Mint 21 on MS Surface Pro 3 4/64GB version

[rossdv8]

Some time ago I accidentally acquired a MS Surface Pro 3 Tablet that only has 4GB RAM and 64GB Storage.
I got hold of a genuine MS Keyboard / Cover brand new from someone who buys up stock from business that are closing etc.
I had decided to run Linux on it, but it was going to be a pain in the neck to install in the 64GB Storage, and still leave room for documents, Apps and stuff, even if I removed Windows.

I did a few experiments though and Mint will run on it - in a limited sort of way, but it is painful. Installing the Surface Kernel would fix that, but wouldn't solve the Storage problem, although I can tun a 256Gb MicroSD card in it, and apparently up to 512, though that might only be a rumour.

I was thinking about what I would use it for anyway. Then I realised something that should have been obvious. I use VPN to network all my Linux computers instead of a traditional LAN. It is simpler, less hassle and also means if I want to I can use the Wake on LAN function in BIOS to turn a machine on remotely. From more or less anywhere I have a WiFi connection.

Mostly though I will probably only need the extra RAM and Storage while I am in range ofmy own WiFi. So for example, I can sit out on the Patio and use the Tablet like a laptop to do some work, rather than sitting inside, or I can use it like a Tablet and connect to about 4TB of Books or 3TB of Video. Which might be pleasant once the weather starts changing.

So now by using NoMachine, using VNC, on my WiFi, I have effectively a 16GB RAM, 40TB Storage MS Surface Pro 3.


There's no noticeable lag, even using video provided I don;t set the screen resolution to more than 1920 wide.
I'm feeling rather pleased with myself, because I had considered buying an 8GB / 256GB Surface Pro 5 tablet just for Linux.

This solution is far, far better in every way. If for some reason I do need to use the tablet in the car somewhere that I have no Internet ot WiFi, I can either set up a Mobile Hot Spot on my phone, or I can just use Windows with Nord as a bit of security. The main object though is to Not use the Surface on an unsecured Internet or Wifi connection.

Just thought I would post this for anyone else who has one of these thignslying around the house and would like to run Linux, or specifically, Mint on it.
NoMachine is a viable 'easy' alternative to installing Mint on a 'small' Surface Pro.
Any other VNC solution that works on Windows AND Linux, like RealVNC would be fine. I just find NoMachine cleaner and faster than any of the dozen or so others I've tested over the years.

[MurphCID]

Keep us posted on your adventures with the Surface.

[Peter Linu]

rossdv8,
Would it work on a 7" Lenovo LT7104F tablet?

[MurphCID]

Those are interesting devices but, for me anyway, a little too expensive new to justify. I thought about one for the Spouse Unit before I got her the Mac.

[argentwolf]

If you're not paying for the product, you are the product!
IMHO, the convenience of using Windows and then joining an additional 'wiretap' cloud platform (i.e., NoMachine) is simply a recipe to concede to further personal data appropriation.
I'd advocate you continue working towards a Linux / Open Source solution and not sit back appreciative of how easy the surveillance and collection transgressors have made it for everyone to stay on their perilous platform(s). Data is king and literally manages our binary realm, and amass the digits they will!
When I have more time I will also be moving my Surface Pro 3 towards a similar environment, 64GB can be a tough one to accommodate, but there is a micro SD slot for storage and up to 1TB SD cards available. Good Luck!

"NoMachine"
https://www.nomachine.com/[/ur "Surfac ... cf073b56ee

"How to install Linux on Surface Pro 3"
https://winaero.com/how-to-install-linu ... ace-pro-3/

[rossdv8]

I don't need NoMachine's Cloud Service. I'm quite happy to use the Free Application that lets me connect to whatever I want at home without any Internet connection.

However if I was traveling and needed to get into my system from somewhere using a public WiFi network, I think that I would use NoMachine in preference to most other stuff. It doesn't matter what most people use once they go onto a Public network. And as far as companies collecting data, I feel just as comfortable risking data collection by NoMachine as I do when I use companies like Google, Proton Mail, Microsoft, Apple and hundreds of others.

