[rtpg]

So loads of people have testified that using old Androids as long term computing devices just doesn't work cuz the machines can't deal with being on all the time.

I wonder if iPhones and the like are any different on this front. Would you be able to build up a little serve farm of these things?

[alistairSH]

That's kind of weird, since phones are generally on all the time when being actively used. I guess it depends on what active/sleep "modes" are available - ie can Linux on Apple run processes with the screen asleep or whatever. As long as it's plugged in, it should be workable, maybe.

But, in my mind, you wouldn't try to build a server farm out of 5+ year old iPads. Instead, you'd continue to use them as consumption devices. Read books, browse web, ie all the things most iPads are doing when new.

[rtpg]

I believe what people have said is that the components can’t handle continuous use (instead of basically idling on user input). Even when being in use for the most part these machines just are rendering some textures onto the screen and the cpu is not doing much

[zozbot234]

> I believe what people have said is that the components can’t handle continuous use

That could be worked around by using the existing Linux featureset to manage hardware utilization. Especially if CPU/GPU use turns out to be the main issue (as opposed to, e.g. powering the display and radio components).

[newswasboring]

Oh damn. That sort of explains why my phone gets super hot when I try to solve a project euler problems on it. I never thought about this.

[alistairSH]

That wouldn't surprise me. Could still be fun for tinkering and light consumption.

[usrn]

The Android userspace is absolutely god awful and makes those projects hard. This would be running straight GNU/Xorg/wayland.