Ubuntu – Can I run Ubuntu on a Surface laptop

I found that bluetooth keyboards worked fine and were my saving grace when I was installing ubuntu on my surface 2, so it may be your specific keyboard that is causing issues. Maybe try a different bluetooth keyboard?

I was using a generically branded Adapt ADK-100 keyboard.

Alternatively, you can try turning on the on screen keyboard. To do this, you'll need to boot into live mode, start the OSK from the accessibility settings, and then launch the install.

If you're using the microsoft surface keyboard, then it's not bluetooth, it uses their special side connector, and needs a kernel patch to get it to work (or did, the last few updates I've done haven't required a manual kernel rebuild, so we may now be ok).

The patch in question:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2183946&page=2&p=12844865#post12844865

To build and install this kernel patch, follow these instructions:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/BuildYourOwnKernel

ignore the fakeroot debian/rules editconfigs line, and at that point instead go and modify the files as per the ubuntu forums code block, then continue with the process.

Here was my solution, which worked using Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Took me 1.5 days to figure out :-/

I could not do this without a multi USB adapter. I needed at least 2 USB ports. Here's what I did.

1. Plug the multi USB adapter in.
2. Plug the wireless keyboard & mouse dongle.
3. Load Windows 10 and shrink the C drive so that you have enough room for a Ubuntu partition and a swap drive (note that Windows will prevent you from doing this, so you need to follow instructions here)
4. Create two new partitions: one for Ubuntu and one for swap - swap doesn't have to be huge. I use a couple of Gig, but I don't think you even need that to be honest.
5. When you turn on the SP4, hold down the + volume button until the UEFI screen appears.
6. Disable Secure Boot and TPM.
7. Make sure USB Storage appears at the top of the list in Boot config.
8. Boot up Windows, open a command prompt as Administrator and type bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes and hit enter. This will make sure the Windows Boot menu appears on turning on the SP4 - note this also gives you many more boot options, so can be very useful.
9. Now put your Ubuntu Live USB in and reboot and install Ubuntu from the USB stick (your wifi/bluetooth USB and mouse will hopefully work - mine did but only with the multi USB adapter). Note that if "Install alongside windows" is missing, then click "Something else" instead. You need to assign ext4 root (/) partition, swap partition, and also select the Windows Boot Loader partition as the Ubuntu EFI partition. Do NOT format the EFI partition !!!

When I rebooted, the Ubuntu GRUB2 loads up and gives you the choice to either load Ubuntu, or open the Windows Boot Loader.

Note - it may not actually be necessary to enable the Windows Boot Loader menu, but it didn't work when disabled for 15.10.

If anything goes wrong you can always download an SP4 Windows 10 Recovery ISO from Microsoft's website, and there's always the recovery partition on the SP4. Overall I'd recommend turning on the Windows Boot Loader menu as it gives you more boot options.

Anyway, good luck !