I'd love to get one of these, but I simply cannot fathom investing in hardware on which Linux will not run. I suppose it would work in a VM, but .. really .. what a pity that its so locked down and unworkable to change ones OS in this day and age. Register this one protest non-buy, fwiw ..
I bet the type cover 3 works with the same patch for the covers 2. The only big issue I have with Linux in my Pro 2 is WiFi. I compile from time to time a wireless-testing branch of the kernel to find the most stable build. Also I have a very small WiFi dongle for when the internal one stops working. I hope the Pro 3 WiFi is not as problematic.
Also I'm working in my spare time in a bunch of scripts to imporove the surface experience (touch gestures, palm rejection, sound feedback for touch cover, etc). I'll upload them to github soon.
Great to know you're working on such things - if I didn't have a deep-seated mistrust of MS in general, I'd probably be a bit more willing to deal with some of these issues myself, but I'm also willing to admit that my prejudice is preventing me from checking out what looks to be some sweet, sweet hardware.
Apparently it's really easy to install Ubuntu [1] on a Surface Pro 3.
"...you’ll find that most things work out of the box. WiFi works, but only 2.4GHz networks can be detected. The touchpad on the Type Cover works, but the keyboard does not. You’ll need to activate the virtual keyboard in the accessibility setting to get much of anything done, and Ubuntu’s virtual keyboard is lacking in desirable features. There are some third party alternatives you can install, but the initial experience here will likely have you scrambling for a USB keyboard.
The pen works as a pointer and as a left-click when you press down, but because Bluetooth does not work out of the box you lose the buttons on the pen."
That's a big improvement, then. The original Surface Pro was awful, with serious problems [1] in the mwifiex driver. I also found its wireless support was unstable when bluetooth was also in use, even in Windows 8, which was the final deal breaker for me.
I would recommend waiting on adopting any Surface devices until there is general acclaim that they got the hardware right, beyond a reviewer who just used it for a few days then rushed to press.
Ah well that is a relief .. as long as we can boot it without having to go through arcane enchantment, we can fix all of that. I wonder why MS decided not to implement the Type Cover keyboard as a standard USB device, seems pretty weird to me, but then again maybe they've created a new accessory market for themselves, yet again ..
Good to know Ubuntu at least boots on the thing and you can get on a network. I guess it'll be a matter of a small amount of time before the rest of the device works. When that happens, I'll seriously consider getting one ..
