Install Raspberry Pi OS on your Surface RT
Make sure that Secure boot is disabled before you try to boot Linux.
Use this guide
Installing Raspberry Pi OS is very easy in comparison to some other distros.
It can be done on a Windows or Linux host and therefore is easily accessible for everyone.
Grab all the "standard files" from - (, , ).
Use (sudo apt install rpi-imager) to image a USB drive as you normally would.
Place the efi folder, startup.nsh,
Insert the USB Drive into the Surface RT and
Taken from Discord user Misterobots:
Once Raspberry Pi OS has booted from USB.
Go to Start menu -> Accessories -> SD Card Copier.
Select the USB drive as the "From".
Select the eMMC (mine was MBG4GA) as the "To".
Check the box that says "New Partition UUIDs". Click Start
This should get you booted from eMMC with both boot and rootfs on the eMMC.
If you want to install Raspi OS on eMMC do the steps below after booting from eMMC.
There is only one thing to do after you can see the desktop.
Open the Terminal and enter sudo raspi-config
Choose Advanced Options
Choose Expand Filesystem
Now your SD Card / eMMC is writable and can use all of its space.
The default plugin always shows 0% charge left. Use the "Battery Monitor" plugin instead. It should be already installed
Unlike KDE, GNOME, MATE or XFCE, Raspberry Pi OS running LXDE does not seem to have any plugin to control the brightness. However, it is supported in the kernel level.
Download the tool using `pip`.
Create the following udev rule so that this tool can be run without `sudo`.
Reboot.
Now you can run the software with rpi-backlight-gui. You can also create a desktop shortcut. Create the file `~/.local/share/applications/rpi-backlight.desktop` with the following contents.
See for more details.
zImagetegra30-microsoft-surface-rt-efi.dtbEdit the startup.nsh file on the USB drive to show as below. For further information about kernel params can be found here
Download the modules and firmware - kernel modules - and place them in the root directory /. This is important. Without modules some features like Wifand i or CPU Temperature Sensor won't work.
If you are using Linux you can do this before booting RaspiOS for the first time on your host machine.
If you are using Windows you need to boot RaspiOS on Surface RT and copy the modules on from e.g another Fat32 USB to the root filesystem. You need to reboot once to load the modules correctly.
startup.nsh (on the eMMC boot partition, that was just copied to) and change the root=/dev/sda2 to root=/dev/mmcblk0p2. Then save.Once the Copy has finished (with no errors), shutdown the Surface RT, remove the USB drive, then power on the Surface RT normally. (do not hold Vol. down)
fs0:
zImage dtb=tegra30-microsoft-surface-rt-efi.dtb root=/dev/sda2 rootwait console=tty0 cpuidle.off=1
# shutdown if something went wrong
reset -spip3 install --user rpi-backlightecho 'SUBSYSTEM=="backlight",RUN+="/bin/chmod 666 /sys/class/backlight/%k/brightness /sys/class/backlight/%k/bl_power"' | sudo tee -a /etc/udev/rules.d/backlight-permissions.rules[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Name=rpi-backlight GUI
Exec=rpi-backlight-gui
Icon=/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/256x256/status/display-brightness.png
Categories=Utility;