data1701d

Debian Stable - yes.

Debian Testing or Sid - 😈

I can't wait to see what they can do, considering what System76 did with just GNOME.

I don't think anything's going to pry me from XFCE, though, except maybe if 4.20 hasn't made much progress on Wayland.

Yeh. To get the cameras working, you have to do some janky stuff with v4l2loopback. When I went to replace my aging Surface Go, I got a Thinkpad and haven't had to deal with much (other than switching to the Debian 12 backports kernel for the Wi-Fi driver, as I chose to use stable on that laptop because I don't want to have to debug it on the go).

Of course, I was running Debian Testing with XFCE4, so it may be something odd in that combination.

The iPhone does that too, but has a way to disable it on a per-network basis.

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?

Building a custom Buildroot Linux for a Pentium 2 laptop that can fit on a CD so I could back up a 2.5" IDE drive to a USB drive, probably.

On another note, last night, I had to get a Google TV set up on my dorm Wi-Fi, which requires me to either go through a portal to set it up or to go into my account and add the device's MAC address. The TV (which was brand new and doing OOBE stuff) wouldn't let me go to settings to get the MAC address without a network connection. Even more infuriating, there was a button in the Google Home app that said "Show MAC address", but when I pushed it, it would say "Can't get MAC address." What I ended up doing to get around that crap was setting up my Debian Thinkpad (which I am writing from now) to share its internet connection over ethernet to finish the setup process so I could get to settings and get the MAC address.

On one hand, a funny experience, but on the other hand, I'm simultaneously both mad at Google and my dorm internet provider.

I was always interested in computer programming, and was doing so much in WSL and several VMs that I installed Cygwin. I was then like, “What the heck! If I want a Unix terminal, I might as well use Linux.”

With 48 MB, you can, though. That’s what I booted 5.17 on a Pentium II with once to get a basic busybox terminal. I think I did an experiment once with qemu and found the minimum to be somewhere in the high 30s or low 40s.

For one, AI datasets often break copyright law, frequently appropriating from artists. Executives are also trying to use it to eliminate the jobs of artists, and I feel it’s wrong to try and obsolete something people love doing.

In addition, they take a lot of power, not helping in the way of the needed changes to follow climate goals.

Also, the use of AI-generated images on their website.

I compiled a minimal custom Buildroot once for a Pentium II to do some backups with USB support. Kerbel 5.17.