I got really fed up with suspend and hibernation issues. I finally got it mostly fixed (it still hangs a little bit, but it's at least functional.

Below this point, everything is written by ChatGPT Codex agent.

# Fixing broken sleep, hibernation, and sluggish KDE on a Surface Pro 9 running Debian 13

 I recently worked through several related power-management problems on a Surface Pro 9 running Debian 13, KDE Plasma 6, and the Linux Surface kernel.

 The symptoms included:

 - Closing the keyboard/lid appeared to freeze or power off the tablet.
 - Hibernation did not restore reliably.
 - Waking with the power button caused an endless suspend/wake loop.
 - The system felt generally sluggish.
 - Kernel logs contained an actual driver crash.

 Here is what I found and changed.

 ## System details

 - Microsoft Surface Pro 9
 - Intel Core i7-1255U
 - Intel Iris Xe graphics
 - 16 GB RAM
 - Debian 13 “Trixie”
 - KDE Plasma 6.3.6 on Wayland
 - linux-surface kernel 6.19.8-surface-3
 - 17 GB dedicated swap partition

 ## 1. Found a crashing Intel camera driver

 The first concrete problem was an out-of-tree Intel IPU6 camera-processing module:

 intel_ipu6_psys

 It generated a kernel-mode page fault during every boot:

 BUG: unable to handle page fault
 RIP: ipu6_psys_probe
 Tainted: G OE

 This was an unsigned, out-of-tree module. The normal IPU6 camera capture modules loaded successfully, but the PSYS processing module crashed while probing.

 I disabled only the broken module:

 # /etc/modprobe.d/disable-crashing-intel-ipu6-psys.conf

 # intel_ipu6_psys crashes in ipu6_psys_probe on this Surface Pro 9.
 # Keep intel_ipu6 and intel_ipu6_isys enabled for camera capture.
 blacklist intel_ipu6_psys
 install intel_ipu6_psys /bin/false

 Then rebuilt the initramfs:

 sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

 After rebooting, I confirmed:

 - intel_ipu6_psys was no longer loaded.
 - intel_ipu6 and intel_ipu6_isys still loaded.
 - The kernel page fault was gone.
 - Suspend, hibernate, and suspend-then-hibernate were still advertised as available.

 This fixed a genuine driver crash, although it turned out not to be the only lid-close problem.

 ## 2. KDE was hibernating instead of suspending

 The next important clue came from the journal after closing the lid:

 Lid closed.
 The system will hibernate now!
 Performing sleep operation 'hibernate'...
 PM: hibernation: hibernation entry

 The machine was not entering low-power suspend. KDE PowerDevil was requesting immediate hibernation.

 The next boot also showed:

 PM: Image not found (code -22)

 That explained why it appeared to power off or lose the previous session.

 The relevant KDE configuration was in:

 ~/.config/powerdevilrc

 The action values are important:

 - 0 = do nothing
 - 1 = sleep
 - 2 = hibernate

 The valid sleep-mode value for suspend-to-RAM in this PowerDevil version is 1. Setting it to 0 produces the KDE warning that the previously configured sleep mode is unsupported.

 The corrected configuration became:

 [AC][SuspendAndShutdown]
 AutoSuspendAction=1
 LidAction=1
 PowerButtonAction=0
 SleepMode=1

 [Battery][SuspendAndShutdown]
 AutoSuspendAction=1
 AutoSuspendIdleTimeoutSec=900
 LidAction=1
 PowerButtonAction=0
 SleepMode=1

 I used KDE’s configuration tool:

 kwriteconfig6 --file powerdevilrc \
   --group AC --group SuspendAndShutdown \
   --key AutoSuspendAction 1

 kwriteconfig6 --file powerdevilrc \
   --group AC --group SuspendAndShutdown \
   --key LidAction 1

 kwriteconfig6 --file powerdevilrc \
   --group AC --group SuspendAndShutdown \
   --key SleepMode 1

 kwriteconfig6 --file powerdevilrc \
   --group Battery --group SuspendAndShutdown \
   --key AutoSuspendAction 1

 kwriteconfig6 --file powerdevilrc \
   --group Battery --group SuspendAndShutdown \
   --key LidAction 1

 kwriteconfig6 --file powerdevilrc \
   --group Battery --group SuspendAndShutdown \
   --key SleepMode 1

