Hi! There’s no Surface on Linux Lemmy community (yet), but I didn’t feel like asking on reddit, so I thought that this community is my best bet.

I was thinking about getting a surface go, since I really like the form factor and have fond memories of my old Surface Pro 3 in Uni.

Now, there’s a deal going on, where they’re selling the tablet for under 300€, but it’s the low-spec one with 4GB RAM and the weakest processor. I was wondering if I would be doing myself a favor by getting a tablet with these low-end specs.

My usecases would be: Note taking with rnote/xournalpp, surfing, reading, youtube and maybe some light coding.

A FOSS system with encrypted home directory is essential for me, which is why I’m not even considering Android/Apple tablets.

I think I’d give Fedora Silverblue a shot, because Gnome is supposedly great for tablets and it seems more stable to fuck-ups. But maybe the meager storage space (64GB) makes this infeasible

Do any of you have any experiences with these low specs? Or even with a Surface Go 2 in 2023 daily use?

  • Strit
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    57 months ago

    Not x86_64 based, but the PineTab2 and PineTab-V are 2 alternatives. The PineTab2 is aarch64 (ARM) based while the PineTab-V is, you guessed it, RISC-V based.

    Both 8 GB RAM versions go for about $210 on their website.

    • @Prunebutt@feddit.deOP
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      57 months ago

      Unfortunately, those don’t support a stylus. Although I love seeing a RISC-V tablet (although I wouldn’t be able to use it, since I’m not a kernel developer ;)

      • Strit
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        67 months ago

        No worries. Just wanted to throw some alternatives your way, since I think €300 is a steep price for a 4 GB RAM tablet with no upgrade option. :) PS: Didn’t know stylus support was a thing. TIL about EMR.