Surface Laptop 7 (Intel) on Linux

Based on nierdal's bring-up work here and Christian Schaller's work here.

Fixes for the Surface Laptop for Business 7th Edition with Intel (Lunar Lake, ACPI id MSHW0551, model 2107) on a stock distribution kernel. Developed and tested on Fedora 44 with kernel 7.2.x and upgraded in place to Fedora 45; the kernel part fetches the sources for whatever kernel you run and should work on any distribution with 7.2 or newer. One command installs everything:

git clone https://github.com/floopflop/SL_Intel_Linux.git && cd SL_Intel_Linux
sudo ./install.sh all          # then reboot
./install.sh status            # afterwards: everything should say patched / active / present

Before you start:

• You need an external USB keyboard for the installation and until the first reboot after install.sh all: the internal keyboard hangs off the Surface Aggregator Module, which the stock kernel does not know on this model. Wi-Fi and the touchpad work out of the box. If git is missing, sudo dnf install git first.
• Network access is required: the kernel sources come from kernel.org, iptsd and the three libraries it links statically (fmt, spdlog, inih) from GitHub and wrapdb.mesonbuild.com, and the libcamera source package from Fedora. The libcamera rebuild is the slow part (tens of minutes).
• Secure Boot can stay on. DKMS signs the modules with a machine owner key (MOK). With Secure Boot on, install.sh asks you to choose a one-time password, and the next boot shows the blue MOK manager for about ten seconds: press a key before it times out, then Enroll MOK, Continue, Yes, enter that password, Reboot. If it times out the request is dropped; run sudo mokutil --import /var/lib/dkms/mok.pub and reboot again. Until this is done the patched modules do not load (./install.sh status says so). With Secure Boot off nothing is asked; sudo ./install.sh kernel prints how to enrol the key if you want to turn Secure Boot on later.

What is fixed

Area	Problem on a stock kernel	Fix	Where
Battery, AC, fan, keyboard, light sensor	Not present: upstream's MSHW0551 node group is for the Snapdragon model, where they are not SAM devices	Intel node group with battery/AC, performance profile with fan, SAM keyboard and sensors	surface_aggregator_registry module
Speakers	No sound: the BIOS declares a second RT1320 amplifier that never attaches, and the SoundWire card setup waits for it forever	Skip peripherals that have not enumerated after 1.5 s, renumber the real amp for UCM	snd-soc-sdw-utils module
Webcam frame rate	18.8 fps and a wrong pixel rate: the sensor runs from a 12 MHz clock, the driver only knows 19.2 MHz	Accept 12 MHz and scale both PLL multipliers (400 to 640)	ov02c10 module
Webcam trails	Flickering horizontal line fragments behind moving objects: IPU7 capture DMA does not snoop the CPU caches and the driver flushes buffers only once	Flush each buffer before it is queued and when it is dequeued	intel-ipu7-isys module
Webcam picture	Flat, uncalibrated software ISP: vignetting, poor white balance, slow and bright exposure, noise, mains flicker bands	Lens shading from the module EEPROM, shading-aware AWB, fast exposure control with frame-length extension, anti-banding, spatial + temporal denoise, YUYV output for V4L2 apps	libcamera/ patch + tuning
Touchpad	Blinks at the end of gestures, twitchy cursor after resume, two close fingers merged, scroll too fast, no palm rejection; iptsd stopped until the next boot or resume by package updates that run udevadm trigger	Tracker-level lift grace, evdev fuzz (libinput hysteresis), cluster merging in the detector, motion scaling, thresholds, libinput palm quirk, udev rule that survives change events	iptsd/ patches + configs/
Keyboard dead at login screen	SAM keyboard appears ~8 s into boot, while the greeter starts	Load surface_aggregator_registry and surface_hid early	configs/etc/modules-load.d
Keyboard, battery, power button dead for a whole boot	surface_serial_hub: failed to setup IRQ: when the SAM driver loads before the Lunar Lake pin controller (it does once it sits in the initramfs), its wake-GPIO lookup fails and the driver gives up instead of deferring	modprobe softdep loading pinctrl_intel_platform first	configs/etc/modprobe.d
Camera gone after a DKMS build	dracut copies every out-of-tree module and its dependencies into the initramfs; the IPU7 driver then probes there without its firmware and never recovers	dracut omit list for the camera and audio modules	configs/etc/dracut.conf.d
Power button does not wake	Wakeup disabled on the serial hub the keyboard sits behind	udev rule enabling wakeup	configs/etc/udev
Suspend aborts, Bluetooth dead	btintel_pcie fails to enter D2	Unload before sleep, reload after	configs/usr/lib/systemd/system-sleep
Interrupt storm	SAM GPE 0xAB fires continuously	acpi_mask_gpe=0xAB on the kernel command line	install.sh configs
Camera pickers	30+ raw IPU7 V4L2 nodes listed next to the real camera	WirePlumber rule hiding them	configs/etc/wireplumber

