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My family might be buying a Windows Surface tablet with Windows RT (Nvidia)? I was wondering if I can run Ubuntu or WUBI on it for my homework?

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great question! Ubuntu tablets are definitely a community interest, and canonical knows that! nobody can answer this question-yet. we really need to get our hands on the surface and start hacking. only 2 days until launch, 3 until its hacked. – jmartin2279 Oct 25 '12 at 8:40
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I'd take a wild guess and say it depends on three things. 1) The processor architecture. Debian runs on nearly every architecture that was ever seriously used so I bet that wont be a problem for long. 2) The boot procedure. Whether it be BIOS, UEFI, or something Microsoft cooks up on their own. Included in this is task of getting Ubuntu onto the internal disk. 3) Device drivers. If there's no support for the hardware, then Ubuntu may not be able to run in a functional way (i.e., no video, no touch input, no network ability, etc). – Huckle Oct 30 '12 at 15:36
Because it has an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, I would assume the processor architecture is ARM, and that system software can be installed using nvflash when the device is in APX mode. It might be a challenge developing a working linux kernel for it because it was only designed to run Microsoft's kernel. – Another Googler Oct 30 '12 at 17:44

2 Answers

up vote 8 down vote

Since on the RT tablet I would say no, since Microsoft requires secure keys in order to boot up it. It would probably on a standard Windows 8 tablet though, since the secure boot is an optional thing for OEM's, unlike the mandatory one for the Surface.

Here is a similar question

http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1229uw/question_linux_on_a_windows_surface_tablet/

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up vote 0 down vote

Someone got Ubuntu to install on the Surface Pro, which isn't an arm chip, but the information might be useful. Their instructions are here

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