I think I should just choose Arch.
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2026
65 points (84.2% liked)
linuxmemes
31824 readers
628 users here now
Hint: :q!
Sister communities:
Community rules (click to expand)
1. Follow the site-wide rules
- Instance-wide TOS: https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
- Lemmy code of conduct: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/code_of_conduct.html
2. Be civil
- Understand the difference between a joke and an insult.
- Do not harrass or attack users for any reason. This includes using blanket terms, like "every user of thing".
- Don't get baited into back-and-forth insults. We are not animals.
- Leave remarks of "peasantry" to the PCMR community. If you dislike an OS/service/application, attack the thing you dislike, not the individuals who use it. Some people may not have a choice.
- Bigotry will not be tolerated.
3. Post Linux-related content
- Including Unix and BSD.
- Non-Linux content is acceptable as long as it makes a reference to Linux. For example, the poorly made mockery of
sudoin Windows. - No porn, no politics, no trolling or ragebaiting.
- Don't come looking for advice, this is not the right community.
4. No recent reposts
- Everybody uses Arch btw, can't quit Vim, <loves/tolerates/hates> systemd, and wants to interject for a moment. You can stop now.
5. 🇬🇧 Language/язык/Sprache
- This is primarily an English-speaking community. 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇺🇸
- Comments written in other languages are allowed.
- The substance of a post should be comprehensible for people who only speak English.
- Titles and post bodies written in other languages will be allowed, but only as long as the above rule is observed.
6. (NEW!) Regarding public figures
We all have our opinions, and certain public figures can be divisive. Keep in mind that this is a community for memes and light-hearted fun, not for airing grievances or leveling accusations. - Keep discussions polite and free of disparagement.
- We are never in possession of all of the facts. Defamatory comments will not be tolerated.
- Discussions that get too heated will be locked and offending comments removed.
Please report posts and comments that break these rules!
Important: never execute code or follow advice that you don't understand or can't verify, especially here. The word of the day is credibility. This is a meme community -- even the most helpful comments might just be shitposts that can damage your system. Be aware, be smart, don't remove France.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I dont care which linux anyone uses. Just use a linux please!!!
Rifhard stallmann wouls like a word
Got myself a VERY affordable refurbished surface laptop 3
Intel graphics, intel chip - damn this will run Linux like a breeze.
Boy was I wrong. Microsoft in their wisdom have some shenanigans going on.
Managed to find a kernel on GitHub, when I installed it broke secure boot (my fault for not fully understanding) and then ended up losing access to the whole system.
Long story short I’m back on windows 11 and researching how not to screw it up.
I realise you didn’t ask for any of this info, but sometimes it’s nice to vent :)
Chalk it up as a lesson learned. There are some hoops you have to jump through, when installing Linux on a machine built and set up to use windows. One of these is secure boot.
IIRC the older surfaces have some challenges. But usually, there are just a few switches you have to set right in the BIOS/UEFI-interface and then some things to be aware of when installing Linux (that don't really have anything to do with being a windows machine, but with older hardware). One thing is to be aware, i& your running it in BIOS or UEFI mode. Afair, that has implications from the partition table on your system drive down to the possible partitioning-schemes of some system folders.
And I don't have experience with surface laptops, but I don't think you'd need any obscure kernels from github. The mainline Linux Kernel should be fine, if you set it up correctly. And you shouldn't be using Kernels from somewhere else, if you don't absolutely know what you're doing. (And even then, you'd be better off compiling it yourself, with the right settings).
Usually though, it's just a matter of having the right kernel-params set during boot and loading appropriate models, which can all be done with a stock kernel, either by using the right boot-flags or even on a running system.
Compiling kernels, to my understanding, is something for Gentoo users, tinkerers and embedded system devs. Or if you want a streamlined installation on your laptop with minimal overhead; though that already puts you in the tinkerer category in my books.
I've got fedora and bazzite running on Surface Pro 5 and 4 without any issue. Touchscreen even works on Bazzite which was unexpected. Maybe the laptop is doing some weird things under the hood :(
I tried mint and Ubuntu - both Debian based though, worth giving Bazzite a whirl. If nothing else it’ll give me something to do for a few hours 😀
I’d say that unless you want a “game console” like experience, bazzite is maybe not the right option. It’s not bad but if you want a daily driver computer it’s probably not what you’re looking for.
It’s fedora based, so if you’re curious about it, I’d just suggest using fedora. The big difference between it and Debian being the DNF package manager vs the APT package manager.
For the secure boot issues, Debian derived systems shouldn’t have any specific issues, but it does require some extra steps on set up to get working properly, ones that are not going to be obvious at first glance In the documentation but should be fairly easy to do in the live boot session before instal.
Also, I’m confused as to why you would download a kernel from GitHub? if you want to install Mint or Ubuntu, you should probably just use one of the ISO images they offer on their websites, write it to some sort of storage medium (probably flash drive), boot from that and then configure the install in the live session.
the bigger difference to Debian, at least for me, is that before is based on the atomic version of fedora. I'm very happy with bazzite on my home pc, so i tried (the corresponding) fedora silverblue on my work laptop (10yo) and it works perfect!
There are immutable/atomic distos downstream of Debian and Arch as well.
But I’m just not convinced atomic or immutable systems really bring anything to the table in regards to a daily driver. Like, the problems they solve are not that prevalent in my experience, and the limitations seem very extreme.
that is probably just a matter of taste. it took me a bit to get used to it, but now i barely feel any limitations and enjoy it quiet much.
They're great for less tech savvy people, though terrible if you do know more and want to muck about your system more.
https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface
That was the kernel I installed,
Thanks for the advice, the tinkering is honestly part of the fun! I’ll try again this weekend :)
you’d probably want to change over to that kernel after getting the system running with the standard kernel rather than starting with it. Since most of the additional support is for ancillary things like multi touch support.
Something you couldn’t really do with something like bazzite as it is immutable.