update 3: I built a custom kernel for the surface and it works fantastic. I could not be happier …
Good news everyone! the latest version of Ubuntu 15.04 works really good with the Surface Pro 3
Things that immediately work
The TypeCover Keyboard
The TypeCover backlight can be adjusted by pressing F1 and F2
The mute button in the TypeCover F3 works
The WiFi is stable now
The Touch Screen works – with gnome you have similar gestures as windows 8 like pulling from the left , etc.
No need to disable the secure boot
Things that don’t work
The touch pad needs some minor set up
The battery is not recognized
Volume buttons don’t work
buttons in the pen still not working
What you need
A USB Flash drive with at leas 2Gigs of space
A copy of ubuntu 15.04 I used Gnome Ubuntu you can get it here http://ubuntugnome.org/download/
Universal USB Installer http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/
Before the install
First we need to disable hibernation, for that open a command prompt window as administrator and run
powercfg -hibernate off
Next we need to make room for ubuntu by:
Open the Disk Management utility
Find Windows C: and Right-click and select Shrink Volume
In the next dialog window shrink the partition by at least 20 GB. If you have the larger SSD then give it more space
Create a bootable USB Driver by following these instructions
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/
Installing Ubuntu
The set up is quite simple
Boot to the USB Drive
Swipe from the right to display the charms bar
Press Settings
At the bottom press Change PC settings
Go to Update and recovery
Go to Recovery
Click Restart now
A blue screen will display some boot options, choose “Use a device”
Installing Ubuntu
remember that the touch pad doesn’t work but the touch screen does. Use the touch screen to click on the screen.
You should be greeted by the grub menu
Select “Install Ubuntu alongside windows boot manager” and click install
the installer will automatically detect the space you created and automatically create the main and swap partitions
click continue
follow the installer instructions and you are done!
Installing the touchpad
in ubuntu open the terminal
edit the following file with sudo privileges for example
sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf
Add this to the end of the file
<code>Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Surface Pro 3 cover"
MatchIsPointer "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "evdev"
Option "vendor" "045e"
Option "product" "07dc"
Option "IgnoreAbsoluteAxes" "True"
EndSection </code>
Restart
You should be now greeted by the grub menu with ubuntu and windows entries
Annoying things
Some times the computer hangs on the “Surface” screen. Just doing a Ctrl+Alt+Del will make things work again
When booting on ubuntu after using windows will cause the touchpad to stop working. just restart one more time and it should work again
update: I took these setting from running_ubuntu_1404_on_surface_pro_1_full_time
Adding Proper Power Management through TLP. It will default to battery setting when no power source is identified. This is useful since the battery is not properly detected
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw
sudo apt-get install ethtool
open /etc/default/tlp and change the following:
CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_AC=performance
CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_BAT=powersave
sudo tlp start
you can monitor power consumption using powertop
update 2: for those brave enough to try it, you can build your own kernel and patch it to add support for hardware buttons and track pad multi touch, battery display and sleep
Just follow the instructions here https://github.com/neoreeps/surface-pro-3
update 3: I built a custom kernel for the surface and it works fantastic. I could not be happier. I followed the instruction here but used the patches from here. I got everything working except for the trackpad multitouch. All hardware buttons work. Sleep works. battery indicator works. both cameras work. it is fantastic.
Ubuntu 15.04 Unity和Ubuntu 14.04.2 Gnome2超小容量iso下载：http://www.linuxdiyf.com/linux/12054.html
看了Ubuntu GNOME 15.04自带的地图，你想说什么？：http://www.linuxdiyf.com/linux/11960.html
Ubuntu 15.04和Ubuntu 15.04 GNOME上轻松安装试用Wayland：http://www.linuxdiyf.com/linux/11800.html