I started with Red Hat 6 (not RHEL) as a kid, because it was what was included with the book on Linux that I was gifted. Some time around 2000, I was given some retired beige powermac G3 desktops, and I switched to Debian for its PowerPC port. I've been with Debian ever since.
So maybe pick something with the realization that they may stick with it for decades. :)
I also kept Windows on dual boot so I could play UT99 with friends. The social aspect is also important. My son is comfortable using our Debian machines, but also has Windows on his primary desktop so he can play Roblox and Minecraft Bedrock with school friends. I wouldn't want him to lose that.
I bought one as soon as they were released, as well as the keyboard case. It never really worked correctly, but I loved the concept and wish they would have succeeded.
I know it's a niche product, but I'd love a pocket sized Debian device with cellular, decent standby time, and a physical keyboard. Anything out there I should look in to? I've tried to make various GPD devices work, but they are too big, and the standby time isn't great.
I think that finding an aftermarket keyboard solution for a smartphone using the android virtualization framework to run a debian VM (i.e. the "Linux Terminal" on Android 16) is your best bet by far.
The economies of scale (and compactness!) in mainstream smartphones are very hard to match, and they tend to have superior power management.
Do heavy lifting by logging into a remote server for best battery life and compute power.
Some of them are UMPCs, some are sub-notebooks and some arguably are maybe netbooks. The GPD Micro PC 2 is not that fast and only has a 7" screen like the original Asus EEE PC. It's got less bezel, so perhaps it bleeds the line between netbook and UMPC but inflation adjusted it's pretty comparable in price.
ahhh fair enough then. I did admittedly only have a quick look at their site.
The NetBook market was such a good one. It really is a pity the Microsoft killed off the spirit of it, and then Apple convinced everyone that pretty and expensive things without keyboards are nicer than cheap and practical things.
I do miss EeePCs. The death of the netbook was probably the biggest blow for desktop Linux becoming mainstream.
Were they? I think that for work or hobbies laptop is better, has better screen and keyboard and they are not that expensive now. And for watching short videos you can just use a phone.
When Netbooks were popular, laptops were expensive and heavy, and smartphones weren’t anything like what they are today.
Netbooks were the ultimate portable productivity tool. Journalists would write about how they could take them on site and write about things while it happened. Students could type notes in class. I even saw a face painter at a kids party using an EeePC as part of their workflow.
Cheap laptops these days do now exist, but they suffer from drawbacks like weight, terrible battery life and poor performance. All problems that the EeePC didn’t have. And smartphones are fine for videos, but the lack of physical keyboard makes them impractical for typical productivity suits. The nearest modern competition to EeePCs are devices like MacBook Air and similar Windows devices. But they’re not cheap.
Pretty cheap by some definitions, yes, but as best as I can tell (historical prices aren’t exactly readily available), the Micro PC 2 ($700 list price before tax) is still between 1.5× and 2× the price of the original (€300—presumably including about 20% tax—per the linked article, between $200 and $500 per the Wayback Machine, in nominal dollars before 10% inflation).
There's https://furilabs.com/shop/flx1/, but there don't seem to be many people playing with these. Perhaps someone on HN would be willing to share their experience.
As a mostly-Linux based coder, my current rig consists of an iPad with keyboard, iPhone for connectivity, and a small Debian box based on the pwnagotchi hardware (it sometimes runs pwnagotchi, but is mostly my development machine). This is plenty of power for my needs, and turns the iPad into a monitor, mostly.
I’d replace all of this in an instant if someone made a LinuxPad with keyboard.
I'd be sure to charge them before storing them for the next show. Most batteries don't like being stored for long periods in a low SoC state. And I'm sure the tamper requires a functional battery.
All readers are charged for a day minimum after a festival before I pull the power. I then normally power them up at least a week before the next event so I can update them all and check that no more have randomly died on me. I keep a healthy buffer of devices so that I can replace them without paying for express shipping from Stripe which saved me for the last event I did where I had 6 of them die (before that pre-event check I only had the 1 bad NFC reader from the previous year).
I have to assume that one of the hard-shell cases got thrown around a little too much which caused 4 readers to go into tamper mode. 3 of the tamper mode readers were in the same case but the other was in my nicest case and still had the issue ("nicest" = custom made case vs pick-and-pluck-style).
The tampers I can somewhat understand (still just so odd to have 4 die "at once"), maybe they did get banged up, but the failed NFC and not holding a charge issues are less acceptable to me given the time/use.
Just curious if you have experienced equipment issues with stripe equipment that is not battery powered. I am about to pull the trigger on a POS decision and strip is a contender in my choices, but this is for wired devices not wireless.
The only Stripe hardware I’ve used is the M2 reader so I can’t speak to any wired options. I don’t think there are any wired readers that you can use you with an iPad (which I needed).
I think it's unfortunate given the audience I imagine will make up most of its purchases. For example, the NBN in Australia just announced earlier this year it's first 2 Gbps residential plans (previously 1 Gbps being the maximum) planned for availability some time next year[1].
Where I live (Japan), 10 Gbit availability is starting to spread, I just got upgraded a few weeks ago, the monthly cost is the same. Ended up building a router out of a used ThinkCentre Tiny.
86box is also great, especially for retro PC gaming support. I can run Windows 98 with a Pentium 233 MMX and Voodoo3 on relatively modest hardware. (AMD 7840HS)