Optional, not Surface-specific: sudo ./install.sh vte rebuilds Fedora's VTE (the terminal widget of Ptyxis and GNOME Console) with a one-hunk patch so that two-finger scrolling inside programs that capture the mouse (less, vim, htop, Claude Code's fullscreen UI) moves one wheel click per text line of finger travel instead of one per pixel (VTE issue 2720, open). See "Terminal scrolling" below.

Not fixed: the SAM UART interrupt storm that can hang suspend (linux-surface issue #2263).

How it works

Kernel modules. kernel/fetch-sources.sh downloads the handful of driver files the four modules need from kernel.org, for exactly the kernel version being built for (uname -r, override with KERNEL_TAG=vX.Y.Z if your distribution's version string does not map to a stable tag). kernel/port-patches.py applies the fixes as anchored edits, so they survive line drift between releases and fail loudly if the code they patch has changed. The modules are built out of tree and installed in /lib/modules/<kernel>/updates/ (or extra/, where Fedora's DKMS puts them; a depmod.d file makes both take precedence over the distribution's copies). With dkms installed (recommended, install.sh deps installs it on Fedora), install.sh kernel registers the tree with DKMS so every kernel update rebuilds the modules automatically (network access is needed at that time). Without DKMS, run sudo ./install.sh kernel after each kernel update; those modules are unsigned, so that path needs Secure Boot off. Nothing in the running kernel is modified; uninstall.sh returns to the distribution's modules.

Two side effects of out-of-tree modules are handled by configs/: dracut (and Fedora's DKMS, which rebuilds every initramfs after each build) copies the modules and their dependencies into the initramfs. There the SAM stack would load before the pin controller that provides its wake GPIO and fail for the whole boot (configs/etc/modprobe.d/surface-sam.conf orders the two), and the IPU7 camera driver would probe without its firmware (configs/etc/dracut.conf.d/ keeps the camera and audio modules out). install.sh kernel and install.sh configs install these files before the initramfs is rebuilt, and rebuild it themselves when DKMS does not. On Fedora, installing dkms can also pull in the newest kernel's kernel-core without its kernel-modules (through the kernel-devel-matched dependency); install.sh deps completes such a kernel.

Touchpad. iptsd/build.sh clones the alex-lentz fork of iptsd (it carries the Sensel haptic touchpad support this laptop needs), applies the nine patches in iptsd/patches/, and builds it with fmt, spdlog and inih from iptsd's own meson wraps, linked statically: the installed binaries depend only on the toolchain's runtime (glibc, libstdc++, libgcc_s). The distribution's sonames of two of them changed with this release (Fedora 44 to 45: fmt 11 to 12, spdlog 1.15 to 1.17; inih is built in as well so a future bump cannot bite), and a dynamically linked iptsd-check-device that no longer starts makes udev silently stop requesting the iptsd service, which leaves the touchpad in the firmware's raw mouse mode (see Troubleshooting). The ninth patch makes iptsd's udev rule match change events too: udev rebuilds a device's properties from the matching rules at every event, so after a bare udevadm trigger (the udisks2 and nvme-cli package scriptlets run one at every update) the touchpad's hidraw node lost its systemd tag, systemd stopped the iptsd service bound to it, and nothing started it again before the next boot. install.sh iptsd installs everything to /usr/local together with the tuned configuration (configs/etc/iptsd.d/), the libinput palm quirk and a service that restarts iptsd after resume (the touchpad firmware falls back to its native mode after sleep), rebuilding first when the built tree is missing, still linked dynamically, has lost its libraries, or was configured by another meson version. GNOME users may also want click-method fingers and tap-to-click.

