Linux for an x86 Tablet

[@MarkTheMorose]

Linux Mint triumphs once again. Recalling my earliest attempts at using Linux in the late 1990s, it's amazing how far it has improved, how much easier it is to install, and the wide array of hardware it works with, and on. Oh, and hello Nigel.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings! Nigel says "hi". :)

[@rastamouse7861]

Spoiler alert! Lol

[@encycl07pedia-]

Linux Mint is, IMO, the best Linux OS overall. It's great for transitioning users. The only reason more of my PCs use Debian is because I wanted to install Xorg and a WM/DE myself (dwm). Unfortunately Linux Mint doesn't offer you the option of downloading a GUI-free version and none of the GUIs/DEs are dwm.

[@tacokoneko]

well the way it looks to me, the real deciding factor here is choosing the best desktop environment for the device, because that provides the whole UI
but it's true that the cinnamon DE is default on Linux Mint so it's convenient

[@worldhello1234]

Linux Mint is kinda bloated and if you prefer bleeding edge software Manjaro is the better option on the tablet. It might have been a problem with the version of that software.

[@PeterJasper]

Great experiment. It would appear that Linux Mint has had more development (including Onboard) and support than the other distros... we all like Linux Mint.💻

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

I hate Linux mint! I love Arch Linux with KDE Plasma!

[@gigachad141]

​@Bob-of-Zoid why do you hate linux mint?

[@Techmagus76]

Thx Chris, what looks so easy and quick on the video is typically an awful lot of work to dig through all the possibilities. So very appreciated.
Even in an unexpected area the team behind mint show again their love to details in the user experience out of the box, which makes it quite a unique jewel under all the distros.

[@skipinkoreaable]

He's such a low-key humble guy, but if you think about all the work and study behind all these videos it boggles the mind. This channel is a treasure.

[@boink800]

Yet another great side of Linux Mint -- one of the few Linux distro's which concentrate mostly on the desktop. I have Mint running on a Dell desktop from 2011, using Cinnamon -- it's works quite well, most of the time.

[@JCO2002]

Same here - running Mint 20.2 with Cinnamon on an old Dell Optiplex 780. I really never have any problems with it. Have Mint 18 dual boot with M$ on my Lenovo laptop - the thing only works properly with Mint - can't even connect the WiFi when it's booted into Windows 8.1.

[@boink800]

@@JCO2002 The new Mint was released today.

[@JCO2002]

@@boink800 Thanks. I'm not having problems with 20.2 so will stick with that for now. I do update the kernel once a month, though.

[@andremagalhaes664]

I use Mint XFCE, more snappier and responsive on old machines than cinnamon.

[@encycl07pedia-]

"one of the few Linux distro's which concentrate mostly on the desktop."
What? Don't most distros* concentrate on the desktop?

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

It's nice to see that there's a few good options out there for mobile Linux distros and that Manjaro and Linux Mint run well on that Surface! This could help bring disused tablets back from the dead. I know I'll make some attempt to put a distro on one of my old Android tablets... well, one day. ;)

[@shamrock1961]

Recently I read an article about how Lunux developers want to scrap i386 machines in favor of 64 bit machines. That will limit what distros will be available in the very near future.

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

@@shamrock1961 That doesn't sound good... 😧

[@TheOleHermit]

Say, weren't you a real hoopie guy, back in your heyday, or was that Zaphod?
"Share and enjoy..."😎

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

@@TheOleHermit I sure was and so was Zaphod. 😅

[@Tailslol]

On those machine i tend to install android x86 or chrome os.

[@josephkelly4893]

It's a great way to bring older devices back to life. Saving ewaste, love your work Chris.

[@NomadicSage]

Now I realized why Chris loves Linux Mint so much, it just so reliable.

[@ExplainingComputers]

:)

[@Reaper4367]

Mint has not ever let me down.
Go Linux!
Cheers for sharing Christopher.

[@getnpayd1964]

Thank you, Chris. I needed this review because I am attempting to select a distro for my 2012 Fujitsu Q584 x86 tablet, with no success. The discovery of the onboard keyboard is absolutely a game changer, for me. Thank you for taking the time to share your research and results.

[@ChrisM243]

Interesting to see that Mint works well on a tablet. I really wish more ressources would go into the mobile distros for ARM to get permanent updates for our mobile phones.
Also sad to see that distros like Plasma mobile still just work on the Pinephone. I'd be really interested to see what it could achieve on a way more powerful SoC like a Snapdragon 855 or newer.

