[HN Gopher] Install postmarketOS on Android phone and use Docker...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Install postmarketOS on Android phone and use Docker as a home
       server
        
       Author : raybb
       Score  : 201 points
       Date   : 2024-12-06 14:23 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (crackoverflow.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (crackoverflow.com)
        
       | jraph wrote:
       | I thought it was about installing Docker on Android, but it's
       | about installing postmarketOS on a phone. Then yes, you have a
       | regular Linux (although based on musl, instead of usual glibc) on
       | which you can install Docker.
       | 
       | If you are going to setup a server on a phone, it might indeed be
       | a good idea to avoid Android, mainly because of how aggressive
       | the OOM killer can be with background apps.
       | 
       | On Android, killing a background app is not so much of an issue
       | (caveat: [1]), they are designed for this. But you don't want
       | your service or even your ssh deamon to be killed by Android.
       | 
       | Now, I don't know how running the phone 24/24 7/7 plugged in is
       | going to last in the long run, especially concerning the battery.
       | Has someone tried this?
       | 
       | [edit: see below comments, the post actually advises removing the
       | battery]
       | 
       | [1] https://dontkillmyapp.com/
        
         | excalibur wrote:
         | This post links to a previous post from the same author
         | concerning removing the battery and running the device without
         | one:
         | https://crackoverflow.com/docs/system_administration/contain...
        
           | jraph wrote:
           | Ah, nice. I had skimmed the article and didn't read the
           | intro. This is pretty cool.
           | 
           | I could be interested in using my PinePhone like this. Its
           | battery is removable and the phone can be started without it,
           | but the Wi-Fi / Bluetooth module won't run without it. I had
           | the idea of faking the battery like this, but I don't have
           | the skills to handle hardware like this.
        
             | chainingsolid wrote:
             | You could just plug the phone into a small usb-c hub and
             | plug some usb wifi dongel or ethernet cord into it. Not
             | sure if that would solve your use case.
        
               | jraph wrote:
               | Yep, it could work, and I happen to have such a hub (it
               | came with the PinePhone). I think the PinePhone is able
               | to receive power AND do USB OTG at the same time, to be
               | confirmed.
               | 
               | To be completely honest, what I had in mind was to use it
               | as a Bluetooth receiver to play music using my dumb
               | speakers. I don't have a Bluetooth receiver and at this
               | point if I have to buy something I might be better off
               | buying some off the shelf device to do this. So the
               | status quo is to just plug a laptop the times I want to
               | play music in this room because I don't care that much
               | about it.
        
         | matthewaveryusa wrote:
         | I've heard that it's a terrible idea with the battery still in.
         | Curious why this is a non-issue for a UPS -- is it the scale,
         | type of battery (lithium ion vs lifepo4), quality, charge
         | cycle, a bit of all of the above?
        
           | selectodude wrote:
           | It's not a non-issue. UPS batteries have a rather short
           | lifespan.
        
             | HPsquared wrote:
             | That's surprising. My laptop battery is like 10 years old
             | and still fine. Light usage and mild storage conditions.
             | Surely UPS batteries are similar.
        
               | pmontra wrote:
               | My UPS manual says 3 years. They have a different
               | chemistry than phone batteries. On the other side, they
               | should be quite similar to car batteries which could live
               | much longer that 3 years, but they spend most of their
               | time waiting in a parking slot and then a few starts per
               | day or less. An UPS doesn't work like that.
        
               | bityard wrote:
               | A good UPS will perform regular load tests to gauge
               | battery performance/degradation. They switch over to
               | battery power around once a week and measure voltage
               | before, during, and after. So even if the power goes out,
               | they are still being exercised _somewhat_.
        
               | password4321 wrote:
               | Can you link to one of these on Amazon or your preferred
               | vendor which you recommend for home office use?
        
               | bityard wrote:
               | UPS batteries tend to have lead acid batteries, and the
               | lifespan on those is generally between 3-5 years. Lithium
               | batteries in laptops _can_ last quite a bit longer if
               | made well and under the right care.
        
           | theanonymousone wrote:
           | Really? I plugged my old phone some days ago and set up a ssh
           | daemon on it, just to see if it stays connected. Should I be
           | worried?
        
