It states the bug affects all Surface users running Linux. It is not surprising as the Surface was manufactured For Microsoft Windows directly.
It also states a patch was sent in in 2020- So probably is included in the latest kernel.
This MAY mean it will work properly in Zorin 16 when it is released.
One possible option may be to upgrade your kernel to a higher version. I highly recommend you Back Up your system before upgrading- just in case. The 5.6 kernel is currently not fully tested on Zorin 16. If you would like to try it, can write a walk-through on that.
If the 5.6 kernel fails, do not worry- you can roll back to the kernel you are using now and boot normally.
To use the USB stick that you installed Zorin with, you can use a Parition Manager to delete the partition on it with the Zorin Install, then click the free space, add as new partition and format that as FAT32. Then you can use it to install Windows, if you need. So do not worry, all is not lost and you do still have options.
But I did post above about a kernel upgrade just as your post appeared, so please see that first, as well.
Rather than patching the kernel yourself, I think it would be better to upgrade to a newer kernel. That your notebook is a newer model may help a lot. It’s older machines where putting a newer kernel on it can cause troubles.
One moment, though- I will post a walk-through in a moment- But I am cross checking some things first.
Sometimes, installing the Mainline kernel will not work properly with UEFI or with Secure Boot enabled- (Which we covered above about needing Secure Boot disabled). So I am checking that first.
Also checking which newer kernel is best, given when that patch was submitted and what Ubuntu is using.
As a side note, I had the same issue at my organization installing an older version of Windows 10 than came with the Surface. It took us forever to find the correct driver we needed, but it proves that even with different Windows versions, you can run into these problems.
So, I’m still trying to locate the information on the issue we had (I did not work on it personally), but I had a thought. Rather than going through the trouble of upgrading the kernel, it might be worth just live booting into Ubuntu 20.04 or 20.10 to see if the icon appears. This would indicate whether a new kernel would help.
It turns out that installing the driver set during the OSD build process was causing the issue, so we went with no drivers during build and then loaded the drivers manually from the MS download after the machine was online.
Solution: Install Windows 10.
I reinstalled Windows 10 Pro. My laptop’s back to normal, and I noticed a few updates: Surface System and Surface Firmware. There were also some drivers.
I learnt: Surfaces need specific drivers for everything and they cannot be installed on Linux. So sorry Zorin, but I’m quitting you.
Sorry for all the pain and suffering.
Catty