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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

#82

Post by throwaway27448 »

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.

Frankly if you don't need a web browser (or electron), what WOULD require that much memory? Video and photo editing maybe? Postgres? Recompiling the world?

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

#84

Post by roryirvine »

nine_k wrote: post #62
NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Try the "Auto tab discard" extension. It allows me to have hundreds of tabs "open" and (in combination with Tree Style Tabs) largely blur the line between "browser sessions" and "bookmarks".

Yeah, agreed. The built-in tab discarder only kicks in when there's actual memory pressure, so can sometimes be a bit precarious. Auto tab discard happens way before that, so tends not to be affected in the same way. I guess it uses more i/o in total, but it's not noticeable on a system with a fast-ish SSD.

It can still be a bit iffy when memory's really tight, but even then a simple tab reload is usually enough to fix things.

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

#85

Post by waweic »

realusername wrote: post #71
waweic wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do write an article! I've wanted to get into reusing old android hardware for quite some time now, but never knew where to look for good instructions to get started. Especially PostmarketOS seems very interesting, but rather underdocumented in some places.

I will then, didn't know it would be interesting for other people. As for PostmarketOS, I've built my own tooling scripts around it to make it easier to build patches, debug hex variables, switch between downstream/mainline and rebuilding everything with a single command. (Unrelased yet though). I find their tooling okay for a release for end-users but a bit clunky for debugging.

Sounds great! Would you be so kind to send me an E-Mail once you wrote the article?

My address is my username @ism.rocks

Alternatively, if you released the article on your blog, I could just follow the RSS feed.

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

#86

Post by Aurornis »

electroly wrote: post #65
Aurornis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show HN is (or was) one of my favorite parts of this site. I read a lot of submitted projects. The people who don’t even take 30 seconds to write their own comments aren’t here to share their knowledge or discuss the project. It’s self-advertising. They might be following instructions from the LLM to post it here. There was a project a couple days ago that still had the AI-generated marketing plan in git which instru…

This OP hasn't done any of those things. They are here discussing the project, and it's clear all of their replies are human-written. The AI use is stated up front in the readme. They posted a 12 minute YouTube video demonstrating that the project works, with narration that indicates English is not their first language. The git commit messages are all classic short human messages. It's a genuinely neat project that o…

> and it's clear all of their replies are human-written. The AI use is stated up front in the readme. The

Very much not the case with the comment I responded to.

There is a stark contrast between the AI written first comment and some of their other comments.

I know many here don’t like any accusations of AI writing because they aren’t as attuned to picking it up, but the comment I responded to was as blatant as it gets.

I tried to give a more friendly encouragement to share self-written comments.

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

#87

Post by teraflop »

cbdevidal wrote: post #63
cf100clunk wrote: post #46

The situation right now with the Doogee U10 tablet: not commonly available. Once the news gets out about epic breakthroughs on commodity hardware and devices, there's unfortunately a likely spike in the purchase cost, even if such devices can be found at all anymore on the usual online sources of new and used goods.

After seeing the headline I immediately checked eBay and they are available to ship to the United States for $80 total. https://ebay.us/m/fYqBgc

That seems to be an official listing from the manufacturer. If so, it's really shady that they prominently advertise it as having 9GB of RAM, when what they really mean is 4GB RAM + 5GB "extended RAM", and by "extended RAM" they mean swap space.

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

#88

Post by exe34 »

cbdevidal wrote: post #61
niekkamer wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here still use my laptop with 8GB DDR4 with Manjaro running. Since I have a desktop I do use rustdesk way more often to just boot into that.

Y’all are embarrassing me with Lubuntu and Chrome on a 2013 Dell with 16GB and an SSD. Not fast enough for all I need to do but covers 80% of my needs. It’s my road laptop and the home desktop handles the rest. But you’re doing much better than me.

Mine is a 2012 mac book air, I've replaced the battery early this year, and last month I upgraded the ssd to 1tb. I expect this computer will be a family heirloom after the apocalypse.
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