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Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

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Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#161

Post by tenebrisalietum »

ElCheapo wrote: post #46

Can we stop with this absolute fantasy about PCs that "fit in your pocket"? The medium is the message, the form is the functionality. Smartphones have been "pocketable PCs" for more than a decade already, but are dumbed down because their inputs and outputs are limited. You can't type effectively, your screen is small, your battery is limited. Would you want a command line interface on your Smart TV using only a remo…

> Would you want a command line interface on your Smart TV using only a remote?

Kinda, if the remote had a useable keyboard (I think some do).

Mostly I would like a universal search: to be able to type the name of a show, channel, or other media source and have all relevant apps or TV functions that can play it come up. Also it would be cool to enter something like "seek MM:SS" to tell the current media to go to that precise point, and universal commands across all players/apps would be pretty keen, like "captions off", "language XXXX", etc. Just need a TAB key for autocomplete.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#162

Post by pessimizer »

ElCheapo wrote: post #69
stonogo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My whole family uses essentially a TV with GNOME running on an attached micropc. We use something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Android-Gimibox-Wireless-Keyboard-Pro... Works like a Wiimote. We don't have to limit functionality, we just launch a web browser and have the streaming services on the bookmark toolbar. None of our visitors have ever had problems operating this system, even ones who have never heard of…

Your set up works because you tailored both the hardware and the software to make up for the shortcomings of the devices. Normally a TV remote doesn't have a full fledged keyboard attached to it, so many applications become borderline unusable. What you did is enhance the inputs of your device and this opened up many more possibilities. You also tweaked the software from its ootb configuration to make operations smoo…

You're just making things up. Your "heavily customized UI" is bumping up the font sizes by a couple of points.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#164

Post by bombcar »

ElCheapo wrote: post #46

Can we stop with this absolute fantasy about PCs that "fit in your pocket"? The medium is the message, the form is the functionality. Smartphones have been "pocketable PCs" for more than a decade already, but are dumbed down because their inputs and outputs are limited. You can't type effectively, your screen is small, your battery is limited. Would you want a command line interface on your Smart TV using only a remo…

The HP Palmtop (200LX for life) was an entire 80186 PC with CGA graphics that fit in a pocket. In 2000. We can certainly do better than that now if we want to.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#165

Post by thereddaikon »

yosamino wrote: post #86
ElCheapo wrote: post #46

Can we stop with this absolute fantasy about PCs that "fit in your pocket"? The medium is the message, the form is the functionality. Smartphones have been "pocketable PCs" for more than a decade already, but are dumbed down because their inputs and outputs are limited. You can't type effectively, your screen is small, your battery is limited. Would you want a command line interface on your Smart TV using only a remo…

No. It's not a fantasy. The Nokia N900 was amazing . It functioned as a phone with a touchscreen to deliver the experience that had now become the dominant one. But also, by sliding up the screen, it had a fully featured keyboard, and essentially transmogrified into a "pc that fits into your pocket". So you could with a one handed push go from the touchscreen-only experience back to edit documents by using a combinat…

having a keyboard does not a PC make. The N900 was great to type on by cellphone standards but it was still a cell phone. Maemo is not a PC OS. It did not do what a PC did.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#166

Post by Grumbledour »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #105
pjmlp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember looking forward to getting a Pandora[0], eventually I gave up on what are gimmick devices, most of them only sell a couple of hundreds, are yet another form factor to run MAME, and are gone afterwards just like several 8 and 16 bit devices that hardly anyone remembers. [0] - https://openpandora.org/

Pandora's replacement, Pyra, is Pretty Bloody Expensive (TM), starting at EUR 550 and going up to EUR 750. I think it's a cool device, but it's definitely not worth that much.

Especially now. When the original pandora came out, the market was different and even after the years it was delayed it was still a great machine for emulation. But now, cheap and semi-open emulation devices exist in the dozens and paying up to 10 times as much just to get linux and a keyboard is not that appealing to many people.

