Zorin 16.2 on Microsoft Surface Pro 7, it works

[zulumika]

It works for the most part. I'm a system integrator on Windows so lots of experience there but very new to Linux world. I was looking to strip my Windows 11 on the Surface 7 to make it more performant and efficient. Not easily done. I decided to go with Linux. Of course I wanted to take advantage of the touch screen, so I went online, found the repo with the proper libs with instructions.

Here's what I followed to make it work:

Installation and Setup

I had the "Error 401 Unauthorized" error so I corrected it with this:

Known Issues and FAQ

I didn't do the secureboot section since I don't care much about that.

The webcam is not detected yet; I'll work on it later. The sound is good. Screen is quite responsive to the touch. Left click works by holding touch 2 seconds. Moving windows with touch screen will not use the jelly wobble animation. Wifi and Bluetooth is good. Screen rotation works. Screen display scale is 200% by default and seems reasonable.

As of now, this is what it looks like:

I'm quite impressed with the results. I'll keep playing with it and perhaps edit this post to add details and answer questions you might have.

Cheers! Mat

EDIT - 2023-04-27
According to this, the cam will not work on the Surface Pro 7 yet but apparently does on other versions.

Camera Support

I'll check back in a few weeks/months if the project made any progress.

[rolltide101x]

I am not sure when the drivers for something like the Surface Pro 7 ended up in the kernel but I would think you would have a better experience with something like Nobara than Zorin. Just saying it might be worth a look.

https://nobaraproject.org/download-nobara/

At the very least I would boot from it on a live usb and check the hardware compatibility of anything that is giving you issues. If Nobara works better then upgrading the Zorin kernel might help you out.

[zulumika]

Thanks for the suggestion Rolltide. I chose Zorin simply because many "best linux for newbs" review sites suggested it. I tried the plain vanilla Ubuntu but I found the interface a little - meh. So I gave Zorin a shot and there you go. Eventually, I'll definitely see what this Nobara has to offer. Thank you.

[rolltide101x]

I kind of figured that lol. That is a big reason I suggested Nobara and not Fedora.

Nobara is kinda Fedora made easier like Zorin is Ubuntu made easier.

Nobara isn’t quite as seamless as Zorin is but it runs significantly more recent packages and a more recent kernel which is great for hardware compatibility.