Letās see if I can keep this relatively short:
Iām a woodworker, I do my design work in FreeCAD and then I print out my drawings on paper to carry out to the shop with me. It would be nicer if I had a shop-proof device to run FreeCAD in the shop with me because over the past year I found myself saying the following things in the shop a lot:
- āWait, letās go in and look at the 3D model.ā
- āAh dang I forgot to note this particular dimension on the drawing, let me go fix that.ā
- āIāll measure this part up then go in and do some drawing.ā
So what does āshop proofā mean exactly?
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Wood shop be dusty. Last year I hauled 250 gallons of sawdust to the dump. To me this means that a physical keyboard needs to be able to function if itās been packed with dust and/or needs to be vacuum cleaner proof. I also think cooling fans are probably a bad idea; a passively cooled device is probably preferable.
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Not many outlets in the shop, so it needs a good battery life. I actually donāt need a tremendous amount of performance, Iāve used a Raspberry Pi 3 for the kind of CAD work I do.
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FreeCAD does not ship an APK so Android is no bueno, itās gotta be GNU/Linux.
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It needs decent usable Wi-Fi because I envision using Syncthing to keep my woodworking projects folder synced between my desktop and this device. It doesnāt necessarily need to get signal out in the shop (my phone barely does; I lose signal if I stand behind the drill press) but it does have to connect to my Wi-Fi when I carry it into the house.
I think this means Iām looking for an ARM tablet that can competently run Linux. Is there such a thing?
ADDENDUM:
Thanks to everyone who commented, I think I do have a plan of action: Iām gonna buy a used Lenovo!
To answer the question I posed, no it doesnāt seem that a Linux ARM tablet is really a thing yet. Commercial offerings that run Android or Windows on ARM are often so locked down that switching OS isnāt a thing, the few attempts at a purpose built ARM tablet for Linux like the PineTab just are not ready for prime time.
In the x86 world, it basically came down to 10 year old Toughbook tablets or 4 year old low-end 2-in-1s, and I think the latter won out just because of mileage and condition. A lot of the toughbooks out there will have 10 year old batteries in them, and theyāve been treated like a Toughbook for some or all of that time. The few Lenovoās Iāve looked at are barely used, probably because of how Windows ārunsā on them.
Iāll eventually check back in with progress on this front. Would it be better to add to this thread or create another?
Why does it have to be ARM? You are going to have a much easier time installing whatever you want on an x86 ruggedized/waterproof tablet or Toughbook. ARM devices tend to run Android and have locked bootloaders and other challenges to installing the custom OS you want.
And does it have to be a tablet? Because if not, what youāre looking for is an āindustrial computer,ā and while these are shockingly expensive to buy new, you can often find outdated ones used on eBay and similar for not much money. Theyāre designed for use in factories. These are generally sealed, dustproof, and waterproof.
There are two ways to go, you can get a sealed fanless PC box and attach your own monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Or you can get a panel mount machine which will obviously have to be mounted somewhere, but as a woodworker Iām sure you can find a way to build a stand or otherwise attach one to something. These usually have horrible rubber or membrane keyboards if they come with a keyboard at all but can be literally hosed down, vacuumed, knocked, baked, and otherwise abused. Most are touch screens, although they are usually single point resistive ones rather than multi-touch like a consumer tablet.
Fully sealed waterproof rubber membrane keyboards are not hard to find, but I will warn you that the typing experience on them is horrible.
Why does it have to be ARM?
Not an absolute requirement but as I said Iām looking for very good battery life, which isnāt x86, Iām looking for passively cooled/fanless/ventless that will survive and thrive in 100Ā° summer heat, which also isnāt x86, and Iām looking for āend user readyā so AFAIK that rules out RISC-V at present. So that pretty much leaves ARM.
And does it have to be a tablet?
A tablet or small laptop yes. 100% must be portable and battery powered. Itās a small shop with few outlets, so a desktop box with an external monitor and keyboard is pretty much out of the question, just no space. Plus it would be nice to be able to easily carry it with me to my various workbenches and tools as I do with paper plans. A toughbook might be a possibility but they tend to be thick, heavy and cumbersome. I want to be able to grab the thing by a corner to move it from one workbench to another without wearing out my wrist.
All of that makes sense, but I think youāre selling the battery capabilities of current x86 mobile devices a bit short. I have a GPD Win Max 2 gaming laptop that if I keep it in flatland all day (i.e. donāt fire up them GPU coresā¦) it will easily last 10-11 hours on a battery charge. The current Toughbook 40 is rated for 18 hours (!) on a single battery and a used older model with a new battery slapped into it shouldnāt fall much short of that. I would definitely give the Toughbooks a second look. Handle one in person if you can ā theyāre smaller than they appear in pictures. I have one lying around someplace and I can dig it out to show you later. I use mine for a similar application, i.e. I leave it in my shop (automotive, or rather motorcycle) where my issues are grease and metal shavings.
