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Comment by jokoon | Hacker News Reader

Well at this point all I would like to get is a USB-powered linux in a card, with wifi, optionally with a screen capable enough to display 3 or 4 lines of text.

I mean raspberry is cool, cheap and everything, but I'd prefer something all integrated, as small as the raspberry pi zero, less fragile (meaning I can put in my pocket or bag, and still expect it to work), not necessarily with pins.

I don't know about what the demand is for micro-controllers, but as a consumer and a developer, having a wifi-capable portable micro computer would really be cool.

Does it already exist? Under $50?

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I think that Linus is too heavy for a very cheap "CPU". If by Linux you mean "something easy to develop on", then most micro-controllers come nowadays with an Arduino compatible layer.

If you remove the Linux part from your wishlist, you can consider some "NodeMCU" boards on Chinese websites, eg: https://www.banggood.com/Wemos-NODEMCU-ESP8266-12F-WiFi-1_30... https://www.banggood.com/Wemos-TTGO-WiFi-Bluetooth-Battery-E...

Arduino-compatible layer is useful when you don't want to setup real IDE or your own build system for native toolchain. For ease of development it does not buy you that much over straight C for anything remotely non-trivial. On the other hand many small MCUs can run RTOSes with somewhat POSIX-ish APIs (particularly notable in this space is ESPxx, for which the official toolchain is port of FreeRTOS and probably nobody uses it as bare hardware)

Find a low end, low resolution, Android tablet or phone that can be rooted. There are many under $50.

Not quite, and for various reasons.

What would you want by way of input on such a device? I've been working on something like this based on TI OMAP CPUs, and the hardest thing (after a decent semi-open SoC) is getting a decent keyboard.

I think the N800 was probably the pinnacle of handheld Linux devices (or the Psion 5 series if you step outside of Linux). You could look at the Raspberry Pi handheld game console options out there, but ultimately there's little that can compete with a Pi Zero, battery pack and ILI9341 screen on price.

It's getting close. There are newer SoCs that are MMU capable and also contain enough RAM and Flash to run a small Linux instance off a single part...or a single part with some simple QSPI flash hung off of it. Renesas has the RZ line that can do this, but it will probably take up $30-$35 of your $50 budget.

We call those "smartphone."

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