[@worldhello1234]

If they create a Linux mobile distro based on AOSP and device source code, that would make it a lot easier.

[@protocetid]

How would a Linux distro built off AOSP be any different from another OS based on the same thing? After reading what I can about mobile Linux that isn’t full of technical/programming jargon, I get the impression that mobile Linux was based of desktop Linux for practical and philosophical reasons. Mobile Linux seeks to have the OS seamlessly transition from mobile to desktop GUI and vice versa as the user needs it.
Android can’t natively run desktop Linux apps, hence the practicality of basing it off desktop Linux. AFAIK mobile Linux is somewhat tied with the open hardware movement, I think some mobile Linux developers want to create something for open hardware like Pine64’s. Using AOSP benefits (and depends?) on Google. I’m sure there are more reasons and I could be mistaken about the last one, again I’m just an end user.
ChrisM243 normal ARM mobile devices make it impossible or very hard to create an OS that isn’t AOSP. Pine64 themselves said that their products are also a statement of what a company has to do to make something that’s (almost) 100% open in the mobile industry.

[@flexsite]

I took the opportunity to put Linux Mint on a Lenovo Ideapad 530s as it was not compatible with Windows 11, and I have been pleasantly surprised at just how well it has worked out of the box; knowing that I could put the same distro on something like a Surface really opens up the options I have. Thanks for doing this video.

[@gordonreeder3451]

What are the specs on that Ideapad?

[@flexsite]

@@gordonreeder3451 530s 14arr 8gb ram AMD Ryzen 3 2200u

[@MartijnBraam]

Hello, postmarketOS developer here. postmarketOS definetly does support x86 and x86_64. For a device like this there's even a generic x86 target to get it running :)

[@RFLCPTR]

issue is you have to create the image yourself

[@guerrillaradio9953]

Martijn, sounds good. I have a rugged military tablet I'm trying to repurpose due to it's need to be used outside, etc, and the fact it only uses 9w for the entire device with the daylight readable screen at full brightness.
Because it meets those needs so well, I'd like to simply install the lightest distro I can find, but it's only a 32 bit, 1.2ghz Core Duo (NOT Core 2). It does, however, have 4gb of RAM and a modern 128gb SATA SSD. It runs windows 7 very fast, but when I tried Kali 32 bit on a pretty lean install, it's pig slow!
How do you feel your distro would compare with Kali 32 bit in speed in my use case?
Thanks for any help.
Tyler.

[@YoutubeWatcher264]

Hello, how about Xiaomi Mi Pad 2? Processor is Atom X5. It can run Windows 10 but newer versions are extremely laggy.

[@chromerims]

Master Chris, You are a trailblazing Linux advocate. Thank you for each and all of wondrous videos.👍

[@ExplainingComputers]

My pleasure!

[@EliasOda]

Linux Mint DE5 is my daily driver. Linux always impresses me.

[@alerey4363]

Excellent finding! After trial & error of course, but that's the spirit and you managed to have a fully native productive and nice looking Linux distro with the elusive virtual keyboard.👏

[@GCAT01Living]

How crazy that Mint works on a touch screen! I daily drive Mint on 3 of my 4 computers (two desktops and a laptop) but have always wanted it on my excessively under-powered 2in1. Very excited to see that this works!

[@RetroGameStream]

This was a particularly interesting video to me. A few months ago I inherited a somewhat low powered all-in-one hp pavilion computer, basically a giant, heavy, x86 tablet. I wanted to make a kiosk computer to control Spotify and other things.
The paths we took to find a good distro were almost identical. I had to watch to the very end to make sure the comment I was about to write wouldn't be something you were about to do.
In the end I settled on Linux Mint. Still works nicely as a cumbersome kiosk in my kitchen.

[@STONE69_]

Those Pavilions are better than any of the crap they make today ... light and thin equals crap that breaks down easily and often.

[@RetroGameStream]

@@STONE69_ oh yeah, the thing is a tank.

[@MarcusPHagen]

Once again, a timely & well-researched topic. I'll have to dig out my older x86 tablet to see if replacing an obsolete Windows OS can make it useful once more!

[@gamerlowgraphics]

Amazing experiment! Might be a good linux otg alternative, because currently i just remote linux server with my phone, serve me well so far 😃

[@DiegoASanchez]

Once again your content becomes the reference. Thanks

[@fattomandeibu]

Very interesting. My dad's tablet long ago run out of space due to Windows update eating the eMMC, and with Windows not allowing updates to be installed to the much larger SD card, this could be the solution I'm looking for.
Very useful.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, there are a lot of x86 tablets out there no longer ableto take Windows updates.

