It's through this link that I today discovered that a surface RT can run Linux. I think I got rid of mine already. Would have been nice to breathe some life into it
How to repurpose your old phone into a web server
71–80 of 122 posts
Re: How to repurpose your old phone into a web server
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Go to ifixit.com, look up your phone's battery replacement steps, stop half way through :)
Yeah the first two times Apple did it for me. Then Apple stopped supporting battery replacements on a phone that old, so I ordered a battery replacement kit on Amazon and did it myself, with ifixit.com's assistance. Never again. I was genuinely shocked the thing turned on once I closed it up. It's one thing to have a conceptual understanding of how tiny the components inside a phone are. It's another thing to actuall…
I agree. But for removing batteries, could not be easier. The ifixit guides are especially good because they warn you of the stuff you could never anticipate when opening glued on cases.
Re: How to repurpose your old phone into a web server
#73Don't even need postmarketOS. Simple root, with a custom degoogled rom, and termux is all you need.
Can't you just run a Linux VM on Android these days?
Re: How to repurpose your old phone into a web server
#74The thing that holds me back from this is always the battery. I want to have my battery removed so that it doesn't eventually become a time bomb, but it's a pain on modern phones and I'm not even sure if they boot without. The mobile hardware reuse space can suck for hobbyists.
Place the "server" into a shoebox. Place another shoebox on top, filled with sand. Tape together and hide behind a furniture.
Then put that in a garage at least 50ft away from your home
Re: How to repurpose your old phone into a web server
#75The main question is WHY? I already have a 3570K box running our NAS, plex, Wifi repeater admin, etc, etc, and it would be trivial to put up a web server via python or something.. If I had any need for it.
How do I use your box to host my web server?
Sure, a phone could work - but only if you don't already have another server anyway. The downsides of a phone are probably too much of a pain over a cheap $50 used server.
Re: How to repurpose your old phone into a web server
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Go to ifixit.com, look up your phone's battery replacement steps, stop half way through :)
Yeah the first two times Apple did it for me. Then Apple stopped supporting battery replacements on a phone that old, so I ordered a battery replacement kit on Amazon and did it myself, with ifixit.com's assistance. Never again. I was genuinely shocked the thing turned on once I closed it up. It's one thing to have a conceptual understanding of how tiny the components inside a phone are. It's another thing to actuall…
> I was genuinely shocked
Could have been worse -- the sentence could have ended right there...
Re: How to repurpose your old phone into a web server
#77The thing that holds me back from this is always the battery. I want to have my battery removed so that it doesn't eventually become a time bomb, but it's a pain on modern phones and I'm not even sure if they boot without. The mobile hardware reuse space can suck for hobbyists.
You could try to fake a battery instead: https://yaky.dev/2022-09-06-smartphone-without-battery/
(This is for a removable battery, but should be close for built-in ones too, I suppose)
Re: How to repurpose your old phone into a web server
#78If the device can run PostmarketOS with a mainstream kernel, then it can run any Linux distribution. (I put Arch ARM on such devices, since I like that distro.) That's the big hurdle though - mainstream kernel support. For most devices, even if they can be rooted and jailbroken, you're stuck with the kernel they come with. Doesn't have a new feature you need? A horrible security flaw in the network stack? You're out…
s/mainstream/mainline/
But yes, this is definitely an issue. I've been playing with a 2013-era Samsung device that came with a 3.0 kernel. It can run pmos with said kernel but there are multiple root LPE vulns. I've been looking into getting it to run a mainline kernel just for fun, but it's not going to be easy.
Re: How to repurpose your old phone into a web server
#79so once you have a web server on the phone how are you able to make it available publicly on the internet? don't ISPs detect these and ban? are you using wireguard or something like that? ive been looking to build and serve my own servers and i have been considering to use old android phones to outright racks but the part I am still struggling to figure out is how to serve it publicly without ISP catching on as they…
It used to be easier to get a web server up and running in the past. I remember the 1990s fondly. Not sure what changed, but things got more complex - and more expensive, too.
> Not sure what changed
IP4 address exhaustion.
Re: How to repurpose your old phone into a web server
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most phones can have battery removed somewhat destructively, but without affecting the rest of the phone. Generally, as long as you keep the phone plugged in, the battery should be safe virtually indefinitely - the battery management on board will keep it in a state where its a constant charge which means the chemistry will be stable.
Depends on your phone. Just has to replace the battery on a generally always-plugged in Moto (at least after a certain age). Battery had pillowed out. It's acting as our "landline" with a link2cell on some old DECT handsets.
if the power resets, the phone will boitloop without a battery?