I mean we use Mint. Look how many times the Forum has been hacked. Nothing online is guaranteed safe. Most stuff online is not safe.
So using a commercial VNC that actually works, rather than something that works on a Hit and Miss principle, like tigervnc or vinagre and a few others in the repo - all of which I tested, and 'some' of which work well enough to be more or less useable - makes sense.
There's a reason why the Raspberry Pi foundation started shipping realVNC instead of a non-commercial offering.

So, back to Mint and the Surface.


After some failures using Mint on either the 4/64GB Surface 3 or the newly arrived 8/256 Surface 3, I decided to try Kubuntu. It worked and after needing to tweak some stuff, I decided to make a Persistent bootable USB stick, well almost invisible button.
Now I have a Bootable Linux that keeps all the settings and theming I change, and lets me install Apps. The only pain I think is that I only had 32 or 63GB USB sticks, so I ended up with 30GB /root and 30GB /home.
But I do have access to all the Windows internal SSD anyway, so that's not a drama. On the bigger machine, I have something like 220GB of data drive I can use.

That's how small the USB stick is. It gets a bit warm, but it doesn't stick out enough to be a nuisance when using the Surface without a keyboard.

That got me thinking. I've been interested to try LMDE 6, and altough I dislike a lot of things about Cinnamon (which is why I'm running a Mint 21.2 w/KDE system, I could live with Cinnamon if I didn;t have to use it day to day. It is both Elegant and Functional. There's just too much other 'stuff' that 'I do' that it can't cope with.

So I tried making a Persistent bootable USB drive with LMDE. It took me half a day yesterday, and most of today, but I managed to get it working on my main desktop system. I then tried booting it on my other main system and it was a No Show. Completely refused to boot. Which is odd, because they are both similarly specced Lenovo 'Tiny' systems with i5 processors.
I tried a non-persistent bootable live stick on that machine ant it was fine. Just doesn't like booting a persistent stick. So it's something to investigate.
Oddly enough though, I whacked the stick in the bigger Surface, and lo and behold, it booted. And runs perfectly.


I now have a Surface Pro 3 running LMDE 6 and Win 11 Professional is still in the Surface Boot Partition if I ever need it.

I also have Kubuntu bootable as a persistent Live OS on the Surface 3, which also, lets me keep Win 11 if I need it for any reason.
And the USB stick is about the size of a Wireless keyboard dongle.

I have a feeling that if I installed Mint 21.2 Cinnamon it might work better than Kubuntu - but I would lose a lot of custom stuff I use. SO for now, Kubuntu stays, because installing Kubuntu into Mint again just to run it live, is a pain in the donkey.

I decided to start writing this reply on the Surface using LMDE, while I had Firefox open just to see if it is practical.

So far LMDE looks and works great on a Surface pro,and making a 'Persistent' bootable USB drive means I can set up the stuff the Cinnamon will allow me to change, like installing Thunar for file management, and Geeqie for images - and every time I boot it opens the live USB stick with the changes intact.

For now I'd say there are still things that do not work. I have not explored the cameras, and currently assume that although they show up in the Hardware list, they don;t work. I may be proved wrong, but it's only been a couple of hours.
I'd say though - if anyone has a Surface Pro 3 lying around, consider making a Persistent Live USB stick (especially a tiny one) and put LMDE 6 or ordinary Mint Cinnamon on it.
A warning though. - There's a trick to making the Persistent stick for LMDE because it is just a little different from Ubuntu.

I am led to believe that Kernel Updates do not install into a Persistent USB drive that is made with mkusb. I'm not sure - but that's what I took from their GitHub stuff.
And use a USB stick at least 64GB in size. 32GB drives failed a lot of the time for me.

[argentwolf]

Congratulations! I for one am personally interested and would greatly appreciate you sharing links to any articles, documents, and/or website(s) used which allowed your progress thus far in your conversion project? I'm sure a few others might eagerly follow in your steps to the Windows freedom you've described. THX!

[rossdv8]

Thanks.
I can share info for the Kubuntu bit because that is working perfectly, but the LMDE one worked on the Surface, 3 times, then refused to boot again.
LMDE still boots on the Surface as an ordinary Live USB, so it would possibly be fine to install on a Surface with 8GB/256GB, as long as you didn;t want things like a working camers. I think there's not enough storage space on a 4/64GB Surface.

So the only definite winner so far as a 'Persisteent' Live USB drive seems to be the Kubuntu one, becaause it is repeatable whichever Surface it is plugged into.

