Current status of Linux on surface PRO

[mr_raider]

I just ordered a Surface Pro 128Gb on an impulse buy (449$ academic discount on MS store). The hardware seems head and shoulders above anything at that price. I am looking to dual boot Ubuntu (or derivative) on it. All the google searches point to older linux distros from early 2013 and mention wifi issues.

Any recent experience with 13.10 or 14.04 beta? I am familiar with Linux since 2008, and somewhat versed in UEFI issues since I managed to install Ubuntu on an Asus x202e.

Thank You

 

[CrippsCorner]

I'm sure you have more experience than me but I've always had Wi-Fi issues on Linux no matter what hardware it was installed on! Bloody nightmare... and the Surface has enough Wi-Fi issues of its own.

 

[mr_raider]

I'm sure you have more experience than me but I've always had Wi-Fi issues on Linux no matter what hardware it was installed on! Bloody nightmare... and the Surface has enough Wi-Fi issues of its own.

My questions relates more to this UEFI thing. Does the PC have a proper BIOS you can access on boot up and toggle the boot order? If I hose the bootloader can I fix it? In WIndows 7 All I had to do was create a Rescue disk and restore image with the built in utility.

 

[jnjroach]

The Surface Pro and Pro 2 have a fully compliant UEFI Firmware and not a traditional BIOS. You would need a FAT32 Boot Device to install and most likely would need to disable Secure Boot.

 

[mr_raider]

Related question, which may be better answered in Windows 8 forums, but Surface Pro has win 8.1 Pro. which includes Hyper V virtualization software. Hyper-V can actually creat a virtual hard drive, mount it, and then windows 8 can boot off said virtual hard drive. Any one tried this with a Linux guest?

 

[CreativeLemming]

Related question, which may be better answered in Windows 8 forums, but Surface Pro has win 8.1 Pro. which includes Hyper V virtualization software. Hyper-V can actually creat a virtual hard drive, mount it, and then windows 8 can boot off said virtual hard drive. Any one tried this with a Linux guest?

I don't think so. Some people were discussing it the thread linked below but don't know if they got anywhere. Unless your guest OS has native support for the VHD format (and NTFS support so it can read the VHD file in the first place) in the bootloader and kernel then you will run into difficulties if trying to boot directly from VHD in any OS other than windows (not sure what the current state of play is though)
http://www.surfaceforums.net/forum/...uck-2-49-ghz-since-jan-updates.html#post52392

Edit: Apologies, after reading the replies seems I misunderstood your post. Thought you were asking if you could boot directly into Linux off the VHD once it's created, rather than run within the virtual machine with Win8 still running.

 

[dleuen]

Related question, which may be better answered in Windows 8 forums, but Surface Pro has win 8.1 Pro. which includes Hyper V virtualization software. Hyper-V can actually creat a virtual hard drive, mount it, and then windows 8 can boot off said virtual hard drive. Any one tried this with a Linux guest?

I tried that last year installing Ubuntu in a VM when I first got my SP. Indeed it worked as advertised. The biggest issue will be the tiny display/display scaling and trying to find a sweet spot where the guest looks fine as well as the Surface Pro. In the end I decided it was not worth the disk space it took. I really didn't have a need for Linux on my SP.

 

[lparsons21]

I tried that last year installing Ubuntu in a VM when I first got my SP. Indeed it worked as advertised. The biggest issue will be the tiny display/display scaling and trying to find a sweet spot where the guest looks fine as well as the Surface Pro. In the end I decided it was not worth the disk space it took. I really didn't have a need for Linux on my SP.

That was my experience as well. It worked but wasn't much fun to use and didn't bring anything to the table that I couldn't do just as well or better with Windows.