Hi, thx for the Video. I’ll try with my surface rt soon. Just one question, why do you use an sd card to create the image and later copy all into the pendrive? Can do it directly in the pendrive?
The sRT folder contains the boot loader, i only copied that into usb drive. The opt folder needs to be copied to the sd card where you wrote the image. The boot loader from usb drive will redirect to the OS written in sd card while booting
Hi! Thnaks for this tutorial that helped me a lot :) I have it all working except the chromium :( When i try to open lightwight or normal i get this error saying that i don't have the file scaling_max_freq and the scaling_cur_freq on /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/ I have that folder but not that files... Do you have any suggestion?
I guess I will never get this to work! I’ve tried everything. Ran the RT jailbreak several times. It shows in Windows “System Information” that “secure boot state is OFF. I’ve changed the start up file. I’ve even tried booting with only copying the “zimage” and “tetra-windows-surface-RVT-Efi.dtb” only on my bootable thumb drive and it crashes. It ALWAYS ends with “--[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: UFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0) ]--“. I’m so frustrated 😓 What could I possibly be doing wrong folks?
I haven't gone through a detailed list of what works and what doesn't in comparison to Windows 8.1/10 RT, but after using a couple of other linux distros, I could tell the overall system usability was smooth, smooth enough for us to try and attempt to complete our daily tasks to see what it can actually offer or how far we can push it. Consider the video as a gateway; usability may range from user to user depending on their daily usage requirements. (This can't act as your primary machine that's for sure)
You should definitely have a broader choice of application support compared to the RT app store; with box64 and wine, you might be able to run several windows apps.
Hi, thanks for the great effort putting everything together. I have a quick question.. I found an old Surface RT that has a red screen when booting.. does that mean it's secure boot is disabled? But I thought secure boot cannot be disabled on Surface RT?
You deserve more subs man, THIS LITERALLY SAVED MY USELESS SURFACE, it is not perfect but in linux it can do so much more than in windows, THANKS A LOT!!!
Hi, great video. Please make a new video with the new one-command installer. It is a little confusing watching discrepancy between what is in this video against what is displaying in the Surface screen
Thanks! I'll try to make a video. But in short what you have to do is: 1. Login with username 'root' after booting from usb 2. Run "mount /dev/mmcblk1p1 /boot/firmware" 3. Run the installer with the following command: bash /boot/firmware/opt/custom-scripts/SurfUpXplosion.sh 4. Shut down and start device normally after setup is complete
Aryan M, Okay after some digging I used the rt-wifi-client and was the only way to get the Wifi connection, so my only issue is to be able to boot directly from the eMMC, but will make a current backup of the SD card before proceeding.
Seems like there was an issue with the automatic resizing of eMMC in the clone-disk script. I've updated the files, download the new custom-scripts folder and try again, after cloning into your eMMC you have to manually resize the filesystem using fdisk
Hi again Aryan M, So I restarted the process using a smaller 16Gb card. Seems to have worked except for the clone script.(It still boots to Win8.1) after removing the USB drive. But can still boot from USB and get to the desktop in Debian. Another issue is that I cannot get wifi working, tried the wifi-setup script again but no luck. The iwconfig also state mlan0 - no wireless extensions. Please help.
Hi Aryan M. First of all I want to say thank you for your commitment to this effort(It's amazing) I tried and was able to get to the point of booting to the Debian DE and all the tweaks of the python script.(so all good up to that point) So I forgot that you mentioned to use a microSD Card not greater than 16Gb, and dumb me, I used a 32Gb. So not sure if this is what is causing my issue to boot from the eMMC I ran the clone-disk script, and similar issue as @kiritjagani System halted. End kernel panic not syncing vfs unable to mount root fs on unknown block Can you assist or do I need to redo the whole rebuild on a smaller microSD card? Again you are a rockstar and I am happy to be able to breathe new life into a great device. Thanks
Thanks a lot for your feedback! It really means a lot to me. The error is occurring because the internal hard disk is less than or equal to 32 GB on the surface RT, in order to clone the sd card's content in your internal MMC the sd card needs to be less than the hard drive's size. Any sd card below 25-26 gb can be used for the process. Be sure to let me know if you have any other queries 🙌
Hello Aryan M., Thank you so much for your help and the video. I have a suggestion, I wish you could modify the script to leave the job of updating the system until after it's installed in the emmc, because my TF card is very slow. I spent too much time here updating the system. I guess it would be much faster if we update the system once it's installed in the emmc. I hope you can take it into consideration, thanks again!