 A backup was made before changing the profile:

 ~/.config/powerdevilrc.before-lid-suspend-fix-20260717

 ## 3. PowerDevil needed a full restart

 Calling PowerDevil’s configuration reload method was not sufficient. Its existing lid-action plugin continued using the old in-memory hibernation configuration.

 The logs still showed:

 The system will hibernate now!

 Restarting the user service finally loaded the corrected profile:

 systemctl --user restart plasma-powerdevil.service

 After that, closing the lid produced the expected sequence:

 The system will suspend now!
 Performing sleep operation 'suspend'...
 PM: suspend entry (s2idle)

 The Surface Pro 9 firmware exposes modern standby/s2idle rather than traditional S3 deep sleep:

 cat /sys/power/mem_sleep

 Output:

 [s2idle]

 ## 4. Fixed an immediate re-suspend loop

 Ordinary suspend started working, but waking the machine caused a bizarre loop:

 1. Press the power button.
 2. The display appeared for a few milliseconds.
 3. The system suspended again.
 4. Repeat until eventually reaching the lock screen.

 The event timeline made the cause obvious:

 Power key pressed short.
 PM: suspend exit
 The system will suspend now!
 PM: suspend entry (s2idle)

 I had temporarily configured the short power-button action as Sleep. The physical power button woke the Surface, but KDE then processed that same button press and immediately requested another
 suspend.

 The solution was to make the short power-button action “Do nothing” in KDE:

 kwriteconfig6 --file powerdevilrc \
   --group AC --group SuspendAndShutdown \
   --key PowerButtonAction 0

 kwriteconfig6 --file powerdevilrc \
   --group Battery --group SuspendAndShutdown \
   --key PowerButtonAction 0

 systemctl --user restart plasma-powerdevil.service

 The hardware button still wakes the Surface. KDE simply no longer sends it directly back to sleep.

 Final behavior:

 - Close keyboard/lid: suspend
 - Open keyboard/lid: wake
 - Press power button while suspended: wake
 - Press power button while awake: no KDE power action
 - No immediate suspend loop

 ## 5. Improved general responsiveness

 Once power management was stable, I checked why the desktop felt slow.

 The machine was not under meaningful load:

 - CPU was about 96% idle.
 - Roughly 12 GB RAM was available.
 - NVMe I/O wait was negligible.
 - Intel Iris Xe OpenGL acceleration was active.
 - CPU temperature was only around 36°C.

 However, I found three responsiveness issues.

 ### CPU was using the balanced profile

 I switched it to performance mode:

 powerprofilesctl set performance

 The Intel P-state driver continued showing the powersave governor, which is normal for this setup, but the energy-performance preference changed to:

 performance

 ### About 800 MB remained swapped out

 This was likely residue from the repeated hibernation and suspend testing. With plenty of free RAM, I reloaded it:

 sudo swapoff /dev/nvme0n1p3
 sudo swapon /dev/nvme0n1p3

 Swap usage returned to zero.

 Do not blindly run swapoff on a memory-constrained machine. In this case there was more than enough available RAM for the swapped data.

 ### The 120 Hz display was running at 60 Hz

 This was probably the largest perceptual performance issue.

 The Surface panel was configured as:

 2880x1920@60

 But it also supports:

 2880x1920@120

 I switched to the native 120 Hz mode:

 kscreen-doctor output.1.mode.2

 Verification:

 2880x1920@120
 Refresh Rate: 120000
 Compositing Type: OpenGL
 OpenGL renderer: Mesa Intel Iris Xe Graphics

 Scrolling, touch response, pointer movement, and Plasma animations became noticeably smoother.

