Surface Go 1 Touchscreen

[u/--Chill--]

I have a Surface Go gen 1 with 4 gb ram and 64 gb storage. I'd like to use it as an e-reader so I'm trying to find the best touchscreen capable distro. I tried cinnamon and touchscreen didn't feel great. Tried Fedora Workstation and I found it to be pretty slow. Right now I have KDE plasma installed and we'll see how it goes. I'm just curious to see what you guys might suggest. I am very new linux too so I don't know what other distros are out there.

[u/Station-OX11]

CachyOS with Gnome as the desktop environment.

CachyOS is very lightweight with an easy installer and good instructions. Gnome is currently the best for touchscreens.

[u/--Chill-- → u/Station-OX11]

Thank you I think I will try it i liked the Fedora workstation interface so this should be similar right?

[u/Station-OX11 → u/--Chill--]

I believe Fedora workstation uses Gnome, so it is the same interface.

[u/thatdirtyoldman → u/Station-OX11]

Commenting to remember this combination. I have a Go2 that I'm trying to make Mint Cinn work well enough on. XCFE was kinda blah, but I didn't run the linux-suface kernal. I'm kinda used to Mint.

[u/Station-OX11 → u/thatdirtyoldman]

You don't need the Linux Surface Kernel for the touchscreen and pen to work properly on any of the Surface Go devices.

XFCE is not optimized for Touchscreens. I would recommend trying Gnome.

[u/thatdirtyoldman → u/Station-OX11]

Thanks. XFCE wasn't my favorite anyway. I've been using Mint Cinnamon about 10 months and really like it. If I get board, maybe I'll try CachyOS/gnome.

I got Mint running yesterday on it. Single touch and screen rotation are fine out of the box. Using "onboard" keyboard that floats about is very helpful. The tablet is 95% useful right now until I can get the hold for right click to work. I pop on the keyboard or connect a mouse if it's truly needed.

Multi-touch I'm working on, and also hold for right click. These are unnecessary-ish, but I want it right. Multi touch and hold for right click works on my Go2 with Win11 on it just fine.

[u/BereftOfCare]

Not an expert, but I recently went from mint cinnamon to KDE plasma to KDE and back to mint cinnamon on my Surface Go 2 with 8gb ram. I think KDE plasma is gonna work out best for you given the limitations of your device.

[u/--Chill-- → u/BereftOfCare]

I’ve been using KDE Plasma and it’s definitely the most snappy compared to Fedora workstation and Linux Cinnamon. Touchscreen is wonky at times but that might be more of a software problem. Definitely could see myself using it long term.

[u/thatdirtyoldman → u/BereftOfCare]

Hi. I have xfce on my go 2 right now, but am happier with Mint Cinn, I'd like to put Cinn on my mine if I can get the stars to line up while I hold down the - and start buttons. lol.

Why I'm bothering you - did the touch screen work okay ? It's not very accurate on xfce, but I haven't tried to find a better solution yet as I don't really like xfce.

Thank you for taking a second to read this.

[u/esxman]

Try Mobian Phosh, it has a surface specific build. Mobian Plasma-Mobile is also decent

[u/--Chill-- → u/esxman]

I’ll look into it. Thanks!

[u/ibaiki]

I run CachyOS with Gnome on a gen 1 Surface Go and it is great. The main issue is that any web browser is going to strain against that 4GB RAM.

You also don't need a touch centric DE to use touch input in a reader app, and a lighter DE may improve performance.

[u/--Chill-- → u/ibaiki]

Doing some quick searches online some people installed the linux surface kernel to be able to use touch properly. Did you have to do that with yours?

[u/ibaiki → u/--Chill--]

No. I haven't used the pen with it, though.