4 ms·

I’ve put this on a 20$ android phone that I got on eBay and was so impressed it made me consider switching from iOS to android.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago
That's the neat part about this. Need a Linuxy ARM SBC to run python, or a tiny web server, or home automation hub or something like that but Raspberry PIs are unavailable or overpriced in your area and alternative products are too sketchy and unsupported? No problemo. Just get an old Android flagship off the second hand market that can be had dirt cheap, flash some FOSS de-Googled ROM on it, and use that instead. You now have the power of Linux and Android ecosystems for much less than a Pi and it comes with a display and battery! Need GPIO too? You can connect an external GPIO board via USB-OTG to the phone and control that via Python just like with a Raspberry PI.
- eggy 3y ago
  So true. I use Termux, but I haven't used an Android phone to replace my embedded stuff. I have used tablets as interfaces to some of my projects. I have an old Keyone Blackberry I should try this with. The real keyboard may come in handy if the screen is acting up. Any recommendations for a FOSS de-Googled ROM? I've tried this in the past, but I have not kept up with them. My needs sometimes call for more realtime control, and the system I ran in the past (Navigator) ran on QNX (owned by Blackberry) a microkernel OS (like Minix was, not Linux). Is there a close competitor in the Android world?
- bahmboo 3y ago
  Used flagships have always worked well for me. They were built the best at the time whereas new budget phones have to cut corners. Phone tech is not changing that fast anymore.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    How old/used is the price sweet spot? Have you gotten bad/broken devices? Where do you buy them to avoid people over-representing the status of the device? I've got kids that are starting to need phones and this seems like a great way to do it.
- freedomben 3y ago
  Wow what a great idea. I currently use my Raspberry Pi to make OCI container build for ARM, but for some reason docker routinely breaks on raspbian. The most recent aggravating breakage is that the system clock always goes to Jan 1 1970 inside the container, and I can't figure out why (if anyone knows how to fix this, I'd be eternally grateful for a hint). Because of this I've scripted an ARM EC2 instance that spins up, builds the image, pushes it, and spins down, but I'd love to have a local solution on hardware I own. I'm gonna give this a try!
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  For extra tricks (and challenges), buy an Android phone that can run postmarketOS, which is basically Alpine Linux. This comes with more up to date kernels (something older phones often lack) and can run things like Docker without too much trouble. Most phones aren't fully supported but there are a bunch of phones with decent support and modern enough SoCs that can be had for cheap. PmOS devices don't run Android so the Android HAL that custom ROMs often rely on isn't in use, which can lead to broken hardware support. On the other hand, many of these devices run a recent version of Linux so you can play around with all kinds of modern features. https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices

ChuckNorris89 3y ago

That's the neat part about this. Need a Linuxy ARM SBC to run python, or a tiny web server, or home automation hub or something like that but Raspberry PIs are unavailable or overpriced in your area and alternative products are too sketchy and unsupported? No problemo. Just get an old Android flagship off the second hand market that can be had dirt cheap, flash some FOSS de-Googled ROM on it, and use that instead. You now have the power of Linux and Android ecosystems for much less than a Pi and it comes with a display and battery! Need GPIO too? You can connect an external GPIO board via USB-OTG to the phone and control that via Python just like with a Raspberry PI.

eggy 3y ago
So true. I use Termux, but I haven't used an Android phone to replace my embedded stuff. I have used tablets as interfaces to some of my projects. I have an old Keyone Blackberry I should try this with. The real keyboard may come in handy if the screen is acting up. Any recommendations for a FOSS de-Googled ROM? I've tried this in the past, but I have not kept up with them. My needs sometimes call for more realtime control, and the system I ran in the past (Navigator) ran on QNX (owned by Blackberry) a microkernel OS (like Minix was, not Linux). Is there a close competitor in the Android world?
bahmboo 3y ago
Used flagships have always worked well for me. They were built the best at the time whereas new budget phones have to cut corners. Phone tech is not changing that fast anymore.
- freedomben 3y ago
  How old/used is the price sweet spot? Have you gotten bad/broken devices? Where do you buy them to avoid people over-representing the status of the device? I've got kids that are starting to need phones and this seems like a great way to do it.
freedomben 3y ago
Wow what a great idea. I currently use my Raspberry Pi to make OCI container build for ARM, but for some reason docker routinely breaks on raspbian. The most recent aggravating breakage is that the system clock always goes to Jan 1 1970 inside the container, and I can't figure out why (if anyone knows how to fix this, I'd be eternally grateful for a hint). Because of this I've scripted an ARM EC2 instance that spins up, builds the image, pushes it, and spins down, but I'd love to have a local solution on hardware I own. I'm gonna give this a try!
jeroenhd 3y ago
For extra tricks (and challenges), buy an Android phone that can run postmarketOS, which is basically Alpine Linux. This comes with more up to date kernels (something older phones often lack) and can run things like Docker without too much trouble. Most phones aren't fully supported but there are a bunch of phones with decent support and modern enough SoCs that can be had for cheap. PmOS devices don't run Android so the Android HAL that custom ROMs often rely on isn't in use, which can lead to broken hardware support. On the other hand, many of these devices run a recent version of Linux so you can play around with all kinds of modern features. https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices