Making MInt Mobile - Updated November 2023

 The Surface Pro experiment has worked out better than I though it would.
A few things stand out from the experience so far. 

 
First, using 'mkusb' to create the Persistent Bootable USB Flashdrive I am using to run Linux on the Surface Pro 3 worked very well.
Second, Mint Cinnamon is preferable for running Linux on a Surface that is to be used a lot in Tablet mode, because it automatically rotates the screen orientation - once it is enabled, while Kubuntu must be changed manually each time you reorient the tablet.

There are some other observations.  While Mint Cinnamon is the best for Tablet mode, KDE is adequate once I got used to the manual orientation thing.
I personally like the Plasma Desktop of Kubuntu better than the Cinnamon Desktop, but that's probably because I use Plasma on my Mint 21.2 Desktop daily.

As far as using the Surface Pro with its Microsoft Surface Keyboard/Cover as a Laptop replacement goes, it is only the battery life that lets it down.  
With everything set OFF or as low as possible it is sometimes possible to eke 4 hours out of the battery - but unlikely.
That's with Bluetoofh OFF, WiFi OFF and Screen Brightness down to 5%, and avoiding running anything like watching a Video.
That said, while Windows often reports something like 10 hours at the start of a session (on either the 4/64GB Surface or the 8/256GB one), it rarely ever delivers more than 4 hours - so I can;t blame Linux.
It is pretty easy to see why Microsoft had to introduce the Surface Go into the mix.

I haven't found a way to run the Surface 3 off a power bank, but I am one of the luckly people.  With two Surface tablets, I could take both with me for the day, and by saving my work and shutting down, then swapping the USB Flash drives, I could run one for 3 to 4 hours, then get another 3 to 4 out of the second Surface.  With luck the first could be on charge for an hour, which is all it takes to recharge fully anyway.

Making Mint Mobile

 For a long time I've wanted a Linux Tablet.  Something that got me away from Android and Apple tablets, but still reasonably secure.  Recently I was given a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet, and the I was lucky enough to acquire another.  That meant I could play around with an idea I had wondered about for some time.  Originally the plan was to simply replace Windows.  But that would lose a few advantages Windows can actually have running the Surface, including losing access to the camera and sacrificing battery life etc.

The Surface tablets have a microSD slot.  Because Raspberry Pi runs quite successfully from a MicroSD card only, I hoped a Surface Pro could be booted from one as well.

A little searching suggested they are not designed in such a way the they can run like that.  So I started experimenting with booting from a flash drive in the USB port.  

...  To be continued ...

A couple of suggestions from my friends at Bargaintech:   https://www.ebay.com.au/usr/bargain.tech?_trksid=p4429486.m3561.l2559  who successfully put L:inux on a number of their rescued New and Near new Laptops  brought me back to the idea of trying Mint Cinnamon on the Surface Pro 3.

I tried booting both Kubuntu and Cinnamon from a live Fashdrive (used these days to install Linux on a computer) and it worked.  

The next thing was to install Linux, Kubuntu on one Surface and Cinnamon on the other.  But which would go on what?  And what about my licenced Windows 10 on the 4/64GB Surface, and Windows 11 Pro on the 256GB device? 
I thought about it for a while and decided I could live boot whichever version of Linux I wanted at any time on the device I wanted to use on the day.
That of course meant that each time I booted into a Live USB drive I had to set up locality (Location, Time and Date etc.) and any Theming I changed.  Also I could not install Apps, which meant no VPN, one of the reasons I wanted the tablet in the first place.

Enter the idea of a Persistent Live Bootable Flash Drive.
I had heard of this idea, but never needed it.  So into the Net I dived and came out wet and happy.  There are a few ways to skin this particular cat, bnt I chose to use something called 'mkusb'.

**
**

I booted each OS in turn on separate machines, made enough changes to each, installed some Apps, created a couple of documents on both saved to the Flash Drives and to the Documents folders of the Windows installations on both Surface Pros, then shut them down.

I swapped the Flash drives and booted the tablets again.  All the changes I made were kept and the documents were all spot on as well.  I did the same again on both.  Just made enough changes that I would klnow they had been changed, and tested saving documents to all logical places.
As a last test I booted both tablets into their Windows again, then repeated it all over using the Flash drives.

One last swap and boot and it was proved.  The Persistent drives were doing their work.  There was no noticeable difference in performance between running the Surface Pro 3 on Windows or Linux, and I still can;t make up my mind if I prefer working in KDE (Kubuntu) which I have always preferred since my Mandrake Linux days around the turn of the Century, or if I can get used to Cinnamon.  

Kubuntu running on the Surface Pro 3 in Landscape mode (Swapping to Portrait must be done manually each time in Settings):

The USB Flashdrive is pretty unobtrusive and creating a Persisten Live installation on it means I can run any debian or Ubuntu based Linux, keeping any changes I make as well as any documents I want to keep portable - or unplug, reboot and run Windows.

