So I've spent like 20 minutes with the Surface Go 3, trying basically to update the firmware and then install Linux.
In my short time with Windows, I've already got 3 errors, one with the update process and two disk resize errors, all running normal operations on the Control Panel.
Ah! And it forced me to create a Microsoft account just to log in and use it.
What an amazing OS, can't understand why people hate it 🤷♂️
It gets better. The error that I got while trying to shrink the windows partition left the drive in an inconsistent state.
The OS can only see 40GB of disk space used (out of 128) but the disk is reporting that 120GB are in use. Now I can't shrink the partition to install Linux, nor use the Surface with Windows as I don't have almost any space left.
It's wonderful, trully wonderful.
Next step is trying to do a factory reset to start from scratch. If it doesn't work, I'll do the shrinking from Linux and hope for the best on the windows side. If windows stops working, well... Sorry not sorry
One would think that the install would finish after reaching 100%, right?
Nope. On with the second (and hopefully last) percentage count
After fighting with the windows recovery tools, it's clear that I'm not going to be able to recover the unit, so I booted linux and tried from there. Ntfsfix is able to identify the problem (same as chkdsk) but it can't fix it (same as chkdsk). After this attempt, now I can't even boot back to Windows.
To completely restore the OS I'd need a full reinstall, creating a Windows USB drive from a Linux machine, all that. It seems that I'm on a tricky spot... or am I?
I only wanted to leave Windows installed to update the firmware (which is done by now) and my only option is a full wipe, so why not go all in and just install Linux? If I ever need windows back, I'm not going to use the recovery partition, so... 🔥
And victory. Just like that, a clean install with Linux, zero issues during the install, wifi working, hardware buttons working, audio, bluetooth...
Things that are not working: battery indicator and auto-rotation (both expected, with solution) and cameras (expected as well, but no solution so far). Reddit and the Guix home both are not responding right now, and that's the signal to stop and sleep.
Windows is still as buggy as I remember :/
We're more than 40 minutes through this factory reset and the progress is marking 43%, so I guess it will take around two hours for the "fast" recovery to complete.
On the plus side, I'm charging the device in the meantime 🤦