this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2024
325 points (98.5% liked)
Linux
47307 readers
623 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Linux is not replacing Android tablets any time soon for casual use by non-techies. Especially on RISC-V, where not much software has been packaged to that architecture. Even ARM or X86 tablets don't have much tablet-oriented software available. Most DEs are pretty shit at tablet style navigation.
It will gather dust, I guarantee it. Maybe someday Linux will be there, but it won't be soon. And I've tried several times with several devices to make that happen.
Sure, it's not perfect, but there is still probably use cases there. For me personally, I prefer using roll20 to store my character sheets for D&D, and my peace of shit 15 year old laptop just isn't cutting it anymore. I don't think this is a $150 use case, but if the price of this tablet were to come down I'd have second thoughts.
If I could get a 7" RISC-V tablet that only ran FBReader or some other calibre-compatible reader, and had wifi, I would be very happy. I would even pay $150. But I'm not holding my breath.
Do you know that this does not? It might.
You could get a decent lightweight netbook type machine that’s maybe under a decade old and only have to shell out like $30 and you could Linux it just fine. Until not long ago I was using a 13 year old Toshiba laptop and it was kicking ass. I only replaced it because for sheer cpu power I just needed something faster for certain things.
I'm still waiting for somebody to release a Linux tablet with an immutable distro and Waydroid pre-installed.
Could be a killer product for productivity. Solid linux distro for desktop usage with the possibility to seamlessly open Android apps on demand.
Meanwhile PineTab 2 is used nearly daily here, at home and while traveling, by non-techies.
I'm not saying anybody is fine with a Linux tablet... but if the applications (not "apps") one actually uses function properly on it, no reason that it would gather dust.
PS: tinkered with a Banana Pi BPI-F3 with SpacemiT K1 8 core RISC-V and for that architecture specifically I would wait just a bit more, also why I didn't get a PineTab V RISC.
I also have a Pinetab 2 and now after a year I'd say it's in a pretty good state.
However, if you just want a tablet, a similarly priced Android tablet will run circles around it in responsiveness and feel. (I have a Xiaoxin Pad pro 2022/Lenovo Pad M10 3rd gen)
Re RISC-V: AFAIK the new SpacemiT chips are the first actually usulable ones. The older and more common JH7110 has half the cores and way lower feature level. Like, no floating points and other extensions that are essential for modern computing.
I had Ubuntu on two of my ASUS transformer pads and I finally caved and went back to Android-x86 on the one that I use as a tablet more frequently. I really wish someone would make a proper full fledged touch distro for tablets, and at the same time I totally get why nobody has gone to the effort yet. Android kinda has it covered enough. I tried Bliss but some elements of the OS just would not play nice.
I think if any DE is close enough to what a tablet should have it’s Unity, and I don’t see anyone trying to bring that up to speed with Wayland etc. but it seems to be the best candidate short of making a DE from scratch - which might just be the best idea when all is said and done.
Mobian as developed for PostmarketOS and Pinephone is about the best you can find today. I've never tried it on a tablet, just phones, so YMMV.
Hmm Mobian. I’ll have to try that.
Mobian developed for PostmarketOS? I feel like you are mixing something up here, as those are both distros. Maybe you mean Phosh?
Yes, you're right. I was trying to figure out what the DE alone was.
DEs need to embrace tiling functionality and transparent windows (eg. playing a YT video under your LibreOffice window). It's the only proper way to use a tablet. Obviously KDE's Windows-like taskbar is a nightmare for tablets but even Android's "deck of window cards" is crappy for anything that you couldn't just as well do on a smartphone.