Kubuntu running OpenOffice in Landscape Mode on the Surface Pro 3

Because I prefer working with Kubuntu, I would be prepared to live without using the Surface Pro in Portrait mode.  My intention was to use it mostly as a limited Laptop / Notebook most of the time anyway, and I love the way Kubuntu works, and that its floating Keyboard on the screen 'just works'.

Cinnamon on the other hand has an interface that is not so intuitive for me, but once I got the hang of it again after all these years of using Xfce and KDE, I could see myself enjoying some features, including that there's a setting to Disable the Screen Autorotation Lock.  Once I did that the display moved between Landscape and Portrait mode as I rotated the Surface tablet.

I initially installed Kubuntu and Cinnamon onto separate 64GB USB Flashdrives that are so physically small that they are barely noticeable plugged into the USB port.  I chose 64GB because, well, that was all I had available at the local Officeworks store.

I wondered if it would work on a flashdrive with more storage.  A quick search on the Net suggested the Surface 3 can handle 256GB, and as it happened, Amazon Prime days arrived with the tiny Sandisk drives I am using on special.  I ordered 3 for the same price delivered, as I was paying for a single 64GB unit.  No prizes for guessing what I did.

I watched the tracking with interest, because they shipped from Japan.  And they arrived in only a few days, well before their suggested date.  And they were in Japanese Sandisk packaging.  Surely a good omen.

Unfortunateky, while Kubuntu and Cinnamon will install on these drives and work perfectly on various computers - they simply refuse to play nicely with the Surface Pro 3.

I will wait until Amazon Prime has the 128GB version of this Sandisk unit on super special, and repeat the test.  It will still be cheaper than buying a single drive here.

Once that was sorted, the last hurdle was Battery Life!
Microsoft seem to have worked out the wrinkles in power management of the Surface Pro 3 pretty well, although some of the 'Power remaining' predictions, while they look great when I first saw them, are very optimistic in practice.  A '10 hours remaining' quickly turns into '3 hours and 50 minutes remaining' within half an hour or so.

However, even that is better than either Kubuntu or Cinnamon, where '4 hours 30 minutes remaining' becomes '2 hours 40 minutes' after 30 minutes of use.

I installed TLP, but if anything all it does is make the predicted time shorted - but more accurate.  All the above is with the screen turned down to 5% brightness, Blue Teeth OFF, and WiFi running.  Also they are NOT when watching video.  I have a feeling the Surface Pro 'might' make it through a movie if it started at 100% battery charge.

SOMETHING TO NOTE !!!
When shutting the Persistent Live Flashdrive, the usuall prompt will appear onthe screen saying to remove the boot media and press Enter.  

Simply pressing ENTER at this prompt has been shutting the Surface Pro 3 with no problems at all so far.  It jsut scrolls the message as it goes through what seems to be a 'normal' shurdown.
And there's no risk of losing the Flashdrive - because it stays plugged in, ready for booting again.

Microsoft's own App shows the tablets have 94% and 98%  Battery Health, which is probably not too bad for their age - and of course I have no idea exactly when they were originally sold nor how they were used.

Overall, my first month with the Surface Pro 3 tablets has been an interesting one, and one where I have learned quite a bit more about Linux, as well as experienced Windows 10 and Windows 11, and learned again why it was so important to move to Linux back in the 1990s.  I've never, ever seen so many suspected malware threat warnings as I have in this last month, whever Windows and I are no the Internet.
I'm still looking for a decent Free Anti-Virus program to replace the one I am testing out now.

--  to be continued  --

MInt 21.2 and I have finally worked out a compromise

 MInt 21.2 and I have finally worked out a compromise.  Mint 21.2 has been rock solid since it was released, and all the mods I did to Xfce, exploring its theming / styling were more or less working - but not quite.

The whole Theming adventure over the last couple of years has kept me busy, but really it was all related to the fact that no matter what I did, I could not get Linux Mint to look and feel the way I 'like' my OS to look and behave.  A lot of that is the restlessness I have felt with Mint since the Team dropped support for KDE and stopped releasing a Mint KDE version.

I could get most of my Mint Xfce looking fairly consistent using a combination of drastic mods to GTK themes and tweaking Qt stuff, but there was something missing in the hybrid approach.  Eventually I remembered Kubuntu Backports and stuff suddenly began falling into place.

Now I have a more or less Integrated Mint KDE designed just the way 'I' like it.  And I while Mint is considering releasing an 'Edge' ISO with the hot new 6.2 Linux Kernel, I'm currently running comfortably on the 6.5.3 Kernel. 
Not only that, but my KDE is at 5.25 and Plasma Frameworks is sitting at 5.98.
I don't think I will get up to KDE 6 until Mint 22 comes out some time around the middle of next year, but that doesn't matter.