As soon as I can buy another handful of 64GB USB sticks. I'll see if I can do a Persistent Live Mint Cinnamon and Mint Xfce USB, and do another update.
Just because Mint didn't work the first few times, doesn't mean it won't.
And I'm a Mint user, even if I use Mint w/KDE on my Desktops.

From what I saw of LMDE earlier though, I just might install it on the other Lenovo desktop Tiny. Cinnamon seems to have improved in a lot of ways over what it used to be. I could live with it if I didn't have to use it daily.

As far as LMDE and the Persistent Bootable USB thing - It kept failing to create a Persistent USB despite the same mkusb steps used for the Kubuntu drive.
So I did some thinking and modified the way the Persistent drive works. Obviously I did 'something right', but the fact that it failed after using it 3 times, means I also did 'something wrong', that the surface didn't like.
Or maybe I shoud not have tried to update it.
I'll check in the morning to see if the m900 is still booting from the USB. If it is not, it might have been the update attempt.

Otherwise I just have to work out where I slipped up. There's rarely anything that's impossible. It's usually just that stuff takes a bit longer to work out . .

E D I T:
As soon as I shutdown for the night I changed my mind and decided to check the USB boot before I get my 'Ugly Sleep'.
I'm writing this from the Lenovo m93p Tiny running LMDE 6 from the same USB stick that stopped booting on the Surface 3.
That obviously means the USB drive is not corrupted as I suspected it might be. And the persistence is working perfectly - but not on the Surface tablets any more. Either of them. That's a pain !

All the changes I had made to LMDE though, first on this machine, and then on the Surface, have stuck, so the Persistent bootable Live idea works well.
I am thinking about switching from Balena Etcher, to mkusb for all my bootable USB writes, especially as it has cloning, and backup / restore options.

Making LMDE Persistent was a real headache. T be able to clone a copy of this drive would be great.

[Catsbark]

Have you considered installing LM to a USB flash/stick drive? Clearly you'd need 64GB or larger, but then you'd have a fully-configured instance of the OS.

[rossdv8]

Have you considered installing LM to a USB flash/stick drive? Clearly you'd need 64GB or larger, but then you'd have a fully-configured instance of the OS.

I did consider that idea. And that is what this post is about.
There are photos of it just above this reply, but it is running Mint LMDE 6, and booted up on the Surface pro. The trouble is that it booted on the Surface pro several times - then died, although the USB flash/stick drive still boots fine on the main computer.
And I installed Xfce4 into it, so I can now log out of Cinnamon, and into Xfce, and back out of Xfce, and into Cinnamon - and so on, running Mint LMDE on Live Bootable USB stick/flash drive.

So changes to the live bootable USB stick are persistent. i can theme, change, install stuff. And it boots as often as I want on the Lenovo Tiny.
But it flat out refuses to boot again on the Surface Pro.

However, since Kubuntu boots fine on the Surface, I'll see if I can make a Live 'Persistent' stick with ordinary Mint Cinnamon.
In the mean time, Here's an instance if LMDE 6 running on the Lenovo from a 'Persistent' USN flash drive ( which saves config, Apps, documents ans has read/write access to the computer's main drive.

That's what I had on the Surface (photo above) and want to get working again.
Alternatively, just a Live bootable USB of ordinary Mint Cinnamon that saves all changes.

Back to the drawing board . . .

[rossdv8]

So after another day of doing horrible things to flash drives trying to make a Persistent Live LMDE drive that boots on the Surface Pros, I decided that since Kubuntu works as a Persistent Live drive - there should be no reason for Cinnamon not to.

So I tried making a Mint Cinnamon 21.2 Live Persistent flash drive.
It failed to boot. Because LMDE had at least booted a few times, I thought plain Mint Cinnamon should.
Next I made a plain ordinary Live bootable Mint 21.2 Cinnamon flash drive (i.e. NO Persistence).

That boots, and runs:

But
1) Is NOT persistent, so when I stick the Panel to the TOP of the screen, and set up location, time and date etc., I have to do it all again every time I boot. - Unlike Kubuntu, which saves everything.
2) I don;t get the Virtual Keyboard on the screen when I detach the keyboard - again, something I DO get when using Kubuntu
3), and this is a HUGE difference ! With Mint Cinnamon, the Surface runs heaps COOLER and seems to have a much projected greater battery time remaining, than Kubuntu, however that could just be because I checked that on the 4/64GB surface - so more testing to be done there.
4) I Found the setting for Cinnamon Auto Screen Rotation - so That is also a PLUS. IF I ever get PERSISTENCE working . .