If they could do it for maybe A community wanting such a device would maybe be better of producing a keyboard/gamepad accessory for existing hardware and hacking free software for same. The rockchip based platforms seem like a good target for example.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#167

Post by dhjdsjdshfh »

jdhdosvxjd wrote: post #123

the problem, as with everything, is marketing. everyone here missed the blackberry priv and key2 (not key2-le subversion). they were android flagships with same cpu/memory as the samsung du jour. but with a keyboard that doubled as a touchpad. and no bloatware, pure android. the key2 is only now being left out of security upgrades. absolutely nobody here heard of them. coded on them regularly (keyboard only missed a…

Typing on a key2. holding until the last day.

The only bad thing is that it was such a comercial failure there's zero postmarketOS support.

Nokias were locked down more for necessity of the low hardware. Android and ios are locked down for no reason other than greed.

there's zero defensible reason for the smartphone of today to not be an open PC that you can install your opensource OS. and if you utter something like security i would like to ask that you don't interact with me. thank you.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#168

Post by RockingGoodNite »

ElCheapo wrote: post #46

Can we stop with this absolute fantasy about PCs that "fit in your pocket"? The medium is the message, the form is the functionality. Smartphones have been "pocketable PCs" for more than a decade already, but are dumbed down because their inputs and outputs are limited. You can't type effectively, your screen is small, your battery is limited. Would you want a command line interface on your Smart TV using only a remo…

>> Would you want a command line interface on your Smart TV using only a remote?

Yes. We've been doing it for years since we cut the cord from cable TV. We switched to a plain PC (Lennovo low end laptop for $200) running Ubuntu and use an Air Remote (combination mouse/keyboard) around $15 on Amazon and watch all content in Chrome. It's great! I can get a shell and change things if I want, ssh in from my office desktop, etc.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#169

Post by thereddaikon »

ElCheapo wrote: post #46

Can we stop with this absolute fantasy about PCs that "fit in your pocket"? The medium is the message, the form is the functionality. Smartphones have been "pocketable PCs" for more than a decade already, but are dumbed down because their inputs and outputs are limited. You can't type effectively, your screen is small, your battery is limited. Would you want a command line interface on your Smart TV using only a remo…

You get it.

While it is possible to cram PC features into a pocket-able design. And other commenters here have given examples such as the old pocket pc standard. Its not very good and didn't stick around.

The user interface and format will in large part define the kind of work you will do on a device. Pocket sized devices suck for a lot of "real work" use cases because small and limited inputs combined with small screens don't make for a pleasurable or productive work experience.

Big displays and comfortable full sized keyboards are necessity.

There has been on and off talk about dock-able pocket sized devices that can transition between being mobile and being proper PCs with the use of a dock that expands its IO options. But the software has always seemed to be lacking there. Apps on my Pixel 5a sometimes get the screen orientation wrong. How can I trust them to seamlessly switch between a mobile and desktop experience and not freak out in the process?

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#170

Post by tl »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #148
jakuboboza wrote: post #120

Steam Deck is perfectly fine mini PC that is reasonably portable it is also a decent console. If You will but 20-30 USD dock that has more than 1 output you can plug power, monitor and mouse/keyboard combo. You can go with portable mouse/keyboard and dock/usb-c-hdmi cable to any place and plug it into a hotel TV and be setup on your portable linux machine that can also...game :)

Could it handle one of those one-wire-to-rule-them-all USB-C docks? I was contemplating this for my gaming needs so I could retire my big-ass desktop. But since I only play at home, and already have the desktop, I figured I wouldn't bother. But I hadn't thought of this use case, so if it could handle it, it would be a game-changer.

Can it? Yes. Is it perfect? No. Is it (on average) good? YMMV.

Things to be weary of:

1. Valve took the same tradeoff Nintendo took with a Switch. As a result, driving higher res displays (4k) works until it fails, badly. The increased processor / memory strain finds lots crashing edge cases.

2. Dock / un-dock has the standard set of headaches, the most annoying which is random pieces of software fixating on hardware that no longer exists when you un-dock (resolution changes, keyboard vs. on-screen, fallback to trackpads from missing mouse, ghost ethernet connections, sound headaches). This is endemic on the games side; random game + its proton shim + SteamOS doesn't like inputs changing. You will occasionally need a full reboot to fix issues.

3. It's a Linux. Torvalds is right then Valve is the best hope of "Linux on the Desktop" but the current frankensystem isn't there yet, and using any ports (or bluetooth) will expose you to a lack of friendliness not found on consoles or even (eww) Windows.

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