The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 machines have no touchpad or touchscreen support. Listing them as "supported" requires a creative interpretation of the term.
> the current Linux Kernel 6.15 already supports many commercial laptops:
Lenovo Yoga 7x,
Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6,
Dell XPS 13,
Asus Vivobook S15,
HP Omnibook x14,
Microsoft Surface 13/15
Has anybody had any first-hand experience with Linux on such laptops?
In my case the biggest drawback is not being able to use an external screen via HDMI and the sound support (although you can workaround that with BT).
Let's not talk about widevine, I managed to eventually get it to work but it was very painful.
If we get full audio support and solve some of the widevine issues, this can easily become a daily driver for when I'm traveling or giving presentations.
I have an XPS 13. It does run linux, but so does every other laptop with an x86 chipset. It's horrible in pretty much every other way though. The battery, GPU fan, and left USB-C port failed successively shortly after the warranty was up.
If you are thinking about getting a Tuxedo, I suggest to get something else. I got one because they promised fwupd support, upstreamed drivers and maybe coreboot support. None of that is working even years afterwards. People from the kernel got so fed up with them, they considered blacklisting them [1]. That seemed like a wakeup call as they now at least started with upstreaming drivers.
If you want to change some settings oft the device, you need to use their terrible Electron application. It's so bad, volunteers created an alternative. Even they are getting tired of Tuxedo though [2]
The device is also not repairable at all. I had an issue with my screen and they gave me a quote of ~200€+ to repair it. I'm sure I could fix it myself for a lot less, but no parts are available and no instructions.
I hope they improve, but for now I'm disillusioned and would not buy it again.
I'm a happy user of my second Tuxedo laptop after using the first for over 7 years, repairing several parts. I found their support very responsive and spare parts affordable. Your points are valid though. If you don't like their custom stuff, the device also works fine with a stock Linux install (Ubuntu in my case).
Frankly it's bizarre that a Linux focused vendor thinks it's better to keep their device drivers outside of the kernel. Why would I buy a rebadged Clevo laptop from Tuxedo where I'm stuck either running their special Tuxedo distro or fiddling around with compiling kernel modules on other distros, when I could buy a much better laptop for the same price from a vendor who doesn't even advertise Linux support and get full out of the box hardware support on any distro I choose?
I think it was Tuxedo that accidentally ended up with GPLv3 drivers and no ability to relicense them.
Which means they can't be upstreamed because GPLv3 is not compatible with GPLv2 (for the same reason CDDLv1.0 is considered incompatible).
They either need to track every copyright from the contractors (who AFAIK didn't sign over licensing to Tuxedo) to relicense the code, or write drivers again from scratch.
You are right that tuxedo has some issues. But also take into account price of their notebooks. Even lenovo, hp, dell etc. are not without issues in the similar price category. I take it as cheap HW for advanced users.
But you are right that not having drivers upstream is really strange decision.
> If you want to change some settings oft the device, you need to use their terrible Electron application.
> It's so bad, volunteers created an alternative.
Years ago I wrote my own Linux user space driver for the keyboard on my Clevo based laptop. The Clevo application was so terrible I reverse engineered it and made my own Linux free software replacement.
A little more context : in june 2024 at Computex, Tuxedo announced a possible christmas 2024 release [1]. A Qualcomm/Tuxedo collaboration was expected but did not materialize [2].
I am fed up with the linux world. I run Ubuntu on a randomly selected Thinkpad, everything works, outta the box.
Why should i buy a new laptop because it holds another cpu doing the exact workload?
I cant code faster, cant talk faster with people and being productive 8hrs strait is just a lie.
Since almost 10years i read about pre-installed devices, but i dont see them anywhere.
Most companies dont have business linux apps and they wont be available, an armada of developers is busy bringing the light of the webcam functioning.
Why not specialize in something else like software the entire world runs on like SAP or whatever?
Its nice to spend a rainy day to compile your kernel...but the outcome?
You don't "have to" do anything, you can stay with the setup you're using right now just fine, I don't get the point of this post, you're fighting ghosts.
There's lots of responses but they miss the point. Rosetta let you run x86/64 apps without even knowing they were x86/64. Back when I ran Asahi, I searched far and wide, but Linux doesn't support that level of transparent integration. You always had to fuddle with the launch params.
It's not precisely a laptop, but I have an augmented reality cyberdeck using XReal AR glasses running into a battery powered Raspberry Pi 5 that I built, which runs pretty well. I feel like the Pis have long been a canary in the coalmine for Linux and ARM (first ARMHF and now ARM64) support.
Does Linux arm64 run Windows x86 applications in Wine? I mean, I'd be surprised if it did, but I need that. Otherwise an arm64 Linux laptop is super tempting.
If it's not fully supported and has major roadbumps, which it has, it is not supported. I don't know why companies take linux users as fools that'll accept anything thrown at them. Until lenovo can get their shit together and make a respectable laptop with 12h+ battery life, good build quality and a decent enough screen even on the worst configs, im not getting it
I'm waiting for Android Virtualization Framework to run a full Linux distro on my smartphone with portable monitor (glasses). Already using Termux but AVF is hopefully much more performant. Maybe the Samsung S26 Ultra will have full support. I might ditch my miniPC if this works out.
