Fedora KIWI image descriptions, modified to build & launch for Surface Pro 12" Gen 1

UPD Sep 10 2026: There has been huge progress made in this project since August! Thanks to kernel patches, pushed onto Linux 7.2 mainstream and Gentoo overlay, most of the previous features which this release lacked (stable suspend on GNOME, accelerometer sensor, dedicated video output, cameras) are now implemented. The project has diverged into patched kernel + libcamera builds with an RPM repo publicly available. You can see current state of things in a feature matrix down below.

It is the fork of the original KIWI image descriptions, modified for launching Fedora Linux 45 Live ISO on Surface Pro 12" Gen 1 (and further installing it on the device).

I bought this device as I viewed it as a great Linux GNOME tablet, but after several days, many hours of work of trying to do so, I must say that installing a distribution here (and then having it work fine) is a huge pain in the ass.

Special thanks to harrisonvanderbyl, this project wouldn't be possible without his huge contribution to this whole Linux on Surface ARM business!

How to run

The compiled ISOs can be downloaded here.

This KIWI project is built mainly on the base of Fedora Workstation 45 (Pre-release) LiveCD ISO. Trying a stable version (the latest is Fedora 44 at the time of writing this) is possible, but not tested for now.

If you want to compile this image manually, the build arch must be aarch64. It means that if you are on an amd64 machine, you would have to use aarch64 instructions emulation tools like binfmt. Unfortunately, such a tool will drastically increase the compilation time.

To build this on Fedora Linux:

# Fetch submodules (if you haven't yet)
[]$ git submodule update --init --recursive
# Install kiwi
[]$ sudo dnf --assumeyes install kiwi kiwi-systemdeps distribution-gpg-keys
# Run the image build
[]$ sudo ./kiwi-build --kiwi-file=Fedora.kiwi --image-type=<image_type> --image-profile=<image_profile> --output-dir ./outdir
# An example for Workstation Live CD ISO, takes around 16 minutes
[]$ sudo ./kiwi-build --kiwi-file=Fedora.kiwi --image-type=iso --image-profile=Workstation-Live --output-dir ./outdir

Feature matrix

Compromises

• Live CD has to run in RAM, so rd.live.ram=1 is set for cmdline. Otherwise, at least on my ancient flash drive, it fails to load multiple necessary services, including polkit. So, ~5 minutes of loading on USB 2 drive, while screen is not backlit, is to be expected.
• No rescue vmlinuz.
• No secure boot possible for this ISO for now, as the platform used is efi and not uefi.
• No GRUB auto hidden menu. Trying to have the menu hidden results in system restarting after trying to boot it.
• Hardware video encoding/decoding needs a firmware blob the image is not allowed to ship. The qcom/vpu/vpu30_p1_s7.mbn that linux-firmware provides is the same codec signed with Qualcomm's SecTools test key chain, which a retail Surface's TrustZone rejects -- qcom_scm_pas_init_image() fails and the kernel logs qcom-iris aa00000.video-codec: error -22 initializing firmware. The production-signed build exists only inside Microsoft's Surface driver package, which grants no redistribution right, so what ships here is the means and not the blob:
  • If you kept the Windows ARM64 partition, surface-video-firmware.service finds it on the first boot after install and copies qcvss8380_pa.mbn out of its DriverStore. Nothing to do.
  • If Windows is gone, download the Surface Pro 12-inch driver pack (~500 MB MSI) and run sudo surface-video-firmware.sh -m /path/to/SurfacePro_12in_*.msi.

The kernel's device tree already points iris at /lib/firmware/qcom/x1p42100/Microsoft/Surface12/qcvss8380_pa.mbn, so the driver picks it up as soon as it is there. * Explicitly set s2idle suspend mode, as deep mode did not work properly as of August (when the iso was built without kernel patches). Currently untested if deep mode works now. * No 6 GHz network support (at least my device does not detect mine). * Adaptive brightness is disabled, as of now the light sensor outputs garbage.

Image variants

Please look at VARIANTS for details on the available configurations that can be built.

Licensing

This is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, under version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.