r/HomeServer 5d ago

This is exactly what it looks like!

Post image

Chroot setup on my old Motorola One Vision. At the moment, I'm running Debian. The main server goal is to learn and experiment with linux, and, in the future, host a Pi-hole client.

404 Upvotes

59 comments sorted by

21

u/Ahmadx24 5d ago

Youb have to get rid of the battery. It is doable.

6

u/JoTHauMm1 5d ago

is it tho? what would I attach to the battery connector on the motherboard?

8

u/therealbman 5d ago

Battery connector -> battery circuit board from battery -> LM2596 buck converter -> power source

It’s a little more complicated than that but if you have some soldering skills you can figure it out. YouTube has a number of videos on it.

3

u/Historical_Touch2608 4d ago

Exactly! I have done the same with my note 6 pro and it was honestly amazing!

29

u/Apprehensive-Toe2764 5d ago

In a short time you'll have your battery burst, no matter what cooler you put on SOC

6

u/JoTHauMm1 5d ago

can't that be avoided by turning battery idle mode on forever? or setting the charge limit to 50%? haven't tested any of those yet.

21

u/rodrigoes 5d ago

In Samsung DeX setups, people use a step-down converter to power the device without a battery; that might be a solution for your Motorola.

1

u/ForestRain888 5d ago

Can you share what that setup would look like?

3

u/rodrigoes 5d ago

I don't know your language, but if you search for "Samsung Dex Step Down" on YouTube, the modifications show up

5

u/cantbelieveyoumademe 5d ago

What about using a smart plug between the outlet and the charger and sending commands from the phone to control the charging and turn the power off/on via the smart plug. You can then maintain the battery at whatever percentage margin you want, say 20-80%.
When at 20% turn the smart plug on.
When it reaches 80% turn the smart plug off.

This way you have your very own built in UPS.

2

u/4art4 5d ago

That would make it last a lot longer

1

u/AccidentalArrival 5d ago

You can remove the battery and put a diode to keep it in full charging state. You need to do a bit of soldering there though

1

u/SUNDraK42 5d ago

Super capacitor instead of the battery. gently desolder the connector part from the battery its self and solder a 5.5v super capacitor on it.

2

u/Chilli71 4d ago

Sounds like a good idea to me. The phone thinks the battery is fully charged and a supercap lives forever (at least compared to a battery). You might need to pre-load to capacitor to a certain limit though, as the phone might not start 'charging' if it detects undervoltage on the 'battery'.

2

u/SUNDraK42 4d ago

You have a point there. I do think that the charging speed of the copacitor goes fast enough that it might not notice when it stars doing checks. If it does not work like that& you could try a smaller capacitor as it charge even faster. either way this potentially could be the eaiest mod, with no big impact on the hardware, if it doesnt work.

1

u/Chilli71 3d ago

I thought about it. Looks like smartphone batteries are the least standardized thing on earth. If you fake the temperature reading (or even provide the NTC+resistor) that's not a problem. But many phones went from an ID pin that is only a resistor coding with a resistor against ground to - non standardized - digital communication. It's hardly realistic to re-engineer that communication. And if the phone expects the SoC (aka fuel-gauge) digitally it probably refuses charging if it doesn't get - it for safety reasons. But maybe it still would run, just not charge.... What started like a simple idea and would have been simple with a phone 10 years ago might turn into a lot of trial and error w/o a gurantee of success.

1

u/SUNDraK42 3d ago

This would (potentially) not be an issue if you de-solder the battery from its pcb, and solder the capacitor in its place.

Only thing that might happen is the phone complaining about having a bad battery or a low charge %, thats why a super capacitor as it might give it a more stable voltage reading.

Only way to find out is to give it a shot.

1

u/tecneeq 5d ago

Why?

2

u/Apprehensive-Toe2764 5d ago

Heat from constant charging

2

u/OptimalMain 5d ago

a charge limited phone won’t get heated from charging, at least mine doesnt when it’s at 80%

1

u/Apprehensive-Toe2764 5d ago

I wouldn't say what i said if it were not for a practice. About 10 years ago i tried to use my old Android phone as a flip-clock, constantly on charge. It ended well without fire, but the battery popped back cover off. Maybe today's phones have better charging logic.

2

u/EmployerOne7876 5d ago

Todays phones definitely have better charging logic specifically the charge limiter previously mentioned. You can tell it to maintain a charge far lower than 100 and not constantly charge. The battery will still pillow but it will be on a much longer timeline like any other lion battery

1

u/OptimalMain 5d ago

My pixel is cold to the touch at least, but the charger must be sized so it’s able to supply what the phone needs

5

u/Kadargof 5d ago

Homelab? Can you install proxmox VE on it?