During the messing around yesterday trying to make the Cinnamon flash drive Persistent, I managed to bork my main Desktop machine's Desktop and GRUB when I tried an update to one of the Flash Drives while it was plugged into the Computer instead of the Surface.
That hurt a bit, and I had to do some quick thinking to rescue the system. I hate being O L D. I wouldn't have made a stupid mistake like that 50 or so years ago!

Overall, while it was fun playing with LMDE, and I would have liked it if the Live Persistent LMDE drive had continued to boot on the Surface, when I did at last get ORDINARY Mint Cinnamon at least booting on the other surface, it looks and works nicely except for the on-screen keyboard problem.
So if I can manage to make a Persistent Mint Cinnamon Live flash drive THAT will sort out the On Screen keyboard thing.
And if the other Surface tablet shows the same longer battery life and cooler running, I will have all the benefits of Kubuntu, PLUS a longer battery life.
Which will make it an absolutely beautiful Tablet OS.

I'll keep working on it.
And I will try making a Persistent Live Mint 21.2 Xfce as well - just to see if that works. One way or another I want Mint on these things . .

[rossdv8]

At last, I have a Persistent Live Boot Flashdrive that runs Mint 21.2 Cinnamon on the Surface Pro 3.
I am not game to try LMDE again after making a successful Live Kubuntu, and a Live LMDE that apparently killed my main computer, then a Live Mint Cinnamon that worked. I won;t say there was anything 'wrong' with LMDE, but since it worked a few times and died - but I am using exactly the same flashdrive again now and it is running Cinnamon without any apparent dramas - I am just not sure.

So anyway - Mint Cinnamon is on a Persistent Live bootable Flasgdrive on a Surface Pro 3 !
That means when I save settings and shut down - when I Boot next time, everything I changes (like putting the Mint Menu icon on the 'CORRECT' side of the screen (because most of the world population is STILL Right Handed) and move the Panel to the top, it now stays where I put it.

While I prefer Kubunbtu because it is just so much nicer (arguably 'Better') to use than Cinnamon, I like Cinnamon's looks and the way it is so refined.
In Kubuntu on a Tablet for example I still can't make the Display auto - rotate when I turn from Landscape to Portrait, so I have to add a Display icon to the Panel and do it manually.

Cinnamon on the other hand has a slider in the settings to disable teh 'Lock' on screen rotation, and when I change orientation - the display follows.

Kubuntu wins in the way it handles the on board or virtual keyboard though. It just works as it should. Cinnamon's 'Virtual Keyboard' si virtually useless, but fortunately 'Onboard' is in the Apps on the Menu, and once it is configured it is fine.
Ther are a few jagged edges in the way Cinnamon does things as far as Touch operation withou the physical keyboard attached - but it is certainly getting there.

If anyone is interested in using a Microsoft Surface Pro I would recommend following this guide:
https://www.howtogeek.com/14912/create- ... ash-drive/
and when you get the a spot where the guide says one thing and the prompts on the screen just show something different - I think it was just before the File Selection opens up, but it might be after - just PRESS the Buttom that says 'Use defaults'.
For that matter, except for the one that says something about
[x] upefi usb-pack-efi (which I HAD to use)
most of the other things from there are probably fine to click 'Use defaults'.

A WARNING !!!
It takes a long, long time to make this disk. Almost as long as installing Mint into a Hard Drive - which is sort of what it is doing into the USB flashdrive. So BE PATIENT !

There are a couple of surprises near the end. it will tell you it is ready to use and show an OK button.
When you press thast it will ask for a Password again.
Enter the Password, then press the Quit Button at each popup fromthere until you see just the termina, console.
At that point press the Enter Key and everything should close.

At that point you can remove the Flashdrive and insert it into your Surface Pro.

Another WARNING !
You should have already DISABLED UEFI in the Surface's BIOS. You will know if you have done that because the Surface's Boot Spals screen will be a prett Bright red colour . .

