Welcome, welcome!
In this post I’ll be talking about my setup and which tech I use and how and why. Any of these things could amount to a whole blog post if you wanted me to go more in-depth, so tell me so in the comments if you’d like to see anything in particular ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ – ˵ ) ✧
I reckon it’d be best to start with my main machine, so…
My main machine, be it as a shock for some people, it’s actually most definitely not normal size but smaller. I’m talking about none other than the GPD Pocket 3 ( ˶°ㅁ°) !! I got the most OP configuration of course, and it’s probably the only machine to this day that I’ve been liking more and more with each day, and not less.
I probably won’t be talking much about the obvious stuff you can look up yourself, which is specs. Anyone can see those already and I’m not here to talk about that because that’s boring and everyone else has already repeated it. So instead! I’ll talk about why did I go with it, its role in my setup, and the ways I use it.
For starters, before I get asked, my OS of choice there is Manjaro. I always use Linux as it’s my OS of choice, but I usually found Manjaro to suit my needs a lot better and being more stable than Arch with still all its benefits. Also, it’s my main machine, meaning everything other task that doesn’t have a specific device allocated to it falls onto it. It’s also the most versatile device I probably own. The screen can be turned on itself on 180º to turn to a tablet with full pen pressure support and has a fully modular port as well, with things like a serial port and a KVM port to control things like headless servers with it. It’s role in my setup is quite obvious, it’s the machine that I power on every day for daily use, being chatting with someone, browsing the web, watching videos, writing this blog post, hacking stuff or anything else. It also is quite handy to hook it up to OmniCloud anytime I made a fatal oopsie and need to control it physically. Also serves as my tablet as well and for drawing if I want to.
But now you’ll ask… dude, there’s no way you use something this small everyday!! What?! O_o that has to be so uncomfyy…
And, you’d be right, actually. It is worse to use it like that when you’re static at home most of the time, unless I’m laying down with it in bed or in tablet mode. I won’t spoil the surprise but I have a magic trick to turn this thing bigger and comfier and apt for daily use, so keep reading…
After that, the normal thing to do is move on to my phone. Oh yes… my phone. That thing that only looks like a phone pretty much. In reality, it’s just an extension of my computer and a way to portabilize my digital life without any compromises for me.
Yes, I’m talking about none other than the PinePhone Pro. Yes, that one. No, I’m not joking, that’s my main phone and my daily driver. What? Don’t believe me? You think I’m totally messing with you, huh? After all, there’s no way something that underpowered, battery-hungry and just worse made the cut for you to actually go out of your way to use it…… right? Wrong.
This thing is probably the best thing I’ve had, or at minimum, the one that has made me free when on the go. Sure, I know there’s plenty of other Linux phones, and the Pro wasn’t even the first one I’ve had. I’ve had the regular PinePhone as my first one for a year, then I got the OnePlus 6 which is an amazing and really capable and hackable device (will definitely keep it to mess with it in other ways still) and eventually the Pro found its way to me as fate would have it.
I’m not particularly interested in Halium, though I have used it and tested it before, but in my opinion it kinda takes away the whole point of having something like Linux on something like a smartphone. Doesn’t mean I hate it, and actually I would definitely dual-boot it on some phones with mainline Linux as it works really well for some things; but my choice will still be mainline.
In this case, I rock multiple external batteries with it when outside so it lasts me all day, and that’d be kinda the deal for me. I know you probably have a lot of questions and I don’t think I’ll answer all of those here, but what I will say is that I’m currently running Mobian on it (currently means I’ve used Manjaro, Arch and postmarketOS before too of course, but ended up deciding stable Mobian was best after all) and I have the keyboard case for it as well for on-the-go hacking too.
The role of the PinePhone Pro is not so obvious as: camera is unreliable, calls are unreliable, battery is dogshit (by your standards) and it can’t even play YouTube decently enough without cutting its battery-life to half. So….. then what? Seriously, what do you use it for? Answer’s simple, what do you use your phone for, mainly? Being online, communicating and such, right? Well it’s the same here for me, just that I don’t really even take any pictures whatsoever as I don’t like to, so camera being a bit unreliable and definitely not as high quality doesn’t have any effect on me, and so does battery because not only can you replace its battery like the old phones back in the day, allowing you to do a ‘tactical phone reload’ from 2% to 100% again, but I also bring with me several batteries as well, so I also normally don’t notice that. Now… calls. I don’t use this phone for calls, period. At least, not for now until they work correctly for me. It seems counter-intuitive and that’s because it is xD, but my calls and mobile data are handled by another phone I also always bring with me.
And that’s what we’l talk about next. The phone I use for calls and to share mobile data via Wi-Fi to my PinePhone Pro to keep it connected, is….. the Bananaphone!! 😛 Excuse me, what did you just say? O_o yes, bananaphone, take it or leave it :3
It’s a KaiOS device, meaning it will have access to 4G and Wi-Fi, so perfect for that use case of calls and Internet outside. Had to hack it a bit and installed GerdaOS in it and wrote a small iptables script to properly make the mobile data sharing work correctly, buuuuuut hey, it works 😛 and I’m happy with it and it’s a really cute phone in the shape and color of a banana and it’s a revision of the original Nokia phone that Neo had in Matrix soooo… that’s an honour :O
Now… to talk about the main accessory that ties it all together, my lapdock. It’s the thing that makes my PinePhone Pro turn into a full Linux desktop, the thing that allows my handhelds to play on a bigger screen, and my main netbook turn bigger and more sizeable like a regular laptop. A lapdock is basically a display and keyboard (with other things too) in the shape of a regular laptop, so it looks like one initially, but has no real PC hardware inside, it doesn’t boot. It’s like combining a portable display with its own battery (that can also charge the phone connected to it) with a usb keyboard. It’s neat, isn’t it?! Yes it is, as it also serves as a KVM for headless servers or anything that has video out and usb in, this thing will work with it. It also has a wireless option but the display gets limited to 30hz and it’s noticeable. I mainly use it to expand my main machine with a full size display and a full size keyboard in a neat pack, and once docked i almost forget the lapdock isn’t the device itself. Now, to talk about which specific one if you’re interested, mine is from Uperfect, more concretely, the Udock X 14 Pro. Which I don’t recommend buying. Now hold on, there’s a reason why. First, the concept itself isn’t for most people (like I said, I’m the hacky-wacky weird person, you don’t need to be) but second of all, not this specific lapdock with that price. But that’s because i performed a bit of reverse-engineering on it and discovered it was actually a generic product that has several brands tied to it, and I think the actual manufacturer here is Dopesplay, and in there this exact device is a lot cheaper :3
How cheap? Well from 513€ on Uperfect, it’s 234€ on Dopesplay…. yeah, yikes, I paid a lot more for no reason, oh well. At least I found out so you don’t make the same mistakes, right? 😛 To be fair though I got it cheaper at a sale but still.
I also of course use it for fixing OmniCloud and yeah the PinePhone Pro as I said, but it’s a really handy thing to have to hook something up with it easily and it’s standard universally as it just uses HDMI/Displayport over USB-C and plain USB for the input, and Miracast/EZCast for the wireless part.
As a final note, OmniCloud. OmniCloud is my main beefy and powerful server that I use for anything power-hungry involving VMs, VMs and more VMs! I won’t talk much about it as I already have done that in my last post entirely about it, so go check it out! :3
Aaaand… that’s all! Like I said I could get a lot more in-depth but I prefer you telling me what you want to hear first and I’ll expand on that then >ᴗ<