Hey, I have the same thing for my second router that works as an extender, to cover some remote area. I auto-reboot it every 3 hours during the day (I don’t during the night). Sometimes, it stops transmitting data before the 3 hours mark, so I have to go and physically reboot it. It always helps, while there are very rare occasions when this software reboot does not help.

I have no idea what’s going on. I’ve bought it cheap as a broken one, but re-flashing it to OpenWrt seems like solved all its issues. However, I’m not qualified to say there’s no issues with it. It’s just that from a user perspective, it works exceptionally well. I see no issues. Except this forced auto-reboot thing, but I think it could be me not understanding the networking properly, and doing something wrong / not optimal. It gets the signal wirelessly via 5 GHz band (for speed) and shares it via 2.4 GHz band (for the distance). I fixed some obvious mistakes with the help of a GPT, which seems to work better now. But I’m not really sure. Could be that it’s winter and it was cold in there, I have to see how it’ll behave during the summer.

Honestly, I even started thinking maybe it has no issues now, and I can remove that cron job. But I think I can live with being offline for a minute or two a few times a day, when I’m in that remote location.

Yeah, I mean. Tried to compliment your story with mine.

Yeah, indeed! I’d be monitoring prices, I’m in no hurry for this. So, I guess time works in my favour here. And Microslop too :)

I’d ping you again some time later, if you don’t mind! Have a great day.

How do you find SwayFX? I’m happy with Sway, but I admit, sometimes I want at least some rounded corners, or maybe slight opacity for some (non-terminal) windows. And the scratchpad, I simply don’t understand it. A minimise thing in dock sounds a bit more reasonable to me. (I haven’t used SwayFX, just read their readme before commenting.)

For the rebellion!

Here I am, with my Raspberry Pi 2B and a few Orange Pi Zeros. Plus one Intel Atom 230 (an obsolete thing from circa 2010s if not older, it has DDR2 memory) as a file server. Most of my servers are at Intel Atoms old motherboards with these integrated processors. They are decent for what I do.

Thanks for the conversation. I’m a bit hurrying, so I’d try to squeeze my entire point into the message, in order to not forget to reply later, if I’d to postpone. I think I’d link a blog post at some later point, if you’d ever be interested in a more detailed story.

What I’m looking for is some kind of laptop/tablet mix for very light computing. Basically, I’d like to use some text editing for my blog (it’s not deployed yet, because there are a number of posts that I’d like to finish writing, they’re mostly in the draft state at the moment). I have very little time for it (work, kids, family, exhaustion), so I thought if I’d have some light laptop on me at some times, I’d use it instead of mindless iPhone scrolling. I don’t need Waydroid, since I have an Android smartphone lying around, unused. I’m quite good at Linux, so technically, even a 1 GB device would be useful for me. I think writing/editing texts (markdown files) and reading some epubs/pdfs would be 99% of my use cases for such a device. Hence, I don’t really care about cameras, speakers, even the sensor for rotating the screen (however, that would be handy for some reading-mode). Reading is possible from an iPad though (I have iPad 3 lying around at home, and I think I charged it about 3 times over 6 months, its battery life is insane!). A couple of hours of battery life is good, if I can charge that thing from a lying somewhere charger. Say, USB-C is ideal, microUSB is tolerable too, if I’d have some cable on me. That way, I’d just carry the thing in my backpack, and if I’m free somewhere (not at home), I could power it on, and do some light text editing.

Surface looks overpowered and too good for this, but since they’re quite cheap, and getting cheap over time, I think I’d buy one. Perhaps not very soon, I’ll see. I found some cheapo Chinese no-name brand locally, for $20, I think I’d go with it, just to play with the concept of such a device. I considered Chromebooks, they seem very good at what I’m looking for, but I think I’d just not take it with me all the time. While a 500…600 g device is not much heavier than a smartphone, so I could have it with me all the time. A couple of hours of Linux time with it sounds very good, if from a single charge.

Then, it depends. Theoretically, such a device with Linux… you know, I think I’d prefer it over iPad even for watching videos, but I’m not very sure. I’m having just the very first generation of iPad Pro, and it looks like even the next model (not to say about the next-next models) is very good for media consumption, the screen is just very good. But apart from consumption, I think I’d like such a device. My research today returned me the results that most of the things are supported quite good, and you confirmed it that the mainline kernel just works. I thought it’s quite ironic the device from Microsoft no less is such a good Linux tablet! I didn’t know Linux tablets were even a thing! It’s all about Android vs iOS these days, you know. On the software department, I find Linux mostly good, by the way. It covers most of my basic needs well, frankly, I realised it covers most of my needs. I haven’t used Windows for like 15 years now, but it’s not fair to say that since I am was an Apple guy. Last time I used macOS was in 2019, I think. I use SwayWM, it’s very lightweight, so I expect it would work quite good with any cheap and underpowered laptop. I cannot do much work-related tasks with such a device, and there’s no point. My main machine has 32 GB of RAM, however I don’t think I use more than 16, I just bought +16 a year or two ago, and it was a right decision, as I’ve got them for like $30 or something. But I think a device like that (a Surface with Linux) can do quite a lot, and not in an irritating way (looking at both Windows and iOS). Apple’s Desktop system, macOS, was very good last time I used it. But I still like Linux more, due to its do-it-yourself nature. (I use mostly Arch on my computers, and Fedora on shared computers, where less nerdy people might use them.)

Have to go now, thanks for your input again, have a nice rest of the day!

