Best Linux Distro for a tablet?

Been wanting to put Linux on my Surface Pro 7, but when i tried it with Ubuntu, it didn’t work as well as I’d like. I used the Surface driver kernel, but Ubuntu wasn’t really good with touch. It couldn’t give a pop up keyboard (only showed up when logging into my account, but never beyond that). Sometimes it wouldn’t register touch at all. That and other little things that made it not ideal for touch screens. So i was wondering, are there any good distros that would work well in tablet only mode on my Surface Pro?

GFGJewbacca,

I’ve been running Nobara on my Surface Pro 4, which is based on Fedora. It comes with all the surface drivers built in, which really helps. It’s been working pretty well for me.

xia,

Ubuntu-touch?

LainOfTheWired,
@LainOfTheWired@lemy.lol avatar

From what I know that it only for arm based devices and the surface pros are x86 based

xia,

It might be out of date, but at one time it was a thing: devices.ubuntu-touch.io/device/x86/…/xenial

LainOfTheWired,
@LainOfTheWired@lemy.lol avatar

Though doesn’t post market os have an X86 build?

And you could install plasma mobile on it

buckykat,

I run PopOS on my IdeaPad Flex, which is one of those flip all the way around type laptop tablet hybrids, and it handles tablet stuff pretty well with the touchscreen, on screen keyboard, and stylus input.

Menagerie,

Plasma Mobile with your distro of choice. Works better than Gnome or normal Plasma, especially when it comes to the on screen keyboard.

teamevil,

PopOS! Works pretty well on my 3

KISSmyOS,

Fedora. It is the flagship distro for Gnome, and Gnome is the best desktop for tablets and convertibles.

schwar2ss,

I had Fedora with the surface-linux kernel running for a while and at some point an update broke everything, including the touch pad.

The Surface isn’t a great Linux device, unfortunately.

LainOfTheWired,
@LainOfTheWired@lemy.lol avatar

I mean it is made by Microsoft😆

LainOfTheWired,
@LainOfTheWired@lemy.lol avatar

Though Macs seem to at least at some points be good Linux devices. Though I have no idea about the newer arm based ones

julianh,

This is mostly down to desktop environment rather than distro, but I had the same experience as you with gnome on Ubuntu, and switching to fedora it was a lot better. Still some problems with the on-screen keyboard but it at least works. I guess having a more up-to-date version of gnome helps, or ubuntu’s additions to gnome mess with it.

I haven’t tried KDE but I’ve heard it’s been getting better touch support, so it might be worth trying out too.

KISSmyOS,

KDE isn’t better with touch than Gnome. Maybe Plasma 6 will change that when it comes out next year, or maybe not.

HouseWolf,

As a KDE fanboy I will agree, I installed regular Ubuntu on an old Surface tablet and the touch interface is better than most Android tablets I’ve used

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