Is there a tiny Linux computer?

mralk3 · 07-07-2015, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtmistler

Maybe the OP buys coffee and burgers from the value menu ... but I bet they use the bathrooms too!

I bet he eats the ketchup packets, asks for a free cup of water, and then proceeds to use all the bandwidth pirating movies.

replica9000 · 07-07-2015, 03:06 PM

There are tablets/phones out there that originally come with Android, and are able to be (easily) replaced with Linux. I ran Debian on one of my old Android phones, but it was through chroot/VNC rather than on it's own. So it was self-powered, touchscreen, and wireless. However, a desktop/terminal on a 4" screen was awkward, and I was limited to the capabilities of the running Android kernel.

I now also have an ultrabook, a Lenovo Yoga 11 2. It has a small 11" touchscreen, decent power without the need for a cooling fan, and can fold into a tablet. So it's small, lightweight, quiet, and versatile. And of course it's x86_64, so I have no trouble running apps on it.

Also: I hope you using a secure connection over these public wifi spots.

273 · 07-07-2015, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keith Hedger

No such thing as a free wireless service ( or free anything for that matter ), the cost of the service is just added to the comapany's product, hamburger, coffee or whatever so you may not be paying but every one else who buys that company's product is efectivly subsidising you, frankly I don't see why I should pay for your internet access because your'e too cheap to pay pay for it yourself!

You use basically the same argument as software pirates, 'it doesn't cost anbody anything', 'nobody gets hurt' etc etc. man up and PAY like the rest of us!

There are actually free WiFi services in the UK, and other countries, rolled out by councils and the like. There are also WiFi services people leave open just to help others. There are businesses whose prices are not higher in any way that matters to paying customers who offer WiFi also. Sometimes the premium WiFi providers also offer a free service for you to test. As I understand it many libraries provide free WiFi also.
The government provided WiFi is there for "digital inclusion" for people who can't afford internet access of their own. I don't know whether the OP falls into that category or not but if they do I would say even in some places where WiFi does end up costing a penny on some food and drink, or whatever, is still in that spirit.
I do agree that if you can afford your own internet you ought to pay for it though and that using a lot of bandwidth on free, or not so free, WiFi spots is a little rude.

replica9000 · 07-07-2015, 03:20 PM

Some places I've been to offer free WiFi, but you need to be a paying customer to get the password.

ntubski · 07-07-2015, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keith Hedger

No such thing as a free wireless service ( or free anything for that matter ), the cost of the service is just added to the comapany's product, hamburger, coffee or whatever so you may not be paying but every one else who buys that company's product is efectivly subsidising you

Presumably the shop has already made the business decision that providing "free" wifi is worth while for their bottom line, e.g. because it causes customers to spend more time and money there. Another person downloading a few bytes isn't going to affect the price at all because pretty much all the cost is in the overhead of setting up the wifi in the first place (downloading oodles of huge movie files might be a different story, but I'm assuming that's not what we're talking about here).

L4Zer · 07-07-2015, 04:41 PM

Sometimes people can't afford an ISP. There are cheaper plans out there but the bandwidth they offer is quite low. Maybe good for web surfing and emailing. But will buffer quite a bit on higher application like multimedia and huge downloads and uploads of files.

I pay my ISP $35 a month for a 50MB down/ 5 MB up. I would like to get a 300 MB down but I couldn't afford it as I have other bills to pay.

I personally don't like using public wifi or public computers unless in an extreme emergency. There are two caveats to this: nosy people looking over your shoulder and security. You need to encrypt your wifi sessions either by setting up a ssh server at home or paying for a VPS/VPN service.

As for public computers, I would hope they have a program to cleared all sessions after each user. You don't want your personal sessions logged and save on there hard drives. This is way a liveCD/USB is best to use on a public computer. Your sessions are destroyed on the next reboot. Unconditionally, public computers don't allow this.

Keith Hedger · 07-07-2015, 05:04 PM

Help me Obi wan you're my only hope!

RandomTroll · 07-07-2015, 06:57 PM

I eat ketchup & crackers, wash it down with lime tea.