[@fattomandeibu]

@Tony Interesting, I think my dad's is a Chuwi, too. Hopefully the battery will work.
My dad's elderly and used it for reading in bed until looping Windows update attempts(it attempts to install updates, gives an out of space error and shuts down again) made it unusable.

[@andrekz9138]

That's the most exciting thing about old hardware, in my opinion. They evolve into test rigs for experiments you wouldn't try on your main system 😝

[@ExplainingComputers]

@@andrekz9138 Very true.

[@fattomandeibu]

@@andrekz9138 Most of mine end up as hand-me-downs to family and friends who don't need as powerful a computer as I do. I do most of my experimentation on Raspberry Pis or a spare hard disk(I disable my NVMe socket in the BIOS, so as not to accidentally break my Windows install) these days.

[@johncundiff7075]

Mint has been my "go to" for quite a while!!!

[@ozguncivelekoglu6060]

I had a surface pro 3 that I was experimenting various distros and DEs with. What worked the best for me was Fedora. Everything worked spectacularly out of the box. The touch and trackpad gestures were great (Wayland) and Gnome 40+ was incredible with its tablet friendly UI. I do miss that setup

[@protocetid]

A proper mobile Linux distro would have the ability to seamlessly transition from mobile to desktop UI, and ideally it would come with a full suite of apps for both modes. Would trounce ARM mobile devices IMO, it’s why it pains me how undeveloped mobile Linux remains.

[@perrymcclusky4695]

I was a bit surprised that you found your options so limited. Linux Mint once again makes an impressive performance. Looking forward to your next video!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings Perry.

[@perrymcclusky4695]

@@ExplainingComputers Wishing you a successful and satisfying week!

[@stephendavidrathburn8952]

Absolutely awesome!!!! Thanks so much. Dual booting on a tablet!!!! Who woulda thunk?????

[@crism8868]

13:07 the typist theme is meant to practice touch typing (typing with all four fingers). The color coding helps memorizing which row of keys is reached by which finger (q,a,z for the left pinkie etc.)
Fascinating video btw! Didn't expect Mint to fare so we'll since Cinnamon is not the first DE that would come to mind when thinking of touch friendly DEs. On impression alone Gnome would seem a better choice. But then again impressions can be deceiving.

[@RaduTek]

It's good to install the linux-surface kernel to get the best support for touch input and power management. On newer ones it's also required to get proper keyboard and touchpad support

[@PeterDempsey-yarglags]

I installed Ubuntu on a surface book 2 with the surface kernel. I always had the keyboard attached so I never tried out the on-screen keyboard. The cameras were not supported, I wonder if they are supported with mint.

[@9hundred67]

@@PeterDempsey-yarglags yeah i would also like to know this about the cameras......

[@chubbymoth5810]

Mint by far has the best UI in Linux and has been developed upon for quite some time, always working from the same concept. I am pleasantly surpised it has good support for tablets as my Galaxy Book is screaming at me to ditch windoze.

[@kg4foo]

I enjoyed your video. I watched it on a M$ Surface Go2 that had been dual boot for about a year. Win10 broke though and complained about not being online. Instead of fixing it I just formatted the whole drive to ext4 and have just linux Mint now. Life is too short for windows 10. So on the rare occasion that windows is needed I'll just run it in a gnome box. Gnome box also works as a VNC viewer for adminstering to a RSpi or whatever if you don't need to move files around.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Great to hear! :)

[@rv6amark]

Very good, Christopher! I am adapting very nicely to Linux Mint Cinnamon that I recently installed on an old HP Duo Core based laptop, so I kept thinking I might try installing it on an Atom based tablet that currently runs Win10 very slowly. Time will tell. You have nudged me closer to giving it a go! Oh my. so many old computers, so little time!

[@PaulaXism]

Might want to have a look at Anti-X releases.. I rolled my own for a Samsung atom powered little netbook and it's a star

[@RogerioPereiradaSilva77]

You probably want to look at proper lightweight distros as the regular ones are far too demanding for those poor Atom processors. They actually run but the experience is not great. XFCE seems to be the breaking point for these machines. MK Linux has a decent and very light XFCE implementation but for an Atom machine, I'd suggest something like its cousin AntiX or Puppy that really fly on these machines and can bring them back to life.

