1 Download South Park Phone Destroyer for PC – Tested and Working Method.If I end up picking up a Jolla Tablet, before my "No Google Challenge" is through, I'll add the price of that tablet to the chart as well. I technically didn't need to pay for any of this (I already had an N810 tablet from "back in the day") but I'm including a cost of $45 in my running time/$ cost chart below – as I've seen the N810 (and similar devices) run for around that price point from a few different sites. Total time invested in getting my tablet replacements up and running – roughly 7 hours. More details (and my results) in Part 4 of the series. And, for that, I'm trying to use OwnCloud. To start, I'm replacing Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Docs with other solutions. With my hardware taken care of, I have now turned my attention to removing the Google services from my life. Or until I manage to get a non-Android system up and running on my existing tablets. But they're just beefy enough to meet my needs until one of the newer Linux (but not Google) powered tablets hits the shelves. We're talking about hardware that's nearly a decade old here.Īre these as awesomely powerful as my Nvidia Sheild Tablet or Nexus 9? Oh heavens no. Which, considering their age and how cheaply you can purchase them nowadays, is pretty incredible. And it's powered by a Debian-based system, so it meets my "not Google" requirement.īoth devices are capable of making VoIP and video calls (including via Skype) and both give me excellent web browsing experiences. Again, very slow by comparison with today's hardware – with battery life that I'm lucky to hit five hours of usage time with – but very functional. I'm also complementing this with an old Nokia N810 tablet (released back in 2007). It's not going to beat any performance metrics (think of it as having roughly the speed of a Raspberry Pi) and the battery life isn't anything to write home about (getting less than 3 hours of use between charging) but it works well and allows me to run the latest and greatest Linux software on the go. It is now sitting in my messenger bag, powered by openSUSE and sporting GNOME Shell as the desktop environment. everything works in openSUSE and Ubuntu (I tried both).Īnd, as luck would have it, my friend had one of these Micro PCs collecting dust in a box in his garage. By today's measure, these puppies are astoundingly underpowered (being released back in 2006)…but they're functional, smaller than a 7-inch tablet, and extremely well-supported by modern Linux. These were basically tiny, hand-held PC's powered by an Intel Core Solo processor and sporting a 4.5-inch touchscreen. As we were chatting over my dilemma, he got a smile on his face and mentioned a device that I had completely forgotten even existed. Over the weekend, I was at a friend's house for a barbeque. Neither are completely ideal…but, since it does seem likely that both a Jolla Tablet and an Ubuntu Touch-powered tablet will become available during 2015, I'm really just looking for a stop-gap solution to tide me over until some newer hardware appears. Take an existing tablet and try to get a different operating system (such as a traditional Linux distro or Ubuntu Touch) installed and functional.Buy an older device that shipped with a non-Google (and non-Apple/non-Microsoft) operating system.Ubuntu Touch for Tablets looks astoundingly promising as well. The Jolla Tablet (powered by the Linux-based SailfishOS) looks truly excellent. How many tablets do you see that are not powered by software from Google, Microsoft, or Apple? The answer is… pretty much none at all. Unfortunately, as a tablet-focused guy, my options are significantly slimmer. If I were the type of person to keep a smartphone on me, the solution would be fairly straight-forward – buy a new smartphone powered by Sailfish, FirefoxOS, or Ubuntu Touch (or one of the other smartphone systems). I am not a cellphone user (instead, I've relied on VoIP services like Google Voice for all of my telephony needs). If I proclaimed that I was using Windows or iOS for my primary mobile devices… the Internet would never let me hear the end of it. That makes options like Windows-powered tablets or iPads (which would, from a functional perspective, meet my needs) simply unavailable. I'm a Linux and Open Source guy, through and through. To be fair, I am the one that is making this so damned challenging. Which, for me, became a far more challenging task. With ChromeOS removed from my daily life, my attentions turned to Android. Took me roughly an hour to complete that goal. The first step for me was an easy one – I simply needed to take my ChromeOS-powered laptop and install a different operating system on it. I have 25 days left in my 30-day quest to remove my dependency on Google services ( read part 1 for the full details on why I'm doing this and how I'm approaching my, perhaps foolhardy, endeavor).
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