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Joined 1 month ago
Cake day: February 25th, 2026



  • Oh, I just have a surface pro 7. Since it’s microslop-build, getting the touch screen and pen to work properly might be impossible, since I couldn’t get it to be good enough even with the linux-surface-kernel, and have not really found any hope online. As my main use for the thing is art, rendering it useless just to get it on linux isn’t exactly something I want… :(

    I kinda gave up for now and switched to win10 since I don’t enjoy distro hopping. I might just have to wait until the linux-surface-kernel evolves to be more compatible or I find some solid confirmation someone has managed to make the thing work perfectly with a distro…






  • This is just i5, but I don’t really do much stuff that requires anything better. As long as SAI 2 and some basic stuff runs, it’s been enough for me. And yeah, the overheating really is a big issue if you try to do anything outside some very light usage. I do play minecraft with this sometimes, and that’s about the upper limit this thing can handle… it does still work well enough though, even if after some hours coretemp shows the temperatures get a bit high.

    I definitely would not recommend this thing without an added fan. Well, I honestly wouldn’t really recommend any SPs with it either, unless you really need this specific combination of small/artsy enough/yet still computer.



  • I’ve not run those de-bloaters, but I checked one that scanned what could be done with 11, and I had managed to kill most of the bloat even without running it, but even that did not improve the performance. It even takes a lot of effort and needs to be repeated constantly, since the damn shit tries to install everything back with every update. Win10 is a bit more merciful in that regard as well, so despite “downgrading” it really feels like I upgraded this thing instead.

    I’d really prefer something like Zorin, I got the memory consumption to 1,5 gb at it’s lowest when I tried intentionally, which is pretty impressive with the visuals I could still keep. I’d also rather not to have anything microslop-build, but sadly SP’s are still pretty much the only option available that’s small enough to really work as a tablet, has good enough pen sensitivity for drawing, but still works as a proper computer… I would never buy anything after SP9 though, it’s all some copilot infested shit.





  • Tried and failed, I just can’t get it to work. I got the pressure working, but the cursor won’t focus properly and is all over the place, it’s something to do with the integrated touch screen somehow. Not with wine, not even with non-flatpak bottles :(

    It might run on the SP7, but I just won’t risk an OS install without getting it work on some other touch screen mint first. I’ve considered trying zorin on this extra one too though, to see if it would work better with this touch screen, or is it just the SP that’s the problem.


I absolutely loathe win11, so I turned to linux and have been trying to find a distro that would allow my surface pro 7 to work properly. I use this thing as a portable art station, so getting the pen and touch screen work perfectly is my first priority, and getting paint tool SAI 2 run properly the second (Krita works I know, but it’s like telling water colorist to switch to oil paints).

I run Mint on my extra laptop, but I can’t get SAI working properly so it’s out of the question. I tried Zorin OS since it’s said to work well with surface pro’s, and I really liked it and even got SAI running perfectly basically out of the box, but I could get both the touch screen and pen to work only barely even with the linux-surface-kernel.

I now have win10 back so I can keep drawing, but I’m searching for a distro that could work for what I need - and would be easy enough for a mint-level noob like me.

So, has anyone gotten surface pro’s touch stuff work perfectly with some distro or am I stuck with win10 until ESU runs out? Even the best answers I find searching online are basically “the touch works somewhat but I don’t need it anyway”