Tips On ArchLinux On SSD For SurfacePro

TurnToJPG -->

Hardware

Surface Pro, KingShare 128G SSD(USB).

Picture will be updated after successfully installed.

Virtualbox Way

Make a vmdk file which actually points to the USB Disk:

$ sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ./rawusb1.vmdk -rawdisk \ 
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-KINGSHAR_KS-CUTS25W_123456789010-0:0
$ sudo chown -R YourName rawusb1.vmdk

Now using this rawdisk for starting the VirtualBox based machine.

Installation

The system installation is refers to following links:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Microsoft_Surface_Pro_3

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installing_Arch_Linux_on_a_USB_key

Updated Configuration

Finally I installed the surface pro by using a usb dongle which burned the archlinux installation iso, put it into the surface pro and startup the machine pressing power key and volume down key, it will goes into the installtion steps.

Install the system on the SSD, the main steps are available at:

http://purplepalmdash.github.io/blog/2014/06/16/archlinux-on-surface-pro/

root@archiso ~ # mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt
root@archiso ~ # mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/boot/EFI 
root@archiso ~ # arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
[root@archiso /]# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/EFI \ 
--bootloader-id=arch_grub --recheck
[root@archiso /]# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Because I frequently change the installtion media(I have SSD and Harddisk), so everytime I change the installtion media, I have to run above steps again.

Kernel Configuration

Install the kernel from yaourt, you could get the surfacepro3 compatiable linux kernel, install it on surface pro will also be OK:

$ yaourt surfacepro
1 aur/linux-surfacepro3 4.3-1 [installed] (5)
    The Linux-surfacepro3 kernel and modules
2 aur/linux-surfacepro3-docs 4.3-1 (5)
    Kernel hackers manual - HTML documentation that comes with the Linux-surfacepro3
kernel
3 aur/linux-surfacepro3-headers 4.3-1 (5)
    Header files and scripts for building modules for Linux-surfacepro3 kernel

After installation, you have to manually generate the grub items:

$ sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Now reboot the surface pro, you could view the kernel has been upgraded to our newly installed version:

➜  ~  uname -a
Linux surfacepro 4.3.0-1-surfacepro3 #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Nov 20 05:47:41 CST 2015 x86_64
GNU/Linux

With the new version of kernel, you won’t face too much problems, my problem is when using the official kernel, my wifi will get stucked, sometimes the machine will be dead.