I’ve installed Mint on a 6 recently. Setting up the boot settings was a minor hassle, but everything else was very smooth. Definitely recommend the linux-surface kernel.

I have a Surface Pro 7 running EndeavourOS.

Installing was just as simple as installing on desktop. The Linux surface kernel solved some of the non-functional parts (such as touchscreen and auto-rotate). The only thing that doesn’t work are the cameras, but idgaf bout those.

All in all it’s not a terrible experience, but compromises have to be made.

I have not installed it, so I cannot comment about my experience.

I used Fedora with the linux-surface kernel on a Surface Book 1, and everything pretty much worked out of the box. I bought it used on eBay and the battery in the tablet portion was pretty degraded, so I don’t know if it impacted performance, but it could be a little clunky at times.

It was my computer in exile while our house was being renovated after some water damage and I was able to run prusa slicer on of for my mini. I didn’t try a pen with it, but the touch controls worked with the custom kernel.

Eventually, I tried Aurora OS which is an immutable fedora distro with the surface kernel loaded by default and performance was about the same. Now I have it on cachyOS which needed the Ethernet cable installed so I could get the Marvell firmware drivers for WiFi, but it was much snappier. That’s an arch based distro, so I could load the surface kernel for touch driver stuff but you lose out on some of the more advanced kernel stuff that group is pushing.

Overall, I’ve been pleased with the experience. I didn’t have a surface device before, but when I heard about the linux-surface project, I had to try it.

I got a surface pro 3 from goodwill for $99. Been running fedora on it and it runs hot the fan will get loud but honestly it’s great for reading manga with komikku or watching movies and stuff. the pro 3 works without the linux-surface kernel so that’s a plus even if it does mean it’s a little slow. gnome works great on it and it makes me wish all my laptops had a touchscreen. in tablet mode the on screen keyboard leaves a bit to be desired but I hear there’s some improvements in gnome 47 and 48 so I’m hopeful

I have a surface pro 6, bought used for cheap. With the surface Linux kernel, almost everything works.

I built support for the front and rear cameras using the surface Linux instructions and they work, however it’s not a working solution, since ms Teams pwa or discord can’t use libcamera devices.

One thing you should be aware of, though, is that the tablet experience is only really workable in Wayland, so you’ll have to forgo non-wayland apps and desktop environments. Gnome is… not great.

Also, there are several gotchas with wayland. I use flameshot for screenshots, which is broken on Wayland with scaling. Scaling also breaks default firefox on Wayland.

Sorry, didn’t mean to turn this into a Wayland comment.

The hard work the folks at surface Linux have done is amazing, and I’m happy to daily drive my surface.

typing this now on a Surface Pro 3 I bought 9 years ago. solid hardware, obviously a bit slow. still has an hour or so of battery life. haven’t got around to installing Linux, so the OS is shit, but I’ve never reinstalled or felt it was necessary. I definitely researched and ran debloat scripts. biggest concern is that upgrades are impossible. I think Linux would run well on this machine, based on the support out there.

Edit: I just remembered what I had to do to get cameras working in most applications. I used v4l2loopback.

I don’t know about older Surfaces, but for me in a nutshell, H-E-Double hockey sticks on my 1st gen Surface Go. Only install Linux on a Surface if you already own one.

More in-depth, it was usable - it was my main personal on-the-go device for a couple of years. I’d had it since before I used Linux. On mainline, the main stuff worked. With the Linux-Surface kernel, I could get the cameras working. It was always very janky (you had to bridge stuff through GStreamer or some other weird crap rather than using it directly. Don’t remember the specifics), but it worked.

Another annoyance was a hardware issue with the keyboard when it was in your lap: since the keyboard wasn’t very rigid, it would bend a bit while typing or placing your hand on the palm rest, making unwanted mouse clicks

My big problem with the Surface Go, though, was I had chronic issues with power profiles. It never went to sleep quite right, so after closing it a few times, the system would begin to get unstable and I’d just have to do a reboot.

After my initramfs got borked on that during the time_t64 transition (my fault, not the hardware’s; I use Debian Testing and an apt update went awry), I didn’t feel like going back and fixing it, as I was planning on replacing this device with the Thinkpad I write this on anyway.

Ultimately, my opinion (again, just based on using the Go 1, which is a bit newer than the Pro 4) is that it isn’t the best idea. Considering Pro 4s are not expensive on eBay, trying it isn’t the worst idea, but I feel like it’s not worth it, an unfortunate truth considering Surfaces are such unique devices. This isn’t a cheap alternative (the CPU’s not the best from what I can tell), but the Surface fan in me finds the StarLabs StarFighter 12.5-inch enticing considering it’s both very Surface-like and Linux-friendly.

As you want cheap, you might be able to find something to throw LineageOS or postMarketOS on. Honestly, my question for you is how much do you need a tablet specifically? Could a small laptop do?

Watch for battery life when buying older Surface devices. Replacing batteries in the older Surface Pros is notoriously difficult, because apparently the whole assembly is glued together. Loss of battery life is what forced an early retirement of my 5th-gen (2015) Surface Pro, even though not was otherwise completely serviceable. Newer versions are apparently more repairable, but you’ll have to investigate where that cut-off line of repairability is.