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I used to be sort of obsessed with some kind of handheld Linux machine. Devices I've had included: HP 200 LX with 40MB PCMCIA storage. Tried to run a cut-dow

I used to be sort of obsessed with some kind of handheld Linux machine. Devices I've had included: HP 200 LX with 40MB PCMCIA storage. Tried to run a cut-down 16-bit version of Linux on it, but I don't think I ever got that running properly. Original Sharp Zaurus, the first Linux PDA. Tried to run Linux on a Compaq iPaq at some point too. Asus EEE PC 401 with the 7in screen and 4GB of storage. The first of the netbooks. Performance and build quality were not good. But it was very cute. HTC ADP1 (G1), the first Android phone. Decent keyboard, terrible battery life. Connectbot was awesome for SSHing into remote systems, and local development was slightly possible with a Linux chroot environment. Samsung Sidekick 4G. By far the best keyboard on any handheld device I've ever tried. Great feel, and I could get up to 30wpm. I was also able to set up a chroot environment. Had to modify the keyboard map to enable the last few ASCII characters not normally available via Fn keypress. The idea was that I'd be able to do some software development on the go. But that didn't really work out either. The device I'm most happy with so far is my current Chromebook. I've got a full Ubuntu environment via Crouton on a 128GB SD card, though most of the time I'm just SSHing into a workstation. Light, cheap, and with a long battery life. The keyboard is good enough that I'm running at nearly full speed, though I do miss my dedicated caps-lock.

