Is there a definitive guide to loading Fedora on this machine. I have not seen anything updated since April of 2024 and I’m seeing a lot of fixes that I would like to know got into the newest Kernel (41). I have an older Surface running Windows 10 that I would like to convert to Fedora but have seen a lot of negative posts here and elsewhere. Any help would be appreciated.
Hello Gary,
To give you the most accurate and helpful information, I need to know your laptop model.
If your device is old enough to stop receiving updates i don’t thing so that your going to have any driver related problems, you should try booting fedora 41 from live usb / bootable pendrive.
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Shadow:
When I display msinfo, the hw is listed as a plain “Surface Pro” using an Intel i5-7300u. The system SKU is listed as “Surface_Pro_1796” which appears to be a Surface Pro 2017 (5th Gen).
I did attempt to boot Fedora 41 from a USB but it never worked correctly and it was a pain to restore.
If there is no sure fire guide, I’ll just keep Windows 10 on it and then try installing Fedora after October.
Yes you’r right you have a surface pro 5 2017 model
Could you tell me a little bit about the process you followed? Did you encounter any difficulties along the way, such as the system not recognizing the USB drive or the Fedora installation failing to start or any other driver issue ?
Gary installing linux on surface us same as in any other laptop. Tell me the problems you faced in fedora live usb so i can assist you further. 
can you help me Shadow?
I stuck and the screen with the white dot on the top left and the keyboard icon on the bottom right
I tried a while ago so I can’t remember the process I followed. I’m thinking I just tried thecstandard boot from USB install but it never started and recovery was tough. I’ll be trying again this October- if you have any insights let me know.
I’m actually new to this kind of things what I’m going to try when I’m home is to boot Fedora Gnome.
If it works I’m going to delete gnome and get KDE 
EDIT:
ye what worked for me was this: Workaround for installing Linux on Surface Pro where unable to boot (tested on gen7)
Get Ventoy - choose your stick - throw Fedora 41 ISO on it - wait…
Don’t forget to select GRUB2.
The only issue now? I ditched Windows (like my Dad ditched me) and went all in on Fedora. Have something over 200GB storage and only 40GB are free, so I had to make space. Picked my main drive, it started loading… waited till 2 AM, not even halfway done. Woke up today—just a bit over half ._. “The installation is being prepared”
Maybe I should’ve reset to factory settings first?
Is it normal for this to take so long?