Sure mate, I've commented out the upgrade command in "install-packages.sh" at line 8. It won't upgrade the default packages on initial setup from now on
Hi @DAryanMR, the installation completed OK, made the tweaks to chromium-lightweight, installed some extra software(like the netsurf and dillo browsers for lightweight browsing), tested youtube and sound, restarted some times, but after one particular shutdown(with the poweroff command) it refuses to enter the graphic mode(I suspect something's not clean in the file system but I cannot see it, it freezes with a black screen with the cursor blinking in the top left of the screen). Any idea of how can I enter some kind of recovery mode in which I can run fsck or detect the root cause of the booting process not finishing? Tried with the shift key and with the ESC key without success. Alternatively I will have to repeat the lenghty cloning phase 🙁 Thanks in advance.
I think re-installing would be simpler than trying to debug. You can also keep a backup image always installed on a spare sd card, then you can simply boot into that, then run the clone-disk script to clone the os to your hard drive again. This saves a lot of time. The sd card's image could also be used to run fsck
and when you're installing or removing any apps read all the information/messages provided by apt or (other package managers) properly, if they tell you some packages could clash then try to avoid installing them unless you're absolutely sure.
Great work Aryan! Some questions: 1 - Do you know if ntfs filesystem works? I need to mount an external disk formated in ntfs. 2 - I can't reach some webs like pluto tv or reddit, why? I can't reach those ips even if I use ping 3- : Is it secure to make an apt update and upgrade? Add third party repositories?
Thanks mate! - NTFS should work, just look for how to mount NTFS file system in Debian 12 - Some websites like spotify, Netflix won't work by default as they need "libwidevine", there was a patch to install it in Raspberry pi OS, but I haven’t tried those steps in Debian, but Reddit should open, try to access it with chromium-lightweight, if that doesn’t work then use the default chromium browser. - and yes you can use apt update, upgrade, 3rd party repos. Sometimes the os might crash if any packages clash with each other but you can always roll back to the beginning
Aryan, first I want to thank you for your work. I'm using the SurfUpXplosion script and I'm stuck on the wi-fi part. Everything seems to go OK, but the wifi doesn't get an IP address. Here's what I've found so far: - I'm using the 20231109 version of Debian for raspi 2 - rfkill fails because the command is not found - "ip a" shows the "mlan0" interface with the state DOWN - after the wifi step the script fails because it cannot connect to the internet and update the packages - trying to run the load-drivers and wifi-setup scripts in sequence after the main script (SurfUpExplosion) fails, shows no improvements - /etc/wpa_suppplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf seems well created Any thoughts? Thanks.
Ok, I have a few questions (since I'm a noob at this): - does the image need to be installed on an sd card or USB can do it too? - are the steps the same with other distributions of linux? - can you use another imager software (like rufus)? - if I want to use this device for school (which means that it needs to connect to the internet and run applications such as teams and word), is it a viable use case? or it's too old and it won't be compatible with latest versions of these software anyways Thanks for the tutorial though, it's one of a kind!
Thank you so much for your feedback! It means so much to me. Here are the answers: - Yes, you must write the image to an SD card and copy the bootloader to a USB drive. - The tutorial's manual procedure should be roughly the same for all Debian-based ARM32(armhf) linux distributions, but the one-command-installer is specific to the image in the description. - I'm not sure if it will work with Rufus; I wrote the images with Raspberry Pi Imager or Balena Etcher (both work). - You can connect to the internet via wifi, but the interface occasionally dies and you must restart the device to reconnect. Microsoft Office is no longer supported, but Libre Office can be used as an alternative. Google Docs works, but the pages take a long time to render properly. For best results, use chromium-lightweight. I haven't used teams, so I can't comment on that either. True, the device is out of date, but you should still be able to find many of your desired softwares if you search for them using the linux distribution you selected. I have many fond memories with this tablet, so it's always a pleasurable experience for me.
