Yes, that too. But I was thinking more of e.g. OK now I have Python,Haskell,GCC6 or whatever installed on the Chroot, and that solves part o the problems that I have with "mobile" distros, but the fact that I'm doing it inside a chroot still means (for ex.):
- I cannot use my nicely configured/patched VPN/Wi-Fi/Ethernet/BT setup that I use on my normal Linux distro.
- I cannot use the D-Bus scripts that control volume/pair Bluetooth devices/make phone calls/configure the modem/change screen resolution/calibrate the stylus that I use on my Gentoo host
- I cannot directly use some of the hardware features that I have in the normal Linux way (e.g. V4L, video out, USB gadget...).
- Can I install daemons easily?
- Separation between host and chroot filesysetm, /homes, etc. (but this is low priority).

These seem ridiculous , but are the only reasons that prevent me from fully adopting the "Gentoo chroot in Android/Jolla" approach.

But it is not "less efficient" in terms of machine efficiency, because actually it's exactly as efficient.

Rather, it's inefficient in terms of the time I sill need to waste in order to battle the host system, even if I inside the chroot I'm still using Gentoo/whatever, for the reasons above.

Would this be a good candidate device to put gnu/linux based OS on? The drivers are open source.

http://www.xda-developers.com/nextbi...e-february-16/

Sort of. Idea was to change the matchbox2 part over to Mutter and rebuild hildon-desktop on top of that. As it is now, h-d is part of several components needed to get the full DE. h-d is responsible for the menus, transitions, wm. h-home does the desktop widgets, customisation etc. h-status-menu pretty self explanatory.

Anyway, it's just idea at the moment. I have a small test app that just initializes mutter and display a blank screen to see how it works. Still working on porting the existing hildon* apps to GTK3 but I've taken a short break to do some non computing related projects.

You pull it off ...
you are my new hero of the week man...

Check 'gtk3' branches in https://github.com/orgs/Cordia repos.

I even got it pretty much working:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK_hwhNe4g8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxG40LvV9A4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbBmfqQrsFg

Is that really any better than a Nexus phone?

For some People it might as they really dislike giving money to huge companies in general or Google specifically.
I don't think there'll be many advantages hardware-wise (plus smaller user base). But you never know and I appreciated reading about it. A manufacturer being OK with flashing stuff on it under warranty certainly is a good thing, especially with drivers available. Some day installing gnu/linux on phones will be just like on PCs. (One can still dream, right?)

Intel x86 N900 co computer side
Self made Intel edison seems to be faster and smaller than a n900 or a pi.
It can run a ubilinux http://www.emutexlabs.com/ubilinux. (debian "Wheezy", on 3.10 kernel).
(But self made self powered is not easy due to several design flaws.
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials...-battery-block and slow charging times http://www.helios.de/heliosapp/edison/)

If you want a more powerful device you can take an
Intel compute stick (sold with Ubuntu) and a a large powerbank battery.
Someone flashed ubuntu even on the larger 2 GB Windows version.
If you up for flashing and a little porting challenge you can try the more stylish
Ainol Mini PC:
http://www.ainol-novo.com/ainol-mini-pc-black.html
It seems it is just a compute stick with a large powerbank.
or [Voyo (similar):
http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/02/...0-mah-battery/]

Could be a great expansion for the a N900. Where you "tether" your network, keyboard and display and leave the "big" server in your pocket.

But they all need some tinkering on the software side or even hardware side and even worse are Intels

(Maybe invest 800 Euro in porting ubuntu to a ainol or voyo)

Or build your own based on a fast arm (raxda, odroid, olimex) som and a large powerbank.

Or a more geeky zynq device (arm cortex a9 and fpga)
https://wiki.trenz-electronic.de/pag...ageId=20612048
sadly only 64mb ram and not released yet..

I am in a similar situation as the thread's OP, looking for a GNU/linux portable machine. For me telephony functions are mandatory since I would like to avoid to carry two different devices for 'quick' tasks on the move and I need my laptop for heavy computations, bringing to three the number of devices always with me.
Currently I am looking at the Pyra with 3/4G module wondering if this will work fine with a BT headset as a mobile phone. Neo900 is interesting as well but I am afraid an updated browser will be a dream there as well, specially due to not enough horse-power and that is the biggest concern for which I still did not byte the bullet. Having a 'free' phone is really tempting, though.

I recently revamped my n900 after two years on Windows Phone because of taskwarrior, which I found great on the desktop (on the laptop I use both Linux and W10->cygwin) and perfectly suited to my workflow after two years looking for a good 'ToDo' app. Succesfully compiled for my N900, I have now a great tool acting as my own agenda and my phone at the same time. On n900 I am missing only a 'real' offline navigator application and an up-to-date browser, otherwise there will really not be any drawbacks for my use case. Do not forget we are talking about a 7 years old phone, now! What a great device the Nokia team designed...

BTW from a 'work' point of view I admit I found WP8 being a great device/system. The Surface is a great device as well, my wife being less geeky than me is going very well with a WP+Surface combo.

GPD XD could be a cheap replacement for OpenPandora/Pyra. (Putting a Mer/libhybris on)


If only they would release the kernel source for the device.

I wonder if Amazon could be held liable of GPL violation of Linux kernel as they sell these devices. ;-)