So I accidentally YouTubed nots taking and my feed is now filled with Paperwhite remarkable ads and the new color e-ink tablets and how they all compare to the shitty ipad. Oh yes 4GB of ram! And 16gb storage, not upgradable! Perfect! 😃👍
Which is why I’m here wonder what to spend my cash on if I were to do that.
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It has to run Linux and not be locked. I need root. Screw anything else less than this. That eliminates pretty much everything on the market. Self immolation in my opinion. No bloatware of any kind acceptable.
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Must run opensource app software… libre office, krita, Gimp, Xournal, Inkscape, Joplin, etc. And like no gimmicks, oh it’s running but barely. I want something with room to spare.
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Must have WiFi and Bluetooth with 2024 expected level… nevermind, like 10gb/s 1998 Ethernet speed is totally fine. It should be able to ssh into it, have NFS share access and be able to access NFS shares elsewhere. No network shiftiness.
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I want to use it at least for a full day.
So far I got paper, you just can’t run gimp very fast unless you can get a few billion friends together to move the assembly code in parallel.
My dream right now is getting something like a Dasung 13" touchscreen monitor and use it with my phone. That way I don’t need to find a device with brains, only a phone that fits my needs. Unfortunately, my phone (Pixel 6a) does not support video out from usb c (thanks Google), so I can’t test it. Can this idea be something for you?
As someone who has one: buy an Microsoft Surface with the Pen and keyboard and shit.
I’m using a… 3? 4? (6th gen intel, so it’s old AF) and it works perfectly. Touch, pen, removable keyboard, sleep, etc.
You have to install some specific drivers from the Suface Linux project to get some of that working, but it’s like a whole 10 minute deal.
Also, they’re cheap as shit at this point, so bonus?
Star labs starlite is very compelling. Its certinally not going to compete woth new iPads or pen tech, but its comparable ro a few generations back iPad pro feature set and is from a Linux-specific manufacturer. I haven’t used it but am thinking about picking one up.
Everything great until the price.
Yup, unfortunately there is still a premium on linux-specific manufacturers. You get better driver support, but without scale things will stay a bit pricey.
The other longterm solution is postmarketOS, but there aren’t a ton of android tablets out there right now that can really compete on the drawing front so the supported devices aren’t very compelling.