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A Minimum Viable Computer, or Linux for $15

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Re: A Minimum Viable Computer, or Linux for $15

#201

Post by WaxProlix »

throwawaygh wrote: post #8

> That’s about it. Could you do all of this with a smartphone? Yeah, kinda, if you root prepaid Android phone, but even that would cost more than $30. You can almost certainly do better than $30 on local marketplaces, or by asking friends if they have a disused smartphone sitting around. reusing is absurdly cost efficient

It'd be great if there were some standardized way to turn older smartphones, whose on-paper computing power is astronomical, into viable Linux servers or controllers.

I've got plenty of old shit phones around that barely respond to touch (or whose displays are just outright unusable) but I'm here considering a new rpi for my next project instead of repurposing one.

There's also a ton of leftover supply of these things, and they have built in power backups, networking, and often lots of shared platform parts (ie, target just one snapdragon based platform and get a swath of compatibility in the galaxy s3 era or whatever).

Re: A Minimum Viable Computer, or Linux for $15

#202

Post by [deleted] »

renonce wrote: post #200

In China we buy second-hand Redmi 2 for 60RMB each (roughly $9.5). Can be bought in quantities. Fully functional with 2GB RAM+16GB eMMC, and battery, touchscreen, WiFi, Bluetooth, camera, and even 4G support. It's not built from scratch like this one, but if you are just looking for something cheap, then this price is insane.

[deleted]

Re: A Minimum Viable Computer, or Linux for $15

#203

Post by wolpoli »

renonce wrote: post #200

In China we buy second-hand Redmi 2 for 60RMB each (roughly $9.5). Can be bought in quantities. Fully functional with 2GB RAM+16GB eMMC, and battery, touchscreen, WiFi, Bluetooth, camera, and even 4G support. It's not built from scratch like this one, but if you are just looking for something cheap, then this price is insane.

Something like this would be awesome when paired with a physical keyboard.

Re: A Minimum Viable Computer, or Linux for $15

#204

Post by emteycz »

tombert wrote: post #69

This reminds me (in a good way) of the GPD Win computers. Obviously smartphones are cool, I have one, I like it, but it annoys me that in some senses they're still not as good as a Windows 98 laptop from 24 years ago. Their version of MS Office isn't as intuitive, there's not the same level of programming language/compiler support, on iOS you're restricted to the App Store, etc. The GPD Win was the first time I saw a…

A rooted Android smartphone with Nix is a full Linux computer. I have Node.js, VSCode, C/C++, etc - all while keeping access to all phone capabilities. I haven't tried yet but there shouldn't be any problem with running X server and a full DE (I access the VSCode through Android browser now).

Re: A Minimum Viable Computer, or Linux for $15

#205

Post by WaxProlix »

ineedasername wrote: post #197

There was a time when the first question asked of such a device would be "Can it run Doom?" If you don't remember that time, then I guess I'm getting old. In any case, it's nearly a useless question these days: very few things with a chip are so dumb they can't run Doom. We need a new metric.

"Can it run crysis?"

Re: A Minimum Viable Computer, or Linux for $15

#206

Post by puzzlingcaptcha »

WaxProlix wrote: post #201
throwawaygh wrote: post #8

> That’s about it. Could you do all of this with a smartphone? Yeah, kinda, if you root prepaid Android phone, but even that would cost more than $30. You can almost certainly do better than $30 on local marketplaces, or by asking friends if they have a disused smartphone sitting around. reusing is absurdly cost efficient

It'd be great if there were some standardized way to turn older smartphones, whose on-paper computing power is astronomical, into viable Linux servers or controllers. I've got plenty of old shit phones around that barely respond to touch (or whose displays are just outright unusable) but I'm here considering a new rpi for my next project instead of repurposing one. There's also a ton of leftover supply of these thing…

There is a community effort in the form of postmarketOS but the support for many devices is quite limited https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices

Peripherals using proprietary drivers being the obvious offenders.

Re: A Minimum Viable Computer, or Linux for $15

#207

Post by tombert »

emteycz wrote: post #204
tombert wrote: post #69

This reminds me (in a good way) of the GPD Win computers. Obviously smartphones are cool, I have one, I like it, but it annoys me that in some senses they're still not as good as a Windows 98 laptop from 24 years ago. Their version of MS Office isn't as intuitive, there's not the same level of programming language/compiler support, on iOS you're restricted to the App Store, etc. The GPD Win was the first time I saw a…

A rooted Android smartphone with Nix is a full Linux computer. I have Node.js, VSCode, C/C++, etc - all while keeping access to all phone capabilities. I haven't tried yet but there shouldn't be any problem with running X server and a full DE (I access the VSCode through Android browser now).

Interesting. I don't use Android anymore but I have like four old phones lying around that I could easily use to play with. I wonder if this has better battery life than the GPD Win, and it would be a free experiment for me.

Re: A Minimum Viable Computer, or Linux for $15

#208

Post by emteycz »

tombert wrote: post #207
emteycz wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rooted Android smartphone with Nix is a full Linux computer. I have Node.js, VSCode, C/C++, etc - all while keeping access to all phone capabilities. I haven't tried yet but there shouldn't be any problem with running X server and a full DE (I access the VSCode through Android browser now).

Interesting. I don't use Android anymore but I have like four old phones lying around that I could easily use to play with. I wonder if this has better battery life than the GPD Win, and it would be a free experiment for me.

Well my phone (Samsung S9+) can do like 12 hours of Node.js+VSCode coding while using BT keyboard and mouse. Not bad IMHO.

And the USB-C port of this phone can be used with a usual dock to connect it to a screen and wired peripherals.

Re: A Minimum Viable Computer, or Linux for $15

#209

Post by WaxProlix »

puzzlingcaptcha wrote: post #206
WaxProlix wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be great if there were some standardized way to turn older smartphones, whose on-paper computing power is astronomical, into viable Linux servers or controllers. I've got plenty of old shit phones around that barely respond to touch (or whose displays are just outright unusable) but I'm here considering a new rpi for my next project instead of repurposing one. There's also a ton of leftover supply of these thing…

There is a community effort in the form of postmarketOS but the support for many devices is quite limited https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices Peripherals using proprietary drivers being the obvious offenders.

Totally cool, but more geared towards rehabilitating old devices than repurposing. Still probably a lot of the work done there could be repurposed (reverse engineered drivers or code for working with a SoC) for plug in server functionality. Thanks for the link, I'll waste some time on it :)

Re: A Minimum Viable Computer, or Linux for $15

#210

Post by vagrantJin »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #159
vagrantJin wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever you feelings may be, HN brings a breath of fresh air. Compared to other social media, its quite rare for commentary to devolve into nonsense.

Another possibility, you are bad at detecting nonsense

Possibly.

Though I generally would not catch nonsense about an 40-year old Microprocessor or some newfangled K8s setup.

So perhaps I should phrase the claim differently. The "quality" of nonsense on HN is remarkably better than other social sites.

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