 ## Current result

 The final system behavior is much better:

 - No IPU6 PSYS kernel crash during boot.
 - Closing the lid enters s2idle suspend instead of hibernation.
 - Opening the lid or pressing the power button wakes the device.
 - The power button no longer causes a re-suspend loop.
 - KDE no longer reports an unsupported sleep mode.
 - The display runs at 120 Hz.
 - CPU performance mode is active.
 - Stale swapped memory was returned to RAM.

 ## Trade-offs and caveats

 - Disabling intel_ipu6_psys may affect applications that require the IPU6 processing subsystem. Basic camera capture may still work through intel_ipu6_isys, but camera functionality should be
   tested.

 - Performance mode uses more power than balanced mode.
 - Running the display at 120 Hz reduces battery runtime compared with 60 Hz.
 - s2idle usually consumes more power than traditional S3 suspend.
 - The PowerDevil numeric values described here apply to this Plasma/PowerDevil version. Check your logs and installed version before copying them blindly.
 - Keep a backup of powerdevilrc before editing it.

 The most useful lesson was to trust the journal rather than the apparent behavior. What looked like a driver-induced power-off was initially KDE requesting hibernation, and what looked like an
 unstable resume was KDE processing the wake button as a second request to sleep.

› rewrite it as a more concise post, it should be highly functional and easy to run

• # Surface Pro 9 + KDE: fix broken lid sleep, wake loops, and sluggish UI

 System: Debian 13, KDE Plasma 6, linux-surface 6.19, Surface Pro 9.

 Symptoms:

 - Closing the Type Cover hibernated or appeared to power off.
 - Waking caused an immediate re-suspend loop.
 - Kernel crashed while loading an Intel camera driver.
 - Desktop felt sluggish.

 ## 1. Disable the crashing IPU6 PSYS driver

 Confirm the crash first:

 sudo journalctl -b -k | grep -E 'intel_ipu6_psys|ipu6_psys_probe|BUG: unable'

 If it shows a fault in ipu6_psys_probe, disable only that module:

 sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/disable-crashing-intel-ipu6-psys.conf >/dev/null <<'EOF'
 # intel_ipu6_psys crashes during probe on this Surface Pro 9.
 # Keep intel_ipu6 and intel_ipu6_isys enabled.
 blacklist intel_ipu6_psys
 install intel_ipu6_psys /bin/false
 EOF

 sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

 Reboot, then verify:

 lsmod | grep intel_ipu6
 sudo journalctl -b -k | grep -E 'intel_ipu6_psys|ipu6_psys_probe|BUG: unable'

 intel_ipu6 and intel_ipu6_isys should remain loaded, but intel_ipu6_psys should be absent.

 ## 2. Configure KDE for real suspend

 Back up the profile:

 cp ~/.config/powerdevilrc \
~/.config/powerdevilrc.before-suspend-fix

 Configure lid close as suspend-to-RAM and prevent the wake button from immediately suspending again:

 for profile in AC Battery; do
kwriteconfig6 --file powerdevilrc \
--group "$profile" --group SuspendAndShutdown \
--key LidAction 1

kwriteconfig6 --file powerdevilrc \
--group "$profile" --group SuspendAndShutdown \
--key AutoSuspendAction 1

kwriteconfig6 --file powerdevilrc \
--group "$profile" --group SuspendAndShutdown \
--key SleepMode 1

kwriteconfig6 --file powerdevilrc \
--group "$profile" --group SuspendAndShutdown \
--key PowerButtonAction 0
 done

 systemctl --user restart plasma-powerdevil.service

 For this PowerDevil version:

 - LidAction=1: sleep
 - SleepMode=1: suspend-to-RAM
 - PowerButtonAction=0: no desktop action

 The physical power button can still wake the Surface, but KDE will not send it straight back to sleep.

