Do any of you have experience with running linux on the the 2-in-1 laptops. nfw I will use windows 11, that will be wiped immediately.
Currently I am looking at ASUS Vivobook S 14 Flip OLED (TN3402) which seems to have fairly decent specs. What is unknown is whether linux (mainly debian/ubuntu) will run well on it functionally.
Essentially, I am looking to replace my tablet with something more useful. Looking at specs wise it should be able to play steamdeck games at the 720 resolution just fine for the occasional gaming I might do. I have a main PC for the big stuff.
Any thoughts, suggestions, or gestures on this?
Thanks
I used the XPS 9310 for a long time running ubuntu and straight debian at times. The only reason not still using it is cuz I don’t really need the touch features anymore and I wanted 64gb of ram for one off vms. I really liked the stylus support for drawing in xournal and krita and honestly had no issues. The fingerprint scanner and face recognition will not work. As far as gaming expectations, I don’t know off hand how Xe compares to my steam deck. Some notes: I had to install from SD card as USB just didn’t work. I found that distro hopping on the thing, Ubuntu was by far the easiest to get going with good battery life, sleep, etc without having to take any extra steps. Just a personal side note. I kinda had the same idea of using a 2-in-1 as a tablet replacement but honestly I found that the added weight and having the keyboard on the back poking out and just a general feeling of this device CAN do this but its not really SUPPOSE to do this kinda vibe. If you need a tablet I’d recommend a tablet. I do like the form factor of surface devices but I’ve not tried getting linux to work on um. I’ve heard minisforum has a new device out that is similar to a surface so maybe check that out? Anyways, that’s all I’ve got to offer ya
I’m trying to figure out if OLED works well on Linux, but there is a bunch of mixed info floating around - some say it’s fine, other claim you can’t adjust light level, some say it flickers, there is no burn in protection, there is… who the hell knows…
What I do know for sure is Asus has dedicated OLED care software and it only runs on Windows.
Any of the Thinkpad X convertible (Yoga) models are probably good options. They’ve worked well under Wayland for me for the past couple of years, touchscreen etc. Auto-rotation however is something I couldn’t get setup to work reliably.
I’ve only had an OLED screen for a few months (unintentionally), but it seems…to work as I’d expect? At least, it doesn’t flicker for me and I can change the brightness using brightnessctl just fine. However, Wayland only—I had issues with HiDPI scaling between different apps when using X11.
Hi @lae, I have a quick question: Are you using a Nividia graphic card? A Linux distro that has Wayland as the default communicator for the display server doesn’t work well when your graphics card is from Nvidia. Although Nvidia has theoretically had full support for Wayland since 2021, the implementation is still incomplete, and some features may be missing or not fully functional.
I’m not—anything GPU-intensive is for the desktop and a dedicated GPU, not for my tablet convertible (the subject of this thread) since battery life is important to me.
And on the desktop I use X11 because of current limitations in wlroots for certain tasks.
My family uses 2 Asus laptops (Vivobook OLEDs). One has Nvidia and the other has onboard Radeon. Both work fine overall but the one has a fingerprint reader that isnt supported in linux. Do check out if the model you are eyeing has fingerprint support.
Thanks, that is really helpful as well as everybody else’s comments. Things like fingerprint reader etc. was never an important part, but good to know it works.
The main concern was the “flip” and touch screen etc.
Flip is basically what I meant by auto rotation in my earlier post. You might have better luck than me depending on what OS/DE you use, but in my case if I want to flip it and use it in an arched mode I have to manually issue a rotate command (or, to make it easier, add a shortcut to my toolbar to rotate), which itself has been pretty dependable.
this hard interrupts keyboard and touchpad input and thus user input
probably on firmware or electrical level, unfixable
=> get your hand on on the device for a week or so, just to eliminate this kind of fuckup.
Also nvidia and wayland (fedora 40 and 2070s):
generally nvidia session feels inconsistent and full of weird papercuts
incomplete gpu acceleration for some events, leading to thing like kde menu stuttering during navigation and eating 80-90% of one cpu core
many context switches and black screens during startup for some reason n, also feels slower than amd
nvidia however has complete HDMI 2.1 support on linux, which is something AMD will probably never have (necessary for 4k@120+ without color loss due to force yuv color space)
I purchased the Vivobook TN3402Y Flip book. Currently on the internal drive got windows 11 (blech with full debloat for offline and ALL windows apps removed). Had to completely blow away everything because MCaffee came with it and completely unremovable… also oem installed windows… blech.
But to the main event. I have ubuntu 24.04 installed on a nvme drive running off the usb C port. Essentially, just hold ESC on boot and select that. Doesn’t seem to have any major problem running this way and once get linux niggles sorted out, would probably switch them around so linux internal and windows external for when needed.
Using drivers found here: Asus linux drivers · GitHub I have got glowy numpad working and asus pen working (in krita runs even better than in windows).
Camera and mic work just fine (tested in discord) and there doesn’t seem to be issues with any other hardware atm. ie network, bluetooth (needed for pen)
I haven’t attempted to get fingerprint scanner working yet.
The only issue I have at the moment is the screen rotation and flip functions. The drivers don’t seem to be able to find the accelerator. This means the screen doesn’t rotate and the keyboard lock when in flip mode.
But that seems to be the only issue atm. Even on external drive it runs surprisingly well.
How is the display doing? Any issues controlling OLED brightness or flickering on low brightness?
Are you using any preventative measures to protect the OLED screen?
Playing a youtube video, I increased the screen brightness to max and down to dimmest and there was no flickering or artifacts. I used the built in keys to change the brightness btw.
Also bear in mind, this is a 90Hz display so that is different from the usual 60Hz.
EDIT: As for preventive measures… just standard screen saver thing.