Actually I've never used the free wireless at a commercial enterprise;I passed by a woman sitting on the bench next to the McDonald's in a Walmart using her laptop. Libraries have it, and the city has put it in buses and parks and other public places.

I've seen mice that had entire keyboards on them. A tiny keyboard like that would work. For a display I could get a chip implanted in my retinal nerve.

What about the one-laptop-per-child computers? Can an adult buy them?

rokytnji · 07-07-2015, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RandomTroll

I eat ketchup & crackers, wash it down with lime tea.

Actually I've never used the free wireless at a commercial enterprise;I passed by a woman sitting on the bench next to the McDonald's in a Walmart using her laptop. Libraries have it, and the city has put it in buses and parks and other public places.

I've seen mice that had entire keyboards on them. A tiny keyboard like that would work. For a display I could get a chip implanted in my retinal nerve.

What about the one-laptop-per-child computers? Can an adult buy them?

To be honest. I bought my M&A Touchscreen Netbooks that replaced my eeepcs after I sold them. I paid 39 bucks with wiped drives. But I was patient and waited till what I wanted showed up. So if there is a will. There is a way.

Back when I was a mod at eeepc forums. The 900HA was the most desired item of the 900 asus series of netbooks.

OLPC XO-1 are for sale on ebay. But the 900HA is a better netbook and is cheaper

If the missing key on the 900 HA bothers you. Maybe this one.

rtmistler · 07-08-2015, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ntubski

Presumably the shop has already made the business decision that providing "free" wifi is worth while for their bottom line, e.g. because it causes customers to spend more time and money there. Another person downloading a few bytes isn't going to affect the price at all because pretty much all the cost is in the overhead of setting up the wifi in the first place (downloading oodles of huge movie files might be a different story, but I'm assuming that's not what we're talking about here).

Something tells me that an extra large Starbucks triple blueberry latte with cinnamon power shots and an apple fritter scone would still cost about thirty bucks with or without free WIFI. And I made that all up, I'm not a coffee drinker or donut eater, but I've had to go in and order plus pay for family members and it ALWAYS amazes and irritates me. Oh and it takes about 45 minutes for that all to happen, no such thing as a quick visit to a shop like that.

rokytnji · 07-08-2015, 08:57 AM

$40.00 bucks using free wifi in a medical clinic waiting room.
(bet you never thought of that one)
You know. The waiting room that makes you wait all day to see someone for 15 minutes for hundreds of dollars. No one even notices I am here.
Water cooler in the corner has free dixie cups and there is a coffee
pot brewing from a drip coffee maker.

Catsup and Cracker heaven.

Power adapter is probably 10 bucks to complete this one.

I tinker with hardware on a daily basis. So fixing (for parts, not working) does not intimidate me. Cheap and durable is a good thing.

Code:

harry@antix1:~
$ inxi -M
Machine:   System: Intel product: Intel powered classmate PC v: 3rd Gen
           Mobo: QCI model: Intel powered classmate PC v: 3rd Gen
           Bios: Phoenix v: HP94510A.86A.0035.2009.0427.2020 date: 04/27/2009
harry@antix1:~
$ inxi -S
System:    Host: antix1 Kernel: 3.16.0-4-686-pae i686 (32 bit)
           Desktop: IceWM 1.3.8+githubmod+20150412+960629d
           Distro: antiX-15-beta1-V_386-full Killah P 16 March 2015
harry@antix1:~
$ inxi -f
CPU:       Single core Intel Atom N270 (-HT-) cache: 512 KB 
           clock speeds: max: 1600 MHz 1: 1600 MHz 2: 800 MHz
           CPU Flags: acpi aperfmperf apic arch_perfmon bts clflush cmov
           constant_tsc cx8 de ds_cpl dtes64 dtherm dts est fpu fxsr ht
           lahf_lm mca mce mmx monitor movbe msr mtrr nx pae pat pbe pdcm pebs
           pge pni sep ss sse sse2 ssse3 tm tm2 tsc vme xtpr
harry@antix1:~
$ acpi -b
Battery 0: Discharging, 98, 05:21:19 remaining

rtmistler · 07-08-2015, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rokytnji

$40.00 bucks using free wifi in a medical clinic waiting room.
(bet you never thought of that one)
You know. The waiting room that makes you wait all day to see someone for 15 minutes for hundreds of dollars. No one even notices I am here.
Water cooler in the corner has free dixie cups and there is a coffee
pot brewing from a drip coffee maker.