Mint 21.2 Cinnamon on the Surface Pro 3
Despite its apparent good intentions, realistically it only has a couple of hours left on battery and I still can't find any how to adjust the date and time to my timezone. This was at 11.35 local time (Cinnamon is just NOT intuitive) - EDIT Why doesn't 'my' Mint Cinnamon let me change the Locale Settings by a 'Right Click' on Time in the Panel?:

[rossdv8]

U P D A T E on 14 Oct 2023

Some research suggested that the Surface Pro 3 'might' work with a 256GB flashdrive in the USB slot.
I acquired a couple of them during the Amazon Prime days recently. They were Sandisk, in Japanese packaging, and shipped directly from Japan, so unlikely to be cheap imitations. They work fine 'Persistent, Live Bootable' on some other computers.

They do NOT work on the Surface Pro 3 as Persistent Live Bootable. I haven't had access to 128GB yet, but 64GB works, 256GB doesn,t - 128GB 'should'.

Just for info of anyone playing with this.

In the meantime,

Mint KDE is the 'nicest OS for 'me' to use if the keyboard is attached.
Without the keyboard, or with the keyboard folded behind the tablet, while it can be swapped manually in Display Settings to portrait mode, it works best in Landscape mode.

Mint Cinnamon on the other hand, is 'nicest for 'me' for use with NO keyboard, once 'OnBoard' is set up properly.
Cinnamon has Auto Rotation once it is enabled in the Display Settings. It changes a little less smoothly than an Android tablet, but it works fine.

The main reason for wanting to do this is to get away from all the Android 'stuff', while still having the malware 'comfort factor' (regarding mallware risks) of running Linux when accessing WiFi networks via tablet. And avoid the cost and dramas of running Windows on a public network.

Good Things:
My PIA and Nord VPN services seem to work just as they do on anything else.

BAD Things:
The Surface 3 Pro is a hungry beast. Despite Windows advertising up to 10 (sometimes more) hours of use, I find that neother Surface is getting anywhere near that, with around 4 hours being the average if WiFi is turned ON, and around 6 if WiFi and Blue teeth are turned OFF.

I was getting far less than that out of Cinnamon and Kubuntu, but I've now managed to get the things set so they almost match the Windows battery life.
It all seems to average out at between 3 and 4 hours on either Tablet as long as I don;t to crazy stuff like Videos or a lot of Bluetooth.
If I am simply typing, with no WiFi or Bluetooth, I get around 6 hours with the screen up a little brighters.

The Surface Pro 3 is a HEAVY beast, as a tablet, but pretty light when used as a 'convenient carry' notebook laptop.

[rossdv8]

Just a quick update a few months later. Well, two and a half months later.
At Christmas 2023, I currently have both the 4/64GB Surface Pro 3 (WIn 10) and the 8/256Gb Surface Pro 3 (Win 11) able to run Linux from various USB keys.

Most importantly I guess, is that they both run pretty much as if they were built for Linux - with one exception. In both cases, regardless of which Linux distro, they only get around 4 hours of battery life, regardless of the wild promises the 'Battery Monitor' might make.
That is with all the power save setting turned as low as practical, and with Bluetooth turned OFF so the thing is not constantly looking for devices. However, it is mostly with WiFi ON.
I can eke a little more time out of them with WiFi Off, but who wants to use a tablet withough Internet connection these days?
Generally when I shutdown, the battery lkevel is at ~20% and the Battery Monitor predicts another 1.3 or so hours.
I find that is a bit overestimated.

That said, 4 hours used to be a decent battery life for a laptop, and after all, it is the convenience factor that is important. I can spend a good half a working day away from a power source, then if I need to, I can plug in and get my battery topped up to full again in less than an hour. While I continue suing the thing. So there's that.

Considering the Surface Pro 3 tablets are about ten years old, and are i5 processors with a similar chip to that i5 6400T in my desktop computer, I am pretty impressed. I suppose if I had a reason to use the things all day away from home I could take both of them and justr swap the OS Flashdrive and keep working.

I have only run them on Kubuntu (5 and 6) and Mint (LMDE and Cinnamon)
While I personally prefer the Plasma Desktop and the fact that Mint always had a KDE desktop option was one of the main reasons I moved to Mint, I have found that Mint Cinnamon is the best version for running a Tablet.
First, because it is a lot more 'easily customisable' these days than it used to be, and generally because it just works. If I decide to use it in portrait mode, I simply turn the thing and Cinnamon changes screen orientation.
Now, that has to be toggled ON in the display settings - but once you fing it, it is great.
Kubuntu on the other hand has to be told (in settings) every time you change from portrait to landscape and back.