@@kaiaz4694you can try the bootloader from here: files.open-rt.party/Linux/Distro/ Download the "surface-2-rpi-bookworm-bootfiles" and give it a shot, if you still face issues then I would suggest you to join the open RT discord server and ask for their guidance.
I bought a surface rt but it had raspberry pi os on it already but I can't get my wifi adapter and stuff working. Can I follow this guide to install this Linux or can I skip some steps at the beginning. Thanks
Thanks for the quick reply I have one more question. I don't think I like the raspberry os. If I want the Linux version your using would all the steps be the same as in your video. I have Ubuntu and Linux mint on my laptops. Do the golden keys and such need to be done every time you put a new OS on it or is it only done once when you go from windows to something new
@@Spike00031 you have to perform Golden keys and Yahallo only once. You can follow the steps shown in the video or use the one-command installer from description.
@@DAryanMR thank you for the reply, I was able to get it to work from Open RT discord. they had new boot files that worked. USB after loading doesn't work. this is a known issue, FYI.
Okay, just for future reference when doing a "How to" video don't speedrun it. And probably explain a little more about what you are doing. I get what you are doing, you get what you are doing, but not everyone knows what all these commands in the terminal do.
Thanks for your feedback! Actually the video was starting to get really long so I decided to only show the exact steps, but I'll keep make sure to provide brief explanations from the future.
yes, touchscreen, wifi works. Bluetooth works if you plug in a usb adapter. Cameras and audio input (mic) doesn’t work. Sometimes the wifi adapter fails and you have to restart
@@DAryanMR Unfortunately, the only version of Windows 10 that works on the RT is an unofficial release, and is very old and unable to be updated. Linux is probably the only way to make one of these old RT tablets useful again! Thank you for the video! 😎
This tutorial is for microsoft's surface rt, chromium is not perfect, you will notice some lags if you try to render heavy websites, but a lot of them didn’t even use to render on windows rt.
@@DAryanMR solved, thanks. Next problem; I get to about minute 8 in your video and then the installer breaks my sd card. unable to unpack, read-only segmentation fault
Sadly this is the second card that died. 1 from manual scripts (like video) and one using the SurfUpXplosion script. How do you determine the sector size?
@@JorickMulder the first sector size will be Start of /dev/mmcblk1p1 And End sector is default Check the partitioning steps shown at 16:10 for reference, use mmcblk1 instead of mmcblk0 if you're still on the sd card part And SurfUpXplosion will only work for the debian 12 image provided in description, because resizing and partitioning is done according to it's first sector size
Do i need to plug both the sd card and usb pendrive at the same time?and can i use 32gb sd card?and 32gb usbdrive?i did jailbreak and turned off secure boot but when i boot from usb it says press ESC in 5 seconds to skip startup.nsh.but Doesn't work anythinf after pressing esc.what to do?
both of them needs to be plugged in at the same time, sd card has to be under 32gb, 8 or 16 gb is preferable. Format the usb drive as fat32 then copy the bootloader. Try again after that.
same issue. I tried placing the kernel modules and firmware in the root folder then rebooting, but it just black screens and doesn't reboot. I have to force it to shut down by pessing the power button. But then I feel like when it turns on, the modules fail to load when booting up
As i am not tech savvy am finding it little difficult understanding certain process. I have cleared the process till installing yahallo. Well i was successfully able to install debian 11 from support on other site. If you could extend little detailed help may be i could make it with debian 12 installation
my surface not go to boot scene ??? #_# i insert SD card and boot usb to my surface then press vol - and power button , but nothing change. It still boot to windows 8 rt
@@SeiGion actually I tried to break down the installations into smaller portions just in case someone is interested in that specific part, you can try out the one command installer mentioned in description.
doesn't work for me it says cannot open access to console, the root account is locked then it just goes forward with the other jobs and when it finishes it doesn't do anything ( I tried the New one-command-installer method)
Thanks for your video, Debian 12 is runing my Surface RT now :), But I have a question, when I open chrome://gpu, the Graphics Feature Status is all Disabled or Software only, Are you like that?
@@音鬼-x8yThis was a good tutorial I followed back when I was using Raspberry Pi OS, but I didn’t try them out in Debian 12. lemariva.com/blog/2020/08/raspberry-pi-4-video-acceleration-decode-chromium
