Half out of curiosity and half out of real interest I’d like to know what is the smallest (portable) device with a reasonable quality keyboard that could run an appropriate Linux distro and emacs and people have tested for actual long-term usability.

I’m looking at UMPCs and various 7-inch mini laptops you see on eBay.

Thanks!

  • dejlo@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    It would require more than a little work, but I’d be willing to bet that it’s possible to get it to run on a microcontroller with some external RAM and an SD card attached to it. The work comes from the fact that you won’t really have a full OS in the sense that you’d prefer.

  • Hamilton950B@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    I bought one of those 7 inch mini laptops on Ali Express. I’m a touch typist, and I can’t touch type on its keyboard, but I can type pretty fast while looking at the keyboard. Some of the keys are in unusual places, those could be remapped if you have more ambition than me. I find it perfectly adequate for emacs, web browsing, email, even gimp and libreoffice on the road. I wouldn’t want to write more than a page or two on that keyboard.

    • cazzipropri@alien.topOPB
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      1 year ago

      Honestly this was the device that was looking the most attractive to me so far, and your review of the keyboard deflated my excitement…

  • MitchellMarquez42@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Not sure if Bryan Lunduke’s old videos are still up on YouTube or if he pay walled them, but he used to talk about these things a lot. Small Linux handhelds with physical keyboard.

    Of course, “comfortably” is another matter…

  • EighthHell@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Add a few more inches, add a lot more bucks, meet the x1 Nano, have a ton more power, have a ton less rabbit holes.

  • AuroraDraco@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    I have a Lenovo Chromebook Duet 2 and I haven’t regretted it at all. Graphical Emacs is important for me as I want to view my notes on it and I cant do that well with the terminal version. So that removed any Android/Apple tablet. Unfortunate as it may be, I don’t think there is any mature, budget Linux tablet and Chromebooks, which support Linux out of the box are the closest to that.

    It’s lightweight, with a 10 inch screen and I can comfortably use Emacs with the keyboard it comes with. You could go even smaller screen, but imo, after one point it stops being comfortable. So this is a very fine solution for me

  • BowmChikaWowWow@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Any modern phone + a bluetooth keyboard

    Modular, you can pick whichever keyboard you want and choose how you want to trade off size & usability. There are some foldable keyboards that pack down pretty small.