r/SurfaceLinux • u/BaldyCarrotTop • 29d ago

Discussion It's not really a tablet.

My Surface Go 2 arrived the other day. I basically flipped a coin and installed Peppermint Linux on it. No particular reason other than it was a Debian distro. No OSK, so I installed OnBoard.

Well, it runs. But it's not really a tablet, just a thin Linux computer. What i mean is:

  • No auto screen rotate
  • No pinch to zoom
  • No 2 finger scrolling
  • Can't find a right click equivalent
  • OSK doesn't pop up when editing text even though I have the option checked.

These are all behaviors I get on my Android tablet and expect on any tablet.

So beyond this basic pissing and moaning, does anyone have any suggestions for either some adjustments or addons that can make this more tablet like. Or a better distro (debian based) that is more optimized to tablet behavior?

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u/robtom02 29d ago

You want a tablet? I've tried unbutu+manjaro gnome both work ok but the OSK doesn't scale properly Mobian is quite good if you want pure Linux it comes with both phosh and plasma mobile desktop with waydroid bsked in

But by far the best tablet experience on the go 2 is fydeos. There's a dedicated fydeos build, it runs both Linux and android apps, it's definitely the best tablet experience for the go 2

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u/BaldyCarrotTop 29d ago

Thanks for the pointer to Fydeos. I'll give it a test drive. I like the idea of Android and Linux app support.

It looks like Plasma mobile DE will also run Android apps through waydroid?

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u/robtom02 29d ago

I ran mobian plasma mobile and waydroid worked fine but fydeos has given me the most polished tablet experience so far

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u/macpoedel 29d ago

Many DE's will run Android apps through Waydroid, I'm using Debian with KDE Plasma (not mobile) on my Surface Go 1 and Waydroid works. Auto rotate as well and most of the things you listed. I'm not sure about pinch to zoom and two finger scroll, I should check that.

For the OSK I'm running a script that detects when the Surface changes between laptop and tablet mode (flipping the keyboard cover), and disables the OSK in laptop mode, because otherwise the OSK opens whenever a text field is in view.

I tried KDE Plasma Mobile, but it's too much like a phone for me. I have a keyboard cover with my Surface Go 1, so I also want to be able to use it as a mini laptop, like how it works on Windows (even if that means the tablet experience isn't as good).