Last I checked power management didn't work so they would run hot and burn through your battery. So unless there is full software support for hardware that makes laptops a portable computer, it's just not a practical solution for me.
Tho, I really want this to happen. As far as I've tested on Volterra (ms dev kit 2023), linux has a lot going right for it. there is a ton of ARM64 packages, and drivers just work (e.g. I had to wait so long for Wacom to release WoA drivers while it worked out the box with ARM64 linux builds). the potential is there and it's great.
On a last note, not being able to ship necessary firmware and relying on a WoA boot drive still sucks.
I'm waiting for this. I like low powered laptops as more of a terminal. I dont want the apple ecosystem, but I'm getting really tired of windows, high end chromebooks kinda disappeared, I have Linux servers at home. Do I have to wait much longer?
I'm still waiting for the apple laptop killer (a 12h+ laptop with plain Ubuntu) but it's still brittle as fuck. I'm so frustrated by the current state of the mobile computing space. I have to have an Apple locked down device, which I hate, just because I want proper battery life.
A aarch64 Ubuntu vm inside MacOS runs faster and lasts more time than a booted up Ubuntu on arm in these devices. This is how far behind these things are.
and what bums me the most is that it's all about software. The hardware is great, but software on Snapdragon is taking a lot of time to catch up and it screams M$ lobby to me
In an alternate universe my hope was AMD builds a killer mobile/embedded Arm APU instead of the failed Opteron A series. Of course this would never happen because what software would run on it? Apple on the other hand steers the entire ship so they had the ability to produce the entire stack. Even MS could not build an Arm ecosystem.
Get a recent AMD or Intel laptop, add Linux, and install TLP. Idk if you'll get 12hr or not, but my Asus PX13 survived a 9hr+ intercontinental flight while working on a C++ codebase including compilation in Sublime Text with clangd LSP plugin (and no, I can't fall asleep on planes lol)
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 70.5 ms ] threadHas anybody had any first-hand experience with Linux on such laptops?
In my case the biggest drawback is not being able to use an external screen via HDMI and the sound support (although you can workaround that with BT). Let's not talk about widevine, I managed to eventually get it to work but it was very painful.
If we get full audio support and solve some of the widevine issues, this can easily become a daily driver for when I'm traveling or giving presentations.
If you want to change some settings oft the device, you need to use their terrible Electron application. It's so bad, volunteers created an alternative. Even they are getting tired of Tuxedo though [2]
The device is also not repairable at all. I had an issue with my screen and they gave me a quote of ~200€+ to repair it. I'm sure I could fix it myself for a lot less, but no parts are available and no instructions.
I hope they improve, but for now I'm disillusioned and would not buy it again.
[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/TUXEDO-Drivers-Taint-Patches
[2] https://aaronerhardt.github.io/blog/posts/tuxedo_rs_update/
Which means they can't be upstreamed because GPLv3 is not compatible with GPLv2 (for the same reason CDDLv1.0 is considered incompatible).
They either need to track every copyright from the contractors (who AFAIK didn't sign over licensing to Tuxedo) to relicense the code, or write drivers again from scratch.
But you are right that not having drivers upstream is really strange decision.
> It's so bad, volunteers created an alternative.
Years ago I wrote my own Linux user space driver for the keyboard on my Clevo based laptop. The Clevo application was so terrible I reverse engineered it and made my own Linux free software replacement.
https://github.com/matheusmoreira/ite-829x
It seems some Tuxedo laptops have the same keyboard. Maybe Tuxedo users will find it useful.
[1] https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/TUXEDO-on-ARM-is-coming.t... [2] https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/How-is-TUXEDOCOes-ARM-Not...
It is fine, and good of them to try, but if you don’t need it, you don’t need it.
Do you think that you are the center of the world and no product deserves to exist unless you have an immediate use for it?
The article mentions an emulator, but it seemed to be for running games.
I also heard MS had something similar in their arm dev kit, but haven't looked much into it.
Yeah we need some trade off's. But for dev's & a lot of ops stuff I enjoy more x86 as it's de facto standard.
Tho, I really want this to happen. As far as I've tested on Volterra (ms dev kit 2023), linux has a lot going right for it. there is a ton of ARM64 packages, and drivers just work (e.g. I had to wait so long for Wacom to release WoA drivers while it worked out the box with ARM64 linux builds). the potential is there and it's great.
On a last note, not being able to ship necessary firmware and relying on a WoA boot drive still sucks.
That would be awesome!
A aarch64 Ubuntu vm inside MacOS runs faster and lasts more time than a booted up Ubuntu on arm in these devices. This is how far behind these things are.
and what bums me the most is that it's all about software. The hardware is great, but software on Snapdragon is taking a lot of time to catch up and it screams M$ lobby to me