Thx Chris, what looks so easy and quick on the video is typically an awful lot of work to dig through all the possibilities. So very appreciated. Even in an unexpected area the team behind mint show again their love to details in the user experience out of the box, which makes it quite a unique jewel under all the distros.
Yet another great side of Linux Mint -- one of the few Linux distro's which concentrate mostly on the desktop. I have Mint running on a Dell desktop from 2011, using Cinnamon -- it's works quite well, most of the time.
Same here - running Mint 20.2 with Cinnamon on an old Dell Optiplex 780. I really never have any problems with it. Have Mint 18 dual boot with M$ on my Lenovo laptop - the thing only works properly with Mint - can't even connect the WiFi when it's booted into Windows 8.1.
Linux Mint triumphs once again. Recalling my earliest attempts at using Linux in the late 1990s, it's amazing how far it has improved, how much easier it is to install, and the wide array of hardware it works with, and on. Oh, and hello Nigel.
Linux Mint is, IMO, the best Linux OS overall. It's great for transitioning users. The only reason more of my PCs use Debian is because I wanted to install Xorg and a WM/DE myself (dwm). Unfortunately Linux Mint doesn't offer you the option of downloading a GUI-free version and none of the GUIs/DEs are dwm.
well the way it looks to me, the real deciding factor here is choosing the best desktop environment for the device, because that provides the whole UI but it's true that the cinnamon DE is default on Linux Mint so it's convenient
Linux Mint is kinda bloated and if you prefer bleeding edge software Manjaro is the better option on the tablet. It might have been a problem with the version of that software.
Thank you, Chris. I needed this review because I am attempting to select a distro for my 2012 Fujitsu Q584 x86 tablet, with no success. The discovery of the onboard keyboard is absolutely a game changer, for me. Thank you for taking the time to share your research and results.
I took the opportunity to put Linux Mint on a Lenovo Ideapad 530s as it was not compatible with Windows 11, and I have been pleasantly surprised at just how well it has worked out of the box; knowing that I could put the same distro on something like a Surface really opens up the options I have. Thanks for doing this video.
Very interesting. My dad's tablet long ago run out of space due to Windows update eating the eMMC, and with Windows not allowing updates to be installed to the much larger SD card, this could be the solution I'm looking for. Very useful.
@Tony Interesting, I think my dad's is a Chuwi, too. Hopefully the battery will work. My dad's elderly and used it for reading in bed until looping Windows update attempts(it attempts to install updates, gives an out of space error and shuts down again) made it unusable.
@@andrekz9138 Most of mine end up as hand-me-downs to family and friends who don't need as powerful a computer as I do. I do most of my experimentation on Raspberry Pis or a spare hard disk(I disable my NVMe socket in the BIOS, so as not to accidentally break my Windows install) these days.
Great experiment. It would appear that Linux Mint has had more development (including Onboard) and support than the other distros... we all like Linux Mint.💻
It's nice to see that there's a few good options out there for mobile Linux distros and that Manjaro and Linux Mint run well on that Surface! This could help bring disused tablets back from the dead. I know I'll make some attempt to put a distro on one of my old Android tablets... well, one day. ;)
Recently I read an article about how Lunux developers want to scrap i386 machines in favor of 64 bit machines. That will limit what distros will be available in the very near future.
This was a particularly interesting video to me. A few months ago I inherited a somewhat low powered all-in-one hp pavilion computer, basically a giant, heavy, x86 tablet. I wanted to make a kiosk computer to control Spotify and other things. The paths we took to find a good distro were almost identical. I had to watch to the very end to make sure the comment I was about to write wouldn't be something you were about to do. In the end I settled on Linux Mint. Still works nicely as a cumbersome kiosk in my kitchen.
Interesting to see that Mint works well on a tablet. I really wish more ressources would go into the mobile distros for ARM to get permanent updates for our mobile phones. Also sad to see that distros like Plasma mobile still just work on the Pinephone. I'd be really interested to see what it could achieve on a way more powerful SoC like a Snapdragon 855 or newer.
How would a Linux distro built off AOSP be any different from another OS based on the same thing? After reading what I can about mobile Linux that isn’t full of technical/programming jargon, I get the impression that mobile Linux was based of desktop Linux for practical and philosophical reasons. Mobile Linux seeks to have the OS seamlessly transition from mobile to desktop GUI and vice versa as the user needs it. Android can’t natively run desktop Linux apps, hence the practicality of basing it off desktop Linux. AFAIK mobile Linux is somewhat tied with the open hardware movement, I think some mobile Linux developers want to create something for open hardware like Pine64’s. Using AOSP benefits (and depends?) on Google. I’m sure there are more reasons and I could be mistaken about the last one, again I’m just an end user. ChrisM243 normal ARM mobile devices make it impossible or very hard to create an OS that isn’t AOSP. Pine64 themselves said that their products are also a statement of what a company has to do to make something that’s (almost) 100% open in the mobile industry.
Once again, a timely & well-researched topic. I'll have to dig out my older x86 tablet to see if replacing an obsolete Windows OS can make it useful once more!
How crazy that Mint works on a touch screen! I daily drive Mint on 3 of my 4 computers (two desktops and a laptop) but have always wanted it on my excessively under-powered 2in1. Very excited to see that this works!
I was a bit surprised that you found your options so limited. Linux Mint once again makes an impressive performance. Looking forward to your next video!
Excellent finding! After trial & error of course, but that's the spirit and you managed to have a fully native productive and nice looking Linux distro with the elusive virtual keyboard.👏
Hello, postmarketOS developer here. postmarketOS definetly does support x86 and x86_64. For a device like this there's even a generic x86 target to get it running :)
Martijn, sounds good. I have a rugged military tablet I'm trying to repurpose due to it's need to be used outside, etc, and the fact it only uses 9w for the entire device with the daylight readable screen at full brightness. Because it meets those needs so well, I'd like to simply install the lightest distro I can find, but it's only a 32 bit, 1.2ghz Core Duo (NOT Core 2). It does, however, have 4gb of RAM and a modern 128gb SATA SSD. It runs windows 7 very fast, but when I tried Kali 32 bit on a pretty lean install, it's pig slow! How do you feel your distro would compare with Kali 32 bit in speed in my use case? Thanks for any help. Tyler.
I had a surface pro 3 that I was experimenting various distros and DEs with. What worked the best for me was Fedora. Everything worked spectacularly out of the box. The touch and trackpad gestures were great (Wayland) and Gnome 40+ was incredible with its tablet friendly UI. I do miss that setup
A proper mobile Linux distro would have the ability to seamlessly transition from mobile to desktop UI, and ideally it would come with a full suite of apps for both modes. Would trounce ARM mobile devices IMO, it’s why it pains me how undeveloped mobile Linux remains.