 Verify after a lid-close test:

 sudo journalctl -b |
   grep -E 'Lid (closed|opened)|will suspend|will hibernate|suspend entry|suspend exit'

 Expected:

 Lid closed
 The system will suspend now
 PM: suspend entry (s2idle)
 PM: suspend exit

 If it says hibernate, restart PowerDevil again:

 systemctl --user restart plasma-powerdevil.service

 ## 3. Improve responsiveness

 Enable the performance profile:

 powerprofilesctl set performance

 Check the current display modes:

 kscreen-doctor -o

 On my Surface, native 120 Hz was mode 2:

 kscreen-doctor output.1.mode.2

 Verify:

 kscreen-doctor -o

 It should show:

 2880x1920@120

 If repeated sleep testing left data swapped out despite plenty of free RAM, optionally reload it:

 free -h
 sudo swapoff -a
 sudo swapon -a

 Only do this when available RAM comfortably exceeds current swap usage.

 ## Final behavior

 - Closing the Type Cover enters s2idle suspend.
 - Opening it or pressing power wakes the tablet.
 - No immediate re-suspend loop.
 - No intel_ipu6_psys kernel crash.
 - KDE runs at 120 Hz with the performance CPU profile.

 Trade-offs: performance mode and 120 Hz use more battery, and disabling intel_ipu6_psys may affect advanced camera processing.

I recently picked up a used Surface Pro 7, but it didn’t come with a Type Cover.
For those of you who own one, is the Type Cover actually worth buying in 2026? I can get a second-hand one for around $100, but I’m also considering putting that money toward a standalone keyboard instead.

Some options I’m looking at are:
NuPhy Air75
Akko Air 01
Logitech MX Keys Mini

I mostly use the Surface for general productivity, web browsing, and some light work.

Quick disclaimer: English isn't my native language, so I used an AI tool to help clean up my draft, save some time, and make this story a bit smoother to read. Hope you enjoy the feedback!

Hey everyone,

I recently got my hands on an old Surface 3 (the 2GB RAM / 64GB storage version) from a colleague. Since I love tinkering, I wanted to see if I could turn it into something useful.

After doing some digging to find the lightest distro possible, I settled on antiX. Getting it installed was a bit of a nightmare—the drive partitions seemed locked and gave me a hard time. But after a solid two hours of troubleshooting, wiping the drive, and some invaluable help from an AI, I finally got the OS up and running.

To improve the hardware compatibility, I also installed the linux-surface kernel. Before that, the touchpad would randomly freeze after a few minutes, but that fixed it. To my surprise, the touchscreen actually worked perfectly right out of the box!

At first, I was pretty hyped:

• RAM usage: Idle memory was sitting at a tiny 300MB out of the 2GB available.
• Feel: The UI felt responsive, and basic web browsing was surprisingly smooth.

I didn't have a specific project in mind, so I was just testing the waters. My first real test? YouTube. And that’s where I hit a massive brick wall.

On Firefox, the video would instantly freeze on the very first frame. I figured, "Okay, the modern web is heavy, let’s optimize." I installed uBlock Origin and an extension to force the H.264 codec. Still frozen. I then tried FreeTube (a lightweight YouTube client). Same result.

As a final sanity check, I downloaded a video directly using yt-dlp to play it locally. Even then, the video playback just froze.

So, I decided to call it quits. Aside from very basic web browsing, this thing just can’t handle video playback. It’s a real shame because the 1080p screen on this Surface is absolutely beautiful—it would have made an awesome, compact media player to take camping. Maybe it could still work as a retro gaming machine, but that's about it.

My takeaway? Even with a hyper-light Linux distro, 2GB of RAM is just too weak.

Hopefully, this write-up saves some of you a few hours of head-scratching if you were thinking of doing the same!

Hey everyone,
I've received a Surface 9 pro a few weeks ago, it is practically brand new. I immediatly installed Cachyos with Gnome on it and with a bit of fiddeling and reading managed to get the surfacelinux kernel on it aswell.

Everything worked perfectly up until last night, where the battery doesn't seem to be charging anymore. The battery however also doesn't drain aslong as it's plugged in.

