Hallo, A while back I got an old HP laptop from my Dad that he wasn't using anymore, and offered to fix it up for a friend. This friend was tired of their Surface device's limited space and battery life, as well as the usual windows crap (ads, AI, and so on). You can see stuff I did on that laptop's hardware page, but essentially I just swapped out the HDD with a spare 500GB SSD, and installed Mint - Xfce on it along with some useful apps. After getting used to the laptop and moving data over, my friend has now sent me their old Surface as a trade! I'm just gonna overview some of the stuff I have done/tried to do with it over the past week.
Turns out this is a Surface Pro 7 (for some reason I thought they had a Surface Laptop 1). I had wanted to try out Linux on a Surface for a while, since stumbling across the 'linux-surface' github/kernel extension, but didn't want to buy one because I knew it would be a pain with missing features. Looking at the linux-surface feature matrix (what features are supported/working/tested), the SP7 seems to have all functionality except for cameras, and the touch/pen functions require the linux-surface kernel to be installed. The camera is not a big deal for me, and is unlikely to be supported any time soon, as it uses IPU4 which almost none of the other Surfaces use. Installing the linux-surface patched kernel sounded daunting cause I've never done stuff like that before, but it was like six simple copy/paste terminal commands and two reboots (for Debian/Ubuntu anyway).
Test 1: I first tried Debian 13 + KDE because I had some success with that on a laptop recently and wanted the customization level to make a more tablet-like desktop. This didn't work out, and I struggled for a few days with so many weird little problems. I had an okay setup of a dock-like app launching panel on the left side and a clock/status-tray panel on the top, but then came the on screen keyboard issues. The built-in iBus virtual keyboard just wouldn't work, it also has errors out-of-the-box with Debian KDE/Wayland. A solution I found online was to install and use the 'Maliit' virtual keyboard, which worked great and popped up when needed, except in a few apps. This is apparently a known issue across multiple distros, and a simple interim solution would be having Maliit/whatever on screen keyboard open on demand. That is not an option for some reason, there's no simple way to configure Maliit, which is mind boggling to make an accessibility feature inaccessible. After that there were other issues with video playback, no audio from videos (maybe codecs could have helped, but I think I already had them/they come with KDE), you also have to add contrib and non-free repos manually in base Debian (either editing the sources list file, or much easier in Synaptic>Preferences>Repositories), and finally apt wasn't updating a few of the base repos for some reason. I eventually found the apt problem was due to the clock being wrong and it was not able to be changed to automatically update with a network connection, and I saw the suggestion to install 'systemd-timesyncd' which instantly fixed this. But yeah, at this point I was beyond my tolerance and the on screen keyboard still wasn't able to be manually opened, most 'advice' online was like "oh KDE is working on a new osk called Plasma keyboard that's going to be great" which feels way more like a 2015 problem than a 2025 one.
Test 2: I moved on to installing Mint - Cinnamon because despite the lesser customization, I know it usually works well and comes with multiple on-screen keyboards. Install was quick, worked with secure boot, and the linux-surface MOK was already enrolled. Seems to work as a normal Mint installation would (video/audio fine), so I tried out the touch related stuff. Moved the panel to the top and stumbled across the 'Cinnamenu' applet in the panel settings, which provided a more app dashboard tablet-friendly menu that is customizable like the regular Mint menu. The built in on-screen keyboard applet (added in panel preferences) works well, it pops up when needed AND can be manually opened for apps with the problem mentioned before. The on-screen keyboard is configured via the 'Accessibility' settings menu (not from the applet or the keyboard GUI itself, which is a bad design) and gives you three confounding options. First layout (Touch) is great, very tablet-like with essential buttons, except that it is a QWERTZ layout with no possible way to change this. Second option (Tablet) is fine, QWERTY but only with letters and numbers (no esc or other occasionally useful keys). Last option is a keyboard arraged alphabetically (???). I then tried 'Onboard' which is a third party osk that comes with Mint, which actually worked realy well, good sizing and themeing, can be manually opened. However, it doesn't open on login by default (which the mint osk applet does, could be fixed though) annnnndddd it does not work in the application menu, simply closing when you attempt to type. The cinnamenu applet probably fixes this issue because it's easier to navigate than the base Mint menu on touchscreen, and I could just make it open to 'favourites' or something. Atm I am undecided which I will stick with, onboard is a better layout and I can deal with the flaws, but the built in osk 'tablet' layout requires less explanation before letting another person use this device XD. I will stick with the Mint install because it's been way easier and more functional, plus it can be updated when new versions come out, so no more reinstalls.
Type Cover Keyboard Rant: The Surface came with it's 'type cover' keyboard, and holy fuck how did this cost $200-300 on release/still $100-200 second hand today. Like it's a fine keyboard/touchpad, magnetization part works well and it's backlit, but the cheaaaaapppp ass pleather shit it is covered in falls apart so easily. Why don't they just make it a solid plastic case, I don't understand why all these companies keeep using this stuff when basically every product with it in recorded history has it peeling off within 3 years (at best). I mean it's Microsoft, question asked and answered, but like do they think they're doing a good job?
Anyway, I will sit with this thing using it for a bit longer, it'll be good to have a 'tablet' like device around home that isn't completely locked down to android. I'll also make a hardware page for it too eventually, I'm calling it the 'Lurface' because that's the worst portmanteau I could think of. Thanks for reading :)