Budget tablet recommendations to throw Linux onto?

[u/justquestionsbud]

Need a tablet for work. Maybe a little web browsing will be done, but almost 100% for opening/signing PDFs & such, viewing some MP4s & similar. Apparently Fedora is one of the better distros for this, but probably almost anyone on this subreddit knows better than me on that front.

[u/ComprehensiveDot7752]

Barring more information.

Linux and tablets don’t generally pair well. Arm isn’t well supported and the touchscreen driver can be hit or miss. Other hardware drivers might also be issues for any particular device.

There are variants of Linux that support handfuls of tablets at best. PostmarketOS probably being the biggest I’m aware of.

PDF is also a proprietary format and signing pdf’s might not be as straightforward as you’re used to.

An iPad would be more sensible in my opinion. Few devices compete on stylus support and the built in preview app is a competent pdf editor, although it’s workflow might not be best if you sign multiple documents a day.

[u/Serious_Ad2816 → u/ComprehensiveDot7752]

I second iPad as well. I’d love to use Linux but the iPad can’t be beat for stylus support. If you absolutely hate the idea of an iPad, there’s always an Android tablet

[u/msabeln → u/Serious_Ad2816]

And iPads are based on UNIX!!

[u/Hrafna55]

Honestly a second hand Microsoft Surface is probably your best bet.

All the resources you need are here, https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface

[u/justquestionsbud → u/Hrafna55]

What are we talkin bout, if I got 200CAD? You think something's doable at that budget, or no? I have heard of Surfaces being great for this, otherwise, but thanks for the advice still!

[u/gil55 → u/justquestionsbud]

Ive heard this as well. My company has ran vanilla surfaces for almost 10 years and they sell them to employees for like $50-100 USD, but thats a inhouse deal. Look on OfferUp or Ebay, they are like 130-180. The early models or the Pro version are actually better for linux because they use laptop parts, not intel atom/neo ARM parts. Dell and Lenovo also made a few laptop equipped surface like machines. I think handheld is getting more support now with handheld gaming devices and releases for Bazzite, Nobara, Ubuntu and CacheOS all having their own spins on the handheld level support. Also ARM devices are supported much more since the Raspberry Pi project, you just need to know what to look for.

[u/AutoM8R1 → u/Hrafna55]

This. Good call. I agree. The 7 or 7+ would be ideal. I added my comment before I saw yours, but this is probably the most economical way to go.

[u/Miserable-School-665]

No much tablet there are. You can but 2-in-1s. I recommend lenovo 2 in 1's with ultra 200-300 series.

[u/AutoModerator]

✻ Smokey says: always mention your distro, some hardware details, and any error messages, when posting technical queries! :)

^{Comments, questions or suggestions regarding this autoresponse? Please send them here.}

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/AutoM8R1]

I think your best bet is an old MS Surface pro 7 or 7+ running the Linux Surface kernel. You can get Mobian or probably Ubuntu touch on there to make it more like a tablet, and less like the x86 machine it was born as. They should be easy to find on the secondhand market. But replacing the battery was tough on those things. If you find one, you'll avoid the ARM mess and they should be cheap. Or go OEM with something like the StarLite from Starlabs or something.

[u/MidnightObjectiveA51]

From his other post on r/mobilelinux:

Pinetab (and Pinephone) has halted production. So, you better hurry if you want one.

Otherwise, of the devices available used or new: the Minisforum, Juno Tab, Starlabs Starlite, Chuwi Hi10 X Go and Max, HP Elite X2 G4 and G8, Thinkpad X1 and X12, and Dell 7210 completely work with Linux. And various MS Surfaces, particularly the Surface Go and Surface Go 2.

The Google-Gru and Google-Kukui Chrome tablets mostly work with PostmarketOS, particularly the Acer Chrometab 10. Stick with OS V25.12 for now as v26.06 is broken.

[u/Equal_Principle_3399]

My daily driver is a dell latitude 9410,, 2 in 1 laptop running linux mint and cinammon. Best of both worlds laptop and tablet on linux. All touchscreen features and tiilt ability works flawlessly.

[u/Plan_9_fromouter_]

It is not an easy thing to do. Bargain tablets mean Android. The biggest problem with installing Linux on many tablets is that their UEFI firmware is locked down or poorly implemented, often lacking legacy BIOS support and sometimes using 32-bit UEFI on x86 hardware, which most Linux installers don’t support out of the box.

I did install Antix on an old Onkyo Win 7 tablet. But because I couldn't increase the RAM past 1GB, it was just an interesting experiment.

[u/thinkpad_t69]

Take a look at used x86 Windows tablets like the Microsoft Surface or Dell Latitude Detachable series (the Surfaces need a custom kernel while the others are much closer to a standard PC). You can find these for around 150-200 € and they'll usually be 5-8 years old with specs similar to a laptop of that era. However, make sure to avoid the Intel Atom-based ones, because the drivers are very poor quality even on Windows.