Webcam. libcamera/libcamera-0.7.2-sl7.patch is a patch against libcamera 0.7.2 (the version in Fedora 44). On Fedora, libcamera/fedora-rpm.sh rebuilds the distribution's source package with it and install.sh libcamera installs and version-locks the result, installs the tuning file libcamera/tuning/ov02c10.yaml and restarts WirePlumber. On other distributions libcamera/source-build.sh builds 0.7.2 from source with the same options and the installer copies it over the system libcamera (pin the package afterwards). GNOME Camera, Firefox and other PipeWire clients use the camera directly; V4L2-only applications (Zoom) need pipewire-v4l2: tools/zoom-camera.sh launches Zoom through it.

Terminal scrolling (optional). GTK4 delivers touchpad scrolling in pixels and wheel scrolling in notches; VTE's GTK4 build hands the deltas to mouse-capturing programs unconverted, so each pixel of finger travel is one wheel click (and, on the alternate screen, ceil(rows/10) fake arrow keys). Plain shell scrollback is unaffected (Ptyxis lets GTK scroll it, at the same speed as every GTK4 app), which is why only TUI programs feel wrong. vte/vte-touchpad-scroll-units.patch divides pixel deltas by the cell size; vte/fedora-rpm.sh rebuilds the distribution's vte291 source package with it and install.sh vte installs and version-locks the result (vte291, vte291-gtk4, vte-profile), then terminals need a restart. Application-side knobs cannot do this: Claude Code, for instance, scrolls at least one line per wheel event in GTK terminals, so CLAUDE_CODE_SCROLL_SPEED below 1 has no effect there (its fractions work only on xterm.js-style terminals); with the patched VTE, 2 or 3 lines per event (CLAUDE_CODE_SCROLL_SPEED=3, acceleration off) matches GTK applications. The lock holds this build until VTE fixes the issue upstream; then drop it and go back to the distribution's packages, as uninstall.sh does: sudo dnf versionlock delete vte291 vte291-gtk4 vte-profile and sudo dnf distro-sync 'vte291*' vte-profile. A Fedora release upgrade may force that decision earlier, if its Ptyxis needs a newer VTE: drop the lock, or run vte/fedora-rpm.sh once against the new source package (it says so if the patch needs porting).

Tuning knobs

/etc/iptsd.d/99-surface-laptop-7-touchpad.conf: ActivationThreshold/DeactivationThreshold (24/20), PeakSuppressionRadius/Factor (2 / 0.3, keeps close fingers apart), LiftGraceMs (50), PositionSmoothing (0.5), TwoFingerMotionScale (0.45, scroll/pinch speed), MultiFingerMotionScale (0.6, three-finger gestures), HysteresisMm (0.25). Restart with sudo systemctl restart 'iptsd@*'.

/usr/share/libcamera/ipa/simple/ov02c10.yaml, section Agc: exposureValue (brightness in stops, -0.5), flickerPeriod (8333 us for 60 Hz mains, 10000 for 50 Hz, 0 off), longExposureGain (gain above which the frame rate drops for longer exposures, 12), hysteresis (0.1). Section Denoise: temporalStrength / temporalChromaStrength (0.5 / 0.75; lower if motion looks smeared, 0 to disable), temporalMotionLow / High, the chroma and luma spatial curves. Close and reopen the camera application after a change. LIBCAMERA_SOFTISP_NOTEMPORAL=1 in the environment disables the temporal filter for comparisons.

Troubleshooting

./install.sh status reports most of these. Kernel messages: journalctl -kb. Run status after every distribution release upgrade (Fedora 44 to 45 broke only the touchpad daemon, see below; DKMS rebuilt the modules and the version lock kept libcamera).