Thanks for your feedback! The model I’ve found is named Surface 3, and it looks like it’s very similar to Go, just the names are different. However, that particular item was sold, so I need to hunt another item. I decided to explore all three models, the one I was considering, yours, and the next one too (Go 2). I’m looking for a keyboard only option, however I realised I may not really need any. Having a decently built tablet with Gnome looks good enough for me! I don’t care about the camera, it’s still worse than my iPhone, and I’m not going to have any video calls, that’s for sure. I thought of reading some books, plus writing a blog. It’s really challenging to write, as when I’m with my computer, I do work. When I’m on a phone, it’s not really comfortable to write long texts, and do any serious work. A Surface tablet with Linux, looks very good.

Seriously, a couple of weeks ago, I wasn’t aware you can get a Linux tablet at all! Thanks to M$ for building such a shitty OS, most people selling this tablet as garbage. I thought of buying a used iPad Pro 12.9 (2015), I have a couple at home, and it’s fabulous (especially given the price, you can get one used for about $100). And iPad Pro is just miles ahead of this garbage. But! The real OS (Linux) makes it better than iOS. Windows is real OS too, but since it’s garbage, iOS is still a much better experience in most tablet scenarios.

As of today, I think I’d get a cheap used Chinese Windows tablet with a crappy keyboard, just to test waters. Assuming a Surface is a better device in every department (support, built quality, keyboard quality), and the Linux on the go is something I’d find useful, I’d surely go with monitoring local used market for a decent item.

So, yeah, thanks for drawing my attention towards this. I’m long dreaming of having a cheap and light Linux laptop with me. And a used Surface looks decent for that.

Did I ask you about the battery life and whether it sleeps well? Theoretically, I could turn it on when I need it, not a big deal. The portability is my main issue, otherwise it’d stay at home most times. But if it sleeps good and is usable in a real tablet mode (meaning you forget about a battery, it’s just always charged when you pick it up), it’s just an ideal iPad replacement for me.

Hey, I’ve found the model previous to yours! For money, but it has a keyboard cover, which I need. It’s not too expensive, about $30 / €25 / £22. I’m thinking of getting one. Do you have something to add about yours? I’m mostly interested in how it runs Linux. My research has shown it’s decent for its price.

I’m happy to see any improvements to Nautilus. My favourite GUI file manager for a very long time. The performance improvements are my favourite though! It’s fast already, but it’s still a pleasure to know it’s becoming even better!

Hey, but the deal is expired in 11 hours, are you gonna buy it for the lowest price in the universe? By the way, only one item (on the planet) left, hurry up plz.

Thanks for letting us know. I was thinking of getting a used Galaxy S9 or S10 for a degoogled Lineage OS phone. Now, it looks like the Pixels are the only modern phones that are compatible with this. That’s a pretty sad state of affairs, I’d say.

Thank you for helping me understand why I stopped even opening their videos like a decade ago. I had been watching them for a while back then, because they were very popular. Then, at some point I just stopped, not even realising why. Waste of time.

I was able to run Apple AirPort Utility for managing my Apple AirPort Extreme router. It has no web interface, but an app for all Apple platforms, and Windows too. The Utility for Windows is slightly better than macOS or iOS (in my opinion). It works well, and I’m happy that by migrating to Linux I’m still able to manage my router. There’s no more routers from Apple, and there’s no more updates to the app either, so I’m happy it’d stay that way. Perhaps I needed some tiny tuning to run the app, I won’t recall now.

I have the article about it in my not deployed yet blog, so I’d link it, but I need to deploy it first. (Would take me some time.) I have more details there. But overall, it was good.

Also, I was able to run Pro100 software for 3D modelling of furniture for my friend. It was working well, I did that with Bottles since his Fedora installation was atomic (Silverblue). It was okay, almost as good as on Windows, with some tiny nuances.

I’m happy to see others telling about their apps they were successfully launching and working with. Personally, I’m very interested in the graphical stack (like Adobe or Affinity apps), but I haven’t tried them yet. I’ve seen someone has success of installing modern Photoshop, but no more than that.

Micro is somewhere there too.

Excuse me for not having too much to say besides everyone else in this thread. I just wanted to check-in and say something that I felt upvoting everyone isn’t enough. Wish you all the recovery you can get, and thank you for inspiring too. You’re doing great, at least your grammar is quite good for the situation. Cheers!

I’ve heard Vulkan really shines, but I had no chance to actually compare it apples to apples with Windows. (As I don’t use one.)

Sorry, I fed the troll, but I expect others might find the discussion valuable then.

It’s some low-end Intel i3 processor. Let’s say it’s something about 2 GHz, each core, with 2 or 4 cores. Sorry, I need to check it if you want the precise specs, but they don’t really matter.

It was super smooth, and considering that laptop basically a garbage (Nvidia GPU, which is not used in Linux, I use the integrated Intel one), it played quite well for me. It looks like the difference with Windows is not in its favour. It’s really easy to try it, especially if you have a spare hardware. Eg Dota 2 is free to play, so all you need is to install Steam and download the game. I use Fedora Silverblue, which I can recommend for an average user. (I use Arch on my primary laptop and PC.) Also, I’ve heard good things about Bazzitte, but I personally don’t like Linux distros based on other distros.

Also, I recommend avoiding Nvidia GPUs, unless it’s a high end very new card. (I have heard them being good.) Apart from that, Linux gaming is quite easy, especially if all your games are in Steam. It allows easy installation of things like Proton and is perfectly manageable by a non-pro user via graphical interface.

I’ve got a cheap old ten years old low-end laptop and didn’t know what to do about it. I installed Steam and played Half-Life 2 and Dota 2 (both aren’t very new, I know). They were very snappy. Also, I tried WarCraft 3 via Wine, and it was very good also. I didn’t know what else to test, but for the record Windows itself wasn’t very snappy with it.

If you’re not trolling and actually expecting some serious reply: no, it’s not a meme. It’s quite fast and playable. All the games that I tried were very playable.