             | jraph wrote:
             | Yes, it's potentially hazardous in the long run. You can
             | hope that it only kills the battery fast, and that it
             | doesn't make it swell or something.
             | 
             | (absolutely not an expert, though, this is why I asked for
             | experiences :-))
        
             | z3t4 wrote:
             | It usually take a few years for the battery to swell, but
             | it will happen. I have a phone as GSM modem to send and
             | recieve SMS for automatic tasks. I've had 3/3 batteries on
             | two different phones swell so far.
        
           | __MatrixMan__ wrote:
           | I think some devices can now be configured to just charge
           | partially (or come that way by default and then tell you that
           | the partial charge is 100%). So this may not be a an issue in
           | all cases, but...
           | 
           | I dedicated an Nvidia shield K1 to be a Sonos interface. Just
           | mounted it to a monitor arm and left it plugged in for
           | something like four years. The mount was this beefy metal
           | thing, a little steel cage for the tablet, but as soon as I
           | unscrewed it enough to remove the tablet from the mount the
           | tablet undramatically exploded. It ballooned to a width that
           | was thrice the original thickness of the tablet, pushed the
           | plastic apart, and it was clear that the case was never going
           | to come back together again. I was afraid to touch it, lest
           | it rupture.
           | 
           | It seems like it would only be a terrible idea beyond a
           | certain scale. The pillowing battery is just assisted
           | disassembly. And now it's easy to get the battery out.
        
           | ssl-3 wrote:
           | UPSs still typically use lead acid batteries. These don't
           | particularly mind being at ~100% SoC for years at a time
           | (they _like_ staying charged), which is very good for this
           | application.
           | 
           | And it's easy to keep them at around 100%. For instance: For
           | a nominal 12v battery, one can very nearly just feed it 13.8v
           | (plus or minus some temperature compensation) and have
           | results that are actually pretty good and close-enough to
           | 100%.
           | 
           | And when things go very wrong, lead acid batteries tend not
           | to catch on fire.
           | 
           | It's a natural fit for UPS duty.
           | 
           | The lithium batteries in cell phones are a different thing.
           | They hate being at 100% SoC and degrade fairly quickly in
           | that state.
           | 
           | They can be pretty happy at around 50% SoC, but it's hard to
           | actually keep them there because of the way the voltage ramps
           | [don't] work with lithium chemistries: It's almost flat
           | through the middle of the curve.
           | 
           | And cell phones don't let us do that anyway: It'd be great if
           | there was a "Compute mode: Just _do your best_ to keep this
           | battery near 50% " setting to click on, but there is not.
           | (And we could hack that in, except: We don't own our phones.)
           | 
           | And when things go wrong, they can become exothermic in ways
           | that are not exactly ideal for an unattended device sitting
           | on a shelf.
        
             | UniverseHacker wrote:
             | I use a chargie device which is a hardware level charge
             | limiter
        
               | ssl-3 wrote:
               | Cute. I didn't know those existed, and they do make
               | sense.
               | 
               | It's only solving part of the problem though: Sure, it
               | can keep the charge at around a self-reported 50%. But
               | the device itself doesn't necessarily have a good idea of
               | what 50% even means, especially as the months and years
               | tick by and cells age, unless it is allowed go closer to
               | the extremes (closer to 0 and closer to 100, _sometimes_
               | ).
               | 
               | The reasons for this get weird. Near the edges of the
               | curves (0 and 100), the BMS can use voltages to figure
               | out where things are. This works well.
               | 
               | In the middle of the curve, voltages are damn near flat
               | and cease to be an indicator of state-of-charge, so the
               | BMS counts coulombs instead. This works too (for awhile).
               | 
               | Except they're not ideal batteries. They age even if
               | they're not being used at all, and shit happens just as
               | it does for any other non-ideal entity. So on a long-
               | enough timeline, even a perfect coulomb counter doesn't
               | necessarily have any way to accurately report state of
               | charge.
               | 
               | The way that this problem is dealt with on a phone that
               | actually gets used like phones get used is that the BMS
               | can reset the coulomb counter during the peaks and dips
               | of a normal charge cycle, based on voltage.
               | 
               | But charge cycling doesn't happen even with a Chargie-
               | equipped phone sitting on a shelf and running Docker
               | containers, does it?
        