[@adamcottrill2575]

Thanks Chris, you accel at this type of content and it's nice to see you mix it up and show all the steps and debugging.

[@JoseLopez-oz1xm]

That was a great video Chris, I like that you gave the other OSs the benefits of the dought.

[@trevorford8332]

You can't beat linux mint, it's versatile runs on anything. 😊

[@another3997]

It's not a particularly lightweight distro, so running it on old, low powered hardware isn't a great experience... even using the supposedly lightweight version. It brings my old Netbooks to their knees, so now I run Q4OS or Bionic Puppy on them and they fly. However, Mint does seem to be pretty stable.

[@nathanmead140]

@@another3997 the oldest PC I have ran Linux mint on is my dell latitude E6510 (a 2010 business laptop and the fist laptop I owned) before it got upgraded to a quad core CPU and it ran mint very well with a dual core i5 540m 512MB nvidia NVS 3100m and 8 GigaBytes of RAM, it was very slow when booting from a 40GB 5400RPM HDD (would take up to 3 minutes) but after I got a SSD it booted in 15 seconds or less.

[@PinakiGupta82Appu]

I wasn't aware of such capabilities of Linux Mint. However, one thing I noticed was how you used the Advanced Startup Options under Windows 10 as the boot selector on an unsupported device where dual booting with GRUB2 is not even possible. Very creative idea. Hats off to you!

[@Antti_Nannimus]

You have given us another very useful and interesting video, Dr. Barnatt. Thanks to you, I was able to install the excellent Onboard virtual keyboard on my 7" touch-screen Raspberry Pi 3+ (Raspberry Pi OS) using the Synaptic Software Manager application. It works quite well, and almost obviates the need for a hardware keyboard. It's too early to say that with confidence yet though. Thanks again for your excellent contributions!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Great to hear of this result.

[@tcirit]

I was thinking to do for a long time, you made my choice easy, great job, thanks!

[@TheStanford01]

Love it when you press the Windows symbol to bring up Linux - great!

[@quademasters249]

I have a CF-33 Panasonic tablet. I've run Mint on it successfully.

[@SirTodd]

Very impressive, indeed. I had no idea that the mobile development area had advanced so well. I mean, it does make sense, but I hadn't thought about using Linux on a mobile much.
I'm glad to know that the options are there and that Mint is the best apparent distro, which is fine with me because Mint is a fine OS.

[@therobyouknowtv]

Further, now successful update on using Linux on a Panasonic FZ-G1 Toughpad tablet x86 PC.
I have installed Zorin OS pro and am using the macOS desktop appearance setting provided. This setting is the best so far because the onscreen keyboard does not obscure the app launch so much as to be unusable, it works well enough. Also Chrome with "Use system title bar and borders" in Chrome settings means its windows can be dragged by finger (see Gnome issue 1603 on their gitlab). Gestures - 2 finger scrolling and pinch to zoom work out of the box in Chrome. Nice looking desktop.
A triumph. Thank you Chris as I saw Zorin OS mentioned on another of your videos and checked it out. So far this is the best experience I've had with a version of Linux on this tablet PC.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this update -- I must try Zorin OS on a tablet as you say.

[@therobyouknowtv]

​@@ExplainingComputers Thank you Chris.
Some further mainly good observations.
Memory usage lower on Zorin OS Pro, compared to Windows 10 Pro 64bit on this same machine. Mint as tried a while back was also similarly lower usage. The tablet's characteristic by design intrusive mosquito sounding fan is quieter which is a welcome bonus.
Screen brightness controls not working but maybe I can see how to fix that, screen is bright enough by default, but this FZ-G1 toughpad machine has outdoor applications so can go to 800 nits. I think this was the same issue on the other distros I tried.
Undervolting opportunity: I'm going to look into undervolting the CPU in both Linux and Windows OSs on this machine, aiming to lower the power usage and reduce the fan sound lower if I can. It's a software setting so I understand, provided by CPU-Z app for Windows and a github repo based tool for Linux. Maybe a topic for you to cover at some point. Even without undervolting, battery is reporting over 10 hours of available power in Zorin, way more than Windows does, wondering how accurate that might be!
I'm hoping to stick with Zorin OS Pro as am well pleased with it owing to it working very well with minimal UX oversights. That said I think Ubuntu 22.04 which I installed on this tablet previously also worked well and the "Use system title bar and borders" in Chrome would make it closer behind Zorin UX-wise.
I also tried Mint as per previous comment shows my experience on this tablet. And ElementaryOS which was disappointing as the actual gestures mismatched what the settings on them said as in number of fingers and different types of gestures as well as some breadcrumb navigation issues. I'll try to raise bugs on the respective distros as if they don't know, they can't fix it, or if more people raise the same issue it can help with priority. I'm pleased to reward Zorin OS Pro by paying for it as they've done a great job and they among others are putting back into the community.