As usual I am making the most of the ability for many KDE Apps to be themed with a bit of Transparency, and I am also pleased that while LibreOffice doesn't yet have a Qt version, it does have KDE Integrations, which adds a Qt level to the Theming engine somehow, so it is more or less the same thing.

LibreOffice manages this far better than almost any other Non Qt App I have seen so far and I am impressed.

The one big thing I am not using in KDE, as I usually don't, is the Kwin Window Manager.  
Because I create my KDE version on top of Mint Xfce, I tend to use Compiz for Window Management.  It doesn't matter that Compiz is 'Old Hat'.  Many of us still prefer its maturity, and we will miss it once Wayland takes over Window Management in most Linux Desktop Environments.  Compiz just has so many day to day things that are handy, quite apart from its 'tricks'.  Like the Compiz Cube - one of many different ways to switch Workspaces. 
Wayland has something similar, but without some of the pretty bits . .
I happen to like this Compiz idea of a 'Cube'  :-)

Pretty bits aside though, what I like most about Mint with KDE is that Mint has a history of being remarkably well built and Stable.  KDE is also very stable, especially the Kubuntu base that I use to get my KDE.  But I prefer the way Mint does stability.

Linux Mint 21.2 with Xfce 4.18 - plus my own little spin on the thing. Mint 21.2 KdXfce (or XfcKde - take your pick)

 It's probably way past time I did an update here.  A lot has been happening in my life, including changing some of my computers, catching a dose of CoVid, a couple of other health dramas and various other glitches.  

On top of that Google has had a major glitch with the Blogger platform that saw them sending out emails advising people that the code on the pages of Blogger posts was formatted incorrectly or some other such rubbish.  This on 'Blogger', where of course, they themselves provide all the code and we just type content and pop in a few photographs etc using their tools!

So I just haven't been in the mood for messing around with their rubbish.  However this site still pops up when people do a search on certain topics, so I'll do some more updates.

A month or more ago when the Xfce people advised that Xfce 4.18 was ready, I managed to install it on Mint 21.1 and test it in anticipation of Mint 21.2 using 4.18.   About the same time the Minit team announced it would indeed be in 21.2, so I was happy to find a couple of useful items in the new Xfce 4.18.

Most were not all that exciting, but the big one for me was the return of panel 'Profiles', allowing users to easily backup their Panel layout.

At first glance this is not a big deal unless you screw up your panel and have to recover it, but think about it for a moment.  You can set up a number of different panel layouts with different Icons and Apps ready for quick use - and switch between them quickly when you want to work on specific projects.

It is a bit like a poor man's Plasma Activities, albeit without the way Activities can save all the open Apps for a session.  So, the ability to rescue a lost panel is certainly a great idea, and it was briefly available previously.  However, although I haven't tested it for that particular porpoise, the ability to set up a number of Panel Profiles and quickly switch between them could be fantastic, either for specific projects, for Multimedia or for enabling specific Panel layouts to be applied by different users sharing a computer.

The other main focus of my recent activities has been swapping my main daily machines around.  The Lenovo m93p Tiny is now my secondary computer accessed through NoMachine VNC, and the Lenovo m900 Tiny has become the main system.

It sort of made sense, because although the m93p has a higher Turbo speed, the m900 is newer and a little faster in other ways.  

Both systems were updated to 16GB RAM and 2TB SSDs as well, and both are now connected to a bank of mixed external SSDs and magnetic drives via some Powered Hubs.  That allows 18 external drives to be hooked up through hubs while another 20 or so TB of drives can be swapped in through the USB3 ports if needed.

I've got Mint 21.2 running KDE 5 nicely, and switched out Plasma's Kwin Windows Manager for Compiz - which performs so much better than anything else, at least until Wayland matures enough for daily use (hopefully some time this century).

 Mint 21.2 Xfce with KDE 5 running Compiz on the Lenovo m900 Tiny:

 

And again:

Mint 21.2 Xfce with KDE 5 running Compiz on the Lenovo m993p Tiny in NoMachine VNC:

Ditto:

Below, the Lenovo m900 Tiny as it is currently:

So far it is all pretty well bullet proof.  About the only disappointment is that switching the Window Manager from Kwin to Compiz means I lose Plasma's 'Activities', and even though most people don;t use them, I used to find them useful.

I did notice however, that the m93p, when it was started today, opened up with a particular set of Apps I'd left open when I shut it down yesterday, opened up with each App where I'd left it and with the data intact - even though I hadn't saved it.  that was as soon as I switched to Compiz (using the Fusion-Icon).
I haven't seen that happen before, so it bears looking into.