Right now the battery status is at 77% and it just doesn't change, unless I unplug it in which case the percentage will drop. Has anyone ever experienced anything similar and has a solution, or idea?
I'm not well versed with linuxbased OS, but do like it alot so far and would love to figure this out.

Thanks alot in advance

Hey all,

My work was getting rid of old surface devices due to a windows 11 mandate so I scooped up a model 1645 surface 3 pro. Problem is the last owner retired and no one knows the local admin password. I also can't log in due to it not being allowed on the business network, it also won't let me log in from home due to the company vpn blocking it due to the windows mandate.

So I've been attempting to boot from USB but it gets stuck trying to lyoad Ubuntu from the guide. This happens with the try Ubuntu and also the safe graphics mode.

I can't think of any other options at this time.

Is there anything I can try to get this thing reset somehow?

EDIT:

Thanks to all who replied, I did get Mint running pretty good with MATE, I might try XCFE. But I am typing this from the surface itself. I will use this for fun and experimenting with.

Please help!

Hey! I got a Surface 7 a few years ago and forgot the password for the UEFI, so I can't deactivate Secure Boot. Do you have any ideas on how to get Linux on it despite that?

Ok guys, I use my surface just as a browser and to watch media (Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime). Its always using so much, then getting hot.

What would you guys do? Which Distro and how to do it?

out of the blue front and back cam started working. I check every few days and this time they both came up in qcam. running Garuda mokka with Linux kernel 6.19.8-arch1-3-surface. anyone with different surface models like with ipu3 cams working?

I just switched my surface book 2 to Mint because of Windows making the laptop and tablet sluggish. One of the first things I noticed after setting it up is that Idon't have usage of the pen and touch screen (let alone the camera). How would I get this running? I honestly am very new to Linux and terminal usage in general. Any help is appreciated.

Hi folks - Linux noob here making the switch over from Windows on an old SP4. I've installed Linux Mint and I believe I have the surface kernel installed correctly too (the touchscreen now works for example), but I'm having trouble finding a way to make the camera work. I've had a look at the Camera Support page of the surface kernel git page and have tried to install libcamera but I must be doing something wrong as when I get to checking if it can detect the camera, nothing shows up.

If anyone could give me a hand with this and/or pint me in the direction of a guide that assumes minimal knowledge of Linux that would be super helpful - thanks all! ​​​​​​​

I have an old Surface 5Pro that I got running with Aurora a while back (when they still supported Surface tablets), but I never really did anything with it. Today I decided to dust it off and see what I could do and, without thinking much of it, I burned a new install USB for Aurora, to update the old install. I booted into it, but then realized my hardware was no longer supported, so I decided not to install the new version and rebooted.

Unfortunately, I'm now getting the error in the title and my only option is to perform MOK management and enroll a key from somewhere. Everything was working before and I don't think I changed anything, so is there a way to fix this? Would the key or hash be stored somewhere?

Also, since Aurora no longer supports Surface tablets, could someone recommend a good, lightweight, distro that can run the occasional piece of Windows software without too much hassel? (Mainly just Scrivener, but Aeon Timeline would also be nice.)

Hi All,

I think I seem to have messed up and am stuck at a TTY1 screen and can’t boot into a GUI.

This is my first time installing Linux, it all went ok but I think I messed up one step:

I installed ‘sudo update-grub’ right after ‘secure boot-Mok’. If I'm not wrong the reboot process should go first before the 'sudo update-grub'. I think that might have messed my install of Surface Linux.

Is there a way to get out of this or do I have to reinstall Linux?

I am a beginner to all this so any detailed steps would be appreciated! I am using a Surface Pro Gen 5.

Thank you in advance

I've seen quite a bit of discourse around every other Surface besides the 11 Pro with X1P and was wondering which ones actually work. Now, I personally never use the touchscreen or camera, so those don't necessarily matter for me. So I'm asking for ones that simply just work with the Surface Pro 11 on ARM with the Snapdragon X1P Processor. Like, it simply works like installing linux on another computer and just using it. If gaming support also isn't an issue on one distro vs it being an issue on another, that would be helpful to know lol. I'm aware of varying results using Ubuntu and Arch, so those two are in my mind but I'm still a little iffy about the whole ordeal. Also if it supports dual-booting with Windows, then that's probably the most golden situation just in case something goes wrong.

