Convert Windows Surface tablet to full Linux ?

Hey Sydneysider, long time no talk.

Wondered whether this article https://ianrenton.com/guides/howto-install-linux-on-a-linx-1010b-tablet/  might be of use to you in what you seek to achieve?

It was started in February, but is as recent in comments as yesterday/today. Obviously there are differences to your situation, but thought it might give you ideas.

Note also the possibility of having to use Ext3 over Ext4.

As for dual booting, once you have Linux on, you may be able to blow away the Windows?

Cheers

Wiz

 

 

Note also the possibility of having to use Ext3 over Ext4.

There's also the possibility of the newer Linux filesystem, btrfs, which at some point will supercede the ext4 filesystem, which has been reported on a couple of sites I've read not for the future, though can't find the bookmarked pages at the moment, or didn't bookmark. 

I did read in an article today where this will be needed for the 512GiB Samsung Pro M.2 SSD purchased, if ran as legacy AHCI with SATA (same as am running now). While I was worried that NVMe SSD's wouldn't support Linux, since not natively by Windows 7, came to find out that NVMe has been supported since Kernel 3.3 (think Ubuntu 12.04/Linux Mint 13 LTS).

 

 

Compatibility like this was expected since Linux has supported NVMe in its kernel since version 3.3 released in 2012.

So it may be that btrfs is a better option than either ext3 or 4.

While this article covers both Windows 7 & Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.3 (the above quoue came from the below link), under Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon > Perfect Compatibility. There are also links in regard to OS's based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, to also include Xubuntu 16.04 & Linux Mint 18. Though am only going to create and use the root partition there, /home will be on a HDD because I have lots of virtual machines to move over. To make life easier, may simply swap the drive with the /home partition already in place & ready to roll, will choose /home partition, but will not check the Format box. And there'll be no Swap partition, with 32GB RAM, there's no need. 

https://delightlylinux.wordpress.com/2016/04/20/the-samsung-950-pro-256g-and-linux-does-it-work/

If one finds a way to format that tablet's eMMC SSD, nothing wrong with choosing btrfs, as on one Linux Mint install, I had it & didn't realize for quite some time, and don't recall selecting that option, though the OS was running fine. One thing not to go overboard on is TRIM. Some brands of drives uses it different than others, if a 512 byte block that's in use is zeroed, the filesystem will become corrupted & this will be fast discovered. 

https://blog.algolia.com/when-solid-state-drives-are-not-that-solid/

Good Luck with the Linux install on the Surface RT!

Cat