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I turned a $80 RK3562 Android tablet into a Debian Linux workstation

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Re: I turned a $80 RK3562 Android tablet into a Debian Linux workstation

#151

Post by prmoustache »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #125
prmoustache wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What software doesn't run with 4GB of ram is the real question.

Most individual programs will run with 4GB but you won't be able to have multiple open at the same time.

It is really only a problem with electron apps that you can usually easily replace with opening the corresponding website on a browser and have more native and less memory hungry alternatives.

If you favor them over a huge DE, a distro with a lightweight window mamager / wayland compositor will only use around a hundred of megabytes, so with 3.8-3.9GB you have plenty of memory to run apps running on regular OS toolkits.

And having a bit of hygiene like exiting apps you are not actively using goes a long way.

Re: I turned a $80 RK3562 Android tablet into a Debian Linux workstation

#153

Post by tech4bot »

deng wrote: post #152

You can't release this under MIT license, as it contains a ton of various different things under various different licenses, from GPL to proprietary.

The project itself is MIT, meaning the scripts/docs I wrote. Everything else remains under its respective upstream license, GPL, vendor/proprietary blobs, debian packages, firmware, etc.

I did mention this in the license section, last line of the README.

Re: I turned a $80 RK3562 Android tablet into a Debian Linux workstation

#155

Post by AlecSchueler »

nine_k wrote: post #23

Booting into Debian with most devices fully functional is great. What I'd like to know is what software runs adequately under it in 4 GB RAM. Web browsing should definitely be possible, but I suppose it's limited to very few tabs. Some very lightweight DE could likely make it more usable. Running something like WezTerm + tmux as the DE could be even more economical, leaving some room for e.g. development tools.

I'm still using an old x200 with 2GB RAM as my daily driver. I just run xmonad and everything is pretty snappy. I can browse with multiple tabs without an issue, as long as I avoid very heavy sites like GMail.

Re: I turned a $80 RK3562 Android tablet into a Debian Linux workstation

#156

Post by elch »

tech4bot wrote: post #149
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently there is a VIP-edition with 16GB RAM, still under 200$. https://www.doogee.com/products/u10-vip-edition?variant=4431... If that would be real RAM, and not only swap I'd feel tempted. Edit: Never mind, already sold out...(meanwhile, 15 minutes, or so)

Is not real. RK3562 supports maximum 8GB.

It's 4G just like the others:

16GB RAM (4GB+Up to 12GB Extended RAM)

Re: I turned a $80 RK3562 Android tablet into a Debian Linux workstation

#157

Post by pjmlp »

logicchains wrote: post #31
singpolyma3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much everything. I only had 4GB ram until two or three years ago. No swap. Never ran into an issue.

>I only had 4GB ram until two or three years ago. No swap. Never ran into an issue That sounds like an problem Windows could solve.

Windows traces back to running comfortably with 4 MB, and my first Linux distro, Slackaware run with 32 MB.

We can start by throwing all that Electron junk out of the window, pun intended.

Re: I turned a $80 RK3562 Android tablet into a Debian Linux workstation

#158

Post by pjmlp »

prmoustache wrote: post #122
nine_k wrote: post #23

Booting into Debian with most devices fully functional is great. What I'd like to know is what software runs adequately under it in 4 GB RAM. Web browsing should definitely be possible, but I suppose it's limited to very few tabs. Some very lightweight DE could likely make it more usable. Running something like WezTerm + tmux as the DE could be even more economical, leaving some room for e.g. development tools.

What software doesn't run with 4GB of ram is the real question.

A couple of Electron junk apps.

Re: I turned a $80 RK3562 Android tablet into a Debian Linux workstation

#159

Post by bdavbdav »

pjmlp wrote: post #147
nine_k wrote: post #23

Booting into Debian with most devices fully functional is great. What I'd like to know is what software runs adequately under it in 4 GB RAM. Web browsing should definitely be possible, but I suppose it's limited to very few tabs. Some very lightweight DE could likely make it more usable. Running something like WezTerm + tmux as the DE could be even more economical, leaving some room for e.g. development tools.

I originally ran Slackware 2.0 with 32 MB on a Pentium 75 Mhz. So the software does exist, plus for the TUI and CLI folks, that would be plenty of space.

Unfortunately I think just the SSL stack to support a TLS connection would saturate that now

Re: I turned a $80 RK3562 Android tablet into a Debian Linux workstation

#160

Post by marysol5 »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #14

Since it seems AI is pretty good at reverse-engineering stuff like this, is there any educational material on how to use it for that purpose? Seems like it could really help port things like postmarketOS to new devices (and improve support on existing ones)?

Of course it only knows stuff, that it knows. Like in the repo, the author links to the already published documentation on the chip.

And that's 90% of the problem, lots of these cheap devices are using undocumented hardware.

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