Windows Subsystem for Linux works especially well for bash, the Azure CLI, and the Linux tools I use for the cloud. While I did need to install “full” Windows because Windows S won’t run Code, Chrome, or WSL, I feel this makes sense for power users and there is no discernable speed difference after making the switch. Code’s Integrated Terminal gives me near parity across macOS, Linux, and Windows. Windows 10 can provide me an almost identical experience to Linux or macOS when I use Visual Studio Code, Google Chrome, and Ubuntu via Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). The hardware is performant for what I use it for: Visual Studio Code, Google Chrome, and Containers. I picked the 8Gb RAM/128Gb HDD spec for my Go. I chose Ubuntu because I like it and, unlike Debian right now, it supports Secure Boot which lets me continue to dual boot Windows 10. The only thing I had to setup after installing Ubuntu was the Wi-Fi driver. And it works! Let’s not worry about custom kernels like jakeday/linux-surface for a moment. The first thing I did after I bought my Go was install Linux on it.

I’ve joked in the past that the best way to run Linux on a recent MacBook is to install Windows and run Windows Subsystem for Linux on it. At a minimum I would want the ability to boot from a USB drive and have the keyboard work – which it doesn’t. I use a MacBook Pro 13” for day to day work at Microsoft and, although I like macOS a lot, Linux is a non-starter on that hardware. I bought the Surface Go as a personal machine. The answer is simple: Linux, Code and Content. īefore I continue, the first question most people might ask is “what do you use it for?”. It is the first time I’ve flown with my Surface Go, and after tweeting about it quite a lot recently, it gives me the motivation to write a brain dump on why I like it. I write this post on my flight from Toronto to Seattle on the way to KubeCon.

Surface go