If it runs Windows it’ll run Linux almost certainly. The cheaper you go, the more likely you’ll have lower priced or older components for WiFi, Bluetooth etc which may mean that you have to dig some firmware binaries out to get the whole thing running.
If you can take a USB stick with you of a typical Rescue distribution, and can boot it up, you’ll know what will and won’t work easily. The bits that don’t work may need some minor fiddling. As I said, there are usually walkthrough blogs etc around.
I got an off-lease dell latitude 7400. Tbh, got it for free, but you can snag one on eBay for under $400. i5, 16 Gb ram, got a 1TB drive for $50 on Amazon. Runs Linux very well! I’d go with a light weight is like EndeavourOS or Arch.
If I’m not mistaken, I believe the 2018 J3 has a locked bootloader. The fact that I can’t find even a SINGLE custom ROM on XDA for this model means it’s highly likely that the bootloader is locked, and/or the device isn’t dev friendly (no kernel sources available etc).
so I guess doing the same on my smartphone wouldn’t be too hard.
Mate, you’ve no idea… Smartphones are a completely different ball game to desktops. You could try and compile your distro, but without the kernel sources and drivers for your specific model, nothings gonna work. You won’t even be able to boot the damn thing. And even if you did have those, it’s going to take a LOT of effort just to get basic OS functionality working. Forget getting actual phone stuff working, like making calls etc - that’s next to impossible. Even large projects like PostmarketOS struggle to get basic functionality going even on dev-friendly phones.
But you can stop dreaming about all the above if you can’t even unlock the bootloader.
Basically, what all this means is that there’s no point wasting your time on the J3. Stop right now and don’t waste any further time on this.
If you’d really like to run GrapheneOS / Linux on your phone, your best option is to sell your J3, and get a used Google Pixel from Swappa/eBay or something.
To be fair they’re ARM-based devices (most of them anyway) and linux works fine onthat architecture. The Raspberry Pi and others, Microsoft has Windows on ARM; as do the new M-series from Apple.
It’s all the obscure hardware, bootloading and vendor lock-in that kills it.
lol after being exposed to it a bit because gitlab.com I’ve decided it’s my best font forever <3 I’ve configured it everywhere a monospaced font is used including gitk and termux on my phone hahaha so cool
Word of advice: do not do this to any device that you actually depend on. Linux enthusiasm is all fine and fun, but this will kill most practical functionality of your device. I’d say try it out on a old phone you might have laying around but not on your daily driver.
Is it still maintained ? I’d probably go with FreeBSD if I’m switching to BSD at all. It has ZFS out of the box and has support for nvidia’s non opensource driver. I have used it as a desktop OS for a good 3 months, it was pretty good (even though I couldn’t game on it)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor is a thing that any GOOD project or IT department considers. How many of your staff can you afford to lose if they all happen to be travelling in the same bus, on their way to eat at the same place for lunch when an asteroid inevitably punches through said bus and/or diner.
‘Hit by an asteroid’ is a little unrealistic. Sentenced to prison for 15 to Life has happened in the Open Source community at least once before. The project I linked to had a Bus Factor of about one. It’s now ‘old code using outdated APIs’ and is considered obsolete.
I’ve personally seen legal and criminal issues for a single individual cripple IT departments before, meaning their bus factor was also way too low. I’ve been on trips that have been rudely interrupted by screaming executives when I came down out of the mountains into cell range because I was the only bus factor left on certain systems. Natural disaster, such as hurricanes, wildfires, and floods are very serious existential threats to even the largest of organizations.
Since Linux seems to be a good project, I can’t imagine that the discussion hasn’t been had, in public or in private. Millions of individuals and dozens upon dozens of big corporations depend on Linux, Open source and otherwise. If the bus comes for core maintainers or project leaders we have at least SOME backup.
I’ve been on trips that have been rudely interrupted by screaming executives when I came down out of the mountains into cell range because I was the only bus factor left on certain systems.
Wow, incredible management skills, genius move to treat your one critical employee like a piece of shit.
Yeah, that was close to the end of that job. I didn’t want to be there, and that particular manager was really upset that they couldn’t just eliminate those servers. He wanted his folks trained on them, but then refused to actually let them spend any time training on them. I was a scapegoat and took the severance deal ASAP.
when an asteroid inevitably punches through said bus and/or diner.
Or, you know there is a crash? Lol
I’ve never heard it with the asteroid explanation. But thousands of people die every year in car crashes. Most in single occupant vehicles, but a bus can be involved too.
“Brave Hero from Finland, you’ve been struck by a bus and are going to reincarnate into–”
“No I wasn’t. That bus CHASED ME DOWN two alleys, over a fire hydrant, into, and out of a Starbucks. It did NOT hit me. You just summoned me here.”
“Err… anyway, this world needs a hero to–”
“Write hardware drivers? A kernel module? Some inline assembly?”
"Err… the demon lord… er… "
“DID YOU EVEN MAIL THE LIST? Hah… Okay. Does this world have logic gates of any kind? I need to get this knocked out as soon as possible. I’ve got the entirety of the bcachefs patchset to review before 6.7 is in release.”
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