I wasn't aware of such capabilities of Linux Mint. However, one thing I noticed was how you used the Advanced Startup Options under Windows 10 as the boot selector on an unsupported device where dual booting with GRUB2 is not even possible. Very creative idea. Hats off to you!
Very good, Christopher! I am adapting very nicely to Linux Mint Cinnamon that I recently installed on an old HP Duo Core based laptop, so I kept thinking I might try installing it on an Atom based tablet that currently runs Win10 very slowly. Time will tell. You have nudged me closer to giving it a go! Oh my. so many old computers, so little time!
You probably want to look at proper lightweight distros as the regular ones are far too demanding for those poor Atom processors. They actually run but the experience is not great. XFCE seems to be the breaking point for these machines. MK Linux has a decent and very light XFCE implementation but for an Atom machine, I'd suggest something like its cousin AntiX or Puppy that really fly on these machines and can bring them back to life.
You have given us another very useful and interesting video, Dr. Barnatt. Thanks to you, I was able to install the excellent Onboard virtual keyboard on my 7" touch-screen Raspberry Pi 3+ (Raspberry Pi OS) using the Synaptic Software Manager application. It works quite well, and almost obviates the need for a hardware keyboard. It's too early to say that with confidence yet though. Thanks again for your excellent contributions!
This was my favourite EC video to date. I am messing around with a Dell Venue 11 pro from 2014 and running Linux on it. I have been on Gnome DE and now I’m thinking I’d going for a Linuxmint !!
13:07 the typist theme is meant to practice touch typing (typing with all four fingers). The color coding helps memorizing which row of keys is reached by which finger (q,a,z for the left pinkie etc.) Fascinating video btw! Didn't expect Mint to fare so we'll since Cinnamon is not the first DE that would come to mind when thinking of touch friendly DEs. On impression alone Gnome would seem a better choice. But then again impressions can be deceiving.
Excellent! Thank you good sir for the testing. I tried long long ago and failed to find a workable alternative os. I stopped my search to have things develop more. Now know alteratives that exists now.
This is a very interesting video for me as I have been looking at putting Linux on and old Dell touch screen tablet for a while now. I guess that it may be a different result as it's not the same machine as you are using but I think it's worth a look. Thanks very much David
Really glad that you showed us the tricks and potential drawbacks of various Linux distributions. With your inspiration I think that I’ll try Mint on my 2017 Atom tablet. Unfortunately it has just 64mb of built in storage so single booting seems to be the best option. Thanks!
Thanks, have tried about 7 distros, my preference is Kubuntu. But too many problems, followed your lead and installed mint first got everything working perfectly, onboard, right clicking with a long touch just works, you have no idea how tricky this is to make work on any other distro. Then I installed KDE. It all just works. Amazing. I'm also dual booting with FydeOS as this works great as well and gives you android apps. My machine for this is a surface pro 3. I have 3 of them for some reason. At £40 each, I think I'm addicted to buying them.
It's good to install the linux-surface kernel to get the best support for touch input and power management. On newer ones it's also required to get proper keyboard and touchpad support
I installed Ubuntu on a surface book 2 with the surface kernel. I always had the keyboard attached so I never tried out the on-screen keyboard. The cameras were not supported, I wonder if they are supported with mint.
I think linux on touch devices is only going to get better, since both GNOME and elementaryOS, which are both UX-centric distros took interest in responsive mobile design for applications
Mint by far has the best UI in Linux and has been developed upon for quite some time, always working from the same concept. I am pleasantly surpised it has good support for tablets as my Galaxy Book is screaming at me to ditch windoze.
Very impressive, indeed. I had no idea that the mobile development area had advanced so well. I mean, it does make sense, but I hadn't thought about using Linux on a mobile much. I'm glad to know that the options are there and that Mint is the best apparent distro, which is fine with me because Mint is a fine OS.
Very useful video! I have an old tablet that's been sitting in a drawer that I'd installed Linux on a few years ago with only moderate success. This has inspired me to investigate current options, and given me some great starting points.
Further, now successful update on using Linux on a Panasonic FZ-G1 Toughpad tablet x86 PC. I have installed Zorin OS pro and am using the macOS desktop appearance setting provided. This setting is the best so far because the onscreen keyboard does not obscure the app launch so much as to be unusable, it works well enough. Also Chrome with "Use system title bar and borders" in Chrome settings means its windows can be dragged by finger (see Gnome issue 1603 on their gitlab). Gestures - 2 finger scrolling and pinch to zoom work out of the box in Chrome. Nice looking desktop. A triumph. Thank you Chris as I saw Zorin OS mentioned on another of your videos and checked it out. So far this is the best experience I've had with a version of Linux on this tablet PC.
@@ExplainingComputers Thank you Chris. Some further mainly good observations. Memory usage lower on Zorin OS Pro, compared to Windows 10 Pro 64bit on this same machine. Mint as tried a while back was also similarly lower usage. The tablet's characteristic by design intrusive mosquito sounding fan is quieter which is a welcome bonus. Screen brightness controls not working but maybe I can see how to fix that, screen is bright enough by default, but this FZ-G1 toughpad machine has outdoor applications so can go to 800 nits. I think this was the same issue on the other distros I tried. Undervolting opportunity: I'm going to look into undervolting the CPU in both Linux and Windows OSs on this machine, aiming to lower the power usage and reduce the fan sound lower if I can. It's a software setting so I understand, provided by CPU-Z app for Windows and a github repo based tool for Linux. Maybe a topic for you to cover at some point. Even without undervolting, battery is reporting over 10 hours of available power in Zorin, way more than Windows does, wondering how accurate that might be! I'm hoping to stick with Zorin OS Pro as am well pleased with it owing to it working very well with minimal UX oversights. That said I think Ubuntu 22.04 which I installed on this tablet previously also worked well and the "Use system title bar and borders" in Chrome would make it closer behind Zorin UX-wise. I also tried Mint as per previous comment shows my experience on this tablet. And ElementaryOS which was disappointing as the actual gestures mismatched what the settings on them said as in number of fingers and different types of gestures as well as some breadcrumb navigation issues. I'll try to raise bugs on the respective distros as if they don't know, they can't fix it, or if more people raise the same issue it can help with priority. I'm pleased to reward Zorin OS Pro by paying for it as they've done a great job and they among others are putting back into the community.
Is that a new intro? It seems fresh somehow or am I trippin'? 4:37 Cool zoom effect. 14:50 Have you tried that arrow cross button to move the keyboard (under the close button)?