qubex 9y ago
Like you, I have an almost obsession-level fascination with Linux on palmtops. I think I can trace it all the way back to seeing a young John Connor ‘hack’ an ATM or something in the watershed Terminator 2 movie when I was a kid. Like you I've had an HP 200LX (the closest I've come to Connor's pocket Atari-or-whatever), a Compaq iPaq, a PSION Series 7 ‘netbook’, and (most recently, not Linux-related) an Apple eMate 300 (the clamshell, translucent, school-oriented Newton ‘laptop’ variant).
- morganvachon 9y ago
  Joining the club, I've had the same obsession with portables. The first portable device I tried to shoehorn Linux onto was a Fujitsu Stylistic 2300 from the late '90s (attempt made in 2001). From there I tinkered with the Sharp Zaurus series, the HP palmtops, and the Netpliance iOpener "web appliance", which I had running Slackware Linux. I carried that contraption to college and used it as a demonstration of the power of Linux to my NA instructor's delight. I always wanted the eMate 300 having never owned a Newton. I also was a PalmOS fanatic from about 1999 through the late 2000s, with my first "smartphone" a Treo 650 after having owned over a dozen Palm devices previously.
- mechagodzilla 9y ago
  I had an eMate 300 for taking notes in college (2006-2007)! I replaced the batteries and put in a wifi pcmcia card - it got like 24 hours of battery life and was super rugged. It was really great as a distraction-free school machine.
- sohkamyung 9y ago
  Young John Connor used an Atari Portfolio for that ATM hack [1] [1] http://www.ausretrogamer.com/arnie-and-the-atari-portfolio/ http://www.ausretrogamer.com/arnie-and-the-atari-portfolio/
k_bx 9y ago
But which Chromebook is it and is it good? (touchpad, smooth two-finger scrolling, screen etc.)
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  I'm not OP, but I have a similar setup and use an Asus C201P, which was $179 when I bought it. It's got an ARMv7-based dual core 1.8GHz processor with 16GB of internal storage. It's really surprisingly good for the price point, but the hardware doesn't compare to a $2k machine obviously. The crouton setup isn't perfect right out of the box. The brightness and volume buttons don't work immediately, and because I'm too lazy to configure hotkeys, I just use the terminal to adjust those. I haven't been able to get virtualization to work due to difficulties with the chroot environment. It does mostly work though. This setup obviously isn't the best or strongest, but it was good enough for me to get through university. Nowadays, I mostly use it for local password management, torrenting, uploading ebooks onto my kindle, and running network scans, then I use ChromeOS for the rest.
- ansible 9y ago
  I've got an Acer R11. Reasons for selection include: 1. Flip it completely open and use it as a tablet. Unfortunately, at around 1kg in weight, it doesn't quite work as well as a regular tablet, and I haven't used that mode much. 2. Early support for Android apps. This works OK. 3. Decent keyboard. It is close enough to full-sized that I've got decent speed on it. I really miss caps-lock though. 4. Low weight (for a laptop) and good battery life. 5. 4GB RAM and decent processor (for a Chromebook). Lots of Chromebooks may only have 2GB. 6. SD Card slot. Downsides: 1. 1366x768 screen. It doesn't bother me in practice, but I'd have preferred full HD. 2. Dual-core processor. At the time I bought it, Acer had quad-cores with 2GB of RAM, or dual-cores with 4GB RAM, and I opted for the latter. I've more recently seen them selling with quad cores, 4GB RAM, and 32GB internal storage. I'm not super picky about the touchpad and scrolling, though I'm sure it is not as smooth as other devices. I do bump the touchpad with my palms enough that I've needed to disable tap-to-click though.
dhimes 9y ago
I loved my asus eeepc even though I only had one GB. Had a full LAMP stack and it was great for airplane rides. I miss it- and wish there was something comparable today.
- sien 9y ago
  There is. The HP Stream and other things are like EeeePCs except faster, with more ram and more storage. https://www.amazon.com/HP-Flagship-Celeron-Certified-Refurbished/dp/B06XJ5SRLB/ref=sr_1_8?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1520195495&sr=1-8&keywords=hp+stream https://www.amazon.com/HP-Flagship-Celeron-Certified-Refurbi... Acer make similar things. There are also things even cheaper from Light in the Box and other Chinese stores: https://www.lightinthebox.com/jumper-laptop-14-inch-intel-cherry-trail-quad-core-4gb-ram-64gb-hard-disk-windows-10-intel-hd-2gb_p6393279.html?category_id=65426&prm=1.2.1.1 https://www.lightinthebox.com/jumper-laptop-14-inch-intel-ch... Actually, these things are so cheap that the it may well be part of what killed palm tops. Every time I look at a Palm top unless it's this kind of price it's too expensive. That and getting a keyboard and getting a shell on some Android device.
  - dhimes 9y ago
    Those are rather larger. The eee was great for travel- even in economy seats it was convenient to use.
walrus01 9y ago
I am still sad that things in the form factor of the Oqo never caught on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OQO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OQO With a modern multitouch screen and a slide-out keyboard it could be both a capable tablet, and do a lot more... The surface book is too large. edit: this thing too, the whole 2007 era "UMPC" fad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Q1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Q1 imagine the same form factor but with modern processor/screen/battery tech, 802.11ac dual band wave2 wifi, a few USB type C ports on it.

qubex 9y ago

Like you, I have an almost obsession-level fascination with Linux on palmtops. I think I can trace it all the way back to seeing a young John Connor ‘hack’ an ATM or something in the watershed Terminator 2 movie when I was a kid. Like you I've had an HP 200LX (the closest I've come to Connor's pocket Atari-or-whatever), a Compaq iPaq, a PSION Series 7 ‘netbook’, and (most recently, not Linux-related) an Apple eMate 300 (the clamshell, translucent, school-oriented Newton ‘laptop’ variant).

morganvachon 9y ago
Joining the club, I've had the same obsession with portables. The first portable device I tried to shoehorn Linux onto was a Fujitsu Stylistic 2300 from the late '90s (attempt made in 2001). From there I tinkered with the Sharp Zaurus series, the HP palmtops, and the Netpliance iOpener "web appliance", which I had running Slackware Linux. I carried that contraption to college and used it as a demonstration of the power of Linux to my NA instructor's delight. I always wanted the eMate 300 having never owned a Newton. I also was a PalmOS fanatic from about 1999 through the late 2000s, with my first "smartphone" a Treo 650 after having owned over a dozen Palm devices previously.
mechagodzilla 9y ago
I had an eMate 300 for taking notes in college (2006-2007)! I replaced the batteries and put in a wifi pcmcia card - it got like 24 hours of battery life and was super rugged. It was really great as a distraction-free school machine.
sohkamyung 9y ago
Young John Connor used an Atari Portfolio for that ATM hack [1] [1] http://www.ausretrogamer.com/arnie-and-the-atari-portfolio/ http://www.ausretrogamer.com/arnie-and-the-atari-portfolio/

k_bx 9y ago

But which Chromebook is it and is it good? (touchpad, smooth two-finger scrolling, screen etc.)

