this post was submitted on 18 May 2025
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Hi everyone! I know im not good with technology. I brought a surface pro 8, 3 years ago. I obviously understand that was a mistake and i should have listened to programmer cousin. Its gonna be slighty difficult to install linux on it.

I've researched several youtube videos, but i was wondering if anyone had any tips?Obviously the attachable keyboard has to work and i want the touch screen to work. The surface appealed to me when i brought for those features.

With all the privacy concerns of windows, i want to commit to switching my operating system! Thank you everyone for their help with all my privacy questions. Ive been getting into foss and learning kotlin.

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[–] dparticiple 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Definitely doable! I've run several Linux distributions on Surface devices. I had good experiences out of the box with Ubuntu and Mint, and not-great experiences with Debian Bookworm (even with the Nvidia driver, it could never seem to work out that the external monitor on my machine was a primary. I did not try the Surface-specific kernel, however. Good luck!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Thanks❤️ you can do it with mint? Good to know!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Your first Linux install? Definitely Mint.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Thanks so much! I definitely was look into that!

[–] dparticiple 2 points 5 days ago

I've been using Linux since the days of Slackware on floppies, and I still like Mint. It seems to just work -- I'm not at all averse to "more hardcore" distributions, but would rather get on with my work. That being said, the Surface kernel is a nice piece of software and worth considering for an optimal experience on Surface.