The intro was last updated in December 2021. :) The zoom was possible because I shot the plate 4K. I did try the arrow cross button, but it did not move the keyboard (I think it only works when the keyboard is not full width).
Interesting video, as always. I don’t own a tablet (other than an iPad), so can’t “follow along” with this, but it’s always good to know this stuff in case I happen upon an old tablet for a good price.
@@ExplainingComputers Stock GNOME just has too many little issues like this, which is why on all my desktops/laptops I'm currently using Budgie DE currently based off GNOME.
@@ilovecatsandalsorabbits Good to hear, and I've honestly not tried Fedora in years, as Solus w/Budgie has been working well for me for sometime now, and does everything I need it to do with my only real headache after solving WiFi being Bluetooth, so I just use a USB C Bluetooth adapter that acts like an analog sound card to get around it.
This is great, my mom has a Surface and if Windows ever stops working I might get her to switch. For the next test I'd love to see you install LFS on to it. It'd be a lot of work, but maybe a collab with Jeff Geerling would be in order.
Thank you for the presentation of these distributions compatible with tablet-pc. To move the OnBoard virtual keyboard, just grab the four arrows icon in the top right.🙂
@@ExplainingComputers Call up Onboard Preferences. Under the heading Window, undock the keyboard from the edge, then you can drag the KB around by clicking and holding the Cross Arrows/Four Directions key.
Wow -- love this. I've been looking (a long time) for THE tablet I want, and I think I know what that is now. Planning to head over to e-bay and find an old x86 tablet and bring some life back to it!
I enjoyed your video. I watched it on a M$ Surface Go2 that had been dual boot for about a year. Win10 broke though and complained about not being online. Instead of fixing it I just formatted the whole drive to ext4 and have just linux Mint now. Life is too short for windows 10. So on the rare occasion that windows is needed I'll just run it in a gnome box. Gnome box also works as a VNC viewer for adminstering to a RSpi or whatever if you don't need to move files around.
Very useful information. Thank you. I was recently thinking about reviving an old android tablet with Linux, now I have a couple of candidate distros to do so.
I made a post about running Fedora on my Pro 2 on the Level1 Techs forum years ago. That said, the Pro 2 has a quirk where it may not always want to boot off a removable drive, but it can be made to do so by holding shift and clicking Restart while in Windows, click troubleshooting, then use a device, and then select the device you want to boot off of.
Hmm, beyond the crucial soft keyboard, another crucial ability is to rotate the desktop orientation when the tablet is changed from potrait to landscape viewing would love to bring up Linux Mint on my old iPad that is no longer supported. Still works but Apple has banished it to the wilderness. But that would be a monumental challenge, alas
Very nice video of a topic I wasn't expecting to see! I do want to add that in my (short) experience of owning a laptop with a touchscreen, I found that Zorin OS also has very good touch screen support. I am currently using Linux Mint on this machine though, but I would say that Zorin probably has better touchscreen support. For example, Zorin allows you to scroll on a webpage by simple swiping anywhere on the webpage, whereas on Mint you have to use the scrollbar. You can probably configure it somewhere in the settings, but I haven't seen the option yet.
Great video. I have a Walmart tablet. It's not x86, but I didn't know there were ARM Linux distros for tablets. I think I will give it a try. It's no surprise that Linux Mint just works out of the box. That's why I use Mint as my distro of choice.
I would strongly recommend that you try PureOS which is by Purism, the company behind the Librem5 "smartphone" which runs PureOS using either the GNOME shell or "Phosh" which is the mobile-version of GNOME shell that is developed by Purism (although the GNOME project themselves are now making their own mobile UI) which I think might be worth checking out. Also, JingOS is mainly designed for their "Jingpad" Linux-based tablet which I believe is developed using the QT Toolkit...
It's not a particularly lightweight distro, so running it on old, low powered hardware isn't a great experience... even using the supposedly lightweight version. It brings my old Netbooks to their knees, so now I run Q4OS or Bionic Puppy on them and they fly. However, Mint does seem to be pretty stable.
@@another3997 the oldest PC I have ran Linux mint on is my dell latitude E6510 (a 2010 business laptop and the fist laptop I owned) before it got upgraded to a quad core CPU and it ran mint very well with a dual core i5 540m 512MB nvidia NVS 3100m and 8 GigaBytes of RAM, it was very slow when booting from a 40GB 5400RPM HDD (would take up to 3 minutes) but after I got a SSD it booted in 15 seconds or less.
I think the Onboard problem in Gnome is because of Wayland, I haven't tested in a while but it should work better in the Xorg session. I think the default Gnome keyboard doesn't give much feedback when a key is pressed and it doesn't have customization. KDE default virtual keyboard (Maliit, which is not available in some distros) also does not have much customization, only works in Wayland and doesn't provide a way to force it to open if the app is not compatible with virtual keyboards in Linux (like the Chromium browsers). KDE (Xorg) with Onboard and a script to enable screen rotation can be a good idea.
Another great video Chris. I'd love to see a deep dive follow-up video perhaps after spending a week or two with Mint on the tablet to see how everything functions. I tried running Mint of a USB and couldn't get the pen or mouse to work on a Surface Pro 6.
Well done. I like the uncertainty in the intro. If you were not able to get anything to work, would you still have made the video? (I would still have watch it and enjoyed it!)
I know that something would run to some extent -- for example, I had tried out JingOS. And I expect Ubuntu and Manjaro to boot. Although by half way through, I did expect to finish the video saying "well, this is not possible yet". :)
Mint is a very impressive distro. It pushed a lot of almost "invisible" goodies in the last update. Also, the Jing OS is looking promising. For something pre release. It is sad to see that the Linux community dropped support for x86 tablets so soon. You should also have detailed the hardware information on this little monster. I would love to know the processor. (as it appeared to be running a full fledged Windows)
Good point, I should have included the specs. The Surface 2 Pro in question has an i5-4200U, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. So very much a real x86 (64) computer.
@@ExplainingComputers hoh so it's a full fledged 64 bits?? I really thought it was only 32. Since you had some shortcuts in your desktop area hinting to 32 bits applications. (Windows 10 still has an x86 version.)
@@CodexSan The only linux I know which still has a current 32 release is Arch.. and it's only community supported... And that is a rabbit hole I'm not venturing down.