[@DallasMike424]

Nice, as always. I never fail to be interested in your presentations.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks. :)

[@patrickwatchorn2627]

This was my favourite EC video to date. I am messing around with a Dell Venue 11 pro from 2014 and running Linux on it. I have been on Gnome DE and now I’m thinking I’d going for a Linuxmint !!

[@chriholt]

Very impressive experiment!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thank Chris. :)

[@ronkemperful]

Really glad that you showed us the tricks and potential drawbacks of various Linux distributions. With your inspiration I think that I’ll try Mint on my 2017 Atom tablet. Unfortunately it has just 64mb of built in storage so single booting seems to be the best option. Thanks!

[@ariel_chess]

mb?

[@SilverFoxww]

Thank you. I've never considered Linux Mint as a tablet OS. But now I know what I'm going to install on my Lenovo Duet tablet. Thanks again.

[@seguramlk]

Awesome, Chris 👍

[@JeSuisUnePatate]

Very interesting options for those older Surface tablets ! Thanks for your experiments.

[@grayfool]

This is a very interesting video for me as I have been looking at putting Linux on and old Dell touch screen tablet for a while now. I guess that it may be a different result as it's not the same machine as you are using but I think it's worth a look. Thanks very much David

[@sim6699]

Good surprise mint working so well.

[@snax_4820]

I tried to do the same thing with Fedora 36. It worked but it was not a pleasant experience. Will retry with Linux Mint. Thank you very much.

[@STONE69_]

Full credit to the Linux Mint people, they are doing a great job with their Distro, thats the one on use on my PCs

[@JulioSalim]

Very interesting! I’ll give a try to revive my old surface. Thanks!!!

[@alfblack2]

Excellent! Thank you good sir for the testing. I tried long long ago and failed to find a workable alternative os. I stopped my search to have things develop more. Now know alteratives that exists now.

[@aronkvh]

thanks for this video, you posted it right when I found and old Windows 8 2in1

[@owendavidmalicsi5900]

I think linux on touch devices is only going to get better, since both GNOME and elementaryOS, which are both UX-centric distros took interest in responsive mobile design for applications

[@sgodsellify]

Fedora is a good distro that supports x86 devices, as well as ARM devices.

[@dovahshy15]

And Purism with their PureOS as well

[@anurasenarathna1703]

Good experiment. Thank you

[@kriskruz3792]

Just the video I was looking for! Many thanks for uploading..

[@BharatMohanty]

Greetings sir....This is interesting..I would love to see more of these kinds of videos....{ Including sbc ofcourse :) }

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks -- and noted!

[@Oharafolk]

Ohh thanks so much, love this experiment!!

[@skipinkoreaable]

That E C Mint distro at the end is a beautiful one. I really loved this video. You've got me pressing that Like button.

[@Abdallah_yusuf]

like always, useful tips and straight to the point. I'm glad to hear from you again thanks a million buddy

[@robertmaxa6631]

A time consuming process,to find out what works, but, your persistence paid off, and got a functioning result.

[@Vynncent]

I made a post about running Fedora on my Pro 2 on the Level1 Techs forum years ago. That said, the Pro 2 has a quirk where it may not always want to boot off a removable drive, but it can be made to do so by holding shift and clicking Restart while in Windows, click troubleshooting, then use a device, and then select the device you want to boot off of.

[@handmade_videos]

I tried Elementary OS on a x86 Tablet, the Asus t100ta. It worked. But I think a better choice is BlissOS. It‘s an Android like OS that’s worth a look. Greetings

[@SchoolforHackers]

Ah hah - I have just that tablet, and was going to ask if it’s a candidate. Thanks for saving me many hours of research! I’m off to hack that little devil -

[@handmade_videos]

@@SchoolforHackers Its a little tricky. You need to use a 32bit OS and it has to have a certain data. Look here: czcams.com/video/vG7qIPBjyzQ/video.html

[@briianhebert]

Thanks for the video! Yet another win for Linux Mint

[@srtech2205]

