Something ive been wanting for a while is a highly portable linux device like a phone or small tablet but obviously running fully flegde linux.
I need a device that is x86, 5g/4g networking water resistant if possible, sliding kB would be great but thats a bye gone era.
I don’t want to use android based systems as when they have linux support it is via a spersific distribution made for that device. Virtualization is also not for me.
Honestly if you want it to be portable, you’re going to have to use a RISC processor. The x86 processors are just so energy inefficient for most instructions that the battery is drained too quickly and it requires a much bigger battery to compensate.
I know that Pine64 had one in the works but so far it isn’t consumer ready.
Plus most ARM SOCs have 5G support built in so you need relatively little to add the rest of the support. Best case for most X86 stuff is finding an M.2 module that’s going to drink even more power.
Are there any mainstream tablets running RISC processors though? I though RISC processors of that power level were still in the development stage and/or only available in China.
ARM is a RISC processor at heart. Or at least it was at one point - I’m not sure how or if they’ve deviated. Time for some wikipedia.
they’re still pretty RISC, using fixed-width instructions and fairly simple encoding. certainly a hell of a lot simpler than the mess that is x86-64