@@PaulaXism nope! I'm pretty adamant that every single Linux distro still supports i386 processors. I use Gentoo and Kali, and both still offers i386 versions. Kali specifically, Was running a x86 (i386) variant up to 2019. (despite being paired with a first gen Ryzen) The international space station still uses older i386 processors, for their reliability. (since it has infinitely less transistors, than modern chips, it has a lower chance to failure) they also migrated in 2013 to Linux. (for "reliability" issues, but that's hardly the whole truth) They use Debian. And, even if they use some crazy old, massively outdated LTS version, I just checked and Debian still has i386 versions of the bullseye actively supported. But this is all beyond the point. I wasn't questioning the support for these processors, in the desktop sphere, what I was questioning is the fact that the Linux community dropped support for x86 handheld devices, (that usually relies on touchscreen) such as tablets and phones, that used power efficient Atom processors. Samsung had a tablet with a x86 Atom for example, the galaxy tab 3. It's the same as phones, Canonical simply dropped Ubuntu touch. These things makes me sad.
@ExplainingComputers what version of Mint 20 are you using? I just wish they would bring out an ARM based version... I have two ASUS EeeBooks I installed Zorin OS 16 on. They function pretty decently being 64 bit systems limited to 2 gb RAM.
Chris - on Gnome, did you by chance try using the Dash to Panel extension? That moves the top bar to the bottom like a more conventional OS and I'm wondering if that would have resulted in the keyboard being displayed at the bottom of the screen.
Hi Chris....wonderful comparisons, many thanks. I use Onboard keyboard a lot and love it, and i have a tip: you can pull the keyboard anywhere you want with the kinda Christian cross button, second row down on the right. It took me a while to figure it out too....and when it restarts it will be in the same place as before. Thanks again.
I hope you can get it going permanently. I have one of those Surface 2 Pros on the shelf, and I'm never going to run Windows on it again. A success doing that might give me the confidence to also do so on my Surface Pro 4 which I use daily. Plenty of life left in these excellent machines!
This was great. I vote you do a follow up video with Fedora (so you have tried the biggest players), and then maybe some esoteric loghtweighr distros that you heavily customize. At the. Ery least Fedora and some of the others suggested here in the comments. Either way, fun video.
I've been kinda daily driving Mint on a Surface Pro 6 with linux-surface kernels for about a year now. Works pretty well - only missing IR camera for Howdy.
Just to add: installed direct to ssd without any grub problems. Do keep Windows installed; you'll need to boot into it for *firmware* updates now and again. There's also the added bonuses of good hover-friendly stylus and silence (no fan) on this particular model. I'm not affiliated with the linux-surface kernel team unless donations count. Final tip: the charging kit on these older Surfaces is bloody sensitive; definitely best to stick with the MS original charger.
another one that works in touchscreen is deepinOS. It has some bugs regarding the touch when dragging windows, but at least its UI is already touch friendly. And it already has onboard built-in. for JingOS x86, the development is being held back due to focusing more on the ARM one
Which bit of the video are you referring to?! :) Where in the video I stated that the keyboard was not resizable it was not using a mouse, stylus or finger -- I spent a very long time trying all kinds of things! :)
@@ExplainingComputers sorry for some reason my reply has gone but @14:32 or so on far right of keyboard you can left click - hold and drag the keyboard
Void Linux is a good option for x86 tablets, like the dell venue 8 pro. I have most drivers working, except for bluetooth and screen brightness. Nice video!
Thx Chris, what looks so easy and quick on the video is typically an awful lot of work to dig through all the possibilities. So very appreciated.
Even in an unexpected area the team behind mint show again their love to details in the user experience out of the box, which makes it quite a unique jewel under all the distros.
He's such a low-key humble guy, but if you think about all the work and study behind all these videos it boggles the mind. This channel is a treasure.
Yet another great side of Linux Mint -- one of the few Linux distro's which concentrate mostly on the desktop. I have Mint running on a Dell desktop from 2011, using Cinnamon -- it's works quite well, most of the time.
Same here - running Mint 20.2 with Cinnamon on an old Dell Optiplex 780. I really never have any problems with it. Have Mint 18 dual boot with M$ on my Lenovo laptop - the thing only works properly with Mint - can't even connect the WiFi when it's booted into Windows 8.1.
@@JCO2002 The new Mint was released today.
@@boink800 Thanks. I'm not having problems with 20.2 so will stick with that for now. I do update the kernel once a month, though.
I use Mint XFCE, more snappier and responsive on old machines than cinnamon.
"one of the few Linux distro's which concentrate mostly on the desktop."
What? Don't most distros* concentrate on the desktop?
Linux Mint triumphs once again. Recalling my earliest attempts at using Linux in the late 1990s, it's amazing how far it has improved, how much easier it is to install, and the wide array of hardware it works with, and on. Oh, and hello Nigel.
Greetings! Nigel says "hi". :)
Spoiler alert! Lol
Linux Mint is, IMO, the best Linux OS overall. It's great for transitioning users. The only reason more of my PCs use Debian is because I wanted to install Xorg and a WM/DE myself (dwm). Unfortunately Linux Mint doesn't offer you the option of downloading a GUI-free version and none of the GUIs/DEs are dwm.
well the way it looks to me, the real deciding factor here is choosing the best desktop environment for the device, because that provides the whole UI
but it's true that the cinnamon DE is default on Linux Mint so it's convenient
Linux Mint is kinda bloated and if you prefer bleeding edge software Manjaro is the better option on the tablet. It might have been a problem with the version of that software.
It's a great way to bring older devices back to life. Saving ewaste, love your work Chris.
Thank you, Chris. I needed this review because I am attempting to select a distro for my 2012 Fujitsu Q584 x86 tablet, with no success. The discovery of the onboard keyboard is absolutely a game changer, for me. Thank you for taking the time to share your research and results.
I took the opportunity to put Linux Mint on a Lenovo Ideapad 530s as it was not compatible with Windows 11, and I have been pleasantly surprised at just how well it has worked out of the box; knowing that I could put the same distro on something like a Surface really opens up the options I have. Thanks for doing this video.
What are the specs on that Ideapad?
@@gordonreeder3451 530s 14arr 8gb ram AMD Ryzen 3 2200u
Very interesting. My dad's tablet long ago run out of space due to Windows update eating the eMMC, and with Windows not allowing updates to be installed to the much larger SD card, this could be the solution I'm looking for.
Very useful.
Yes, there are a lot of x86 tablets out there no longer ableto take Windows updates.
@Tony Interesting, I think my dad's is a Chuwi, too. Hopefully the battery will work.
My dad's elderly and used it for reading in bed until looping Windows update attempts(it attempts to install updates, gives an out of space error and shuts down again) made it unusable.
