4 questions about an app, touchscreen, scrolling, and secure boot

[FrogsUnion]

Hi! I've just installed Mint Cinnamon Vera a few hours ago on my Surface Book 2 laptop. Had a lot of troubles with booting before I figured out how to disable Secure boot in UEFI. Then during the installation process, Mint no longer asked me for secure boot like in previous attempts. Questions:

1) Does leaving Secure boot off increase the chance of being attacked significantly? Can I turn SB back on with the option "Windows and 3rd party CA"?

2) The biggest reason I bought this laptop is to use its touch- & stylus-screen. But nothing works atm. The screen is not responsive to my touch, and the Graphic Tablet app says "No stylus found". I've updated the nVIDIA driver to the newest. Here is my xinput result FYI:

Code: Select all

⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Microsoft Surface Keyboard              	id=7	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Microsoft Surface Keyboard Mouse        	id=8	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Microsoft Surface Keyboard Touchpad     	id=9	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             	id=5	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                               	id=6	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ gpio-keys                               	id=10	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ gpio-keys                               	id=11	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Microsoft Surface Keyboard              	id=12	[slave  keyboard (3)]

3) The 2-finger scrolling seems to be in bursts of ~3 lines or so. Thus it doesn't seem smooth at all. I haven't tried scrolling much outside of Firefox, but the experience so far is not comfortable.

4) I installed Xournal++ from the Software Manager but can't run it, even after a machine restart. Every time I try, the mouse icon turns to "thinking" but nothing happens next.

So... could you help? Thanks!

[FrogsUnion]

... anybody? If you have answer(s) to just 1 or 2 questions, please tell me anyway.

[Moem]

I'm thinking that four questions in one is a little intimidating. Try separate posts the next time, and use descriptive titles. These are not easy questions either, I don't know the answer to even one of them.

Well, I do have the impression that Secure Boot will only protect you against... installing Linux. So that's not a thing I would personally worry about.

[zcot]

there's a start: https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface

[FrogsUnion]

Thanks! Can we use the Ubuntu route described in the link for Mint?

Anyway, I followed the Fedora path (for Fedora 38) and was stuck here:

However, if the default kernel has a higher version than the surface kernel it will override the surface kernel and get booted by default. You can use a systemd path unit to fix this:

Put this into /etc/systemd/system/default-kernel.path

[Unit]
Description=Fedora default kernel updater

[Path]
PathChanged=/boot

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

I use the app "Files" to get to /etc/systemd/system, but can't find any UI button to create a new file! I open Terminal and type

Code: Select all

cat > default-kernel.path

but it replies

Code: Select all

bash: default-kernel.path : Permission denied

Adding sudo or su before the command doesn't change the result. Could you guys help?

[SMG]

Can we use the Ubuntu route described in the link for Mint?

That would be the suggested route.

With any changes, we advise taking a Timeshift snapshot first.

Anyway, I followed the Fedora path (for Fedora 38) and was stuck here:

We do not provide support for Fedora on this Linux Mint forum.

Hi! I've just installed Mint Cinnamon Vera a few hours ago on my Surface Book 2 laptop. Had a lot of troubles with booting before I figured out how to disable Secure boot in UEFI. Then during the installation process, Mint no longer asked me for secure boot like in previous attempts. Questions:

1) Does leaving Secure boot off increase the chance of being attacked significantly? Can I turn SB back on with the option "Windows and 3rd party CA"?

If you have fully updated your system (all the updates in Update Manager), you can re-enable secure boot. It is only needed for installation because of an issue which arose after the ISO was created.

2) The biggest reason I bought this laptop is to use its touch- & stylus-screen. But nothing works atm. The screen is not responsive to my touch, and the Graphic Tablet app says "No stylus found". I've updated the nVIDIA driver to the newest. Here is my xinput result FYI:

The Nvidia driver (or any graphics driver) is not related to the touchscreen. A touchscreen driver is completely separate.

If I am recalling correctly, I think the Linux surface kernel may be needed to get the touchscreen working.

4) I installed Xournal++ from the Software Manager but can't run it, even after a machine restart. Every time I try, the mouse icon turns to "thinking" but nothing happens next.

Please create a new topic in the Software & Applications forum for that issue.

[PaulL]

As far as secure boot is concerned, I can only tell you that Linux Mint installed just fine from the live session, but with secure boot enabled, it won't boot from the hard drive in my HP Pavilion desktop PC. If you go into the BIOS, the settings menu even makes a big production out of warning you that secure boot is a feature intended to be used only with Windows. So I happily disabled it, and haven't looked back.