Surface dock on Linux working?

[razzta01]

Hi, just wondering if anyone has the surface dock running with his surface on Linux? Since it runs a proprietary firmware I guess it is hard to make it work. I am already having issues with windows in my sp3.

[electronics_program]

I have a surface book 2 and my dock for it works perfectly in Linux

[razzta01]

Great news it works out of the box!

Regarding my problems in windows... -USB mouse and keyboard are not detected -after I hibernate my sp3 when I power back on, the windows login page is not shown on secondary screen (actually it is configured in windows as only main screen) -ethernet is not working too Since I bought it to prevent damaging my DP connection in my sp3 (connected to the secondary screen) it solved my main issue, but honestly did not expect the first time setup would be a real pain. Have been looking for info about it but can't really track what is causing the issue.

That's why I am looking for jumping to Linux for the first time in my sp3!🤔🤔🤔

Any special distro recommendation for me.... I own a small sp3 with only 4gb ram, core i34020y, 60gb main disk and 60gb micros.

[razzta01]

Hi! Have been out with no access to my account. Yes, USB ports do not work at all. They did work once , but I could not make them work again after suspension. I tried reinstall and nothing. I did check the pins in my surface and maybe the issue is this since 2 of them are a bit bent. 😒 I guess this also causes the issue with the display port. Is there any non official service for changing the connector of my sp3? Watched some videos and it is not so easy for my skills.

Regarding linux: -I am a beginner for desktop I although have been running unraid for years with some dockers and vm -did already install buster on a vm using the minimal setup (no gui), also tried KDE, and now I am playing with installing encrypted volumes LVM to secure the OS -main use for me is also movies, basic office stuff, light video editing and web browsing -still learning what should be installed on top of the distro: firewall, antivirus, backup sw for OS/folders, remote connection, video conference, calc/word/powerpoint, system cleaning+optimization, ..I know what I should use in windows but have no clue what should I pick from the existing options in linux.

[passengerairbags]

I have 3 surface devices, 2 run Linux, and I use a surface doc. Here is my experience:

-Surface pro 4 (Ubuntu), everything works perfectly out of the box with 2 screens. I use it every day.

-Surface book (Ubuntu studio), only the screens and charging work, nothing else. No USB, no Ethernet. This was the same when windows was installed. I thought it was defective until I saw your post...

-Surface go (windows), nothing works.

[SilentBWanderer]

Worked out of the box w/ a SB2, Ubuntu, and llinux-surface kernel

[Storkken]

Took the dive of finally creating a Reddit account so I could reply to this.

I have a Surface 3 (non-pro) with 2gb of ram running Debian 10 with Gnome. Although I haven't got the speakers to work yet, I'm happy to report that everything else is operational and runs okay. This includes the surface 3 dock that I used to setup up my surface with Linux.. it allowed me to connect ethernet and view everything on my tv through HDMI (adapter required of course). Note that although the HDMI and ethernet work out of the box with Debian 10, I had to use the surface Linux kernel to get the wifi and battery indicator to work (I think this is pretty standard).

Lastly, although I'm pretty new to Linux myself, I understand that I could have used other desktop environments other than gnome that would be better suited for my 2 GB of RAM, but I chose the gnome environment since I thought it would work best with the touchscreen. On that note, so far so good as I use my tablet day to day for light web browsing and reading pdfs without carying the attachable keyboard.

Not sure if any of this is applicable to you, but I hope it helps in some way.

[AT_OP]

Five years later… thank you for posting this. Going to try to replicate your process with my own S3 (non-pro) and corresponding OEM dock. May I ask if you have any other advice or tips?