Extras

A hell of a deal

Lmao this one is genius

Hehe I see what you did there. Reminds me of my uncle fergus. He was a rather interesting fella some might even say strange. Back in the year, oh I don’t know, 1987. I know it was 1987 since I remember it being a rather cold summer that year and my glasses broke as well. Had to take it to get repaired in a small shop, this was wayyy before you could do it in malls and whatnot. Anywho, old uncle Fergus sure would ramble on and on till the cows came home, that was one of his favorite sayings. What does that even mean “when the cows come home?” Maybe it has to do something with ranch life but not sure.

Thought the punchline was gonna be that he walked into a bar lmao

Agree with everything except about the dgpu. Personally ran into problems due to kernel compatibility with the proprietary drivers that are no longer being maintained with older models like the NVIDIA NVS 5400M on a thinkpad t430 and had to switch to nouveau. Its fine for what I use it for but does have screen tearing on external monitors so a beginner might get frustrated and since the display I/O is often using the dgpu you can’t use integrated graphics. So yeah not everything will be seamless for OP if they do have a dgpu

Hahahaha

Yeah didn’t read that reply, my apologies. I do still believe the other method I mentioned, Anydesk/teamviewer + phone hotspot + tablet, is the best budget and convenient method imo. Would cost you around 150$ - 200$ for a tablet maybe less if brought used, which is significantly more “shop-proof” than any device at that price point since its fanless and the ports can be covered with a case. Add in ~15$ a month for a subscription to the remote service since you don’t want to setup LAN, lastly as for the phone hotspot I’m assuming your phone already has that feature. I don’t think installing a client on your phone & computer and setting it up is really labor intensive so you really shouldn’t worry about that. Again I do apologize for not reading the other replies I just wanted to help get you other ideas besides underpowered laptops

Edit just re-read the post: looks like you already settled on a decision so congrats on finding an answer hope you have a good one and yeah probably a new thread since this one might get buried after a few weeks

Maybe consider using a WiFi extender/wireless bridge and set it up properly to ensure a seamless connection to the main network. You really just need to be on the same LAN, at least with VNC, so even running some cat 5 will do the trick. How many feet are we talking, 300-500? There’s also the VPN option but that will require you to get a mobile data plan and either a tablet that supports SIM/ESIM or a hotspot (your existing mobile plan on your phone would work if you are able to create a hotspot and have a significant data limit). Its just a bit more work but should allow you to remotely access VNC over the internet, that or just use anydesk/team viewer

Edit TLDR: You can use a WiFi extender or wireless bridge to establish a long range LAN. There’s also the options of a hotspot from your phone to a tablet, VPN to your desktop from the tablet then use VNC or hotspot from your phone to a tablet then use Anydesk/teamviewer on your computer and tablet. Probably the cheapest way

Maybe throw in a budget to help people narrow down the search. Else consider a budget android tablet + case with port covers and use some kind of remote desktop application over lan. Not sure what software (you may have a preference on Foss or proprietary) or what tablet (need the budget)

Edit for 20 mins of searching so take it with a grain of salt: looks like anydesk has a Linux client if you don’t care about proprietary. Else VNC/tigerVNC might be a good way to go then get an android client for them like AVNC on fdroid. Personally haven’t done this so maybe someone who does have the experience can shine some light (or post questions on the Lemmy instance). As for the actual tablet any modern android should do but I’m going to assume less is best in terms of price so something like a lenovo tab P11 or a fire tablet HD 10 + a case designed to withstand kids shouldn’t break the bank.

I rather buy used ssds off eBay from a known brand.

Give me a minute

Regardless of where you get your secondhand drives do yourself a favor and make sure they package them correctly (antistatic bag, 1-2inches of bubblewrap and a cardboard box) by messaging for that. That’s my biggest complain when I brought used drives. Think Serverpartdeals and goharddrive are the main eBay sellers with great reps but I sadly haven’t done business with them so can’t verify

Hahahahaha

If you breathe on it wrong it’ll tear a hole right through it. Hope there’s soap

No idea but cute cat

Goddamn it

Could try desktop and see if you can report that way or through a mobile browser

slow clap

Hope you’ll make a killing in sales

Fantastic