Yesterday I spent a decent amount of time looking for a cheap way to run a server (nothing more than $100), I just have this script that I want to keep running 24/7, so naturally 1st thing came to my mind is the Raspberry Pi 5, but I didn't go with it right away because I always make sure that I am getting the most bang for buck, so I looked at the alternatives which was a mentally overwhelming task, so many Pi clones, some better some worse, then I looked at the used/refurbished pre-built PC and mini PCs on Newegg, eBay, and Amazon, then thought about whether building a pc myself would be a better value, in the end I decided on a used/refurbished pre-built PCβ¦ fast-forward a couple of hours later I remembered βwait I still have my old phone lying around, and its HW is more than enough to run this script without breaking a sweat, maybe I can use it!β of course I already realized that this is an unreliable solution as this phone is about to be 7 years old, so the battery will die someday and the idea of using this as a server will kill the battery in a short time, so I decided on using it as a temporary solution until the PC arrives, so I installed Termux and started setting things upβ¦ Before I started setting up Termux I remembered there are some Linux distros for smartphones and even one dev managed to port one of them (postmarketOS) although I also remembered that it was full of bugs and far from being usable, so I already knew that my chances are virtually zero but nonetheless I looked up online for a way to get Linux on this phoneβ¦ I even thought okay why I do not do it myself? (port a Linux distro)β¦
Now here comes the explanation to why I started to hate android and the current smartphone landscape and why I think this will properly never change, the matter of the fact is, I could have used this computer (the phone) as a server if only android wasn't so damn limiting and so constraining and so unreliable as an OS or if it was easy to install any Linux distro on the phone, either way I could have bypassed the battery and the aggressive app-killing power management (or remove it if it was removable), I have a fucking computer lying around that I can't use any longer because well these companies do not want to, fuck them all, from the bottom of my heart fuck them all.
I am even considering the Fairphone 5 as my next phone as it has near perfect support for Ubuntu touch, although I will be keeping an android phone for banking apps, etcβ¦
Note: I considered flashing a custom android ROM but that too wouldn't be reliable, if I can't rely on it as a permanent server then what's the point, I will just go buy something I can rely on.