KDE is very tight on resources usage. Unless you’re running a raspberry or similar, there’s no point on constraining yourself with one of those desktops for an everyday use device.
All good, but I think it’s really often a misconception that a DE like KDE, which is big and brings tons of features, must be more ressource intensive than a (feature wise) smaller DE. Which, as the benchmarks show, is surprisingly not the case.
I’ve got a Surface Pro 5 with the dogshit m3 processor and 4GB of Ram, anyone have any concept of how it’d run under linux? It basically folds at any real task in Windows
Incidentally, I had the exact same device. It actually worked pretty good to be honest!
Of course it will not magically be a top tier device. Programs will need some time to load the first time, and then be thrown out of RAM again.
BUT, compared to Windows, it will be a difference between night and day!
I strongly recommend you the
silverblue-main-surface-image from universal-blue.org.Why?
linux-surface-kernel for it to work. Otherwise, most functions, like touchscreen, webcam, adaptive brightness, auto-rotate and more won’t work at all.I don’t recommend using another DE than Gnome for that. Especially those “light weight” ones like XFCE are horrible for touchscreens, and if you use a browser, those few hundred MBs RAM less used by them is negotiable.
Thanks for the advice, I’d not heard of that particular distro. I’m quite comfortable with Fedora so I think I’ll give it a shot
It would be smooth as butter with a lightweight desktop (probably not KDE). I suggest Linux Mint XFCE edition
“KDE is heavy” is so 2000s. It’s been quite a while since KDE is very tight on resources usage. Unless you’re running a raspberry or similar, there’s no point on constraining yourself with one of those desktops for an everyday use device.
Everything’s about perspective… maybe GNOME became SO bloated that KDE now seems very light. :P
Look on phoronix for benchmarks. Plasma consumes less RAM and CPU than even XFCE.
Hold on, I was kind of joking, I’m not saying KDE is slow. GNOME for sure is slow as hell.
All good, but I think it’s really often a misconception that a DE like KDE, which is big and brings tons of features, must be more ressource intensive than a (feature wise) smaller DE. Which, as the benchmarks show, is surprisingly not the case.