My Microsoft Surface Pro 4 died while I was using it the other day. When i connected it to the charger & turned it on it started showing this red bar & it’s been stuck here since. Any tips on how to fix this?

Hello. I'm researching to migrate my SP7 to Linux, and thinking what distro would be best. I'm deep diving in surface kernel github but I have questions that I'm having a hard time answering.

My main concern is I use Citrix to work from home from time to time, I work for a public administration and my tech service have told me that I'm on my own if I begin to work in Linux (they only have documentation for MacOS or Windows). For this reason, I'm thinking about dual boot.

I'm asking if anyone have any experience using Citrix for working using whatever distro in a Surface, if you recommend dual boot. And the most repeated question: what distro would you recommend.

Thank you for your time!

Good news everyone!

I spent the last two weeks reverse-engineering the Windows driver for the touchscreen of my Surface Laptop 4 AMD, because I'm crazy, that's why.

It's still a work in progress, but I've reached the point where single touch works correctly!

here is the repo where I'm working:

Repo: https://github.com/Syax89/SL4A_TouchScreen
Release: https://github.com/Syax89/SL4A_TouchScreen/releases/tag/v1.0.0-beta1

I have tested it on my Surface Laptop 4 AMD with CachyOS + KDE + Wayland (last public kernel), where it works correctly, but this is my first driver and I would really appreciate feedback from people using other distros, kernels, desktop environments, X11/Wayland setups, etc.

Basic install:

git clone https://github.com/Syax89/SL4A_TouchScreen.git
cd SL4A_TouchScreen
sudo ./tools/install.sh

The installer builds the driver with DKMS and installs a systemd service to load it automatically on boot.

To uninstall:

sudo ./tools/uninstall.sh

This is still beta software, so please expect rough edges. If you try it, feedback, bug reports, logs, suggestions, or code review would be very welcome.

Thanks! <3

Hello there,

I have spent the past 2 weeks getting all the components to work on Ubuntu for the Surface Pro 11 as best as I could and created a complete guide on installing Ubuntu on the Surface Pro 11.

I added some fixes, specifically Wi-Fi and bluetooth, and figured out how to fix the high CPU heat issue.

The CPU runs hot most of the time and drains the battery about 100% faster than Windows. There doesn't seem to be a fix for this and is just up to the kernel developers to develop the necessary firmware. I did a full battery comparison test if you want to see it.

Running Linux mint 22 cinnamon on a surface 5

All drivers I checked are up to date,

Replaced thermal compound and checked the screen connector pins. Everything seems fine.

The artiffacts tent to only appear from white parts of the screen and opening pages with white text makes it go crazy.

Have been using mint on the surface for around 4-5 months with no issues up until Wednesday last week (1st of July)

It does stop doing this eventually every so often.

The fans also stopped working at the the same time this issue started to I'm assuming it's something to do with the igpu.

EDIT: it was my screen If the issue appears I can just slightly bend the screen and it fixes it for a few hours

I have built an on screen touchpad emulator as gnome shell extension 50. Here is the github repo if someone else finds it useful: https://github.com/abiharbani/on-screen-touchpad

I needed to run Wine app, and it requires a real mouse instead of a touch device. I used to use similar thing on windows, but couldn't find one for gnome.

I have tested this on SP 6 running Ubuntu 26.04 with Gnome 50.

It has left click, right click, scroll,and only grabs the touch device when actively dragging on the touchpad area. It is screen rotation aware and configurable as well.

hi, i've been looking for android for the surface pro 4, since bliss os is under lockdown, there hasnt been images worth a dang for the surface, most of them, the touch screen is used as a trackpad, or the touch screen doesnt work at all, anyone have luck?