Thank you, Mr Barnatt! This video made me think!!! I have an older Lenovo ThinkTab 2 that runs an older Clover Trail Atom and Windows 8.1, and doesn't seem to like Windows 10! I'm sure I could "Force" it to run Win10, but I feel like it would perform poorly and/or give me problems, plus I don't really like Windows enough to try, and I have another 2 Windows 10 Tablet/Convertibles. However the tablet is nice, has a matching BT Keyboard and Active Stylus, Phenomenal Battery life, and is surprisingly lightweight for it's size! Using Linux on my SBCs Has not only helped familiarized myself with Linux, But now I prefer it over Windows! Never really thought much about that ThinkTab 2 till this video, but now I'm almost DEFINITELY gonna drop a Linux Distro on it (Prob Lubuntu) and find a use for it! Might even set it up to control my Cricut and Ender3s!

[@Datan0de]

Very useful video! I have an old tablet that's been sitting in a drawer that I'd installed Linux on a few years ago with only moderate success. This has inspired me to investigate current options, and given me some great starting points.

[@linuxrant]

I tested various Linux distros on my 2 in 1 fujitsu. In some of them, like deepin and few others in order to move windows with touch you need to turn off gestures.
Yes, I know how it sounds, but you need to try it, cos it solved the issue for me perfectly.
one of the ways is to use xinput or xsetwacom
and turn off gestures for the touch device.

[@therobyouknowtv]

Observations running Linux Mint 21 / Vanessa on Panasonic FZ-G1 MkIII Toughpad Intel i5 dual core (x86-64) 4Gb RAM Tablet PC. Overall: promising - thank you so much for the enlightenment.
The default keyboard taskbar icon needed enabling by going into System Settings -> Preferences -> Applets and ticking Keyboard. On doing that, the keyboard icon now shows on the taskbar system tray on the bottom right, near where the time etc is show.
2 modes to make on screen keyboard show - in System Settings -> Preferences -> Accessibility -> Keyboard. There is an Activation Mode setting: 2 settings: "Show the keyboard only when the user activates it" - by that I think that means by tapping the aforementioned keyboard icon on the taskbar to get the keyboard to show. The other setting "Show the keyboard anytime something expects an input" - reasonable to say self explanatory I think, it pops up when tapping to focus on any text area.
About the onboard keyboard and launcher bottom right pop-up which shows when triggered on clicking Linux Mint logo at bottom left corner or Windows button. When using the Onboard keyboard, if you start to type with it, the Launcher pop-up disappears. What needs to happen is for the launcher pop-up to stay visible while onboard is being used.
Also need to find a setting for Onboard to auto start on login / power up.
Half of default keyboard is overlapped by launcher, so half the keys aren't available, so not usable if using search in launcher. Can't select Launcher first then keyboard. Would be nice if keyboard had a snap to fit button to shrink to fit in a smaller space between other onscreen windows or the ability for its placement to be changed from bottom to right hand or top or dragged.
2 finger scrolling doesn't (yet) work with this Tablet even though setting enabled. In Mint, would be handy if a specific setting section pop up window had navigation breadcrumbs such that you could go back to the top level main settings area. E.g. For Accessibility, there is no way to get back to the main top level System Settings even though Accessibility is a sub section of it. This facility would be handy in the situation where half the keyboard being obscured prevents me from typing the letter S to find the System Settings.
Login. If keyboard is enabled in accessibility, this will be pop-up automatically. And if the Keyboard Applet has been enabled from a previous logged session in the Settings then the keyboard being visible can be toggled by tapping this icon in the top icon bar / "system tray" at login. Keyboard size proportion in settings, e.g. one third is not applied here though.
First time welcome pop up window. Can't drag this - similar choppy nudge like movement you saw on windows in Ubuntu. All other windows perfect - they work.
GRUB fine for selecting Mint or W10 on this machine.
Mint resource usage very good it seems compared to Windows 10 on same machine. Less memory. This rugged tablet has a known, by design, characteristic whiny fan, a bit like a loud mosquito. On Mint, it is noticeably quieter compared with Windows. Linux top command shows much less memory usage compare to Windows.
Among next things I will look at is to see if the built in SIM card slot with SIM added works, for mobile broadband. On later Ubuntu 20.04 revision this works perfectly so expecting same for Mint.

[@davocc2405]

That's IMMENSELY valuable indeed - I've always been skeptical of the usefulness of the devices with low end CPUs and only 4gig of ram and this would breathe new and functional life into them without having to struggle through an Android build of some sort (presuming that's an option too?). I am curious - did PopOS come to mind given its propensity to newer hardware and being a tad more adventurous on the driver front?
Makes me really want one of those tablets now indeed.

[@ExplainingComputers]

I did not think of PopOS! But others here report a positive experience on a tablet.

[@jdavilape]

Good video, i really like the jingos ui but with Linux mint compatibility 👍

[@wclifton968gameplaystutorials]

I would strongly recommend that you try PureOS which is by Purism, the company behind the Librem5 "smartphone" which runs PureOS using either the GNOME shell or "Phosh" which is the mobile-version of GNOME shell that is developed by Purism (although the GNOME project themselves are now making their own mobile UI) which I think might be worth checking out.
Also, JingOS is mainly designed for their "Jingpad" Linux-based tablet which I believe is developed using the QT Toolkit...

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this. PureOS does indeed look interesting. Thanks for the tip, I will give it is try! :)

[@TheSulross]

Hmm, beyond the crucial soft keyboard, another crucial ability is to rotate the desktop orientation when the tablet is changed from potrait to landscape viewing
would love to bring up Linux Mint on my old iPad that is no longer supported. Still works but Apple has banished it to the wilderness. But that would be a monumental challenge, alas

[@mrni6502]

Linux mint is not built for ARM based hardware

[@TimothyTocci]

Great insight - thank you.

[@renobodyrenobody]

Interesting, it opens new recycling opportunities. Thank you Chris!

[@Colin_Ames]

Interesting video, as always. I don’t own a tablet (other than an iPad), so can’t “follow along” with this, but it’s always good to know this stuff in case I happen upon an old tablet for a good price.

[@PS_Tube]

Linux on X86 tabs. Great experimental vid. Yay !!
Just got the notification for the vid !

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings!

[@ccroy2001]

This is great! I love Surface devices and don't mind Windows, in fact I prefer it, but I do know Linux very well and this could be a fun learning experience on an older Surface device.

[@yash1152]

15:01 brilliant manjaro, keep going down

[@brianwood5220]

Great video Christopher. Thanks for sharing

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings Brian.

[@jpwillm5252]

Thank you for the presentation of these distributions compatible with tablet-pc.
To move the OnBoard virtual keyboard, just grab the four arrows icon in the top right.🙂

[@ExplainingComputers]

I did try that, but could not convince the keyboard in Manjaro to move! :)

[@jpwillm5252]

@@ExplainingComputers Ah, ok 🙂

[@ExplainingComputers]

@@jpwillm5252 :)

[@zbigniewkrajewski7536]

Mint for the win again :) Thank you Chris.

[@amorfraternal3150]

Excellent. We have waited for this.

[@ArniesTech]

I really wish Linux on mobile phones was ready for use 🙏🤞

[@kevdok2541]

As always, Linux Mint showing off 😎😎😎

[@ExplainingComputers]

It has that tendency! :)

[@CCoburn3]

Great video. I have a Walmart tablet. It's not x86, but I didn't know there were ARM Linux distros for tablets. I think I will give it a try. It's no surprise that Linux Mint just works out of the box. That's why I use Mint as my distro of choice.

[@markenetube]

Love your videos, Mr Explain. Linux Mint always amazes me with its compatibility.

[@briandavies2833]

I am a great fan of Linux Mint Cinnamon. I have it on my Surface Pros 3 and 7 and dual booting with Windows 11 on my Thinkpad. I have to use Onboard with the SP3 because the type cover doesn't connect any longer and that's fine. I have several times strayed away to other distros but always returned to LM C. A solid, fast and stable, easy to use distro.

[@briandavies2833]

...and yes, I do donate from time to time. Very necessary to keep development going.

[@benjaminsmith3151]

I hope you can get it going permanently. I have one of those Surface 2 Pros on the shelf, and I'm never going to run Windows on it again. A success doing that might give me the confidence to also do so on my Surface Pro 4 which I use daily. Plenty of life left in these excellent machines!

[@CodexSan]

Mint is a very impressive distro.
It pushed a lot of almost "invisible" goodies in the last update.
Also, the Jing OS is looking promising. For something pre release.
It is sad to see that the Linux community dropped support for x86 tablets so soon.
You should also have detailed the hardware information on this little monster. I would love to know the processor. (as it appeared to be running a full fledged Windows)

[@ExplainingComputers]

Good point, I should have included the specs. The Surface 2 Pro in question has an i5-4200U, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. So very much a real x86 (64) computer.

