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Comment by jandrese | Hacker News Reader

Damn, that thing blows the Pyra out of the water and at roughly half of the price.

I have one and I can confirm it's great. They even provide a Linux image for it (but I stuck my $FAVORITE_DISTRO on it with minimal fuss). The fact that it has an Intel CPU and can run plain Windows is a big plus in my book over the Pyra, but that's just my preference.

Built in ethernet and serial port have proven useful as I'm running around debugging networks.

What I really have been searching for, however, is a clone of the Toshiba Libretto 50CT with a modern CPU and ports. To me that represented the peak of micro computers. The keyboard is small but usable, the mouse is fantastic (you grip the screen, the buttons are on the back of the screen - don't knock it till you try it). I'm lowkey considering making a replacement PCB for it.

Back in the day we used the half height Sony Vaios a lot for stuff like this. Unfortunately I think Sony stopped making those about a decade ago.

Trying not to spam, but extremely satisfied with GPD Pocket 2, which I purchased recently. Old enough to have used the very first laptops on the market, was looking for a Libretto-like machine, settled with this.

What drove me to GPD Pocket 2 was the key size, massive RAM and SSD and that it is extensively supported in the new Linux kernel and several mainstream distros (Ubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, Linux Mint, Arch). Delighted to report that I type faster on this than a lot of fellow engineers on a standard PC.

> perfect support for Ubuntu MATE 18.10

I hope they support more recent distros...

I stuck a recent Kubuntu on mine with no big issue. The screen is wired in sideways though so you'll have to tell your DE to rotate the display (or xrandr --rotate). Everything else just worked.

Thanks for reporting. How do you like that device so far? What do you use it mainly for?

Love it when used in its niche (for me):

- Walking around a building, working on the network.

- Those occasions where I "might need a computer" but don't want to lug around a bag. Traveling for pleasure, while on-call at work, etc. Thing fits in my jacket pocket.

- Working on my car (plugging into the OBD port, tuning, etc).

- Gaming/video while traveling. Its single-channel memory severely limits what you can play (unlike GPD's gaming line), but I'm into oldschool and indie games so it's fine. I could use my phone but I like PC games and software better.

Also it's weird and I like weird things :)

I wouldn't recommend it as a primary workstation unless your situation really calls for it. I've used it with a USB-C docking station as a primary machine while I was between homes. It worked fine, bit slow. Went back to my Zen2 beast as soon as possible.

It charges and runs off of a normal USB-C power bank, which gives me ridiculous runtime for cheap. My "minimal" travel kit has the GPD, my phone, and one charger between the two. Crazy capability in a jacket pocket.

Things I don't like about it:

- Whiny fan. Not sure what could be done, it's so tiny... you can turn it off with a handy switch above the keyboard, but I don't really like doing that.

- Single channel memory. Severely cripples the GPU. GPD's gaming machines don't have this issue.

- No video output over USB-C, you have to use the full-size HDMI.

- Display is wired sideways. Linux/GRUB doesn't auto detect this; Windows does.

- Wish it had a nub mouse. Would free up space for a more normal KB layout.

Edit: formatting

Linux/GRUB protip:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="video=efifb fbcon=rotate_all:1 quiet" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="video=efifb fbcon=rotate_all:1 quiet splash noautomount" GRUB_GFXMODE=1200x1920x32

( see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/GPDPocket/comments/9sl9sp/grub_land... )

More super-handy GPD patches https://github.com/stockmind/gpd-pocket-ubuntu-respin

(Note: a lot of this is not needed anymore and mainlined into Ubuntu 20, Linux Mint 20, etc.)

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