• Touchpad twitchy, no gestures, no palm rejection: iptsd is not running and the touchpad is in the firmware's raw mouse mode (sudo tools/tpcheck.sh reports events only on the raw quickspi-hid nodes). After a distribution upgrade status says CANNOT START, missing libfmt.so.11 libspdlog.so.1.15: the iptsd binaries were linked against libraries whose sonames the upgrade changed, and udev ignores the failing iptsd-check-device without logging anything. sudo ./install.sh iptsd rebuilds iptsd (statically linked since 2026-11-04, so this cannot recur for fmt, spdlog or inih), reinstalls it and starts the service; no reboot is needed. status saying NOT RUNNING with a binary that starts usually means a udev change event stopped it (iptsd built before 2026-11-04; a package update ran udevadm trigger): udevadm info /dev/hidrawN | grep CURRENT_TAGS on the touchpad's node then lacks systemd, and journalctl -b | grep 'Stopping iptsd@' shows the stop. sudo udevadm trigger --action=add --subsystem-match=hidraw starts it again and sudo ./install.sh iptsd installs the fixed rule. Otherwise run the udev helper by hand, sudo /usr/local/bin/iptsd-check-device /dev/hidrawN (exit 0 and "is an IPTS device" expected; udevadm test cannot show this, it does not run PROGRAM=), and read journalctl -b -u 'iptsd@*'.
• Internal keyboard, battery, AC and power button all missing for a boot, with surface_serial_hub serial0-0: error -EINVAL: failed to setup IRQ in the log: the SAM driver probed before the pin controller. sudo ./install.sh configs installs the softdep and rebuilds the initramfs; reboot. (An external keyboard works meanwhile.)
• Camera missing, with intel-ipu7 ... Direct firmware load for intel/ipu/ipu7_fw.bin failed early in the log: the IPU7 driver was loaded from the initramfs. Same fix as above.
• Modules fail with Unknown symbol and status reports a kernel without kernel-modules: the kernel is half installed (Fedora, see above). sudo ./install.sh deps completes it, or sudo dnf install kernel-<ver> kernel-modules-<ver> kernel-modules-extra-<ver>; then reboot.
• version magic errors: modules built for another kernel were copied into this kernel's tree. sudo ./install.sh kernel removes stale copies and rebuilds.
• DKMS did not build for a new kernel (dkms status lacks the kernel): the build at kernel installation failed (no network, or kernel.org had no tag yet). surface-laptop-7-intel-dkms.service retries once the network is up at the next boot; sudo ./install.sh kernel builds right away.
• Secure Boot rejects the modules (module verification failed plus a load failure): the MOK key is not enrolled, so redo the enrolment above. sudo ./install.sh status shows which kernel keyring holds the key. Fedora's kernel accepts it from the platform keyring; a kernel that only consults the machine keyring needs the MOK certificate to be a CA certificate (basicConstraints=CA:TRUE, keyUsage=keyCertSign), so regenerate and re-enrol it that way.

Diagnostics

tools/: tpcheck.sh (root; which device feeds libinput), capture2.sh (root; raw heatmap + evdev recording with prompted gestures), metrics.py and hmstats.py (analyse an iptsd-replay run of such a recording: iptsd/src/build/src/iptsd-replay <raw.bin>). libcamera/tools/: snap.py (save a frame as PNG), aetrace.py (per-frame exposure, gain, frame duration, brightness, banding metric), noise.py and tnoise.py (spatial and temporal noise), latency.py (capture-to-delivery), sensor-reset.py (force a dark start), camdbg (root; sensor registers, module EEPROM dump), eeprom_nvm.py and gen-ov02c10-tuning.py (regenerate the tuning for your own module: the EEPROM dump comes from camdbg eeprom 8192; the colour matrices come from the OV02C10_MSHW0550_LNL.aiqb file in the Windows driver store, ov02c10_extension.inf_amd64_*, which this repository does not ship). All camera tools run cam and need the camera to be free (close camera apps first). tools/report.sh (ideally as root) collects everything about an installation into one text file: sudo ./tools/report.sh > report.txt. Attach it when reporting a problem.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later (see LICENSE). The kernel patches in kernel/ are derived from the Linux kernel and are GPL-2.0-only like the files they modify; the iptsd patches follow iptsd (GPL-2.0-or-later); libcamera/libcamera-0.7.2-sl7.patch modifies libcamera and is LGPL-2.1-or-later like libcamera itself. Copyright (C) 2026 the contributors to this repository.

Details

docs/engineering-log.md is the day-by-day record with measurements, dead ends and the reasoning behind each value above. The SAM and audio fixes come from nierdal's bring-up report in linux-surface issue #1710 (linux-surface/linux-surface#1710), which is not redistributed here. Credits: nierdal (issue #1710 fixes), alex-lentz (iptsd fork with Sensel touchpad support), Christian Schaller (software ISP lens shading port). The libcamera and iptsd changes were developed with the help of an AI coding assistant (Claude) and reviewed and tested on this hardware.