That's the most exciting thing about old hardware, in my opinion. They evolve into test rigs for experiments you wouldn't try on your main system 😝
@@andrekz9138 Very true.
@@andrekz9138 Most of mine end up as hand-me-downs to family and friends who don't need as powerful a computer as I do. I do most of my experimentation on Raspberry Pis or a spare hard disk(I disable my NVMe socket in the BIOS, so as not to accidentally break my Windows install) these days.
Great experiment. It would appear that Linux Mint has had more development (including Onboard) and support than the other distros... we all like Linux Mint.💻
I hate Linux mint! I love Arch Linux with KDE Plasma!
@Bob-of-Zoid why do you hate linux mint?
Now I realized why Chris loves Linux Mint so much, it just so reliable.
:)
This was just excellent. Thanks, Chris.
Thanks for your support, most apprecaited. :)
It's nice to see that there's a few good options out there for mobile Linux distros and that Manjaro and Linux Mint run well on that Surface! This could help bring disused tablets back from the dead. I know I'll make some attempt to put a distro on one of my old Android tablets... well, one day. ;)
Recently I read an article about how Lunux developers want to scrap i386 machines in favor of 64 bit machines. That will limit what distros will be available in the very near future.
@@shamrock1961 That doesn't sound good... 😧
Say, weren't you a real hoopie guy, back in your heyday, or was that Zaphod?
"Share and enjoy..."😎
@@TheOleHermit I sure was and so was Zaphod. 😅
On those machine i tend to install android x86 or chrome os.
This was a particularly interesting video to me. A few months ago I inherited a somewhat low powered all-in-one hp pavilion computer, basically a giant, heavy, x86 tablet. I wanted to make a kiosk computer to control Spotify and other things.
The paths we took to find a good distro were almost identical. I had to watch to the very end to make sure the comment I was about to write wouldn't be something you were about to do.
In the end I settled on Linux Mint. Still works nicely as a cumbersome kiosk in my kitchen.
Those Pavilions are better than any of the crap they make today ... light and thin equals crap that breaks down easily and often.
@@STONE69_ oh yeah, the thing is a tank.
Interesting to see that Mint works well on a tablet. I really wish more ressources would go into the mobile distros for ARM to get permanent updates for our mobile phones.
Also sad to see that distros like Plasma mobile still just work on the Pinephone. I'd be really interested to see what it could achieve on a way more powerful SoC like a Snapdragon 855 or newer.
If they create a Linux mobile distro based on AOSP and device source code, that would make it a lot easier.
How would a Linux distro built off AOSP be any different from another OS based on the same thing? After reading what I can about mobile Linux that isn’t full of technical/programming jargon, I get the impression that mobile Linux was based of desktop Linux for practical and philosophical reasons. Mobile Linux seeks to have the OS seamlessly transition from mobile to desktop GUI and vice versa as the user needs it.
Android can’t natively run desktop Linux apps, hence the practicality of basing it off desktop Linux. AFAIK mobile Linux is somewhat tied with the open hardware movement, I think some mobile Linux developers want to create something for open hardware like Pine64’s. Using AOSP benefits (and depends?) on Google. I’m sure there are more reasons and I could be mistaken about the last one, again I’m just an end user.
ChrisM243 normal ARM mobile devices make it impossible or very hard to create an OS that isn’t AOSP. Pine64 themselves said that their products are also a statement of what a company has to do to make something that’s (almost) 100% open in the mobile industry.
Once again, a timely & well-researched topic. I'll have to dig out my older x86 tablet to see if replacing an obsolete Windows OS can make it useful once more!
Mint has been my "go to" for quite a while!!!
How crazy that Mint works on a touch screen! I daily drive Mint on 3 of my 4 computers (two desktops and a laptop) but have always wanted it on my excessively under-powered 2in1. Very excited to see that this works!
Master Chris, You are a trailblazing Linux advocate. Thank you for each and all of wondrous videos.👍
My pleasure!
I was a bit surprised that you found your options so limited. Linux Mint once again makes an impressive performance. Looking forward to your next video!
Greetings Perry.
@@ExplainingComputers Wishing you a successful and satisfying week!
Linux Mint DE5 is my daily driver. Linux always impresses me.
Thanks Chris, you accel at this type of content and it's nice to see you mix it up and show all the steps and debugging.
Thanks!
Most appreciated. :)
Excellent finding! After trial & error of course, but that's the spirit and you managed to have a fully native productive and nice looking Linux distro with the elusive virtual keyboard.👏
Hello, postmarketOS developer here. postmarketOS definetly does support x86 and x86_64. For a device like this there's even a generic x86 target to get it running :)
issue is you have to create the image yourself
Martijn, sounds good. I have a rugged military tablet I'm trying to repurpose due to it's need to be used outside, etc, and the fact it only uses 9w for the entire device with the daylight readable screen at full brightness.
Because it meets those needs so well, I'd like to simply install the lightest distro I can find, but it's only a 32 bit, 1.2ghz Core Duo (NOT Core 2). It does, however, have 4gb of RAM and a modern 128gb SATA SSD. It runs windows 7 very fast, but when I tried Kali 32 bit on a pretty lean install, it's pig slow!
How do you feel your distro would compare with Kali 32 bit in speed in my use case?
Thanks for any help.
Tyler.
Hello, how about Xiaomi Mi Pad 2? Processor is Atom X5. It can run Windows 10 but newer versions are extremely laggy.
That was a great video Chris, I like that you gave the other OSs the benefits of the dought.
Once again your content becomes the reference. Thanks
I had a surface pro 3 that I was experimenting various distros and DEs with. What worked the best for me was Fedora. Everything worked spectacularly out of the box. The touch and trackpad gestures were great (Wayland) and Gnome 40+ was incredible with its tablet friendly UI. I do miss that setup
A proper mobile Linux distro would have the ability to seamlessly transition from mobile to desktop UI, and ideally it would come with a full suite of apps for both modes. Would trounce ARM mobile devices IMO, it’s why it pains me how undeveloped mobile Linux remains.
I wasn't aware of such capabilities of Linux Mint. However, one thing I noticed was how you used the Advanced Startup Options under Windows 10 as the boot selector on an unsupported device where dual booting with GRUB2 is not even possible. Very creative idea. Hats off to you!
Mint has not ever let me down.
Go Linux!
Cheers for sharing Christopher.
Very good, Christopher! I am adapting very nicely to Linux Mint Cinnamon that I recently installed on an old HP Duo Core based laptop, so I kept thinking I might try installing it on an Atom based tablet that currently runs Win10 very slowly. Time will tell. You have nudged me closer to giving it a go! Oh my. so many old computers, so little time!
