Fedora 21 and the Microsoft Surface Pro 3

Recently I decided I'd try to upgrade from my MacbokAir running Fedora and thus I decided to try out the Surface Pro 3.  Overall I have to say I'm rather impressed, it's not perfect, and there are still some warts, but it's a functional option, in fact I'm writing this on the Surface now.

The basic steps are as follows:

1. Shrink the windows volumes to allow for a space to install Fedora
2. Put Fedora on to a USB Fash drive and boot the Surface Pro to the USB flash drive.
3. Install Fedora
4. Tweak and enjoy!

For the prep steps I found the following blog useful: http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-install-linux-on-surface-pro-3/. You can safely ignore most of the Distro specific steps with the exception of the firmware step.  Fortunately the cover keyboard and touchscreen and pen work out of the box with Fedora 21, however the touch pad mouse does not, although the buttons do.

After installing the OS, download the marvel firmware git repo and copy the contents to the appropriate directory:

$ git clone git://git.marvell.com/mwifiex-firmware.git
# mkdir -p /lib/firmware/mrvl/
# cp mwifiex-firmware/mrvl/* /lib/firmware/mrvl/

The Wifi device may be unstable before the firmware is updated, and bluetooth will not be available.

Next you will need to add a configureation for the touchpad mouse to work. It is worth noting that most instructions include the matching statement for the product.  I found that by removing this line the touchpad worked after updating the kernel.

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-touchpad.conf

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "Surface Pro 3 Cover"
    MatchIsPointer "on"

    MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
    Driver "evdev"
    Option "vendor" "045e"
#    Option "product" "07dc"
    Option "IgnoreAbsoluteAxes" "True"
EndSection

If you have not already, update your OS "yum -y update" and reboot.  After rebooting you should have a working touchpad and bluetooth adapter along with a much more stable wifi connection.