| ▲ | summermusic 5 hours ago |
| Is there such thing as a palm-sized mobile PC that can just run a desktop Linux distribution (or Windows for that matter) that supports mobile features (calling, SMS, and data)? Even if it has rough edges or compromises? |
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| ▲ | dsp_person 4 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| Looks like some of GPD Pocket systems can have sim cards. But don't know how good the linux compatibility is. |
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| ▲ | jolmg 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| PinePhone (Pro) or Librem 5 > run a desktop Linux distribution (or Windows for that matter) that supports mobile features (calling, SMS, and data)? The above use ARM SoCs. Palm-sized x86 with cell modem? Doubt it. |
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| ▲ | summermusic 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Thank you for the recommendation, but I have a Pinephone Pro and I find it to be so utterly useless because of how slow it is and how buggy the software is. Maybe what I want is just something that doesn’t exist. |
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| ▲ | righthand 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Librem 5 or one of the other recommended mobile Linux devices: https://linuxstans.com/linux-phone/ |
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| ▲ | cwmoore 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Wow, $150 vs $2000 for ~ the same thing ~ | | |
| ▲ | seba_dos1 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | For starters, the Librem 5 costs $799. The Liberty Phone is a version manufactured in the USA, which is not something everyone will care about. Also, PinePhone is so much slower than Librem 5, which in practice feels closer to the (now discontinued) PinePhone Pro. Their specs only seem similar on paper, and only if you don't dig into the details. Though of course, Librem 5 being a 2019 design isn't a speed demon these days either - but I'm still using one and it's manageable. | | |
| ▲ | jolmg 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > PinePhone is so much slower than Librem 5 They're the same specs. Pinephone Pro has more cores, ram, and storage. > Their specs only seem similar on paper, and only if you don't dig into the details. What do you mean? | | |
| ▲ | seba_dos1 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | They're very much not. I have both of them on my desk right now. All the things that make the PinePhone so painfully slow (GPU performance, RAM bandwidth, eMMC speed, small caches) are significantly higher spec'd on the Librem 5. It also takes much longer to thermal throttle. Performance isn't defined by CPU cores and RAM size alone. | | |
| ▲ | megous 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Original Pinephone is good enough for smartphone apps. It can run a typical smartphone UI smoothly on a single core fully throttled to 648 MHz with a lot of room to spare, probably much better and more responsively than your typical similar class bloated Android phone. Also have it sitting on my table, doing just that. :D https://xff.cz/dl/tmp/photo-20260806-013112002.mkv (I guess I try hard enough, perfectly servicable with a single core at 648 MHz, barely scratching it at 10-20% CPU time used) It would be a bit ridiculous if it was not, given what UIs/games people run on 50MHz 486 if like 40-80x faster phone could not move some pixels around smoothly at 60fps. | | |
| ▲ | seba_dos1 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well, even the Neo Freerunner worked smoothly if you tried hard enough :) |
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| ▲ | jolmg 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Made in China vs Made in USA. PinePhone specs on table are old. They're currently 3GB RAM and 32GB eMMC at 200 USD for package including hub. |
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| ▲ | TheRoque 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What's wrong with just Android? |
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| ▲ | tester457 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There's a powerlessness to using Android. It's difficult to just do things. Even windows feels more "free." Phone OSes are built like prisons. Ideally Android would let you drop into a real shell, without having to deal with android sandboxing. Regardless, I use termux and tasker to get my automations done. | | |
| ▲ | streb-lo 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Probably because carriers don't want a bunch of poorly secured devices on their networks. | | |
| ▲ | lytedev 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Can't you get USB modems and cram a SIM inside? Are carrier networks really more scary than the internet at large? | |
| ▲ | gruez 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They don't seem to put much effort in proactively blocking residential VPNs though? | |
| ▲ | dsr_ 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Counter-evidence: the Google Play Store, which is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. And also malware. | | |
| ▲ | armadyl an hour ago | parent [-] | | Counter-evidence: Repos such as AUR That blast radius coupled with (non-Android) Linux's atrocious security is a far worse option |
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| ▲ | smalltorch 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What are the main things you can do in a real shell versus termux for instance? It's a pretty big sandbox in my experience. | | |
| ▲ | seba_dos1 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If something bothers me with my phone's UI or if I want to change the behavior of some system service, I can do e.g. "apt source phosh", patch it and then "apt build-dep .", "dpkg-buildpackage -b" and "apt install" it right on the phone. I can even send the patch for upstreaming from there. How easy it is to do an equivalent thing on Android? | |
| ▲ | 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | Gander5739 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You can root it if you really want (and if the bootloader is unlocked) |
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| ▲ | Kim_Bruning 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don't have control over my own device. | |
| ▲ | bpavuk 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Google! | |
| ▲ | exe34 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | How do you install kde? | | | |
| ▲ | pixel_popping 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | doesn't support btrfs snapshots. | |
| ▲ | nsonha 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | people shouldn't have to buy a mac mini to run openclaw, they already have an always-on computer, they just can't install anything computationally useful with it | | |
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| ▲ | pacifi30 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| https://thehammer.io/
right now texting device, runs linux :) |
