Arch and Gentoo - Best Surface Feature Support?

1

Clear Linux

Clear Linux - I really wanted to get this working because of the optimizations the Intel builds into their distro. I was able to install the latest desktop version, and as long as I used an external USB keyboard and mouse, I was able to use the system. However, I was never able to figure out how to properly build the patched kernel to support the Surface devices. If anyone wants to play around with Clear and their Surface, you can check out this kernel patch repository. However, even if you can get those Surface patches applied to the Clear Linux kernel build process, they're actually 3 years old, so it doesn't appear to be maintained.

#Linux #Operating Systems #Linux Distribution 33 social mentions

2

Arch Linux

Archlinux - My current configuration. I'm a longtime Gentoo user and I know that there are strong similarities between Gentoo and Arch. However, even as a long time Gentoo user, I actually appreciate how Arch takes some of the complexity out of building your own rolling release Linux installation. Having said that, it's not for beginners. For example, the normal Arch installer is simply a number of command line actions that you execute, as documented on their install page. They do have a "helper" app, Archinstall, which does allow you to quickly get Arch installed, but when it rebooted for me, I didn't even have a DE installed. I had to use the Arch tools to install Gnome, as well as GDM, and a bunch of other stuff to get things working correctly. However, I think that the Linux Surface support of Arch is very good. You can see from the project webpage that Fedora and Arch both have great support. I was able to easily install all of the correct kernel Linux Surface patches by installing the Arch linux-surface package from the Surface Linux repository, and then automatically build the kernel in one step. But then I also had to manually add the new Surface kernel to the EFI boot menu. Once I did that and booted into the Surface kernel, I noticed that pretty much everything is working correctly, (except the cameras). I'm going to try installing the git version of libcamera to see if the latest version supports the SP9 cameras, but for now, I'm happy with Arch on my SP9. The main reason is I believe that the most current support will be available through Arch.

#Linux #Linux Distribution #Operating Systems 256 social mentions