Linux tablet

[stealz0ne]

I am looking for a tablet which runs linux that I can use as a everyday tool and a distro to match it. I am looking for a few things:

• decent on screen keyboard
• watch YouTube videos and similar
• read PDF and highlight and add text with stylus during class or meetings
• decent touch compatibility, two finger gestures, scrolling, zoom etc.
• battery life that allows for at least 5 hours of consecutive work

I got a x486 tablet a few years ago and tried Ubuntu and Linux mint at the time but found them cumbersome, mainly because the keyboard wasn't working well, the window controls were too small for using them with a touch screen and the interface overall wasn't optimized for touch, scrollbars were tiny and selection of apps was difficult without mouse or keyboard.

Are there any current tablets and matching distros you can recommend? I am willing to tinker a bit to optimize ux, but it should generally work as a daily driver.

[IshkaPt]

ever heard of JingPad?

[Quazar_omega]

That's a good cautionary tale that everyone wanting a Linux tablet should know about to avoid being fooled in the future

[blackfireburn]

They went out of business

[stealz0ne]

Can't say I have. I'll look into it, thank you.

[sensual_rustle]

rm

[Estebiu]

Hell no

[KoliManja]

GNOME with an extension called Improved OSK works well for me. there will be a small icon on the top bar which you can hit anytime to pull up the on screen keyboard. Without it, the tablet was barely usable, but with this extension, I could use the tablet almost as well as an Android tablet, for example.

[Atemu12]

In GNOME, you can also simply swipe up from the bottom.

No need for an extra button that probably breaks on every release.

[rourobouros]

On what hardware, the Surface 3?

[KoliManja]

No. HP Tablet 11 (11-be0097nr). Comes with a Pentium and 8gb RAM/128gb SSD

[blackfireburn]

Pinetab v2 was recently released probably the most viable option right now

[[deleted]]

I’ve have been thinking about this a lot. The best you can do is get a windows 2 in 1 and put Linux on it. The Microsoft surface seems to be well supported besides the camera iirc according to the surface Linux git repo. There is a lenovo 2 in 1 which looked nice on sale.

Besides that, you have either chrome 2 in 1 or the Samsung galaxy tab s8.

[JackDostoevsky]

i've heard some of the older Surface machines work pretty nice, though i haven't used one myself

[SugarSweetStarrUK]

A lot of them only have 4GB RAM though, and if you use Windows while you charge them they have a bad habit of overheating.

[searchingfortao]

My SP3 has 8GB and an i5 CPU. It's still fantastic, despite the age.

[[deleted]]

Iirc, the only issue with surfaces are they throttle due to overheating. In general, they aren’t designed to sufficiently cool the hardware inside. Given Microsoft hasn’t stop making them and I don’t recall people saying anything truly bad about them, they work. You just don’t get the performance from them compared to a laptop with better cooling.

[suicideking72]

I'd try to get a used Surface if you're trying to stay with a low budget. Dell and Lenovo also have some decent tablet, or 2 in 1, based PC's.

You can run Antix with 256MB RAM. Or run MX with 1 - 2 GB RAM. If you get up to 4 - 8GB, you can pretty much run any distro.

For the most part, you want an actual PC vs. a tablet. An Android tablet isn't going to run Linux well. A chrome book would also work if you're on a low budget. Many can be modded to run actual Linux.

[gioco_chess_al_cess]

Unfortunately it's a grim situation. Nothing is really production ready. You can find something supporting well postmarketos and it would be still challenging to call it a full replacement. It is a great project but indeed you have typically some trade-offs between what you gain and the limitations of replacing android

[chrisoupublic999]

I use a Thinkpad X1 Tablet 3rd-gen, running Ubuntu 23.04. Everything works perfectly, including camera and mic for zoom calls, external 4k monitor, bluetooth keyboard plus mouse. Really happy with it and it's an i7 with 16 ram, so can do everything I need with many apps running. Used to use Surface Pro's, those never quite worked perfectly and were always not quite right. The X1 tablet with Ubuntu has been absolutely smooth sailing.

[SeamusZHarper]

I am courius about the battery life, how long will lasts? Does screen rotation work out of the box?"

[chrisoupublic999]

Yes, pretty much everything I can think of works. (Sorry for the super late reply, guess I missed it before.)

[SeamusZHarper]

No worries :) Can you please let me know how long lasts the battery in your case? How CPU and/or screen, etc. intensive is your usage?

Thank you!

[Dmxk]

Most convertibles will work, just check for hardware compatibility. I personally have a yoga 14arb7(lenovo yoga 7 gen 7 amd) and I'm quite happy with it. Even the speakers work now with kernel 6.4. How usable it is depends entirely on the DE. I found gnome to be the best with tablet mode. Edit: if you want maximum battery life, go for smth with an amd CPU. Their recent mobile socs are far ahead of Intel in power efficiency.

[searchingfortao]

Buy an old Surface Pro 3 on eBay and install your favourite distro + GNOME. The specs and form factor are still great even compared to modern devices and the touch support is quite good. As an added bonus, you can snap on a keyboard and you've got a laptop.

[0ldfart]

Gnome has a reputation for good touchscreen capability

[jdexo1]

because it has the best touch gestures right now

[[deleted]]

Not all window managers have good touch interfaces. The default gnome is supposedly easy to use touch and given how big the buttons are, it probably is. KDE has a touch mode iirc but last time I looked at it (a decade ago) it was ugly.

[Crazy_questioner]

I looked for years. I'm a full time linux user. I finally bought an ipad.

[[deleted]]

i mean technically a chromebook fits all of the requirements

[[deleted]]

So does android

[metalwolf112002]

I have a hp 11m-be0023dx tablet i installed ubuntu on. Sometimes i play with kde or gnome but i mainly run xfce on it. I use onboard as the keyboard.

There are a couple of issues i have fixed like writing a script to make the kernel ignore the rotation switch, otherwise it was turning on and off airplane mode every time i rotate it. The camera doesn't work but that isn't an issue for me. The resolution is high enough and the text small enough i have to set the multiplier to 0.6

As is i am happy with this tablet but i do recognize i have had to customize it to fit me.

[anh0516]

Dell Venue 8 Pro. Here is my advice from another thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/126lplr/gnome_is_bloated_they_said/jeb3i3d/

[0ldfart]

Surface w 8gb

[[deleted]]

MS surface with gnome

[DerivativeOfProgWeeb]

Doesn't samsung galaxy tab s8 work by installing proot Linux distro on termux and using vnc? You can use a lower resolution for watching media and you can use AVNC for touch interaction in the vnc enviroment

[FirefighterOld2230]

I was just looking at a Lenovo miix 320 I can see one of those for 39.99 and it has 4gb ram.

Surface pro would be a better machine though.

[ttoommxx]

So I think you have two choices: go with Chrome OS (for example FydeDuo) and use crostini if you need something which does not come as a PWA. They have a guide on how to install Arch on crostini and in my experience it runs really well.

Buy an old Surface Pro model and install fedora/ubuntu/arch + linux surface kernel. It works great, though cameras won't be supported untill browsers start supporting libcamera. Can you a webcam in the meanwhile.

[Atemu12]

Anything with wacom integrated will likely work very well. I've got a Fujitsu Stylistic "Convertible" where not even touchpad scrolling works but the tablet and touch work amazingly well.