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Since there are probably millions of these, why not recycle into cheap servers given the benefits of their low power use (and the possible ability to draw power to charge during cheap periods and run off battery during expensive ones).
I have at least 4 Android phones that have either a broken screen (but still usable) or are just too old to run a recent version of Android. Anybody knows how can I use them as computers or even servers? how to connect them to the network without using wifi? they obviously don't come with a network port.
Gambiting mentioned elsewhere in the comments that you can install GNURoot from the Play store and run Linux along side Android.
I imagine there is, or soon will be, specific projects to pare down AOSP to the minimum required to run a server without all the extra stuff (that is, the Android part on top of Linux).
1: http://plugable.com/2015/01/22/new-plugable-usb-fast-etherne...
I have at least 4 Android phones that have either a broken screen (but still usable) or are just too old to run a recent version of Android. Anybody knows how can I use them as computers or even servers? how to connect them to the network without using wifi? they obviously don't come with a network port.
Terminal IDE (on old phones) or termux on new ones should have enough packages to do whatever you want.
You can also grab any rootfs with the right arch and chroot into it if you have root. You can even static link busybox/dropbear and have most of the things you would use on a small server.
The problem with these devices are that they are often locked down, and even unlocked/hacked open getting them to run anything like mainline Linux is hard-ish.
It's not even that hard to set up, go grab the kernel (some of qualcomm's kernels have these super crappy buildscripts that need python 2.x), build it, throw in busybox and dropbear, fastboot the image and you're good to go.
Imagine those on the attic, connected to a internet connection, forming a mesh-net with all houses nearby- and activated if distributed computation power is needed. Converting abundant power into computation.
I have at least 4 Android phones that have either a broken screen (but still usable) or are just too old to run a recent version of Android. Anybody knows how can I use them as computers or even servers? how to connect them to the network without using wifi? they obviously don't come with a network port.
Imagine those on the attic, connected to a internet connection, forming a mesh-net with all houses nearby- and activated if distributed computation power is needed. Converting abundant power into computation.
You can read it here: http://www.rudyrucker.com/transrealbooks/completestories/#_T...
(warning: Rudy's stories are... zany)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just use GNURoot to install any linux onto any android device - it just runs alongside Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=champion.gnuro...
What is the real downside of that vs replacing android with linux? I could see there being more pro's than cons except for specific use cases.