I have an unused Windows tablet from 2021 running some Core M processor or other that I want to put Linux on and start using again. It doesn’t have a keyboard so I would have to actually use it as a tablet and not a laptop. Is there a distro built around one of the mobile desktop environments that also runs well on x86? (Last time I tried Linux mobile it was pretty much only for ARM and I never got it to work well on even an x86 virtual machine.) Or is regular GNOME deskrop still my best bet for a tablet?
gnome is honestly good as is
Yeah probably the biggest strength of gnome. Often feels better suited for tablets than windows is.
I have an older x86 tablet that I tinker with. The DE I have found to work the best with touch only is KDE Plasma Mobile. Reliable and works similarly to Android.
GNOME has been surprisingly unstable, like an update might ruin some touch capability and make the tablet unusable. It also had weird quirks like not being able to move some windows around, or the cursor some how getting stuck and needing to plug in a mouse to move it again.
Currently I am running EndeavourOS with plasma mobile installed from the AUR which works really well the only thing that sucks is when there is an update for the DE and I have to build the package, which takes a while on that tablet.
Whichever distro you pick, go with the KDE version, then install “plasma-mobile” from the repos.
I don’t recommend Fedora as a distro for this as they do not have the Maliit keyboard in the repos and you will have to build it yourself.
Last time I tryed Fedora KDE few months back it had a Maliit keyboard, but I was using the desktop version of the shell.
Now that I think about it I think you are right. I think I was thinking about the word prediction for the keyboard they didn’t have.
Tbh I think the official Ubuntu should be a good choice for that. GNOME should work pretty well with a touchscreen, at least last time I checked. Also, even on some lower spec hardware it should be fast enough.
I think that, if your tablet is actually from post-2010, your processor should definitely be capable of x64 (you specifically wrote x86). But maybe you also just used x86 as a general term for like x86-x64 CPUs.
Maybe it would help to tell us your specific CPU model and maybe RAM, just to be safe.
Mobian has an amd64 image available. If you are looking for a “tablet” tablet experience rather than just desktop gnome with an on screen keyboard then that is going to be your best bet.
In terms of DE I would stay with GTK enviroments because GNOME circle has created a pretty extensive environment of apps that feel native there. Both PHOSH and GNOME mobile offer basically the sane experience so you should try them both and see, which you like more in the details
Edit: here is the install guide: https://wiki.debian.org/Mobian/x86
Does Android support x86? Might be worth a look. Yes, I know it’s not strictly Linux, but it’s certainly designed for tablets.
AFAIK Android for x86 was a short project that only lasted some years and has been mostly abandoned unfortunately.
BlissOS might do?
They state x86_64 on their downloads page, so it is probably for 64 bit systems only, but OP’s tablet being from 2021 should be 64 bit.
That’s interesting! Actually a friend contacted me yesterday about android on a PC, and while I immediately replied „no“ I just revisited this and saw your reply! We‘ll give it a shot I think! Thank you!
On Linux there’s also the Waydroid project which might be a more safe option and actually runs pretty well on my budget machine considering it runs on top of another OS.
Oh that’s interesting. Just out of curiousity, do you know whether I can connect to devices via Bluetooth from e.g. Waydroid? Would maybe give it a try!
I didn’t try that, but I think it is not possible, but since the Android is running on top of Linux, you just connect to your bluetooth headphones using the under Linux and it will have the same result.
thank you! unfortunately it’s not about headphones but about some proprietary android app that has it’s own protocol to talk with some also proprietary devices via bluetooth, so that probably won’t work. but will try bliss os soon (soon = in the next month, hopefully, haha)!
kDE Neon project might work ymmv.
What type of device is it? If it’s a Surface device there’s a few distros that include the Surface Kernel add-ons, if none of the ones with it included suit you, you can compile the add-ons into the kernel for any Linux distro.
Should be plenty fast enough to handle Gnome or KDE. I think you’ll also want ZRAM because presumably your RAM won’t be much and your storage will either be slow or limited. Either way, it wouldn’t hurt to enable.
I think both DEs are very touchscreen viable, with the possibility that you may have to configure a teeny bit, like adding a virtual keyboard
I setup Kinoite (KDE Plasma) on my Dad’s touchscreen laptop. When flipped into tablet mode it works very well with enlarged touch controls and pen support
Hear me out… Can you make it a Chromebook?
Linux based, touch-friendly Android apps, full Linux apps. Has a full desktop Chrome but if you run Firefox Android Nightly you get a full tab interface, too.
We’ve got some old Lenovo Duet 3 tablets that run pretty smooth still. ChromeOS was meant to be light weight.
@HiddenLayer555
@plasmamobile runs on x86 I think. #POSH is a #GNOME / #GTK fork for mobile. I believe GNOME 40+ is mobile friendly now.
You also have the #Unity continuations:
Unity8: https://lomiri.com/ by @ubports
Unity7: https://unityd.org/unity from ubuntu would have been perfect since that is exactly what it was designed for; but it’s not a thing anymore.
if the tablet has low specs; i would go with a minimalist distro like damn small or puppy linux.
There’s some keeping it alive. Name now is Lomiri
this looks great since i loved unity; thanks for making me aware.
@HiddenLayer555
@plasmamobile runs on x86 I think. #POSH is a #GNOME/#GTK fork for mobile. I believe GNOME 40+ is mobile friendly now.
You also have the #Unity continuations:
Unity8: https://lomiri.com/ by @ubports
Unity7: https://unityd.org/
