Awesome, best of both worlds! Have fun!

Yes, I have a surface pro5, I have been installing iterations of linux on this thing for the better part of 3 years now. Custom kernels, drivers, a pain, a real pain.

Until i came across aurora. Holy shit, I installed it and poof, all the efort of custom kernels, matching drivers just evaporated, I know I sound like one of those nuts that found a distro that he thinks is good, but I swear for the surface pro, this distro works excellently and I have tried ALL OF THEM.

Just know that you are saying goodbye to your cameras. Below I have linked the aurora ISO, the aurora install guide for surface and the linux-surface initiative, in case you strike out with aurora. Best of luck and if you have questions feel free to PM me.

https://dl.getaurora.dev/aurora-dx-hwe-latest.iso

https://docs.getaurora.dev/guides/surface-install-guide/

https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface

Mwahahhahaaaa!

I’m running aurora on a surface pro5 for ages, the thing works like a charm out of the box.

Knoppix circa 2004-2005, It was in a cd that came from chip.de. I had no clue what linux was back then. I know even less now.

I wont reply point by point because others have already done a fantastic job at that.

Install virtualbox, get some linux images from mint, bazzite or what ever other distro you might want or was recomended and install them as VMs in windows.

Set up a list of things in 3 tiers:

• must have functionalities/workflows (crucial functionality)
• nice to have (important to have)
• optional (can live without)

Then in the installed VMs, test out this list, something like “can I change the volume per app, can I change the audio device per app” or what ever is important to you, according to your list.

This way you can test out if its for you or not, you wouldn’t even have to leave windows for it.

One thing regarding gaming, as I game quite a bit too - games with intrusive anticheats dont work, most of everything else works with steam proton. Check potondb.com for your games, you will see what works and what not.

There are many meta-packages you can install. Im on arch for years, it works well as long as you dont constantly tinker with it.

I usually set up an arch install with the desktop environment and some basic setup where I can use it for my needs, then I use clonezilla to make a mirror of the install. Once a month I update the mirror by itself. In case I bork my main install, I use the mirror to rewrite my main system, no need to reinstall. I guess having a cheap 500gb ssd around pays for iself in this usecase.

My gaming rig is on arch because i need the aur. I use my gaming rig for a bit of development too, dependencies are super easy on arch.

All my laptops, work and personal, run fedora kde because its rock solid and has the best “just works” features while still being a technical distro.

My servers are either alpine because its lightweight and easy to harden, debian for the stability and minimalism. I do have a few arch servers, but those are for testing and they get spun up, do the work they need and then killed.

DietPi for my raspberry because its debian based and has a plethora of automations to do what ever you like with your raspberry. Works on desktop too, well.

Lastly, mint, on my surface pro 5, because it is my obe device that is meant to just browse and be a portal into the internet or to play some movie or something while we are out for vacations or stuff like that.

There are many other distros that I like and use, but I use these the most. I love how each linux distro has its stregths and weaknesses, each their own usecase, you get to finetune what you need to make your life easier.

Those are terribly run enterprises. I work for a giant multinational that is widely considered to be obsolete tech-wise … I’m on fedora 42 on my work laptop. The team responsible for vetting, security and customising the deployment was ready day one.

Its 3-4 people catering for the ~2-3000 users that use the os internally.

I get the need for stability and repeatability in enterprise. I’m a sysadmin for more than 20 years. That 3 year timeline could maybe move up a bit, even windows deployments are more or less up to date. Why would’t linux be?

Lastly, the more resistance to wayland, the longer it will take for it to reach a level of polish to where even you would aprove of.

When the switch became inevitable (distros defaulting, dropping x11), I installed it, lived with its crappy issues back then, reported said issues and moved on with my day.

Edit: I will say, one thing I still hate about wayland is the sleep behaviour. The 2 x11 systems I still use work well for this, none of my wayland systems want to wake up from sleep nicely.

I will never understand what is rough. Ive been using fedora kde for what … 2-3 years now? More?

2 years ago there were some issues with nvidia, but that is fixed now mostly.

I use it for work, there is an ocasional hiccup, that gets fixed next reboot, something like a terminal not resizing just right but … thats it?

People dont like change man, in the day and age when tech changes at breakneck speed, people dont like change

As a former sysadmin, there is plenty of logic in saying that. I have debugged countless systems that were using systemd, yet somehow the openrc ones just chug along. In the server space systemd is a travesty.

In the desktop space however, i much prefer systemd. Dev environments as well. So yes thst is where “it’s fine”. More than fine, needed!

I just hate this black and white view of the world, I cant stand it. Everything has its place, on servers you want as small a software footprint as possible, on desktop you want compatibility.

This right here is why i moved to a single display setup.