               | actionfromafar wrote:
               | Put a wall plug timer on it, charge it 50% of the time.
        
               | ssl-3 wrote:
               | _No._
        
               | freedomben wrote:
               | You should definitely add a /s lest anybody take this
               | seriously. It's quite funny though. Especially
               | recommended if you're hoping to burn your house down.
               | 
               | For people that didn't know, this is probably the fastest
               | and riskiest way to destroy your battery quickly
        
               | pomian wrote:
               | Like your comments. Question. How does a BMS count
               | coulombs? I mean what is the technology used?
        
               | Sanzig wrote:
               | Q = [?]i _dt_ , so you just need something that regularly
               | samples the current (typically measured via a shunt
               | resistor) and accumulates it over time. This is typically
               | done by a dedicated low power chip with an integrated
               | differential amplifier for reading out the sense
               | resistor, ADC, and nonvolatile memory - these are often
               | referred to as "gas gauge" chips. This functionality can
               | also be found on higher end all-in-one battery management
               | chips.
        
               | UniverseHacker wrote:
               | You can add custom charge cycling on a schedule if using
               | the Chargie app. One could for example have it normally
               | stay at 50% but do a full charge/discharge cycle weekly.
               | 
               | Overall though, it would probably make the most sense to
               | physically remove the battery from any phone used as a
               | dedicated webserver, and then have it connected to an
               | external UPS instead.
        
               | ssl-3 wrote:
               | Also cute. That's pretty excellent. I think I'd like to
               | bring such a rig down to 10% and up to 90% once a month
               | or so, based on what I think I know.
               | 
               | And yes, agreed absolutely: It safer to pull the battery,
               | and not particularly difficult or detrimental to do so
               | for the kinds of applications I'm envisioning here that
               | involve a disused phone doing server-ish stuff.
        
         | DCKing wrote:
         | > Then yes, you have a regular Linux (although based on musl,
         | instead of usual glibc) on which you can install Docker.
         | 
         | The OnePlus 6/6T are also supported by Mobian [0], which is
         | just regular glibc-and-systemd based Debian, and so a pretty
         | familiar Linux server experience.
         | 
         | > it might indeed be a good idea to avoid Android
         | 
         | It's a good idea to avoid Android because of kernel security as
         | well. Old Android devices always use out of date Linux kernels
         | even when using custom ROMs, and when running (containerized)
         | network services you really depend on the security of your
         | Linux kernel to keep those things properly isolated. Both
         | PostmarketOS and Mobian do bring current mainline Linux support
         | to these devices, so you can be quite a bit more confident in
         | your kernel that way.
         | 
         | It's a shame PostmarketOS and Mobian don't really support many
         | newer devices well. Last I checked the OnePlus 6(T) were still
         | the highest performance devices that had okay support. The
         | Snapdragon 845 - a 2018 flagship SoC - in the Oneplus 6/6T made
         | them real high performance device to repurpose for a long time.
         | In 2024 though it's now beaten in performance by the Raspberry
         | Pi 5 or RK3588 based Armbian based devices. Those SBCs of
         | course already have much better I/O and more straightforward
         | ways to get a supported Linux running on them (and don't
         | require disconnecting the battery with custom soldering). So
         | you need to be _really_ committed to reusing your old hardware
         | to go down this route.
         | 
         | [0]: https://wiki.debian.org/Mobian/Devices
        
         | anybody8824 wrote:
         | With the upcoming Android 16 Terminal VM powered by the Android
         | Virtualisation Framework (AVF), it should also be possible to
         | run Docker in an Aarch64 Debian VM similar to WSL2 or ChromeOS
         | crostini.
         | 
         | However, this may still be constrained by OEMs restricting
         | access to AVF or by battery enhancements that make it virtually
         | unusable.
        
           | kokada wrote:
           | This is one of the things that may make me serious consider
           | another Android tablet (especially one with a nice
           | keyboard+touchpad accessory connected via e.g.: Pogo pins).
           | It would definitely be a game changer, and a high-end Android
           | device could completely replace my current hybrid Chromebook.
        
             | KeplerBoy wrote:
             | Isn't google merging chromeOS and android anyways?
        