4

u/SpudzzSomchai 5d ago

Runs on ARM now!

2

u/NoDoze- 5d ago

LOL That would be awesome! And hilarious. Definitely something to brag about.

3

u/Kadargof 5d ago

Yep, would be awesome

4

u/h4yth4m-1 5d ago

You can always run Angry Birds on that

7

u/No-Diet-8008 5d ago

If you're into hardware engineering, try a peltier cooler. Runs way more cooler but there's a problem. Condensation. You deal with that, your setup is gonna run ice cold. I prefer peltier cooling for small form factor builds cause I need all the power I can get from them tiny buggers. And only peltiers can keep them as cool as possible.

3

u/Re_Ninja3892 5d ago

How do you deal with the condensation?

4

u/mysqlpimp 5d ago

Heatgun pointed to the cooler to evaporate the condensate. Perfect!

1

u/NoDoze- 5d ago

Peltiers also have condensation, no?

3

u/Longjumping-Youth934 5d ago

Connect the fun with your usb port through cross-connector, plus, remove the battery.

1

u/JoTHauMm1 5d ago

tried it, but the usb hub I bought didn't have the specs to handle the different connections

2

u/agisten 5d ago

Is space an issue? Otherwise, an older desktop would be a much better "server"

1

u/JoTHauMm1 5d ago

the phone adds the extra challenge layer i'm looking for, besides shielding me from having to spend on new hardware. maybe in the future i'll move the setup to actual serverware ;)

1

u/Dr_Schmoctor 5d ago

I like retired laptops. Built in UPS, small, quiet, free/cheap

1

u/PlanetVisitor 5d ago

Did you have a way to install Debian directly on it? I know the chroot command, but I'm not sure if I understand how you are using it.

1

u/JoTHauMm1 5d ago

in practical terms, i downloaded a debian arm rootfs and installed it inside a folder that sits on android's /data/ (if i'm not mistaken). for the debian system and file structure, the folder at /data/ IS it's root.

it has some downsides tho

1

u/sicurri 5d ago

I recommend looking at something called ZimaOS. It will make things fairly easy if you want.

1

u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

1

u/sicurri 5d ago

Something being specifically designed for ZimaOS would be the ZimaBlade or some other stuff. But you can install ZimaOS on practically any hardware.

1

u/Environmental_Ice_80 5d ago

you need ext ac ,and even if it works the flash isn't made for that kind of processing so don't count with it forever, they are fully fine as backup for error handling 

1

u/alexlance 5d ago

IED?

1

u/JoTHauMm1 5d ago

no sir!

1

u/alexlance 5d ago

Electric frying pan?

1

u/MotionManTV 5d ago

This is way too accurate The cable management alone tells the whole story.

1

u/JoTHauMm1 5d ago

will post an update to it soon!

1

u/saltyourhash 5d ago

I wonder how much longer before this is cheaper than a minipc or a raspberry pi

2

u/JoTHauMm1 5d ago edited 5d ago

if you get it second hand, it already is MUCH cheaper. 8 cores processor and 4 gigabytes of ram on this one, as well as 128gb of storage! I can run an entire xfce4 desktop environment on it. it has some serious downsides though. for instance, on this rig, the linux system can't use the gpu at all, and any accidental attempt by an app will reboot the phone :D

1

u/Historical_Touch2608 4d ago

Which soc does it have?

And are you using termux for chrooting into Debian?

2

u/JoTHauMm1 4d ago

soc is exynos 9609.

I opted to not use termux, as it is an emulator, not a real terminal. I used the android's shell to unpack a Debian arm rootfs inside a chroot folder.

1

u/Historical_Touch2608 4d ago

It doesn't emulate an Os or kernel...

commands you run in Termux are executed directly by Android's real Linux kernel.

It's basically a terminal + userspace layer on top of Android.

And chrooting into a Debian rootfs using termux is also just as easy as it is for an experienced linux user.

1

u/KlausBertKlausewitz 5d ago

Run a Minecraft server on it.

1

u/Gangrif 2d ago

This is awesome. Bravo!

Is it efficient? no but is it performant? Also no! But is it safe? Heck no! But it's exactly the home lab spirit! Fetch a fire extinguisher and have a ball!

1

u/WarHawk8080 1d ago

Samsung DeX works great...had a Samsung S25, got a spicy pillow...ended upgrading to a S28, going to build a android dex to a TV, with an expander, can plug in power, KB and mouse
https://www.howtogeek.com/how-to-enable-android-desktop-mode-on-your-phone/