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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

#51

Post by nubinetwork »

exe34 wrote: post #34
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 have 8GB, which I've had since 2012. Never had a problem - I run a lean Nixos with just xmonad and dmenu, chrome, emacs, and about a dozen open pdfs and video tutorials.

Opening Chrome, Firefox, discord or Spotify instantly takes up 1gb on my laptop... so that already puts me at 3-4gb... someone needs to find out why kwin leaks so much shared memory, after a week of running that alone can take up a few gigs as well. My next laptop has 32gb at the very least.

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

#52

Post by roryirvine »

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.

Browsers and anything electron-based are your enemy.

Firefox is actually pretty good in low-memory situations, silently discarding tabs when under memory pressure, but the main benefit comes from being able to run proper adblocking. Chromium-based browsers just can't compete these days.

Otherwise, a bog standard Gnome-based Debian Trixie desktop should be pretty doable. I'm currently using an 8 GB machine with 3.7 GB RAM free - Firefox, evolution, gnome-calendar, and gnome-software are the only apps that using more than 100 MB, and none of them are obligatory.

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

#53

Post by ksh09 »

dakolli wrote: post #22
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)?

Ahh yes, rely on AI to avoid learning how to do something. Our brains are cooked if we keep up these attitudes.

It helps for fuzzing, maintaining and is actually a great help for seniors, maybe not for the ones who don't care for the project and publish slop. It could now actually help a lot in some ways not just coding though but things surrounding project management.

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

#54

Post by LtWorf »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #40
MasterScrat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have mixed feelings (as in, I'm unsure how to feel) about projects where the code, the README and the HN/Reddit posts are mostly AI-generated. I feel the frustration of reading "slop", but on the other hand the projects that surface do usually bring something useful to the table. Should we simply judge the submission based on its technical merit? Why do I feel annoyed that an otherwise cool project uses typical LLM…

I'm not willing to give the benefit of the doubt to AI generated submissions anymore because the technical merit has too often turned out to be false, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47471647

What did you expect on simonwillison.net?

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

#55

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

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.

having many tabs is perfectly fine - it's having many *youtube* tabs is troublesome

main trouble to me has been caused by unity games - those are the big ram devourers, even most basic 2D ones (I still don't understand how that happens, why such regression since KSP days)

and plenty of 2D games work perfectly fine (devs really overestimate minimal requirements)

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

#57

Post by ksh09 »

realusername wrote: post #15
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)?

I have some experience on this and could make an article if you are interested. The key is to have downstream sources and be very very conservative with the AI, slowly build step by step. You also have to know C and have a spider sense of what's acceptable or not. Another key is to ask for approval before editing any source with a patch of what it intends to do. This way you can judge what it wants to do and ask for…

Interested!

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

#58

Post by cf100clunk »

syntaxing wrote: post #56

Is there something that is good to be a “android” server? I want to sign in to this server for all my chat stuff and use beeper to connect to it. I tried using a tablet but the battery keeps dying.

Cheap, commodity Android box as found on eBay, AliExpress, etc.?

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

#59

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

roryirvine wrote: post #52
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.

Browsers and anything electron-based are your enemy. Firefox is actually pretty good in low-memory situations, silently discarding tabs when under memory pressure, but the main benefit comes from being able to run proper adblocking. Chromium-based browsers just can't compete these days. Otherwise, a bog standard Gnome-based Debian Trixie desktop should be pretty doable. I'm currently using an 8 GB machine with 3.7 GB…

it's probably the "you only notice when it doesn't work" situation, but my experience with firefox on ram limit has been a lot about tabs forgetting the url in them

as in, I click "open in new tab", some time later I switch to them... only to get hit with "new tab", even though a moment ago it displayed tab name and I could right click -> bookmark to preemptively copy the address

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

#60

Post by nutjob2 »

tech4bot wrote: post #47
nutjob2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you get it from AliExpress? If so can you post the link to the listing, because I'm not certain that you'll get the same CPU even for the model number.

I got it from Amazon DE. The listing said it had an RK3562. There are a few different listings with Android 13/14/15/16. I only bought two, one with Android 15 and one with Android 16, and both turned out to be the same hardware.

Can you post the Amazon DE links? Because none of the listings I see specify that processor.

Would like to try this out, but getting an incompatible machine would be a real bummer.

Edit: OK, I think the Android 15 is this one: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/DOOGEE-U10-Tablet-WiFi-128GB/dp/B... (Nov/Dec delivery)

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