         | nurumaik wrote:
         | Had very old android phone (redmi go) with sim running 24/7 to
         | forward sms OTPs for a month or two
         | 
         | Sms forwarder app + tailscale on phone, python script on server
         | that forwarded incoming sms to telegram bot (probably could use
         | webhook to avoid this step though). Worked perfectly with 100%
         | uptime
        
         | ForHackernews wrote:
         | I guess the idea is that you'd do this with an old phone and
         | already-dying battery. It's like having a small raspberry pi
         | style server + builtin UPS.
        
         | rkagerer wrote:
         | _how aggressive the OOM killer can be with background apps_
         | 
         | This drives me nuts.
        
         | Tade0 wrote:
         | 10 years ago I worked at a company which had a fleet of phones
         | to test mobile browser games we were making and the batteries
         | were in noticeably worse shape after a few months of near
         | constant use.
         | 
         | Nowadays in most phones you can limit charging to e.g. 80%,
         | which is much lighter on the battery.
         | 
         | Additionally, the battery works as a heat sink (or heat store
         | really considering it's just a solid slab of dense material) so
         | expect more throttling when it's not there.
        
           | nine_k wrote:
           | If you have an old phone that would otherwise go to garbage,
           | likely its battery is not in a great shape anyway, and
           | server-like loads are mostly incompatible with being battery-
           | powered. I suppose it's going to be permanently attached to a
           | USB power source.
           | 
           | Thanks for the heads-up about the thermal inertia of the
           | battery! Maybe a stationary phone in the server role could
           | use a glue-on passive radiator.
        
             | close04 wrote:
             | The problem isn't the performance of the battery but the
             | safety. A dead battery for this always-connected use case
             | is probably a non-issue. A swollen battery that could
             | explode or catch fire is definitely an issue.
             | 
             | You could take it out but many phones won't work without a
             | battery so you need to find a way to trick them into
             | thinking one is installed.
        
         | grishka wrote:
         | You have to play by Android rules. If you start your daemons
         | from an app that runs a foreground service, _I believe_ this
         | protection would spread to the app 's child processes too. Or
         | if you root your phone, you can bypass the activity manager
         | entirely.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Ok, we changed the title in the hope of making that clearer.
        
         | Suppafly wrote:
         | >I thought it was about installing Docker on Android, but it's
         | about installing postmarketOS on a phone.
         | 
         | That makes the whole thing a lot less interesting. Install
         | linux on a small computer and do linux stuff with it probably
         | wouldn't get clicks.
        
           | jraph wrote:
           | It could be about reusing hardware that would otherwise sleep
           | forever in a drawer. This would be commendable.
        
         | greentea23 wrote:
         | You can run these commands to turn that kill behavior off:
         | 
         | setprop persist.sys.fflag.override.settings_enable_monitor_phan
         | tom_procs false
         | 
         | /system/bin/settings put global
         | settings_enable_monitor_phantom_procs false
         | 
         | Termux as an example supports several services that run
         | forever. Works great, sshd and crond don't get killed for
         | example. https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Termux-services
         | 
         | Battery wise you can use this app to keep it in a healthy range
         | and temperature indefinitely: https://github.com/VR-25/acc
        
         | squarefoot wrote:
         | > (although based on musl, instead of usual glibc)
         | 
         | For those who never used musl and Alpine Linux (which
         | PostmarketOS is based on), the list of supported architectures
         | and software ported over is quite large; here's a list:
         | 
         | https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages
         | 
         | Alpine is my distro of choice for very small systems and VMs
         | once I make sure there are no compatibility issues with what I
         | need to install/build, which can happen sometimes but is really
         | rare. The amount of saved resources (CPU, storage) is
         | significant, making it ideal for VMs.
        
           | znpy wrote:
           | the main issue i see is musl: they have an history of not
           | acknowledging bugs and disregarding standards
           | 
           | last big issue i remember is they not implementing fallback-
           | on-tcp when getting large dns record replies, so _some_ dns
           | record resolution would fail. the standard clearly says to
           | switch to tcp under certain conditions, but they did not.
           | 
           | the bug was reproduced and reported, they refused to
           | acknowledge it and kept the issue for a lot of people for a
           | long time (at least one year iirc). they eventually relented
           | and and implemented the correct behaviour.
           | 
           | call glibc what you want, but at least they don't have such
           | dumb issues and that attitude.
        