Might want to have a look at Anti-X releases.. I rolled my own for a Samsung atom powered little netbook and it's a star
You probably want to look at proper lightweight distros as the regular ones are far too demanding for those poor Atom processors. They actually run but the experience is not great. XFCE seems to be the breaking point for these machines. MK Linux has a decent and very light XFCE implementation but for an Atom machine, I'd suggest something like its cousin AntiX or Puppy that really fly on these machines and can bring them back to life.
I was thinking to do for a long time, you made my choice easy, great job, thanks!
You have given us another very useful and interesting video, Dr. Barnatt. Thanks to you, I was able to install the excellent Onboard virtual keyboard on my 7" touch-screen Raspberry Pi 3+ (Raspberry Pi OS) using the Synaptic Software Manager application. It works quite well, and almost obviates the need for a hardware keyboard. It's too early to say that with confidence yet though. Thanks again for your excellent contributions!
Great to hear of this result.
Absolutely awesome!!!! Thanks so much. Dual booting on a tablet!!!! Who woulda thunk?????
Amazing experiment! Might be a good linux otg alternative, because currently i just remote linux server with my phone, serve me well so far 😃
Thanks
Much appreciated. :)
This was my favourite EC video to date. I am messing around with a Dell Venue 11 pro from 2014 and running Linux on it. I have been on Gnome DE and now I’m thinking I’d going for a Linuxmint !!
Love it when you press the Windows symbol to bring up Linux - great!
Very interesting options for those older Surface tablets ! Thanks for your experiments.
13:07 the typist theme is meant to practice touch typing (typing with all four fingers). The color coding helps memorizing which row of keys is reached by which finger (q,a,z for the left pinkie etc.)
Fascinating video btw! Didn't expect Mint to fare so we'll since Cinnamon is not the first DE that would come to mind when thinking of touch friendly DEs. On impression alone Gnome would seem a better choice. But then again impressions can be deceiving.
Nice, as always. I never fail to be interested in your presentations.
Thanks. :)
That E C Mint distro at the end is a beautiful one. I really loved this video. You've got me pressing that Like button.
Excellent! Thank you good sir for the testing. I tried long long ago and failed to find a workable alternative os. I stopped my search to have things develop more. Now know alteratives that exists now.
This is a very interesting video for me as I have been looking at putting Linux on and old Dell touch screen tablet for a while now. I guess that it may be a different result as it's not the same machine as you are using but I think it's worth a look. Thanks very much David
Really glad that you showed us the tricks and potential drawbacks of various Linux distributions. With your inspiration I think that I’ll try Mint on my 2017 Atom tablet. Unfortunately it has just 64mb of built in storage so single booting seems to be the best option. Thanks!
mb?
Thank you. I've never considered Linux Mint as a tablet OS. But now I know what I'm going to install on my Lenovo Duet tablet. Thanks again.
Thanks, have tried about 7 distros, my preference is Kubuntu. But too many problems, followed your lead and installed mint first got everything working perfectly, onboard, right clicking with a long touch just works, you have no idea how tricky this is to make work on any other distro. Then I installed KDE. It all just works. Amazing. I'm also dual booting with FydeOS as this works great as well and gives you android apps. My machine for this is a surface pro 3. I have 3 of them for some reason. At £40 each, I think I'm addicted to buying them.
It's good to install the linux-surface kernel to get the best support for touch input and power management. On newer ones it's also required to get proper keyboard and touchpad support
I installed Ubuntu on a surface book 2 with the surface kernel. I always had the keyboard attached so I never tried out the on-screen keyboard. The cameras were not supported, I wonder if they are supported with mint.
@@PeterDempsey-yarglags yeah i would also like to know this about the cameras......
I think linux on touch devices is only going to get better, since both GNOME and elementaryOS, which are both UX-centric distros took interest in responsive mobile design for applications
Fedora is a good distro that supports x86 devices, as well as ARM devices.
And Purism with their PureOS as well
Mint by far has the best UI in Linux and has been developed upon for quite some time, always working from the same concept. I am pleasantly surpised it has good support for tablets as my Galaxy Book is screaming at me to ditch windoze.
Very impressive, indeed. I had no idea that the mobile development area had advanced so well. I mean, it does make sense, but I hadn't thought about using Linux on a mobile much.
I'm glad to know that the options are there and that Mint is the best apparent distro, which is fine with me because Mint is a fine OS.
A time consuming process,to find out what works, but, your persistence paid off, and got a functioning result.
Very useful video! I have an old tablet that's been sitting in a drawer that I'd installed Linux on a few years ago with only moderate success. This has inspired me to investigate current options, and given me some great starting points.
Further, now successful update on using Linux on a Panasonic FZ-G1 Toughpad tablet x86 PC.
I have installed Zorin OS pro and am using the macOS desktop appearance setting provided. This setting is the best so far because the onscreen keyboard does not obscure the app launch so much as to be unusable, it works well enough. Also Chrome with "Use system title bar and borders" in Chrome settings means its windows can be dragged by finger (see Gnome issue 1603 on their gitlab). Gestures - 2 finger scrolling and pinch to zoom work out of the box in Chrome. Nice looking desktop.
A triumph. Thank you Chris as I saw Zorin OS mentioned on another of your videos and checked it out. So far this is the best experience I've had with a version of Linux on this tablet PC.
Thanks for this update -- I must try Zorin OS on a tablet as you say.
@@ExplainingComputers Thank you Chris.
Some further mainly good observations.
Memory usage lower on Zorin OS Pro, compared to Windows 10 Pro 64bit on this same machine. Mint as tried a while back was also similarly lower usage. The tablet's characteristic by design intrusive mosquito sounding fan is quieter which is a welcome bonus.
Screen brightness controls not working but maybe I can see how to fix that, screen is bright enough by default, but this FZ-G1 toughpad machine has outdoor applications so can go to 800 nits. I think this was the same issue on the other distros I tried.
Undervolting opportunity: I'm going to look into undervolting the CPU in both Linux and Windows OSs on this machine, aiming to lower the power usage and reduce the fan sound lower if I can. It's a software setting so I understand, provided by CPU-Z app for Windows and a github repo based tool for Linux. Maybe a topic for you to cover at some point. Even without undervolting, battery is reporting over 10 hours of available power in Zorin, way more than Windows does, wondering how accurate that might be!
I'm hoping to stick with Zorin OS Pro as am well pleased with it owing to it working very well with minimal UX oversights. That said I think Ubuntu 22.04 which I installed on this tablet previously also worked well and the "Use system title bar and borders" in Chrome would make it closer behind Zorin UX-wise.