One thing that annoyed me, and I thought I had found the fix for until it started booting ON again, is that there was no 'apparent' option to boot Cinnamon with Bluetooth disabled. In Kubuntu that can be chosen in the Bluetooth Manager, from memory, it just remembered where it was on shutdown.

Also, I have been running Plasma 6 in Wayland for most of the month, and it works perfectly on the Surface 3 hardware. If Cinnamon works as well with Wayland I think it should be smooth sailing.

So that's about it.

One last thing. mkusb should be in Mint repos.
Generally using the Default settings will work, but it is worth reading the online 'step by step' in the link earlier in this post.
I have tried most common sizes of USB Flash Drive. 64GB seems to be the most successful. Sandisk seems to be the best.
If your 'Live Persistent' Flashdrive doesn't boot, try burning a 64GB one.
If your 64GB 'Live Persistent' flashdrive doesn't work - try doing each step one at a time through the tutorial.

ALSO, and this is important.
You can install Apps on the USB Flashdrive but DON"T be tempted to install flatpaks and Appimages - or more Apps than you actually need. If you use defaults you only have about 27GB of / and about 25GB of /home - for everything. I find it simpler to just burn a new Live Persistent Flashdrive with the upgraded OS, and copy my data over from the old Flashdrive - but that's just me.

However, you can, once you understand the directory structure, save files to the Windos SSD in the Surface.
You also have access to whatever is in the MicroUSB card slot on the Surface. I have 256GB MicroUSB cards in them, but I have NOT tried anything bigger . .


I hope this is useful info for anyone playing with the idea of running Mint on a Surface tablet - especially as it doesn't risk wrecking your original OS on the tablet. You just have to remember to set the tablet up to allow you to boot form the USB port (there are plenty of guides on Duckduckgo or YouTube).

Merry Christmas 2023
(Ooops - I forgot to press submit. It is now Boxing Day where I am)

[MurphCID]

Thank you for that review/report, very interesting on some interesting devices.

[rossdv8]

Just a small update.
I got the latest KDE Neon Beta 2 yesterday then an update today.'
Previously neither Kubuntu nor Neon would auto-rotate the screen when using the Surface (or other convertibles) in Tablet mode, which was a pain.

After today's update of Beta 2 (It was actually released on 25th, but only appeared on the ordinary section of Git today) - Neon 6 Beta 2 can be set to autorotate the screen.
And Plasma 6 / Wayland is working perfectly so far. So it looks like two 'good' candidates for running a Surface Pro under Linux.

Mint Cinnamon - because as much as I have liked KDE since my Mandrake and early Mint days, I still think Cinnamon would suit more people on a Tablet.

And KDE Neon 6 with Plasma 6, which should be out in February.

If Cinnamon works as well with Wayland, as Neon does so far - that's also a good sign for the future of Mint because there are quite a lot of 'convertible' Tablet/Laptop computers out there.

[xinu]

Just looking at the images looks like: Depression.

[rossdv8]

oops

[rossdv8]

Just looking at the images looks like: Depression.

Cinnamon isn't really all that bad. And there are other options.

As far as a Linux OS for a 'Tablet' or a convertible Laptop like a Yoda (and I think HP does a Spectre or something that can be used in Tablet mode) though, Mint Cinnamon is easy to set up and nice enough to use, and it is smooth and fast.

Of course there's no reason not to keep your Surface Tablet on Windows if you prefer it. Mine both have Windows and I just run Linux off USB.
I wrote this for people who use Mint or Linux generally and who have a Surface Pro lying around doing nothing, and who wondered if it would work . .

[kevin02594]

I just installed 21.3 on a 250g SSD Ms surface pro 3. It's functional as is, but I intend on putting Linux surface kernel in to activate other features. I'm lacking camera control but the front and rear cams are installed and we're accessed on a test I performed. I also need autorotate to work.

If you see this, don't give up. I got mine for $180 in mint condition on swappa. Bluetooth cover keyboard (aftermarket) works as well.