             | 3abiton wrote:
             | You can always install incus and glibc. Went with musl for
             | voidlinux, and for using certain appimage, I needed to have
             | glibc. It was seemless to install incus, a debian image,
             | and you have unlimited deb packages at your disposal.
        
         | j45 wrote:
         | Removing the battery is ok
        
       | sintezcs wrote:
       | There is a Russian meme that instantly comes to my mind:
       | https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/brea...
       | 
       | The translation: "With the help of simple tools, a loaf of white
       | (or rye) bread can be turned into a trolleybus...
       | 
       | But WHY?!"
       | 
       | The label on the wrench says: "Skillful hands."
        
         | tombert wrote:
         | I mean, in this case I can actually think of two reasons.
         | 
         | 1) A lot of people, particularly people who would be in the
         | mindset to install PostmarketOS, probably have an old Android
         | phone lying around, or at least know someone who has a phone
         | they'd give up for free because it's currently living in a desk
         | drawer or something. This means you can get a home server for
         | free. Android phones aren't exactly the fastest thing in the
         | world, but they're probably fast enough for a lot of servery
         | things, and even a relatively small 128GB internal disk can
         | still stream a fair number of movies if they're generously
         | compressed with H264 or something.
         | 
         | 2) Power consumption. My phone charger that I'm using right now
         | peaks at 20W, and idles at considerably less than that when the
         | phone is fully charged. That's getting into "guilt-free"
         | territory; you can leave this plugged in and not really have to
         | worry about your bill spiking as a result.
        
       | BadHumans wrote:
       | This is barely related to the article but what is the status of
       | Linux phone operating systems? Last time I used one, you could
       | make calls and that was more or less it.
        
         | jraph wrote:
         | For having used a PinePhone for a year as a main phone, I would
         | say that the biggest limiting factor for me is the hardware. I
         | want something reliable that has good autonomy and good and
         | reliable call quality. I would not want the phone to leave me
         | behind in an emergency for instance.
         | 
         | But the PinePhone is none of this: terrible phone quality, the
         | modem on my device is unreliable, the autonomy is okayish. I
         | also had a PinePhone Pro that died: big improvement except the
         | autonomy was much worse and it would strongly eat. I believe
         | that's what killed it, actually.
         | 
         | With good hardware, I would be happy with a Linux mobile OS.
         | But I don't use WhatsApp, I don't have a banking app, I don't
         | pay with my phone, and have no proprietary app in general.
         | 
         | Things like Wi-Fi calling would probably not work neither, but
         | I don't have this with my old Android phone neither.
         | 
         | You will have to hope mobile alternatives to Signal will work
         | well enough for you too (and I guess that requires liking some
         | adventure, but if that works, you also win on not being limited
         | to one phone per Signal account).
        
           | chainingsolid wrote:
           | Your last paragraph reminded me that I had to set up Waydroid
           | so I could install Telegram(Android). Just so I could create
           | an account, so I could then use the already installed
           | Telegram desktop that came by default with like any mobile
           | distribution I tried.
        
             | jraph wrote:
             | On Signal it is way easier thanks to signal-cli [1].
             | 
             | [1] https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli
        
         | alt227 wrote:
         | Everytime someone mentions linux on mobile, I mourn the death
         | of Maemo. The Nokia N900 was an incredible phone, and having a
         | native linux command line and package manager on it felt like
         | the future to me. Shame the industry went in completely the
         | opposite direction.
        
         | fsflover wrote:
         | I'm using Librem 5 as a daily driver. The most limiting is the
         | battery life (4-5 hours of screen time), otherwise it works
         | sufficiently well for me. Fortunately I can take another
         | battery with me just in case.
        
         | ttkari wrote:
         | I'm daily driving a Sony Xperia 10 III with SailfishOS. It
         | works as a phone, has a small selection of native apps
         | available and runs many Android apps using LXC based solution
         | called Android AppSupport. It's really not bad at all.
        
           | ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
           | Until an update destroys android support and nobody can help
           | (: (my state)
        
             | ttkari wrote:
             | Sorry to hear that. If you are on one of the Xperias, you
             | should be able to at least reflash the OS if nothing else
             | really helps.
        
