I’m looking for X86 & ARM tablets, as my Surface Pro 3’s battery is dying.
If you have experience with Linux on any tablets please feel free to share your experience. I want to build out this list to help out anyone looking for a Linux Tablet.
This is what we have so far
X86 Tablets
Surface Pro 3
Ubuntu 20.04: Seems to work out of the box. Works: Touch, pen, type cover, WiFi, Micro SD card reader Issues: Mine has an issue when you wake it after deep sleep it will go back to sleep after a few seconds, but after you wake it again it stays awake.
-TeckMonster 08/09/2022
Arch (using archinstall)
No WiFi
-TeckMonster 06/09/2022
Suface Pro 4
No touch on Ubuntu or Manjaro
-TeckMonster 2021
ARM
Nexus 7 Ubuntu Touch 16.04: Technically fully functional as far as I can tell, but this is very old hardware, thus too slow to use as a main Tablet. I use it as an e-reader.
-TeckMonster 08-09-2022
Lenovo Tab M10 FHD Plus (TB-X606F, 4GB+128GB)
I bought two of these and bricked them both trying to downgrade android to a recommended version for Ubuntu Touch. This is sad, as this would be perfect for me, even though UT is still very outdated.
-TeckMonster 12/15/2021
Please post anything you know about running Linux on tablets below. Thanks.
Apparently you can do it with most Surface machines via:
Also found this specifically for the Surface Go 2:
I haven’t tried setting up one of these yet but it’s on the to do list. If you want a linux tablet with pen support I haven’t seen anything more promising sadly.
I do believe that you will get more input for such a question on XDA forums. They’re always trying to install Linux and other stuff on PDA’s and stuff.
I has a user replaceable battery, SSD, Wifi and WWAN under a plastic shell you just pull off on the i5 models
Fedora Workstation 36:
Works: Touch, pen, type cover, Windows/“Super” button, keyboard dock, USB and LAN via desktop dock, wifi, brightness sensor, both cameras, SD card, sound, bluetooth
Issues: Intel RapidStart has to be disabled in BIOS for sleep to work correctly. Also my unit has corrupted Intel ME (Don’t ask, I don’t even know) where it will not turn on with the keyboard dock attached and will only spring to life with pulling the battery out
Ubuntu 20.04:
Canonical ships broken packages that breaks type cover and keyboard attachements the moment you login
QUIRKS!
The type cover keyboard sucks
Make sure you get it with the original micro USB charger, because this thing charges 19v via microusb but can also do 5v charging
Keyboard docks that come with the built in battery will always have the battery fully dead and will need a replacement
Quick edit since I forgot about this
To get the headphone jack working you need to run this command and reboot and it’ll work
Ubuntu 20.04: Seems to work out of the box.
Arch (using archinstall)
Nexus 7
