EDIT 2: I figured it out! The Nvidia driver was indeed installed, but I needed to remove it and instead install the dkms version.
sudo paru -S nvidia-open-dkms
Once that got installed, the surface kernel and headers successfully installed and now when I boot up the system, the linux-surface kernel shows up for me to choose. My touchscreen and pen input are working perfectly now with pressure sensitivity!
EDIT: I wanted to add some additional information regarding some errors that I’ve run into. There’s a point in the Linux on Surface instructions where you need to run:
sudo pacman -S linux-surface linux-surface-headers iptsd
When I do, I get two sets of errors…although the install appears to complete.
Error set 1:
==> ERROR: module not found: 'nvidia'
==> ERROR: module not found: 'nvidia_modeset'
==> ERROR: module not found: 'nvidia_uvm'
==> ERROR: module not found: 'nvidia_drm'
Error set 2:
Error: mkinitcpio failed for kernel 6.15.3-arch-2-surface, skipping.
I’m not sure if either of these directly relate to the touchscreen and pen not working or if this is a completely different set of issues.
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I’m hoping someone on here may have some similar issues trying to get Linux running on Surface devices with the Linux-Surface project. I successfully installed CachyOS and got the wireless adapter working as well.
The touch input nor pen input seem to work at all. The screen successfully detaches and reattaches but the touch and pen input don’t work with either mode.
Does anyone have any experience with this?
CachyOS tend to offer their own modified kernel, for gaming optimization, if I remember well. You may not be running the correct kernel.
When you look at the installation guide of the linux-surface github, there are steps for several distros. Do you plan to use your surface for gaming mainly, hence the reason to install cachy or do you plan to use it for various tasks? It may be easier to make it working on a fedora or, if you really want an arch based distro, on arch.
So I did try to install their linux kernel but I ran into an error regarding mkinitcpio and nvidia. I updated my original post with the errors I’ve run into.
To your second set of questions. It’s a bit multi-layered. I’m wanting to move my main laptop, a Surface Laptop Studio, off of Windows and onto Linux. The linux on surface project also supports the SLS. I game on my SLS as well so a gaming focused distro is where I’m targeting. Additionally, at some point, I’m going to build a full PC with high end gear. From what I’ve heard, Arch is good for high end/bleeding edge kind of hardware. So with all that combined, I figured I should probably start learning Arch’s idiosyncrasies as I’m coming from debian mainly when I do use Linux. I have an old Surface Book 2 and thought it would make a good testbed for this process which is how I ended up using hardware as old as that.
Just a quick question have you verified they are supported on the support matrix? I know various hardware on the surface-linix kernel has varying degrees of success.
it’ll help a lot if you can describe the troubleshooting steps you’ve already taken so that we don’t end up going over ground you’ve already covered.
in shoes, i would have started with lscpi and/or lshw to know what hardware the kernel is aware of and what software it decided to attached to them.
lspci -nnkwill show you the hardware and the software module it attached it each piece of hardware and from there you can determine whether or not the kernel recognized your touch input or your pen.That’s part of why I’m here. I’ve been following linux on surface’s installation guide and I’ve updated my post with the errors I’m currently running into. I’m not sure if the errors have anything to do with the touchscreen/pen issues though.
I did run the
lspci -nn -kcommand. I can put it in here if you’d like but it’s a long list. I don’t see anything in there specifically talking about the touchscreen or pen however there are a number of Microsoft hub devices. It could be one of those, I just don’t know.