           | bsimpson wrote:
           | Sailfish licensing is unfortunate.
           | 
           | Unless you have one of their handful of (obsolete) blessed
           | phones and pay them money for the privilege, you can't use
           | their stuff.
           | 
           | I get that they're effectively a startup spun out of Nokia,
           | and that they'd rather sell value than give it away. Still,
           | non-Android Linux for touchscreens is in a sad state. Having
           | one of the only options locked up where few people can try it
           | and nobody can contribute to it makes the ecosystem worse.
           | 
           | There's gotta be a better solution to raise all the boats
           | than get a handful of enthusiasts with old Sonys to pay them
           | $30 each.
        
         | chainingsolid wrote:
         | I read Hacker News every day on my Pinephone. Calls and
         | texts(mms included) 80-99% work. Youtube.com worked/still does
         | but very badly. I'll just blame the really cheep SoC. When I
         | tried to get GPS working it looked like 90% of it was there.
         | Had modem getting locks on sats and a maps app, but locks took
         | forever, and the inter process communication didn't work so I'm
         | not sure if the cords I saw in terminal we're actally accurate.
         | The pluging it into a lapdock and using it like a laptop works
         | if your paitent (blames cheep SoC agian). GIMP did manage to
         | load but small screen and slow cpu resulted in that not getting
         | reinstalled next disto hop.
         | 
         | If you want to ask more questions and this site has some way to
         | message me with notifications feel free! I've been using this
         | Pinephone for at least over a year or 2. Random aside: Don't
         | use an SD card as a boot/main drive. I got a 256 & 128 gb SD
         | card that are read only now..
        
       | jqpabc123 wrote:
       | Interesting only if have free time and already own a compatible
       | phone.
       | 
       | Otherwise, wouldn't be better to invest time and money in a mini-
       | pc with storage and power capabilities better suited for server
       | use?
        
         | jraph wrote:
         | Absolutely, this is for hardware reuse. I wouldn't buy a phone
         | specifically for this, there are better options.
        
       | n144q wrote:
       | Yes, the title is slightly misleading. It is more like "How to
       | flash PostmarketOS on your unused Android phone with unlocked
       | bootloader" than the Docker thing
        
       | lostemptations5 wrote:
       | This is silly. It's quite simple to install Docker on any stock
       | Android using Termux.
       | 
       | https://github.com/cyberkernelofficial/docker-in-termux
       | 
       | I've done it successfully a few times and it works just fine.
        
         | jraph wrote:
         | Termux is an option but using pmOS is far from silly.
         | 
         | Android and Termux have their limitations. Granted, I was
         | running a full KDE session in Termux on a 2016 phone, but I saw
         | Android OOM-kill random processes in Termux. You probably don't
         | have a swap partition on your Android phone. Android apps are
         | designed to be killed when in background, and Android avoids
         | killing the app at the foreground, but Android doesn't know
         | some processes running in Termux shouldn't be killed. This
         | could happen if something on your server suddenly uses more RAM
         | than anticipated.
         | 
         | On a regular Linux distro, you can have a swap file and/or
         | teach the OOM to not kill some critically important services,
         | like ssh for instance.
        
         | __jonas wrote:
         | This is for running inside qemu, the OP says "Install Docker
         | Natively", I don't think it's silly, not really the same thing
        
         | IshKebab wrote:
         | A simple 18 step process! And you have to run it on a QEMU VM.
        
