What's the best Handheld gnu/linux machine for 2017?
 

Okay, it is now 2017,
time to bury what was possibly the best thread of 2016
and upgrade.

I will try to keep a brief link list here as best I can:

In No Particular Order:

Neo900 - finally a successor of N900

The successor of Nokia N900 - Pyra (Well, sort of)

GPD win


Build our own device



bug me if you find something,
I am, all too often, extremely distracted but will post here.



On New Years Day I dug out my two linux tablets.

The older 'Hiton" unit will be bid as support for a project in few weeks,
so I was spooling it up to make sure I still had everything working.
It runs Sabayon 64bit on a n2600 and works excellently.
Unfortunately it is no longer manufactured


I have a Ubuntu Touch BQ E5,
but developing anything with it is complicated beyond any hope.

Since development on Ubuntu Touch has virtually died,
before even getting email, VPN, and any kind of porting of
mainstream linux applications (due to the 'mir' showstopper),
it never really counted as an actual "linux" alternative.

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But with Pyra getting closer it still makes sense to keep in mind there are other alternatives which may arrive completely __unanticipated__ from out of nowhere.

I am still looking for a build it myself but if someone spots something
out there now on the market please respond here.


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The Ruggon PM-311 with its resistive screen is exquisite,
but too big to fit in a pocket, and the battery life is just too short.
I run SolydX 64bit and it just purrs right along.
With all the waterproofing and a legitimate RS232 port
it is still my first choice for offshore linux on deck at sea:

Re: What's the best Handheld gnu/linux machine for 2017?
 

Fixed the tags a little but could not add the "f*ck microsoft" one because tag limit is exceeded. Anyway f*ck microsoft!

Concerning the topic - AFAIR neo900 release is planned for november 2017 so I bet it will be the answer.

Re: What's the best Handheld gnu/linux machine for 2017?
 

I would not my breath until then (even I support Neo900 and would like to see it sooner as earlier' to exchange my N900 - or I feel doomed to retire it, @joerg_rw are you listening?)

Re: What's the best Handheld gnu/linux machine for 2017?
 

The Samsung Z3 runs Tizen which is GNU/Linux. The specs are ok though not perfect. You can find them on ebay easily and they can be imported easily.

Re: What's the best Handheld gnu/linux machine for 2017?
 

I forgot to mention the decrepit ACER Iconia w4-821
gathering dust in the window.

Noticing that antiX- MX16 was released, I spooled it up
(using nomodeset to get the graphics to work)
and ran into the old wifi problem.
It seemed they have added quite a few broadcom modules,
so I set to investigating.

I just now got the wifi to working (receiving, but not yet connect)
It is Broadcom 43241b4
and with a big thanks to the guys who already hacked through at
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread....3#post13278703

it seems to be just a matter of getting the firmware
brcmfmac43241b4-sdio.txt file edited and into /lib/firmware/brcm/.
I did that using easier instructions at kernel.org:


NVRAM from EFI

Some new devices are storing the nvram which is needed in addition to the firmware by the driver in an EFI variable and the Windows driver can access it (this file should be optional in the case of PCIe devices). Currently brcmfmac does not support this automatically. First mount the efi vars into sysfs:

Code:

---

mount -t efivarfs none /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

---

The content of the nvram is in this file:

Code:

---

/sys/firmware/efi/efivars/nvram-74b00bd9-805a-4d61-b51f-43268123d113

---

Copy this file where brcmfmac expects the nvram, for example:

Code:

---

cat /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/nvram-74b00bd9-805a-4d61-b51f-43268123d113 > /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43241b4-sdio.txt

---

I am almost there (only maybe ):
I can see all SSIDs here
but I need to try and fix networkmanager (fails to log on)
or toss it and get wicd onboard - some sort of bus error thingy.

This unit uses the 3740 atom,
fwiw to anyone who arrives here..

More news as I get through this.
The Acer is ancient, but if we can get wifi working
on a system that has a working touch+display we can probably
get this out on other less-ancient models.
Stuff newer than a year I doubt, as linux hardware hacks
lag way behind what is needed to get new hardware working.


At least my new year begins with a bit of hope....:D:D:D:D:D

Re: What's the best Handheld gnu/linux machine for 2017?
 

Agreed concerning Antix.
Hell...
It is the primary of 3 distros that I use.
the second being Solyd.
The third.... I flex between a few...I haven't settled on a permanent 3rd ...yet.

Antix has consistently impressed the hell out of me.
Love the distro.

So yet again I am not surprised with your progress with Antix.

But it is good to hear such great progress
Good start with good news thus far ...for this new year...
It bodes well..
keeping my eyes peeled on this thread...

Re: What's the best Handheld gnu/linux machine for 2017?
 

As you are obviously distro-hoping-kinda guy, I wonder; have you ever gone to the extreme?

I mean full LFS route, the way of true enthusiasts? It is actually surprisingly easy and you will get exactly what fits your needs, and can be on the bloodiest bleeding edge ever if you so desire :D

Re: What's the best Handheld gnu/linux machine for 2017?
 

Haha

I am worse than a distro hopper...

Yup I have been down the LFS road ...

Still...I can't quite make up my mind....

Re: What's the best Handheld gnu/linux machine for 2017?
 

I have often wondered how much time that would take,
recompiling kernels to match hardware being the obvious win.

It always seemed like it might consume too much of my peripheral time,
but is that actually the case ?

Thanks for this reminder :confused:

Re: What's the best Handheld gnu/linux machine for 2017?
 

It is not actually that bad, I have done it twice from the scratch, once for a Cavium board (mips based) and once for x86.

The first time I did it, it took maybe two weeks working on and off with it, it was the more difficult thing since it required the cross-compiling suite to be built.
The x86-case was much easier, took less than a week.

Nowdays it is a lot easier than it usef to be; there are nice tools to help you with it, for example https://github.com/aakoskin/hammer which is a scripting set that makes your build repeatable; you just configure it and it downloads, patches, compiles and instslls the tarballs for you.
Working with hammer makes LFS almost like installing gentoo :)