I also tried Mint as per previous comment shows my experience on this tablet. And ElementaryOS which was disappointing as the actual gestures mismatched what the settings on them said as in number of fingers and different types of gestures as well as some breadcrumb navigation issues. I'll try to raise bugs on the respective distros as if they don't know, they can't fix it, or if more people raise the same issue it can help with priority. I'm pleased to reward Zorin OS Pro by paying for it as they've done a great job and they among others are putting back into the community.
Just the video I was looking for! Many thanks for uploading..
Linux on X86 tabs. Great experimental vid. Yay !!
Just got the notification for the vid !
Greetings!
like always, useful tips and straight to the point. I'm glad to hear from you again thanks a million buddy
Is that a new intro? It seems fresh somehow or am I trippin'? 4:37 Cool zoom effect. 14:50 Have you tried that arrow cross button to move the keyboard (under the close button)?
The intro was last updated in December 2021. :) The zoom was possible because I shot the plate 4K. I did try the arrow cross button, but it did not move the keyboard (I think it only works when the keyboard is not full width).
Thanks for the video! Yet another win for Linux Mint
Interesting video, as always. I don’t own a tablet (other than an iPad), so can’t “follow along” with this, but it’s always good to know this stuff in case I happen upon an old tablet for a good price.
I have a CF-33 Panasonic tablet. I've run Mint on it successfully.
In Manjaro, I think you could have moved the keyboard at the bottom by moving the top bar to the bottom or disabling it.
This I did try, but it did not work.
@@ExplainingComputers Stock GNOME just has too many little issues like this, which is why on all my desktops/laptops I'm currently using Budgie DE currently based off GNOME.
@@CommodoreFan64 Its a Manjaro Linux thing, on Fedora Linux 36 onboard works well.
@@ilovecatsandalsorabbits Good to hear, and I've honestly not tried Fedora in years, as Solus w/Budgie has been working well for me for sometime now, and does everything I need it to do with my only real headache after solving WiFi being Bluetooth, so I just use a USB C Bluetooth adapter that acts like an analog sound card to get around it.
Love your videos, Mr Explain. Linux Mint always amazes me with its compatibility.
This is great, my mom has a Surface and if Windows ever stops working I might get her to switch. For the next test I'd love to see you install LFS on to it. It'd be a lot of work, but maybe a collab with Jeff Geerling would be in order.
Thank you for the presentation of these distributions compatible with tablet-pc.
To move the OnBoard virtual keyboard, just grab the four arrows icon in the top right.🙂
I did try that, but could not convince the keyboard in Manjaro to move! :)
@@ExplainingComputers Ah, ok 🙂
@@jpwillm5252 :)
@@ExplainingComputers Call up Onboard Preferences. Under the heading Window, undock the keyboard from the edge, then you can drag the KB around by clicking and holding the Cross Arrows/Four Directions key.
Wow -- love this. I've been looking (a long time) for THE tablet I want, and I think I know what that is now. Planning to head over to e-bay and find an old x86 tablet and bring some life back to it!
I enjoyed your video. I watched it on a M$ Surface Go2 that had been dual boot for about a year. Win10 broke though and complained about not being online. Instead of fixing it I just formatted the whole drive to ext4 and have just linux Mint now. Life is too short for windows 10. So on the rare occasion that windows is needed I'll just run it in a gnome box. Gnome box also works as a VNC viewer for adminstering to a RSpi or whatever if you don't need to move files around.
Great to hear! :)
Very useful information. Thank you.
I was recently thinking about reviving an old android tablet with Linux, now I have a couple of candidate distros to do so.
I made a post about running Fedora on my Pro 2 on the Level1 Techs forum years ago. That said, the Pro 2 has a quirk where it may not always want to boot off a removable drive, but it can be made to do so by holding shift and clicking Restart while in Windows, click troubleshooting, then use a device, and then select the device you want to boot off of.
Hmm, beyond the crucial soft keyboard, another crucial ability is to rotate the desktop orientation when the tablet is changed from potrait to landscape viewing
would love to bring up Linux Mint on my old iPad that is no longer supported. Still works but Apple has banished it to the wilderness. But that would be a monumental challenge, alas
Linux mint is not built for ARM based hardware
Very impressive experiment!
Thank Chris. :)
Congrats on exploring different devices!
Very nice video of a topic I wasn't expecting to see! I do want to add that in my (short) experience of owning a laptop with a touchscreen, I found that Zorin OS also has very good touch screen support. I am currently using Linux Mint on this machine though, but I would say that Zorin probably has better touchscreen support. For example, Zorin allows you to scroll on a webpage by simple swiping anywhere on the webpage, whereas on Mint you have to use the scrollbar. You can probably configure it somewhere in the settings, but I haven't seen the option yet.
Thanks for this. As shown at the end of the video in Google Docs, you can swipe-to-scroll in Linux Mint (at least in Chrome).
swipe to scroll works fine on my old lenovo yoga 2 too (Mint cinnamon 20.3)
Excellent. We have waited for this.
Excellent video, thanks Chris! Interested to try out Linux on a tablet now, just need to find one I like :)
Great video. I have a Walmart tablet. It's not x86, but I didn't know there were ARM Linux distros for tablets. I think I will give it a try. It's no surprise that Linux Mint just works out of the box. That's why I use Mint as my distro of choice.
I would strongly recommend that you try PureOS which is by Purism, the company behind the Librem5 "smartphone" which runs PureOS using either the GNOME shell or "Phosh" which is the mobile-version of GNOME shell that is developed by Purism (although the GNOME project themselves are now making their own mobile UI) which I think might be worth checking out.
Also, JingOS is mainly designed for their "Jingpad" Linux-based tablet which I believe is developed using the QT Toolkit...
Thanks for this. PureOS does indeed look interesting. Thanks for the tip, I will give it is try! :)
You can't beat linux mint, it's versatile runs on anything. 😊
It's not a particularly lightweight distro, so running it on old, low powered hardware isn't a great experience... even using the supposedly lightweight version. It brings my old Netbooks to their knees, so now I run Q4OS or Bionic Puppy on them and they fly. However, Mint does seem to be pretty stable.
@@another3997 the oldest PC I have ran Linux mint on is my dell latitude E6510 (a 2010 business laptop and the fist laptop I owned) before it got upgraded to a quad core CPU and it ran mint very well with a dual core i5 540m 512MB nvidia NVS 3100m and 8 GigaBytes of RAM, it was very slow when booting from a 40GB 5400RPM HDD (would take up to 3 minutes) but after I got a SSD it booted in 15 seconds or less.
I think the Onboard problem in Gnome is because of Wayland, I haven't tested in a while but it should work better in the Xorg session. I think the default Gnome keyboard doesn't give much feedback when a key is pressed and it doesn't have customization. KDE default virtual keyboard (Maliit, which is not available in some distros) also does not have much customization, only works in Wayland and doesn't provide a way to force it to open if the app is not compatible with virtual keyboards in Linux (like the Chromium browsers). KDE (Xorg) with Onboard and a script to enable screen rotation can be a good idea.
Quite possibly so! :) I've had problems with Wayland in other (non-tablet) Ubuntu installs.
As always, Linux Mint showing off 😎😎😎
It has that tendency! :)
Another great video Chris. I'd love to see a deep dive follow-up video perhaps after spending a week or two with Mint on the tablet to see how everything functions. I tried running Mint of a USB and couldn't get the pen or mouse to work on a Surface Pro 6.
Awesome, Chris 👍
Well done. I like the uncertainty in the intro. If you were not able to get anything to work, would you still have made the video? (I would still have watch it and enjoyed it!)
I know that something would run to some extent -- for example, I had tried out JingOS. And I expect Ubuntu and Manjaro to boot. Although by half way through, I did expect to finish the video saying "well, this is not possible yet". :)
Mint for the win again :) Thank you Chris.
Mint is a very impressive distro.
It pushed a lot of almost "invisible" goodies in the last update.
Also, the Jing OS is looking promising. For something pre release.
It is sad to see that the Linux community dropped support for x86 tablets so soon.
You should also have detailed the hardware information on this little monster. I would love to know the processor. (as it appeared to be running a full fledged Windows)
Good point, I should have included the specs. The Surface 2 Pro in question has an i5-4200U, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. So very much a real x86 (64) computer.
@@ExplainingComputers hoh so it's a full fledged 64 bits??
I really thought it was only 32. Since you had some shortcuts in your desktop area hinting to 32 bits applications.
(Windows 10 still has an x86 version.)
@@CodexSan The only linux I know which still has a current 32 release is Arch.. and it's only community supported...
And that is a rabbit hole I'm not venturing down.
@@PaulaXism nope!
I'm pretty adamant that every single Linux distro still supports i386 processors.
I use Gentoo and Kali, and both still offers i386 versions.
Kali specifically, Was running a x86 (i386) variant up to 2019. (despite being paired with a first gen Ryzen)
The international space station still uses older i386 processors, for their reliability. (since it has infinitely less transistors, than modern chips, it has a lower chance to failure) they also migrated in 2013 to Linux. (for "reliability" issues, but that's hardly the whole truth) They use Debian. And, even if they use some crazy old, massively outdated LTS version, I just checked and Debian still has i386 versions of the bullseye actively supported.
But this is all beyond the point.
I wasn't questioning the support for these processors, in the desktop sphere, what I was questioning is the fact that the Linux community dropped support for x86 handheld devices, (that usually relies on touchscreen) such as tablets and phones, that used power efficient Atom processors.
Samsung had a tablet with a x86 Atom for example, the galaxy tab 3.
It's the same as phones, Canonical simply dropped Ubuntu touch.
These things makes me sad.
@ExplainingComputers what version of Mint 20 are you using? I just wish they would bring out an ARM based version... I have two ASUS EeeBooks I installed Zorin OS 16 on. They function pretty decently being 64 bit systems limited to 2 gb RAM.
Chris - on Gnome, did you by chance try using the Dash to Panel extension? That moves the top bar to the bottom like a more conventional OS and I'm wondering if that would have resulted in the keyboard being displayed at the bottom of the screen.
Ah, I tried nowing the dash, but not the extention you mention. I good idea.
Recently I installed dash-2-dock and dash-2-panel, and there were a few obvious bugs in displaying icons of running applications. 🤐
Good experiment. Thank you
Hi Chris....wonderful comparisons, many thanks. I use Onboard keyboard a lot and love it, and i have a tip: you can pull the keyboard anywhere you want with the kinda Christian cross button, second row down on the right. It took me a while to figure it out too....and when it restarts it will be in the same place as before. Thanks again.
I hope you can get it going permanently. I have one of those Surface 2 Pros on the shelf, and I'm never going to run Windows on it again. A success doing that might give me the confidence to also do so on my Surface Pro 4 which I use daily. Plenty of life left in these excellent machines!
Man. Linux Mint is on fire these days.
Mint seems to tick all the right boxes linux-wise when something new comes around.
This was great. I vote you do a follow up video with Fedora (so you have tried the biggest players), and then maybe some esoteric loghtweighr distros that you heavily customize. At the. Ery least Fedora and some of the others suggested here in the comments. Either way, fun video.
Would've loved to see you try the maintained version of plasma mobile from the AUR, but mint is a good result too.
I've been kinda daily driving Mint on a Surface Pro 6 with linux-surface kernels for about a year now. Works pretty well - only missing IR camera for Howdy.
Just to add: installed direct to ssd without any grub problems. Do keep Windows installed; you'll need to boot into it for *firmware* updates now and again. There's also the added bonuses of good hover-friendly stylus and silence (no fan) on this particular model. I'm not affiliated with the linux-surface kernel team unless donations count. Final tip: the charging kit on these older Surfaces is bloody sensitive; definitely best to stick with the MS original charger.
another one that works in touchscreen is deepinOS. It has some bugs regarding the touch when dragging windows, but at least its UI is already touch friendly. And it already has onboard built-in.
for JingOS x86, the development is being held back due to focusing more on the ARM one
the 4 way arrow on the far right will allow you to move the keyboard also using mouse you can adjust keyboard size
Which bit of the video are you referring to?! :) Where in the video I stated that the keyboard was not resizable it was not using a mouse, stylus or finger -- I spent a very long time trying all kinds of things! :)
@@ExplainingComputers @14:32 or so far right of keyboard 4 way arrow
@@ExplainingComputers sorry for some reason my reply has gone but @14:32 or so on far right of keyboard you can left click - hold and drag the keyboard
Good surprise mint working so well.
thanks for this video, you posted it right when I found and old Windows 8 2in1
Wow, great digging in the sea of OS's
Thanks for sharing your experiences with all of us 🙂
Greetings sir....This is interesting..I would love to see more of these kinds of videos....{ Including sbc ofcourse :) }
Thanks -- and noted!
Full credit to the Linux Mint people, they are doing a great job with their Distro, thats the one on use on my PCs
Void Linux is a good option for x86 tablets, like the dell venue 8 pro. I have most drivers working, except for bluetooth and screen brightness. Nice video!