[@CodexSan]

@@ExplainingComputers hoh so it's a full fledged 64 bits??
I really thought it was only 32. Since you had some shortcuts in your desktop area hinting to 32 bits applications.
(Windows 10 still has an x86 version.)

[@PaulaXism]

@@CodexSan The only linux I know which still has a current 32 release is Arch.. and it's only community supported...
And that is a rabbit hole I'm not venturing down.

[@CodexSan]

@@PaulaXism nope!
I'm pretty adamant that every single Linux distro still supports i386 processors.
I use Gentoo and Kali, and both still offers i386 versions.
Kali specifically, Was running a x86 (i386) variant up to 2019. (despite being paired with a first gen Ryzen)
The international space station still uses older i386 processors, for their reliability. (since it has infinitely less transistors, than modern chips, it has a lower chance to failure) they also migrated in 2013 to Linux. (for "reliability" issues, but that's hardly the whole truth) They use Debian. And, even if they use some crazy old, massively outdated LTS version, I just checked and Debian still has i386 versions of the bullseye actively supported.
But this is all beyond the point.
I wasn't questioning the support for these processors, in the desktop sphere, what I was questioning is the fact that the Linux community dropped support for x86 handheld devices, (that usually relies on touchscreen) such as tablets and phones, that used power efficient Atom processors.
Samsung had a tablet with a x86 Atom for example, the galaxy tab 3.
It's the same as phones, Canonical simply dropped Ubuntu touch.
These things makes me sad.

[@johnross8939]

​@ExplainingComputers what version of Mint 20 are you using? I just wish they would bring out an ARM based version... I have two ASUS EeeBooks I installed Zorin OS 16 on. They function pretty decently being 64 bit systems limited to 2 gb RAM.

[@davidhegeman7884]

Very nice video of a topic I wasn't expecting to see! I do want to add that in my (short) experience of owning a laptop with a touchscreen, I found that Zorin OS also has very good touch screen support. I am currently using Linux Mint on this machine though, but I would say that Zorin probably has better touchscreen support. For example, Zorin allows you to scroll on a webpage by simple swiping anywhere on the webpage, whereas on Mint you have to use the scrollbar. You can probably configure it somewhere in the settings, but I haven't seen the option yet.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this. As shown at the end of the video in Google Docs, you can swipe-to-scroll in Linux Mint (at least in Chrome).

[@ivarand]

swipe to scroll works fine on my old lenovo yoga 2 too (Mint cinnamon 20.3)

[@chico20m]

Man. Linux Mint is on fire these days.

[@englishrupe01]

Hi Chris....wonderful comparisons, many thanks. I use Onboard keyboard a lot and love it, and i have a tip: you can pull the keyboard anywhere you want with the kinda Christian cross button, second row down on the right. It took me a while to figure it out too....and when it restarts it will be in the same place as before. Thanks again.

[@martinsmith5028]

Thanks Chris, very useful

[@lsd22252]

Excellent thx Chris. I look forward to trying Linux Mint on two of my old Win 8 tablets and also an old Intel Compute Stick plugged into my 24" Philips touch monitor 🤞. Worth a try 😁.

[@remainsmemories626]

Oh yes, I am daily driving Linux mint for a couple of years, it is as awesome as it gets! The only thing missing, at least with Cinnamon (which is the best DE for mint, IMHO) is Wayland support, bit I heard that they're working on it!

[@ThomasBrisco]

Wow -- love this. I've been looking (a long time) for THE tablet I want, and I think I know what that is now. Planning to head over to e-bay and find an old x86 tablet and bring some life back to it!

[@DaleDix]

Mint seems to tick all the right boxes linux-wise when something new comes around.

[@K.F-R]

I've been kinda daily driving Mint on a Surface Pro 6 with linux-surface kernels for about a year now. Works pretty well - only missing IR camera for Howdy.

[@K.F-R]

Just to add: installed direct to ssd without any grub problems. Do keep Windows installed; you'll need to boot into it for *firmware* updates now and again. There's also the added bonuses of good hover-friendly stylus and silence (no fan) on this particular model. I'm not affiliated with the linux-surface kernel team unless donations count. Final tip: the charging kit on these older Surfaces is bloody sensitive; definitely best to stick with the MS original charger.

[@peterosy]

Everything I have tried with versions of Linux mint have just worked and fairly well at least. Even an old TV box that use to have an outdated version of Android :)