       | goodburb wrote:
       | For those looking for cheap _portable_ servers, the majority of
       | the Motorola G series phones with Android 14 including models
       | under 120 USD have a battery charge limiter down to 60%
       | adjustable.
       | 
       | At 60%, the battery will drop to 45% percent before recharging to
       | the specified percentage for coulomb counter drift compensation.
       | 
       | Most lithium UPS avoid this by using LiFePO4.
       | 
       | Moto G04 with 128GB Storage (UFS - 400MB/s read/write), 4GB RAM
       | and 2TB capable SDcard UHS-I slot is just 90 USD.
       | 
       | ZRAM is enabled by default at 2GB and 2GB storage swap, it's
       | adjustable under "RAM boost" setting.
       | 
       | Disabling the app background killer is one toggle away for
       | Termux.
       | 
       | No root required.
       | 
       | Wi-Fi does around 350Mbit with no buffer bloat, and supports
       | simulatenous softAP and station mode with a dedicated DHCP by
       | enabling hotspot without mobile data. This is useful for out of
       | band management, e.g if Wi-Fi AP goes down, there is a small
       | hiccup though.
       | 
       | You can combine Speedify and Tailscale (for NAT) to have 99%
       | uptime with seamless failover since there is a mobile modem in
       | there. ;)
       | 
       | The Type-C port is dual role and will charge from a powered hub
       | in host mode. However connected devices power is disrupted for a
       | split second if the charger is removed, so the phone isn't really
       | a UPS for external peripherals unless you don't mind the brief
       | reconnection.
       | 
       | I do hope a Pi A+ or something similar and popular exist in the
       | future at a reasonable price, considering that we have phones
       | that are cheaper than the Pis while missing GPIO but adding
       | camera, speaker, screen, case, charger, LTE, and a headphone jack
       | which was also removed on the Pi 5 (USB DACs aren't consistent
       | with pipewire).
       | 
       | Mini PCs vary and they aren't really portable, hard to setup
       | headless, especially projects utilizing an easy DIY approach like
       | the Pi-hole or kit/pre-flashed SDcards.
       | 
       | For comments comparing a new Pi with used PC: used Pis exist and
       | are a lot cheaper after shortage.
        
       | bloqs wrote:
       | Historically, some people thought it was a cool idea to run
       | phones as servers with a built in UPS (I looked into it myself)
       | but the problem is phone batteries have a nasty habit of
       | exploding
        
         | andai wrote:
         | So just encase it in a lead box...
         | 
         | Oh, wait...
        
         | immibis wrote:
         | Habit? It's been known to happen on rare occasion, but a habit?
        
           | bohdanqq wrote:
           | They tend to turn into those inflated pillows (and perhaps
           | even rupture?) when connected to power all the time. You
           | could disassemble the phone, remove the battery, and
           | reassemble and use it without it (if it boots and is stable).
        
       | rpastuszak wrote:
       | I so wish I could do this with my old iPhone 8. Has anyone
       | attempted this, successfully?
       | 
       | Has anyone attempted that successfully?
       | 
       | My ideal would be to run *nix on with a web server and NAS. I
       | don't care about borked camera or bluetooth, just wifi would be
       | fine.
        
         | raybb wrote:
         | Not sure about iPhone 8 specifically but that are many efforts
         | available depending on your iOS version. https://ipadlinux.org/
        
       | mavhc wrote:
       | The ability to run ethernet and power over the same usb port is
       | handy for static reuse of phones, not sure there's a list of who
       | supports it though
        
         | defenestrated wrote:
         | Wdym by "list of who supports it"
        
       | Lerc wrote:
       | I'm curious to know if there is a good way to do this on a phone
       | with a broken screen. I have accumulated a few phones with 3+ gig
       | of RAM, a decent number of moderately good ARM cores, but with
       | broken screens.
       | 
       | Essentially this means all control with the device has to be on
       | the few buttons, and the USB, and all feedback must be through
       | USB (or maybe audio)
       | 
       | How transplantable are screens between phones? Assuming no
       | geometric fit is required, are the connectors/interfaces
       | standardised inside enough to bodge a temporary screen long
       | enough to set-up a remote interface.
        
         | ForHackernews wrote:
         | How old are they? I was surprised to discover that plugging my
         | 2019-era Samsung device into a thunderbolt 3 dock (to charge, I
         | assumed) lit up the monitors as external displays and enabled
         | control with a keyboard and mouse.
        
           | broken-kebab wrote:
           | I believe it's not a common android behavior but Samsung's
           | S-line thing
        
       | smm11 wrote:
       | I used a Samsung Galaxy, as in the first Samsung Galaxy phone, as
       | a home server maybe 15 years ago. No Docker, or PostmarketOS
       | needed.
        
       | 4fterd4rk wrote:
       | I've always wondered if we'll ever see a paradigm shift toward
       | services being hosted on our phones. Not feasible now due to
       | battery life concerns, but these are little Linux computers with
       | redundant (wifi plus cellular) network connections that are
       | always turned on. Some battery advancement and more efficient E
       | cores and we're there, no?
        
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