LinuxQuestions.org - openSUSE Tumbleweed Linux on Surface Pro 3

Recently acquired a Surface Pro 3 from someone who was getting rid of it. Had 8GB of RAM, decent i5 CPU, 256GB SSD, with the typecover.

I got the most current (as of this writing) version of Tumbleweed from the openSUSE site, and did the typical download/create bootable USB as you would with any installation, and performed the install.

EVERYTHING worked right out of the gate. UEFI/Secure boot was recognized and used, including importing of the certificate during initial install. Typecover mouse/keys and function keys all worked, along with wifi and bluetooth. Absolutely zero problems.

One interesting note is that during install, it couldn't find the Marvell wifi adapter, but after installation was done, it worked just fine. Just FYI in case someone is looking at one of these gadgets.

::EDIT::
And an issue cropped up, which was thankfully easy to solve. The Marvell wifi adapter will (apparently) have an issue when power save goes into effect. You'll see a line in dmesg akin to:

Code:

[32954.401211] mwifiex_pcie 0000:01:00.0: Firmware wakeup failed

And the adapter won't reset, except for reboot. If you're on AC/plugged in, you have no problems. The solution was to go into KDE power management settings, and there was a previously unchecked option for "Wireless", under the "On Battery" tab. Clicking it, and setting Wi-Fi to "Leave Unchanged" was all it took.

You can also shove something into systemd, and create a service file containing:

Code:

[Unit]

Description=Disable Wifi Power Saving Mode

After=multi-user.target



[Service]

Type=oneshot

ExecStart=/usr/bin/iw dev wlp1s0 set power_save off



[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

...which will disable this. Save it under /etc/systemd/system/ as <SOME NAME>.service, and enable it with ""sudo systemctl enable <WHATEVERNAME>".

Can probably disable wifi power-save under other desktop environments as well, but I use KDE...notes welcomed on other GUI's.