It might be crazy to run Linux on Surface Laptop, but there is a way to do it. If you have extra RAM to spare on your Surface Laptop, just use Virtual Box because you’ll have all the driver support you need and you will not have to change your boot configuration. For the brave, here’s how to install Linux on Surface Laptop the more traditional way.
Create Bootable USB
Begin by creating a bootable USB of your favorite operating system using the free program called Rufus. For this tutorial, I am going to be using Ubuntu.
Advanced Startup
On your Surface Laptop, go into the advanced startup settings and click the button that reads restart now.
This will take you to the advanced startup settings. Go to **troubleshoot **and then select to Change UEFI Firmware Settings.
UEFI Firmware Settings
Once you are at the UEFI Firmware settings, go to the tab that says **boot. **Change the boot configuration to none then go to exit. When your surface reboots, you’ll be presented with a screen to enter your BitLocker recovery key. This can be obtained from your Microsoft account.
After you enter your recovery key, your surface will continue booting into Windows. From there, go to advanced start up one more time and click **restart now. **Now, insert your USB drive with Linux on it.
Within the advanced startup settings, select the option that reads use a device, then go to use a USB device.
From this point, it will boot from your USB drive and you will be presented with the Linux grub menu. From this point, you can install Linux on your Surface Laptop or just try it out using the Live mode. Currently, the keyboard driver doesn’t work with Ubuntu so you will need to use an external keyboard.