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
I'm not OP, but I have a similar setup and use an Asus C201P, which was $179 when I bought it. It's got an ARMv7-based dual core 1.8GHz processor with 16GB of internal storage. It's really surprisingly good for the price point, but the hardware doesn't compare to a $2k machine obviously. The crouton setup isn't perfect right out of the box. The brightness and volume buttons don't work immediately, and because I'm too lazy to configure hotkeys, I just use the terminal to adjust those. I haven't been able to get virtualization to work due to difficulties with the chroot environment. It does mostly work though. This setup obviously isn't the best or strongest, but it was good enough for me to get through university. Nowadays, I mostly use it for local password management, torrenting, uploading ebooks onto my kindle, and running network scans, then I use ChromeOS for the rest.
ansible 9y ago
I've got an Acer R11. Reasons for selection include: 1. Flip it completely open and use it as a tablet. Unfortunately, at around 1kg in weight, it doesn't quite work as well as a regular tablet, and I haven't used that mode much. 2. Early support for Android apps. This works OK. 3. Decent keyboard. It is close enough to full-sized that I've got decent speed on it. I really miss caps-lock though. 4. Low weight (for a laptop) and good battery life. 5. 4GB RAM and decent processor (for a Chromebook). Lots of Chromebooks may only have 2GB. 6. SD Card slot. Downsides: 1. 1366x768 screen. It doesn't bother me in practice, but I'd have preferred full HD. 2. Dual-core processor. At the time I bought it, Acer had quad-cores with 2GB of RAM, or dual-cores with 4GB RAM, and I opted for the latter. I've more recently seen them selling with quad cores, 4GB RAM, and 32GB internal storage. I'm not super picky about the touchpad and scrolling, though I'm sure it is not as smooth as other devices. I do bump the touchpad with my palms enough that I've needed to disable tap-to-click though.

dhimes 9y ago

I loved my asus eeepc even though I only had one GB. Had a full LAMP stack and it was great for airplane rides. I miss it- and wish there was something comparable today.

sien 9y ago
There is. The HP Stream and other things are like EeeePCs except faster, with more ram and more storage. https://www.amazon.com/HP-Flagship-Celeron-Certified-Refurbished/dp/B06XJ5SRLB/ref=sr_1_8?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1520195495&sr=1-8&keywords=hp+stream https://www.amazon.com/HP-Flagship-Celeron-Certified-Refurbi... Acer make similar things. There are also things even cheaper from Light in the Box and other Chinese stores: https://www.lightinthebox.com/jumper-laptop-14-inch-intel-cherry-trail-quad-core-4gb-ram-64gb-hard-disk-windows-10-intel-hd-2gb_p6393279.html?category_id=65426&prm=1.2.1.1 https://www.lightinthebox.com/jumper-laptop-14-inch-intel-ch... Actually, these things are so cheap that the it may well be part of what killed palm tops. Every time I look at a Palm top unless it's this kind of price it's too expensive. That and getting a keyboard and getting a shell on some Android device.
- dhimes 9y ago
  Those are rather larger. The eee was great for travel- even in economy seats it was convenient to use.

walrus01 9y ago

I am still sad that things in the form factor of the Oqo never caught on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OQO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OQO With a modern multitouch screen and a slide-out keyboard it could be both a capable tablet, and do a lot more... The surface book is too large. edit: this thing too, the whole 2007 era "UMPC" fad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Q1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Q1 imagine the same form factor but with modern processor/screen/battery tech, 802.11ac dual band wave2 wifi, a few USB type C ports on it.