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Comment by jesperwe | Hacker News Reader

This is sooo true. I have multiple computing ideas that I want to do just for fun but I am not doing because each requires buying a mini-pc, sometimes with a screen too, and put Linux + my app on it.

At the same time I have multiple old phones laying around, Pixels, iPhones, Galaxy that are out of date, have cracked screens or worn out batteries.

Each one of these old phones have same or more computing power than a $300 mini-pc, but I can't use them because I can't just ssh into them and install an app...

Sad, really.

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The pixels all ship with unlocked bootloaders.

I recently turned my unused Google Pixel 8 into a server for my personal site and various side projects. It's super satisfying to spin things up in a couple hours, point a cloudflare tunnel at it, and share it with the world.

Do you have a write up of the software you used to do this?

Was it just using Android apps or did you flash GrapheneOS or PostmarketOS onto it first?

Is it permanently plugged into power (risking spicy pillow scenarios)?

Just nitpicking: unlockable bootloaders. The bootloader is locked by default. But you can unlock it without needing Google.

Additionally, Pixels support a Linux VM and has a desktop mode (I'm running GrapheneOS, it may still be that these features have to be enabled through the developer settings).

> But you can unlock it without needing Google.

Well akshually.... the bootloader is initially not unlockable. You must connect the phone to the internet. Within a few minutes a background process will reach out to Google servers to check whether it was purchased outright or with a payment plan. It will only enable the bootloader unlocking toggle after this step. Phones bought with a carrier contract won't be unlockable until paid off.

In those initial few minutes (/ before you connect it to the interwebs), the bootloader unlock option in the developer settings & fastboot will be disabled.

Thanks for the correction! Though I recently set up and unlocked a new Pixel and I don't recall it. Maybe SKUs for European countries are an exception since such payment plans do not really exist? Or I forgot.

And even with this there are still apps which require hardware attestation and won't work on alternative operating systems.

In Android you can use termux and run them as a servers I have done it that way

I'm using a Nexus 5 with postmarketOS as an SMS gateway connected to the internet! So glad old phones were a bit more open

> but I can't use them because I can't just ssh into them and install an app...

of course you can. just ask your agent. it took me 1 hour to vibe-code and install an Android app on my locked down Android.

Same, the computing capacity and redundancy you could achieve with your spare devices...

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