The major issue youāre going to have is that there are few to no ARM based fully integrated machines ā that is, an assembled ready-to-use tablet or clamshell laptop ā that are designed to have the user install their own OS. Certainly not that Iāve ever seen. Theyāre all going to show up with some flavor of Android in the ROM, probably an outdated one at that, and they will not be āend user ready.ā Youāre going to be cracking bootloaders, hunting down proprietary SoC driver blobs, etc., and thereās still no guarantee of success.
Hereās a left field plan C: Consider building a Raspberry Pi based enclosure with a screen + keyboard + battery? You could probably put together something like unto the CutiePi but with a more bodacious casing. Thatād probably be a DIY job, but what you wind up with would be hardware well and truly under your control and you can, of course, install your own OS on it. Making it work would be the easy part, making it durable and dustproof enough for your purposes would be where the effort goes.
(i.e. donāt fire up them GPU coresā¦) Yeah I plan to have the thing sitting in the shop with a 3D CAD program on with screen dimming/suspend set to ānever.ā Iām looking at the $200 price range, which is somewhere around āpretty good Android tabletā to āUsed Toughbook.ā
If I go the used Wintel route, Iād probably go with a Toughbook if I can find a fairly compact one. A lot of the ones on eBay in my price range are of approximate vintage to my existing laptop, but dustproof. But, āno charger included.ā āTablet only.ā āNo charger or battery.ā etc.
Honestly I think the PineTab 2 or similar products would doā¦if their business model included āever finish a product and bring a retail version to market.ā A lot of the word on the street is āItās pretty okay especially for the price, but the Wi-Fi will never work because for some reason weāre using chips that just donāt and wonāt have Linux drivers.ā
Lenovo Ideapad Duo 3 - x86 tablet, 4core no hyperthread CPU and 8Gb ram, no fans, detachable bt keyboard, runs Fedora 39out of the box, everything works even autorotation. I love mine.
Thatās a good idea, but I wonder if itāll be too fragile for OP. I was envisioning something like this:
https://www.kcosit.com/Industrial-PC-ultra-slim-tablet-PC-tablets-Win10-Intel-p1335425.html
This one is rated IPX67 waterproof and dustproof, but is of course from a no-name brand. You can get Panasonic Toughbooks used all day long on eBay for a few hundred bucks, though, which might be another good idea. A used one will probably need a replacement battery.
I might just go this way. Iāve heard pretty dire things about non-Thinkpad Lenovos regarding their screen hinges but thatās not a factor with a detachable keyboard. Iād prefer ARM architecture but it seems thatās just not a thing.
So itās ājustā an x86 laptop? Normal PC BIOS? USB-C Charger?
Pretty much regular x86 laptop:
- regular BIOS (press F2)
- two usb-c ports, both will charge, both can be used to charge other device. I havenāt done it extensively, but it will support additional QHD resolution dispaly if it matteredā¦
- has a SIM card slot
- I honestly donāt know about the battery, I use it mostly around my home, I use it for watching movies and youtube around kitchen - It can do two movies definitely - 3-4 hours screaming at full blast - more - iād have to try. But i recall that when I got it I was impressed by its battery life. I have the 10IGL5 version. The CPU has 6W TDP.
- I donāt expect that you would be using the included keyboard very much - way too flimsy for your application - but I can imagine suitable rugged bluetooth or wired keyboard / mouse combo would do ā¦
- There are no āholesā on the device used for heat exchange and there is (AFAIK - havenāt opened it) any fan. There are some holes for speaker on top left & right corner, but if those get cloged canāt be critical. The whole chasis is sturdy you can press on it hard and it doesnāt give, it can resist a bit of twisting but yeah - itās an Ideapad - not a Thinkpad w/ magnesium rollcage. It definitely doesnāt mind being splashed with liquids around kitchen.
I am a hardcore thinkpad / debian / xfce aficionado, I wouldnāt go and search for a device like this myself. A colleague of mine was trying to get rid of his, he bought it for his kid but running windows 10 the thing was bloody useless. Iāve googled somewhere that it does linux good and after limited success with Ubuntu iāve tried Fedora. I recall trying a touch interface with linux long time ago (around 1st iPads) and it was a laughably misserable experience. This was amazing - IMO deffinitely better than what windows had to offer even though I understand the bar is low here. Better interface, at least as reliable (more). Iāve bought it off my colleague for cca 200 USD / 5000 CZK. I can imagine I would be confident enough bringing it with me on a holiday instead of full 14" thinkpad for mobility & battery life.