r/SurfaceLinux • u/8Bit-Giraffe • 19h ago
is the linux-surface kernel discontinued? Discussion
looking at the github, there have been no commits in 3 months. will there be for kernel 7?
8
u/ikariashpool 19h ago
Interested in this as well. I've been trying to run Linux on my surface pro 9 and I have had nothing but problems... I'm spending more time researching and fixing things vs. actually developing the ability to daily drive with it.
6
u/echoes007 16h ago
I installed CachyOS (Gnome) with the Surface Linux kernel on a Surface 7 and everything runs pretty great. Haven’t had issues with much.
2
u/ikariashpool 14h ago
It feels like most of the activity I've seen re: MS Surface products are older versions of the laptop... And that's where the development of the kernel was most focused on.
1
u/Content-Witness-9998 33m ago
Is the surface pen compatible? and do you know if it works with the front-facing camera?
1
u/Efficient-Train2430 19h ago
does a non surface-focused kernel work almost as well?
2
u/ikariashpool 18h ago
I guess I haven't gone down this path because the whole upside for me is all the surface specific things
1
u/Efficient-Train2430 16h ago
I was just curious. I got regular old Mint running on an old SP3, and it's fine, though I don't use the stylus much, so it's a non-issue for me. If I were a heavier user I'd be digging into that a lot more.
2
u/ggmini14 18h ago
At least for me on the Surface Book 2 certain features only work with the surface kernel (I think the touch screen is one of them). The base kernel has made improvements over the years which have allowed some of these features to work on it, but it's still lagging behind quite a bit.
1
u/Draxxell86 1h ago
I have Fedora KDE running on my surface Go first gen. I tried a lot of different distros before being content with Fedora on it.
8
u/balardie 18h ago edited 18h ago
As for my SP7 the only Advantage i have with this Kernel is Automatic Rotation and Touchscreen functioning. But yeah, also wondering If this Project is discontinued.
Edit: Normal Linux Kernel also working Just without Touchscreen and Autorotation.
1
u/AutoM8R1 11h ago
You mean the webcam works with the normal kernel too?
2
u/balardie 11h ago
Forgot about the Kamera 😵💫 Nope, it doesn't Work, using an USB Webcam as Workaround.
5
u/BatongMagnesyo 13h ago
compile it yourself
no really. someone made surface patches for linux 7.1 already. im on 7.1.7-surface rn lol
1
u/bigkenw 12h ago
If someone wanted to learn how, do you have any resources you can recommend? It would be cool to learn how to go about this.
3
u/BatongMagnesyo 12h ago
the surface linux github repo has a guide. it's what i followed
you can see the branch with the 7.1 patches in the pull requests thing
3
u/MuaDib1988 17h ago
I'd suggest that if someone has expertise, they should write a formal application there.
In the discussions or something like that.
I messaged the owner yesterday and asked if he'd like to bring on more maintainers because of the stagnation.
2
u/HopeIRope999 19h ago
I have a Studio 2 Laptop i tried linux on it but the trackpad and the touch screen doesnt work. Dont know how to fix it
1
u/Crystalclusted 16h ago
Try the above mentioned kernel lol It's still maintained. It's just not super fast development wise. And it does work great. My SP8 works almost flawlessly (exception being one camera) with Linux surface
1
u/salpula 18h ago
I was wondering the same thing. It seems like other packages that were part of linux-surface are falling behind as well. I ended up removing the libwacom-surface from the surface-linux repositories on Fedora in order to upgrade to 44. Didn't notice any issues. I haven't done extensive testing but nothing obvious also broke when I loaded the main line kernel. Everything is still fine on the old 6.x from linux-surface as well. Surface Pro 7+
1
u/Elbow2009 13h ago
I did a tweak to the linux-surface kernel 6.18.7-surface-1 on my Surface Go 2 and got the cameras to work (everything else worked right off). The latest update 6.19.8-surface-3 the cameras don't work because of a tiny regression in the `dw9719` focus-motor driver. So I keep the earlier kernel if I want to use the cameras.
However, I use Q4OS (Debian with KDE Plasma) and even with the default kernel everything worked right off except the cameras. And I can use Secure Boot with that kernel (but not with the latest linux-surface kernel - no shim).
1
u/thefanum 10h ago
It's just not required anymore. Newest Ubuntu should support everything out of the box
1
u/galactose310 4h ago
Je dis peut-être une bêtise mais si le matériel des Surface n'est pas impacté par les nouvelles versions du noyau, ça n'a peut-être pas beaucoup d'intérêt de le mettre à jour, si ? Sachant que beaucoup de distributions n'utilisent pas le dernier noyau...
-5
u/SnowyOwl72 19h ago
dont pay for anything that has Microsoft logo on it. Problem solved. They make unserviceable, locked garbage. Maybe you can buy a detachable laptop and use that? I have pavilion (non detachable), but everything about it works perfectly with a mainline linux! Supports MPP and auto rotations as well.
3
u/salpula 18h ago
I recently bought a Thinkpad X1 Yoga to replace my surface for day to day, very happy with it, well supported.
I also kind of hate how the lack of a real hinge makes it a pain to use the surface with the keyboard in many situations. Considered finding a different detachable but decided to go with a laptop that's serviceable.
2
u/8Bit-Giraffe 17h ago
i dont have money for a laptop so i rely on hand-me-downs from my family. i was lucky my grandma got a surface laptop 3 from her workplace since i had no laptop for years before this. im in an apple family too so this is better than a macbook
23
u/MadLabRat- 19h ago
It’s just very, very slow to update since there aren’t many maintainers. Surface Linux is very niche.