Catsup and Cracker heaven.

Laughing because remember when copays were like $5? And now they're $40 or $50?

We have a very interesting situation this year. The health plan changed and there's still copays and stuff, and prescription coverage. But there's a deductible of some type. For instance diagnostic tests and such. Something like $2,000. Either case there's a term which states apparently that once you've satisfied your deductible, then there are no longer any copays for prescriptions. Who knows ... maybe there are no longer copays, but the doctors office are still collecting them. But the wife is all thrilled when she goes to the pharmacy and it's all "free". On my side of the world I'm like "Well ... there's still those $2,000 charges .... and it's only MAY!" Because we hit that level 2 months ago!

Sorry, RandomTroll for going off topic. We sometimes can't resist.

As far as One-Laptop-Per-Child, I'd assume that the parents would have to be the ones to buy them. I have zero idea on the state of that whole program. Last I read, years ago was a battery system with a crank to charge it for places where there wasn't a normal power grid. Sort of a science award for the people who invented that one. Either case, no idea, but honestly I looked at Amazon and/or EBay and there are plenty of potential deals where you can get a simple notebook much like the 7" screen Asus ATOM system I have for very short money, like well under $50. I even saw someone selling like 4 or more small laptops with "no guarantees" but they covered the operational, or not, state of each of them and the bidding was under $2. That was for parts or if someone wanted to fix them. So there is the "caveat emptor", but I think you can likely find something suitable if you look.

To each their own, but I would not want a keyboard all on the size of a mouse. We've bought keyboards for tablets, they're all small and cheap. Plus half irrelevant on a tablet. You either are going to go for a tablet or a notebook. If a tablet, I'd just keep it running Android. If a notebook, then I'd run Linux. But that's just me.

I was half wondering, but realized the difference. I do never take that small laptop out anywhere I just use it the rare times I'm sitting at home and want too. I take my tablet everywhere and if there's free WIFI, I'll use that to check email or do a little bit of browsing. Otherwise anything substantive I'm at home or work at a console based system with full large screen, etc. I'm either out at work, or at an appointment where I have to wait, a'la medical office, or I'm out doing something and therefore not sitting around looking to use anything electronic. Like if I go shop, I drive there, I shop, and I go home. Or if I go to an activity, I get there somehow, drive, walk, bike, I do the activity, and I go home. The rare times I'm somewhere with or without free WIFI, if I use the tablet, it may be just for Suduko or reading a book. And even if I had a laptop with me, I wouldn't be like typing these lengthy emails, ... or replies to threads...

Everyone's different though, that's likely not anywhere near what you do with your time.

replica9000 · 07-08-2015, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtmistler

Something tells me that an extra large Starbucks triple blueberry latte with cinnamon power shots and an apple fritter scone would still cost about thirty bucks with or without free WIFI. And I made that all up, I'm not a coffee drinker or donut eater, but I've had to go in and order plus pay for family members and it ALWAYS amazes and irritates me. Oh and it takes about 45 minutes for that all to happen, no such thing as a quick visit to a shop like that.

I go to Honey Dew. They're much faster/cheaper.

beachboy2 · 07-13-2015, 02:18 AM

RandomTroll,

As others have suggested, buy a cheap used netbook on ebay or craigslist such as this Samsung N150:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Samsung-N1...item463d1a40cf

OR this Samsung N220:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SAMSUNG-LA...item5420e01cc9

Do make sure you get one with 2GB of memory or be prepared to pay extra for a 2GB module such as this:

http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/n150p-n...2%29/CT4531053

I have a Samsung N220 running Linux Mint 17.1 MATE without any problems at all.